‘Emerging markets like Pakistan are growth engines’

‘SAP exhorts tremendous business opportunities in Pakistan’.

KARACHI:

Emerging markets like Pakistan are a growth engine for SAP, a Germany-based business software company, said SAP Country Liaison Manager Hasan Latif Jamal, in an interview with The Express Tribune on Wednesday, at the backdrop of SAP World Tour 2011.

He said that in-memory data processing is going to be the future of businesses. Moreover, new initiatives have contributed to 50% of the profits of large companies during the last decade, he added. Jamal said SAP has a global growth rate of over 35%, while that number for Pakistan ranges between 30% and 35%.

There are tremendous business opportunities in Pakistan, Jamal said, adding that of some 50,000 registered companies in Pakistan, only 1000 have deployed ‘enterprise resource planning’ (ERP) systems of some kind. So there is a huge market for SAP in Pakistan, he said.

Jamal further said they have more than 500 SAP professionals serving in the country and that number is growing. “SAP is geared for meeting this target,” he said.

SAP head of indirect business for South East Asia and emerging markets Nitin Gangla said that SAP is actively pushing for two technology trends. The first one, he said, is leveraging on the adaptation of mobile technology in consumer goods, food and beverage, retail and utility companies. The other being in-memory data processing for banking and finance as well as the public sector, he added.

Earlier, Gangla and Jamal had also addressed delegates from different small and medium size enterprises who attended the event. Gangla said they not only want to facilitate businesses but also want to serve their employees who use mobile technology.

SAP deals with all business segments, he said, but this particular event exclusively focused on small and medium size companies. Pakistan is a huge market for SAP, he said and added they have over 100,000 customers but they now want to touch 1 billion users in five years.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 3^rd, 2011.