KUALA LUMPUR: SAP Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a global enterprise software leader, will remains steadfastly focused on the continued growth of Malaysia’s Digital Economy.
President and managing director (Southeast Asia) Claus Andresen said SAP’s focus encompassed areas such as nurturing talent, growing the local ecosystem and in having established a service delivery centre in Kuala Lumpur for the SEA region.
"SAP aims to support every company to become a best-run business. Together, we help the world run better and improve people’s lives throughout the world.
"SAP has been in Malaysia for 27 years and have observed while playing our part in the country’s Digital Economy growing from strength to strength,” Claus said.
According to Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), digital economy contributed some 18.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017.
On the talent and education front, Claus said SAP continues to develop human capital for Malaysia.
“Under the SAP University Alliances initiative, SAP continues to collaborate with MDEC on the MyUniAlliance programme which provides training for some three thousand students per year,” Claus said, adding that the programme started in 2011.
Eighteen Institutes of Higher Learning [IHL], including two foreign universities, have participated in the programme, he further said.
"These IHLs bring SAP's technology and best practices to students in undergraduate and graduate programmes,” he said.
"Should these graduates go on to become SAP consultants, they could expect to be one of the best consultants in industry."
On growing the local ecosystem, SAP continues to work with local business partners so that they may continue innovating on their home-grown solutions.
One such company is SBOne Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TFP Solutions Bhd and certified SAP partner, which offers professional SAP B1 consultancy and expertise to small medium enterprises (SMEs) throughout Malaysia.
SBOne vice president Davinder Singh said together with SAP Malaysia, the company is currently working with organisations like SME Corp to educate the SME community on the importance of technology.
“SMEs need to realise the role of technology as a business enabler that paves the way to greater profitability and operational efficiencies,” said Davinder.
“Our solutions based on the SAP B1 platform aims to simplify processes for them so that these SMEs become more productive.”
Davinder added that SBOne is also enhancing the SAP B1 platform to address the halal market's needs.
“SBOne shares SAP’s vision that, being a best-run business means being an ‘intelligent enterprise’.
"Together with SAP, our strategy is therefore to deliver the ‘intelligent enterprise’ for our customers, so that they can achieve their desired outcomes,” said Davinder.
On Malaysia as an ICT (information, communications and technology) hub, Claus said last year, SAP had chosen Malaysia for its solution delivery centre (SDC) catering to enterprises throughout SEA.
The SDC has increased cost-effectiveness and scalable service delivery while addressing customer proximity for enterprises employing SAP technologies within SEA.
“Malaysia lies at the heart of SEA where there are various multinational companies (MNCs) operating out of the country,” Claus said, citing the country’s robust infrastructure, strategic location within SEA coupled with the country’s dynamic business environment as contributors to the choice of location.
He added that skilled expertise is also one of Malaysia’s greatest assets, and that the SDC team size is growing.
“The workforce in Malaysia is young, educated and productive, proving to be one of the best in the region. Diversity is one of Malaysia’s greatest strengths, and our objective is to provide SAP’s customers with access to the best global network of consultants with expertise in SAP’s latest technologies,” he added.
Today, SAP serves 437,000 customers in more than 180 countries worldwide, including 92 per cent of Forbes Global 2000 companies, 98 per cent of the 100 most valued brands and 100 per cent of the Dow Jones top scoring sustainability companies.