SAP Australia announces its 1,000th SME customer

Sydney, Australia - December 10, 2007 - SAP Australia today announced Eurolinx, the Australian distributor of Ilve cooking appliances, as its 1,000th Australian customer in the small and midsize enterprise (SME) category.

Eurolinx, employing approximately 60 staff, is based in Sydney with sales offices across Australia. They selected SAP partner, Key Business Solutions, to lead the implementation of the SAP Business One solution. Eurolinx’s previous solution was struggling to cope with an expanding product range and business growth. The company is looking to the SAP solution to streamline business processes and improve inventory control around the country. “There weren’t many software options for small and medium size businesses three years ago,” said Leia Colbert, director and managing director, Eurolinx. “But since then we’ve seen many vendors launching specific SME software packages.

“We evaluated four options before selecting SAP and Key Business Solutions, which came out on top in terms of ease of use, inventory management and which provided a tight fit with our business requirements.

“The SAP system will streamline our business processes and improve forecasting, planning and customer service. We’re thrilled to be the 1000th SME for SAP in ANZ,” said Ms Colbert.

Four new SMEs a week choose SAP

“One thousand SME customers is a significant milestone for SAP and our partner community in Australia,” said Alan Hyde, CEO and managing director, SAP Australia and New Zealand.

“We started on this journey in late 2003 with just a handful of SME customers. To reach 1000 customers in four years means around four new SMEs a week are choosing SAP to run their business.

“Every new customer has a different story, but there are common themes behind their choice of SAP: SMEs want to maximise their growth potential and increase their competitive edge using industry best practices. And they also want fast deployment at an attractive price point,” said Mr Hyde. SAP formally launched its SME strategy in ANZ in late 2003 with the announcement of the SAP Business One software solution for small businesses along with the SAP PartnerEdge channel partner program. SAP Business One is suitable for companies with up to around $50 million in annual revenue, depending on the complexity of the business processes.

SAP Business All-in-One is for companies with more complex business processes, capturing the market for companies from less than $100 million in revenue to less than $1 billion at the upper end of the midmarket.

SAP continues to invest in the development of business solutions for the SME market. The SME Solution Centre in Singapore develops products specifically for the Australian market. In a few months SAP Business ByDesign, an on-demand ERP solution, will become available in the Australian market. Mr Hyde continued: “We are really only at the start of our SME transformation journey. We have new products in the pipeline to take SAP to an even larger market. We have a vibrant ecosystem of partners developing add-ons and industry functionality on the core platform.

“Our channel partners deserve a lot of credit for this achievement. It would be impossible for SAP to deliver this volume of sales without our partners; they are central to our strategy.”

SAP’s SME customer base in Australia includes a wide range of companies in various industry sectors, ranging from small locally focused enterprises with less than 10 employees to home grown businesses that are making a name of themselves on the international stage.

SAP SME customers in Australia include Acromet, Aquanita Racing, Carinda, Chandru International, Cogstate, Delta, Emperor’s Mind, General Pants, Huon Aquaculture, IPS Logistics, MAC1, PABX Sales and Service, Paskal, Pie Networks, Playcorp, Roadhound, Rusty, Sass and Bide, Skins, Taylors Wine, Troy Laboratories and Viscount Rotational Mouldings.

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software*. Today, more than 82,000 customers in more than 120 countries run SAP® applications—from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small businesses and midsize companies to suite offerings for global organisations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform to drive innovation and enable business change, SAP software helps enterprises of all sizes around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP solution portfolios support the unique business processes of more than 25 industries, including high tech, retail, financial services, healthcare and the public sector. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol “SAP.”

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.