SAP Broadens Customer Base at Sapphire

Business-software vendor SAP kicked off its Sapphire customer event Tuesday by announcing deals with several customers, big and small, underscoring the software vendor’s aim to broaden its customer base.

Continuing its assault on the small and midsize business (SMB) market, SAP announced in Orlando that the Gary Player Group, Extreme Accessories (which trades under XtremeMac) and Ron Jon Surf Shop are new users of its Business One software technology. The three businesses are well-known small companies in Florida.

SAP also used Sapphire to unveil a deal with Wellborn Cabinet, a kitchen and bath cabinet manufacturer. Wellborn will deploy Business One across its network of North America dealers.

Business One is a trimmed-down version of SAP’s mySAP Business Suite, which includes the company’s core ERP software. It is a crucial component of SAP’s strategy to bite out a bigger chunk of the SMB market for business application software and generate new revenue streams, as the company’s traditional big corporate customers trim their spending.

At last year’s Sapphire in Boston, SAP launched a new tiered-channel partner program to drive Business One sales.

This week at Sapphire, the Walldorf, Germany, software maker also announced a deal with Chico’s FAS, a chain of speciality stores selling exclusively designed, private-label clothing. The retailer, with nearly 800 stores across the United States, will deploy SAP for Retail, running on the NetWeaver platform.

SAP for Retail combines mySAP Business Suite applications with a broad set of integrated retail applications. The software package includes core capabilities for financial management and supplier relationship management as well as support for industry-specific merchandise management and planning, demand forecasting, point of sale data management and radio frequency identification.

Still committed to the market for big corporate users of business software, SAP also said it has landed a deal with Lenovo Group, which acquired IBM’s personal computing division.

Lenovo, the world’s third-largest PC manufacturer, will use a range of SAP software products, including the company’s NetWeaver integration platform, to increase customer loyalty, reduce operational costs and make trading operations more efficient, SAP said.

In addition to mySAP Business Suite applications for CRM, supply chain management, financials and human capital management, Lenovo aims to use SAP xApps composite applications for cost and quotation management, global trade services and real-time shop floor manufacturing integration and intelligence.

Like other companies in the competitive PC-manufacturing business, Lenovo hopes to gain a competitive edge by using software to help bring new products to customers faster, respond more quickly to service issues and identify real-time fluctuations in supply and demand.

Under the agreement, Lenovo will implement a range of SAP software in a phased rollout for approximately 15,000 users in 138 company sites. The computer maker plans to go live with the software later this year. 

SAP provided no financial details of the deal with Lenovo, which is based in Raleigh, N.C.

Sapphire runs through Thursday.

-John Blau, IDG News Service

For related news coverage, read SAP Stresses Master-Data Management and SAP to Use HP Print Mgmt. Technology.

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