SAP continues to expand its small and midmarket cloud software initiatives for channel partners. The goal: Empower partners to speed customer migrations from traditional on-premises ERP deployments on-premises toward integrated cloud suites.
To gather the details, ChannelE2E spoke with:
- SAP Senior VP of Global Partner Operations Bobby Vetter;
- Senior VP and Global Head of Channels Karl Fahrbach; and
- Director of Partner Packaging and Commercial Sales Engagement Sten Frellesvig.
The trio described how the company's latest partner moves feature fixed-scope packaged solutions at predictable price points. Moreover, so-called "partner-packaged solutions" provide:
- A collection of replicable software customizations, configurations and tools; and
- documentation, scripts, procedures and methodologies.
Roll all that together, and partners can more rapidly deploy software and cloud services with reduced risks, the company asserts. Moreover, the SAP.com will allow customers to find the partner-packaged solutions.
SAP Partner-Packaged Solutions
Partners can create the partner-packaged solutions around such SAP offerings as:
- Business ByDesign
- S/4HANA Cloud as well as on-premise
- SuccessFactors solutions
- Analytics Cloud
- Leonardo capabilities
- Solutions for customer engagement and commerce including SAP Hybris solutions
Those solutions and partner program enhancements will be in the spotlight during SAP Sapphire Now 2018, the company's major customer and partner conference in June.
SAP Cloud Partner Milestones, SME Focus
Amid the program enhancements, the company disclosed multiple cloud partner milestones. The journey started in 2015, when the company launched a so-called Channel 2020 strategy to help partners in "general business" speed cloud adoption. Among the milestones:
- SAP's indirect cloud sales are growing three times faster than direct sales;
- almost half of the GB cloud revenues come from indirect sales; and
- the company has roughly 100 cloud superstar partners, up 93 percent year over year (the company doesn't disclose metrics that define such partners).
SAP has put a bright spotlight on its small and midsize enterprise (SME) partner initiatives throughout 2018 and 2017. The effort generally aligns partners with customers that have up to $1 billion in annual revenues.
Of SAP’s 365,000 customers, roughly 300,000 are SMEs — or roughly 80 percent of the customer base.Partners are SAP’s preferred go-to-market for SME. Nine out of 10 net-new customers are partner-driven engagements, according to executives who spoke at an SAP SME Executive Roundtable in November 2017.
Fierce Competition
Although SAP has SME partner momentum, the company continues to face fierce competition. Chief among them:
- Oracle's autonomous cloud services push involves plenty of partners, while the company's NetSuite business pushes deeper into the midmarket.
- Microsoft is busy launching Dynamics 365 Business -- a combination ERP and CRM cloud platform for customers and partners.
- Salesforce is coming down market, with new small business cloud CRM and help desk capabilities.
We'll poke around for more SAP partner milestones during the company's Sapphire NOW conference in June.
