Enterprise solutions provider SAP is in the process of expanding its presence in tier 2 and tier 3 markets in India across states like Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra, a senior executive said.
The firm, which counts India among its fastest-growing markets and employs close to 15,000 employees in the country, continues to see rapid adoption of artificial intelligence by both SMEs and larger corporates, Rajeev Singh, vice president and India head of corporate and mid-markets, SAP Indian Subcontinent, said.
“Tier 2 and 3 markets have grown very, very fast for us and we’re seeing tremendous traction in these cities. We are leveraging our partner ecosystem heavily and our local partners in these cities are helping us reach out to newer set of customers, and cater to their demands,” Singh said in his first media interaction after taking on his expanded role for the Indian sub-continent.
SMEs account for 79% of SAP India’s revenues, though further details on the firm’s performance were not shared by the company.
SAP India also has the second largest workforce by geography for the global giant, with 40% of its research and development, and more than 30% of its patents coming from the country, officials said at an event in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Singh said that while SMEs are adopting artificial intelligence at a holistic level, larger corporates are doing the same in a piecemeal manner. A study that the firm undertook revealed that 96% of the promoters of SMEs wanted holistic adoption of AI in their business. In case of larger companies, the readiness to adopt AI was at similar levels, but with a line-of-business or vertical wise approach, rather than deploying the same company-wide, he added.
“It’s about the complexity of business. SMEs have a less complex organisation and hence they can take AI as a strategy. Larger enterprises will have complex systems built over 15-20 years and for them, taking a holistic AI strategy can be cumbersome,” Singh elaborated.
He added that for the larger enterprises, the approach to adopting AI will continue to be on a line-of-business basis for the foreseeable future, as these firms carry out their migration to the cloud.
However, SAP itself is looking at AI as part of its underlying technology, and is working towards embedding it in its applications.
On monetisation models being affected by the emergence of AI, he said the company is adopting a wait and watch approach since it is too early to gauge the impact.
“Right now, we have everything sorted. We know how to license. But we’ll see how the market evolves,” Singh said.