The latest SAP cloud strategy focused on flexibility, business continuity, and sustainability has recently been announced in Thailand.
In April, SAP reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2022, emphasising the consistent growth of its cloud business and incorporating the current cloud backlog. The German enterprise software giant has revealed a strong cloud momentum as evident in the current cloud backlog and SAP S/4HANA cloud revenue, reaching double-digit growth. This follows the remarkable performance of the Business Transformation as a Service (BTaaS) offering RISE with SAP in 2021 as a springboard for the first months of this year.
In Thailand, the tech giant intends to drive the transformation to the cloud for companies in both the private and public sectors by utilising its most recent business direction plan, which includes the concept of the ‘Cloud Only’ strategy. This is primarily aimed at helping enterprises improve their efficiency, flexibility, and agility. It can be noted that Dr. Sak Segkhoonthod, Advisor of Digital Transformation at the Electronic Transaction Development Agency, told a seminar held in January that as the country’s present regulations for budget disbursement can be easily maintained on the cloud, organisations in the public sector can migrate to the cloud with relative ease.
According to SAP Indochina Managing Director Atul Tuli, the global COVID-19 pandemic has shown itself to be a fast-acting driver for governments and businesses to expedite their digital transformation journeys and embrace cloud-based technologies for growth and sustainability. He also believes that enterprises can innovate ahead of their competition, operate through times of volatility in the market, and boost cost savings by using a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that provides real-time business analytics.
Advancing the SAP Cloud Strategy for the “Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise”
As per Gartner’s projections, end-user expenditure on public cloud services around the globe is expected to increase by 20.4{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} in 2022, reaching a total of $494.7 billion. In particular, cloud computing spending in Thailand is expected to increase by 36.6{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} to reach 40.8 billion baht in 2022. This also indicates that as the pandemic unfolds, the country will embrace the “golden age of digital transformation” with cloud solutions playing a crucial role in helping enterprises transform sustainably.
“Today, businesses can easily migrate their applications and workloads to the cloud with the ability to scale and enjoy the benefit of cloud’s pay-per-use model to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). We believe that the ‘Cloud Only’ strategy will help drive SAP Thailand’s cloud compound annual growth rate (CAGR) by 51{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} by 2025,” SAP MD Atul Tuli further explained.
In terms of achieving the “Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise” vision, SAP Indochina Key Account Sales Leader Kulwipa Praditphollert stated that SAP has taken the initiative to supply forward-thinking businesses with real-time data and technology, intending to empower and enable them to seek sustainability and long-term growth and efficiency. She added:
“Over the past years, we have supported customers in various industries, including retail, healthcare, chemical, e-commerce, and offered them solutions ranging from supply chain, procurement, human resource management to customer experience management.”
Helping SMEs Future-Proof Their Operations
“Transformational Talent: The impact of the Great Resignation on Digital Transformation in APJ’s SMEs”, a study recently conducted by SAP and commissioned Dynata, revealed that 68{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of Thai small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) agreed that having technology partners who can assist with digital transformation is an absolute necessity for them to survive and thrive. Moreover, 66{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of SMEs reported that they were at a loss as to how to get started.
SAP Indochina Head of Mid Market Noppadon Chareonthong stated that there are more than 70 partners in the ecosystem that play a significant role in SAP Thailand’s engagements with customers in the SME segment. He added that partners are essential in providing guidance and assistance to customers in terms of running their business and implementing SAP systems.
“As 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of SAP customers worldwide are SMEs, we have worked tirelessly to help SMEs customers in Thailand embark on their digital transformation journey towards becoming Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise to create a strong and sustainable digital core in the future,” he further said.
