SAP claims major growth in SME space 9 February, 2009 By Erin Bell

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More than 4,500 companies now part of the company's growing SME ecosystem, which consists of the SAP Referral program, the SAP Extended Business program, and the SAP PartnerEdge program.

Announced in April, 2008, the SAP Referral program, which is open to both SAP partners and non-partners, has thus far attracted more than 1,500 members and generated nearly 1,000 leads.

According to SAP, the program's success is based on early access to additional revenue potential for participating companies. Companies can also use the Referral program as a starting point for cultivating a closer relationship with SAP.

"As a successful business intelligence (BI) provider, we are a trusted advisor to our customers," said Mark Stringer, Managing Director at Maven Solutions, a BI solution provider based in Manchester, U.K. "The SAP Referral program now provides us an opportunity to refer our customers to a solution we see fit, be it SAP Business One or SAP Business All-in-One. This program helps us to provide additional value to our clients while rewarding our consulting efforts with additional revenue streams."

SAP launched the Extended Business program in June, 2008, and since then the program has attracted nearly 300 members. This program is targeted at companies who regularly recommend, implement or develop SAP solutions, and grants them access to the SAP partner network.

By working with the companies that are associated with SAP partners, the Extended Business program allows SAP to support its partners in building their own ecosystem, expanding business, and driving revenues for sales or implementation. The benefit to the associated organizations is that they get the same training and education as their SAP channel partner colleagues.

"We work in daily partnership with the SAP partner Infracom Consulting and given the work that we were already performing, the logic to liaise more closely with Infracon and SAP itself was immediately apparent," said Andrea Righetti, President of Spin Consulting, an Italian business that joined the program as a pilot member in 2007. "We realized it was important to make it easier to acquire and maintain all the necessary skills to fully manage and complete SAP projects for our small-business customers. In retrospect, joining the program was definitely worth it."

SAP's PartnerEdge program represents the traditional way for companies to partner with SAP in the midmarket. The program was introduced for the midmarket in 2005 and expanded to large enterprise partners in May, 2008. Currently, the PartnerEdge program boasts more than 2,500 partners.

"Working with SAP has been a great experience," said Anton Chekhonin, CEO of NORBIT, a SAP gold partner who is also the first VAR in Russia to build up its own network of SAP Extended Business program members. "Since SAP PartnerEdge not only recognizes revenue goals but also factors like customers satisfaction, we feel that working with SAP really helps us to improve client relations and make our business more sustainable."

SAP has more than 64,000 small and midsized business customers worldwide. The company's solutions for SME customers include SAP Business One, a single integrated small business management application; SAP Business ByDesign, an integrated and adaptable on-demand solution for midsize companies; and SAP Business All-in-One, a customizable and extensible solution for midsize companies with deep industry best practices built in.

The solutions are sold, implemented and maintained through SAP and its network of partners.