BENGALURU :
German software firm SAP expects strong cloud adoption in India this year, driven by small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that have accelerated their investments in a multi-cloud strategy.
“We are the market leader in the SMB sector, with over 9,330 mid-market business customers,” Subramanian Ananthapadmanabhan, vice-president, midmarket, SAP Indian subcontinent, said in an interview.
SAP said cloud adoption more than doubled in FY21. “Our average deal sizes in core ERP (enterprise resource planning) space have grown 2.5X and we expect the momentum to continue,” said Ananthapadmanabhan.
Last January, SAP pledged ₹500 crore to localize and accelerate its multi-cloud strategy. “Through this strategy, we aim to enable customers to receive the benefits of our platform on their choice of cloud infrastructure,” said Ananthapadmanabhan.
SAP’s multi-cloud strategy is being rapidly adopted by SMBs in IT-ITeS, life sciences and pharma, retail, and engineering, construction and operations.
“With the announcement of the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme, we expect the discrete manufacturing sector to significantly outperform,” said Ananthapadmanabhan.
“SAP has steered its own products in this direction and also made acquisitions that fit with the changing buy-side trends. This has been complemented by changing sales and partner programs like RISE with SAP,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, CEO and chief analyst, Greyhound Research.
