At dcs we’re proud to be a leading UK SAP partner and to be associated with what is undoubtedly one of the global giants when it comes to business technology. The SAP brand is recognised worldwide and has grown to become a byword for systems of leading functionality, reliability and stability.
However, when it comes to the small and medium enterprise (SME) businesses we work with on a daily basis, the idea of dealing with a multinational monolith like SAP can often prove to be something of a turn off. Nobody really wants to feel like just another number and as Ira Simon, SAP’s vice president of Partner & SME Marketing, points out:
“The downside to having your logo on the side of stadiums and on billboards that people see as they walk through airport terminals is that there is the perception that SAP is too large to provide solutions for small and midsize companies.”
Indeed, turning this perception around and dispelling the oft-cited myths about SAP being for big business only has proven to be our greatest marketing challenge when it has come to growing our SAP division. It can often be a frustration to our SAP consultants as the reality is that this commonly-held belief could not be further from the truth – 85% of SAP’s 335,000 clients are SMEs!
We all know that, as a business, your brand is massively important and this is especially true for SMEs operating (and targeting growth) in highly competitive markets. For this type of enterprise, breaking the stranglehold of the established larger players is near impossible without a brand that resonates strongly with your target market.
However, a strong brand built with the best in product development and marketing can be destroyed without the right technology platform backing it up and delivering the highest levels of operational efficiency and service to your customers and partners. This is exactly why this kind of ambitious, brand-led SME is the kind of business suited to SAP Business One, and the kind of client we love to work with.
The belief that smaller organisations are simpler to run, has been proven time and again wrong. Often the people in smaller organisations, with fewer layers of management, have multiple roles, so a sales manager may also head up marketing, or a purchasing manager might also hold responsibility for the warehouse. SMEs often have no one for a given function where big companies will have dozens to hundreds holding the same positions.
When you boil it down, what this means is that modern SMEs need functionality historically only available in software designed for larger enterprises. The problem is that they need to access it within far tighter budgets and through faster, more agile and flexible deployments.
This is where SAP Business One comes in – a comprehensive and cutting-edge software solution designed specifically for the requirements of the smaller, growing business. The market-leading products and power of SAP are no longer the reserve of big business!
With Business One your SME can finally compete on a level playing field when it comes to technology and the operational platform can be put in place which will scale with you as your ambitions for growth are realised. Greater efficiency, smarter logistics, improved resource planning and business intelligence that allows you to make the right decisions at the right time – This is the SAP recipe for success.
To find out more click here and register for our free webinar – Grow your brand (and your profits) with SAP Business One – taking place on Thursday 9th March at 2.30pm.