Enterprise software firm SAP has just announced a new venture in China just days after posting promising quarterly profits. According to Monday reports (May 4), SAP is releasing its SAP Anywhere solution aimed squarely at Chinese SMEs. The front-office suite of solutions provides marketing, sales, eCommerce and inventory management tools for businesses, the company said.
According to the VP of SAP’s SMB Solutions Group, Toby Davidson, SAP Anywhere includes accounting data analytics, buying and customer trends, and consolidates Big Data for small businesses. SAP, he added, is at the forefront of providing these solutions for the B2B world.
“The B2C market has been leading the way in adoption, but B2B is catching up,” Davidson said. “We see a big shift coming in the next few years, to the point where B2B will double B2C by 2020.”
According to reports, the new tool will first enter the Chinese market through a partnership with China Telecom. It is unclear if, or when, the Software-as-a-Service tool will enter additional markets. SAP reportedly developed the tool with the Chinese SME in mind, though the company did not indicate what differences may exist between SAP Anywhere in China and other jurisdictions.
SAP Anywhere is compatible with both desktop and mobile devices, though SAP is reportedly pushing for mobile use of the software, promoting the ability for business owners to manage operations through just their smartphone.
The tool aims to provide an all-in-one solution for SMEs, offering capabilities anywhere form online store creation to real-time inventory management and Big Data analytics. Reports said that SAP Anywhere is also capable of supporting guest checkout for seamless online transactions.
According to SAP SME Segment Senior Vice President of Global and General Manager Kevin Gilroy, SAP Anywhere represents a new era of B2B software. “We this this is a new category of product, which fits what SMEs are looking for,” he said. “It is consumer-like it that it will be able to be deployed in hours, not days, weeks or months. It will also be priced at a very attractive level. It scales from 10 employees to 500, and of course is great news for the channel.”
The new service was unveiled at SAP’s Global Partner Summit where experts say the company focused on the concept of simplicity.