14.04.2009

“The Heart of the Business is SME”

By: Johannes Gillar and Georg Middendorf

Latin America: colorful, exciting, and economically emerging. Especially the countries in the Andean, Caribbean and southern part are experiencing a mini-boom.

SAP recently created the region Multi-Country Latin America, MCLA. What were the reasons behind this?

To serve our customers more efficiently – that was the main reason to merge the former regions Andean & Caribbean and South. We also found that these regions have a great deal in common, so that merging them allows us to provide a better infrastructure. In addition, we are able to reduce costs, which we now reinvest in better customer services.

What do you want to achieve in this region in the next five years?

Certainly I would like to see evolving growth. To stay successful, it is crucial to continually satisfy our customers and manage our partner ecosystem well. So my schedule is to grow and each year serve new parts of this market that we are not reaching today.

What role does the midmarket play in your organization?

A significant one. In MCLA and in Latin America in general, the heart of business is small and midsized enterprises. As for large enterprises, of course, you’ll also find them in every country of the MCLA region. Even in Peru, traditionally a homeland to SMEs, you have substantial holdings.

Nevertheless, the majority of the market consists of midsized companies. The only exceptions are Brazil and Mexico. These countries have a considerable number of large enterprises, especially Brazil, which has several hundred enterprises that are large even by European standards.

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