The number of Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) choosing Oracle applications over SAP to manage and evolve their complex business processes in order to achieve a faster return on investment (ROI) are apparently growing.
Citing a recent study done by Nucleus Research titled “SAP and Oracle: Who’s Ready for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses,” to support its argument, Oracle said according to the report , 93 percent of Oracle SMB customers achieved a positive ROI from their deployments whilst only 41 percent of SAP customers achieved a positive ROI.
“When we independently interviewed Oracle and SAP SMB customers, we found that, as a group, Oracle customers had either already achieved or were on track to achieve a positive ROI,” said Rebecca Wettemann, vice president at Nucleus Research.
“The story was somewhat different for the SAP customers – although some had achieved a positive ROI, many were either still struggling with unexpected costs or faced ongoing costs that exceeded ongoing benefits.”
According to Jeff Kiesel, CEO of Restaurant Technologies, one of the companies that chose to deploy Oracle rather than SAP: “Our decision to implement Oracle over SAP was driven by the open architecture and superior product functionality of Oracle applications. As our company prepares for the future growth, we wanted to standardize on a single, scalable and flexible platform that will ultimately help us better serve customers.”
SMEs account for more than 65 percent of SAP’s total customers and contribute to approximately 40 percent of its total software revenue in APJ.
At its annual SAP SAPPHIRE user conference in April 2007, SAP told SDA Asia that its SAP All-in-One solutions are increasingly being adopted by midsized companies worldwide who are ambitious to grow rapidly by exploiting its faster, more predictable and affordable business solutions, growing at a rate of 23 percent year-over-year.
SAP announced its second quarter earnings Thursday with its total revenue for AP at 304 million euros. Its software revenue in the region grew 31 percent to 107 million euros whilst revenues for its APJ software and software related service revenues grew 29 percent to 222 million euros.
“SAP Asia Pacific Japan has had a tremendous year so far, with dynamic growth in key markets such as Japan, India and China…,” said Geraldine McBride, president and CEO, SAP APJ in a statement.
“A key to our success was the continuing embrace of SAP by the fast-growing small and midsize enterprise market. Our customers have articulated what they need, and through this customer-centric approach and a talented global team, we look forward to building on the robust growth we have achieved in our established business. Particularly in this region, with all of its potential, midsize companies are looking to partner with a trusted industry-leader like SAP.”
SAP said 625 new customers selected its solutions in AP in the second quarter of 2007 with 525 coming from them from the SMB sector. It also achieved significant growth in the Japan SME sector with over 50 percent quarter-on-quarter growth. In the SME segment served by SAP’s channel partners, APJ saw a 30 percent increase in software revenue year-on-year in Q2.
SAP APJ has committed to triple its small and midsize enterprise (SME) customer base in order to reach its targeted goal of 100,000 customers by 2010.
It plans to do this by building on its commitment to empower small and midsize customers with new ways to leverage software for business growth and success. In the first half of this year the German based software goliath announced some 80 new additions to its portfolio of qualified SAP All-in-One industry solutions offered by SAP partners.
It also introduced enhancement packages for Business One, a new series of downloadable packages as part of SAP standard support that offers customers faster and more frequent access to new functionality, best practice tools and maintenance updates. |
