EUROPEAN MARKET FOR SAP

APPLICATION ADOPTION

SUBMITTED TO

Institute of Public Enterprise

Shamirpet, Hyderabad-500078
(2016 – 2018)

In partial fulfillment of the requirements

For the award of the Degree of

POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT- INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

BY
HARSHA CHAITANYA
1604022

1
 DECLARATION

I, Harsha Chaitanya of PGDM - IB, roll no. 1604022, hereby declare that this project, titled

‘EUROPEAN MARKET FOR SAP APPLICATION ADOPTION’ done at, submitted to the

Department of Post-Graduation Diploma in Management (Institute of Public Enterprise) is my

own work based on information collected from various authentic sources and it has not been

submitted to any other university or institutions for the award of any degree/diploma.

Signature of the Co-ordinator Signature of the student

Dr. M Karthik Harsha Chaitanya

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

It is really a matter of pleasure for me to get an opportunity to thank all the persons who contributed
directly or indirectly for the successful completion of the project report ‘EUROPEAN MARKET
FOR SAP APPLICATION ADOPTION’

I would like to thank Prof. R. K. Mishra Director, IPE, for providing me an opportunity for taking
up this project. I would also like to thank Dr. M. Karthik, PGDM-IB Coordinator, and also my
project mentor, for giving valuable suggestions during the project.

I am also grateful to all the faculty members for their valuable guidance and suggestions. Needless
to mention they have been a source of inspiration. I would also like to thank all the distinguished
scholars and authors, whose work I have used in this project

Finally, yet importantly, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my beloved parents for their
blessings, my friends/classmates, for their constant encouragement during the project.

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 CONTENTS

Chapter No. Title Page No.

I Theoretical Framework 5

II The Design of the Study 11

III Analysis of the Data collected 20

IV Findings, Suggestions & Conclusion 27

Bibliography 29

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 CHAPTER I
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Introduction

SAP is a market leader in providing ERP (Enterprise Resource and Planning) solutions and
services. In this report, we will try to analyse the usage of SAP and where, and how far it is used for
the betterment of one’s business. An in depth research and business intelligence has been done in
the European region, listing out the organisations, whom to approach and how successful would it
be with whom, Infiniti Tech Labs could join hands and become a partner in order to pitch in their
SAP products in the respective country in the above region.

The various modules of SAP are as follows:

 Financial Accounting (FI)

 Financial Supply Chain Management (FSCM)
 Controlling (CO)
 Materials Management (MM)
 Sales and Distribution (SD)
 Logistics Execution (LE)
 Production Planning (PP)
 Quality Management (QM)
 Plant Maintenance (PM)
 Project System (PS)
 Human Resources (HR)

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The types of industries that follow SAP

Industries Line of Business

 Aerospace & Defense  Asset Management

 Automotive  Sustainability
 Banking  Finance
 Chemicals  Human Resources
 Consumer Products  Information Technology
 Defense & Security  Manufacturing
 Engineering, Construction &  Marketing
Operations  R&D, Engineering
 Healthcare  Sales
 Higher Education & Research  Service
 High Tech  Sourcing and Procurement
 Industrial Machinery, Components  Supply Chain
 Insurance
 Life Sciences
 Media
 Mill Products
 Mining
 Oil & Gas
 Professional Services
 Public Sector
 Retail
 Sports & Entertainment

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  Telecommunications
 Travel & Transportation
 Utilities
 Wholesale Distribution

Featured Solutions

 Big Data
 Customer Engagement
 Internet of Things
 Rapid Deployment Solutions
 Security
 Small & Medium Enterprises
 User Experience

The types of products available in SAP

Business Applications Database & Technology

 Business Suite  Application Foundation

 CRM  Business Process Management and
 Enterprise Asset Management Integration

 Enterprise Resource Planning  Cloud Computing

 Financial Management  Content and Collaboration

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 Human Capital Management
 Procurement
 Product Lifecycle Management
 Supply Chain Management
 Sustainability
Analytics
 Applied Analytics
 Business Intelligence
 Data Warehousing
 Enterprise Performance
Management
 Governance, Risk, Compliance
 Predictive Analytics
Cloud
 Applications
 Business Networks
 Infrastructure
 Platform
 Social Collaboration
 Database
 Data Management
 Data Warehousing
 Enterprise Information Management
 In-Memory Computing (SAP HANA)
 Mobile
 Security
Mobile
 Mobile Apps
 Managed Mobility
 Mobile Platform
 Mobile Secure
 Mobile Services
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Scope of the research.

Speaking in general terms, the research data is very much reliable for any company. To any sales
and marketing team, the collected information could be of a great use, and in specific, the company
in SAP partnering business. A list of prospects has been taken out from the European region, where
the expansion of the SAP products could be made as a vision.

Objectives of the Research

The chief objective of this research is to take a peek on how far the SAP product adoption in the
European region is feasible, by using the following steps:

 To infer the details of various organizations in various sectors, in the European region.
 To discover the details of the SAP partners available in the European region.
 Ascertain the ways to communicate with the PoC of the target company.
The Research method followed

Speaking in general terms, the research data is very much reliable for any company. To any sales
and marketing team, the collected information could be of a great use, and in specific, the company
in SAP partnering business, this could be a great Operational definitions (defining the research
process)
1) Qualitative Research- Ethnography (this type of research focuses on describing the culture
of a group of people. A culture is the shared attributes, values, norms, practices, language,
and material things of a group of people).
2) Meta-Synthesis- Qualitative meta-synthesis is an intentional and coherent approach to
analyzing data across qualitative studies. It is a process that enables researchers to identify a
specific research question and then search for, select, appraise, summarize, and combine
qualitative evidence to address the research question. This process uses rigorous qualitative
methods to synthesize existing qualitative studies to construct greater meaning through an
interpretative process.

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3) Sampling- Statistical method of obtaining representative data or observations from a group
(lot, batch, population, or universe).

10
 CHAPTER II
THE DESIGN OF THE STUDY

Introduction

Descriptive research doesn’t fit neatly into the definition of either quantitative or qualitative
research methodologies, but instead it can utilize elements of both, often within the same study. The
term descriptive research refers to the type of research question, design and data analysis that will
be applied to a given topic. Descriptive statistics tell what it is, while inferential statistics try to
determine cause and effect.

Descriptive research can be either quantitative or qualitative. It can involve collections of

quantitative information that can be tabulated along a continuum in numerical form, such as in this
case we try to determine the number of companies that are located in the specified region and the
probability of those companies using an SAP application, and at the same time finding out the
number of SAP partner firms that are located in the Europe region, that can be used to pitch a sale in
their respective countries. Descriptive research involves gathering data that describe events and then
organizes, tabulates, depicts, and describes the data collection. It often uses visual aids such as
graphs and charts to aid the reader in understanding the data distribution. Because the human mind
cannot extract the full import of a large mass of raw data, descriptive statistics are very important in
reducing the data to manageable form. When in-depth, narrative descriptions of small numbers of
cases are involved, the research uses description as a tool to organize data into patterns that emerge
during analysis. Those patterns aid the mind in comprehending a qualitative study and its
implications.

Descriptive statistics utilize data collection and analysis techniques that yield reports concerning the
measures of central tendency, variation, and correlation. The combination of its characteristic
summary and correlational statistics, along with its focus on specific types of research questions,
methods, and outcomes is what distinguishes descriptive research from other research types.

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Literature Review

Nowadays one of the significant competitive advantages in business is to faster the supply chain.
This can happen with a better strategic technology planning and often incorporation of Information
System (IS) to manage this process more effective and efficiently. Those IS are the roots of todays’
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. During the 90s ERP system were the major business
generators for the IT sector, while nowadays more companies are oriented towards off-the-shelf
solution. In their research Soh, Kien and Tay-Yap (2000) discuss the issues organisation face then
go for off-the-shelf solutions. Common problems are misfits an ERP system has related to certain
business process. These misfits resolution is trade-offs between organisational changes and IS
customisation. They also explain that a misfit analysis must be carried out early in the process.
Moreover, comprehensive understanding of the critical organizational processes and detailed
knowledge of this complex software are required. ERPs are considered complex and painful to
implement mainly because they force an organisation to change its way of working as well as they
are considerable expense, with long return on investment value. Implementing an ERP system takes
from one to five years. Due to those and other factors some organisation found themselves in
situation, where buying an ERP system cost them times cheaper than installing and maintaining it.

This report will discuss how far the SAP has spread over the global market, and who can be a
potential customer or a probable partner of the chosen location.

Statement of the problem

Procurement of a proper set of contacts is a big deal, and if it is from the international market, the
job should be done way more cautiously. In order to find such data, the appropriate sources are
chosen such that the data extraction becomes accurate and appropriate. The importance of partner
awareness of the Infiniti products, for their success needs no emphasis.

Significance of the study

Understanding the requirement of the company, a qualitative business intelligence report of all the
probable customers is made such that it helps them to sell their SAP applications. Also, help them in
improvising the work method so that it reduces the load on the employee while using the given data.

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Theoretical Backdrop

Meta-synthesis Method for Qualitative Research On ERP- SAP Implementation

Literature provides strong evidence of high rate of ERP implementation projects i.e. 70% of the
organizations and firms uses ERP projects to get benefited. There are various benefits due to which
organizations shifts towards ERP like better customer care and retention, improved financials,
improved productivity, better information management, improved decision making, better asset
management, ease of growth or expansion with enhance flexibility, accurate and quick transactions,
reduction in cycle time and head count, less resources and improve revenue. It is also important that
how much the best business practices are customized also play important role for the success of
ERP project. Organization should avoid unnecessary customization. A tremendous effort for change
is required to shift people on best business practices and if this change is properly managed then it
will bring dramatic effect on the outcomes of ERP project. To achieve the desired goal for an
organization, the consultant and the client should work on agreed upon strategy and that
implementation will play important role for ERP success.

There are different stakeholders in the ERP implementation project that are difficult to manage due
to various incompatibilities. For an effective and efficient ERP solution these incompatibilities
needs to be resolved through a comprehensive change management program. The different type of
compatibilities is: compatibility between technology (ERP system) and organization (processes),
compatibility between technology and users, finally compatibility between organization (processes)
and users. This issue needs to be proactively handled by the top management instead of confronting
it reactively. This study will resolve these incompatibilities by managing change for successful ERP
SAP implementation.

Panorama Consulting Solutions is a well-known consulting group specializing in the ERP, their
latest surveys in 2015 shows that more than 55% of projects budget overrun whereas above 75% of
project schedule overrun and about 41% of the respondents have a point of view that ERP delivered
half of the expected benefits. The last five year data of panorama independent research provides the
average cost of ERP implementation projects that is about $6.1million whereas the average duration
of the ERP implantation projects has been 15.7 months.

13
ERP appears to be the most widely accepted solution in both developed and developing countries.
However, the comparative growth is not as promising as in the technologically advanced countries
due to non-availability of comprehensive guidelines for developing countries. Most of the research
is devoted for developed countries and only 10-15% of ERP Global research is dedicated for
Developing countries. Public and government sector organizations are also tending to move towards
ERP for real time information and to gain better administrative control. Hence it can be concluded
that ERP implementation is huge transformation coupled with high risk and cost. However, against
all this, it can deliver high outcomes if it is implemented in organized way. The study will answer
the research question that what are the main critical success factors to manage change in ERP-SAP
implementation success.

Different authors have different point of view in managing change in the ERP implementation
projects. It is important to assess that which possibility apply affected by the change, in this way
management can take proactive measure to overcome that area to manage resistance.

Tools for collection of data

Data collection is the process of gathering and measuring information on variables of interest, in an
established systematic fashion that enables one to answer stated research questions, test hypotheses,
and evaluate outcomes.

Collection of data constitutes the first step in a statistical investigation.

Types of Data

Generally data are of two types-

a) Primary Data: The data which are originally collected by an agency for the first time for any
statistical investigation are said to be primary data.

b) Secondary Data: The data which have already been collected by some agency and taken over
from there and used by any other agency for their statistical work are termed as secondary data. So
in simple if a primary data collected for a statistical investigation are used in other statistical
investigation then those data are called as secondary data.

14
The secondary data can be both qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative data can be obtained
through newspapers, diaries, interviews, transcripts, etc., while the quantitative data can be obtained
through a survey, financial statements and statistics.

Sources of information.

The data extracted is from various websites, this data is taken majorly from the secondary sources
that are in use by the SAP Company, registered data providers and market researchers and other
reliable databanks and databases.

The internal sources of secondary data are:

 Sales Report
 Financial Statements
 Customer details, like name, age, contact details, etc.
 Company information
 Reports and feedback from a dealer, retailer, and distributor
 Management information system
There are several external sources from where the secondary data can be collected. These are:

 Government censuses, like the population census, agriculture census, etc.

 Information from other government departments, like social security, tax records, etc.
 Business journals
 Social Books
 Business magazines
 Libraries
 Internet, where wide knowledge about different areas is easily available
Secondary data in research consists of several sources. Sometimes primary data cannot be obtained
or it becomes difficult to obtain primary data, in such cases the researcher is bound to use secondary
data. The reliability, authenticity and generalizability of secondary data is less as compared to
primary data as it has been already manipulated and used by other people. Obtaining primary data

15
requires more human and non-human resources like time, money and energy, therefore in some
studies researchers consider secondary data much better and feasible.

Published Data:

Published Data is the most basic secondary source of information for data collection. Published data
can be obtained from various sources like books, magazines, newspapers, journals and periodicals
etc. Published data is the most reliable secondary source of information. The validity of published
data is greater than unpublished data.

The majority of published records can be obtained from libraries and archives. Libraries carry a vast
variety of books, journals and periodicals. You can use this information as a reference in your
thesis, dissertation or other research articles. Periodicals and journals provide up to date information
and they are also available in libraries. In social sciences and humanities newspapers can also be
used to get references. Newspapers are an excellent source of data collection historical research.
Some record cannot be obtained from any other source except newspaper as it does not exist in
books and journals. Old newspapers record can be obtained from the archives. In published data
books are easier to use as data are arranged in order in books while newspapers are difficult to use
because in newspapers there is no list of contents or bibliography.

Personnel records:

Personnel records can also be very useful in research if data is unavailable in published from. Some
personal sources like letters and diaries are invaluable assets. Letters and diaries can have a personal
bias as they are written by human beings and they contain personal judgement. The chances of bias
should be eliminated before using these sources for references.

Electronic Data:

Electronic Data like movies, documentaries and television programs can also be sued for recording
data in secondary research. In the social sciences and humanities it can be a good source of
information.

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Government Records:

Government Records are available in the form of government surveys, tax records, census data and
other statistical reports. They are easily available and widely used in research studies.

Public Sector Records:

Public Sector Records are available in NGOs as well as some other public sector organization keeps
records. These records can be published or unpublished but they carry information that cannot be
obtained from other sources.

Internet:

Internet in today’s world is the fastest growing source of information. The internet has become
mature and today you can get any information from the internet. Most of the books are available on
the internet in e-book format. You can get information while staying at home. The information can
be obtained faster than you can obtain from any other source. On the internet you can get e-books,
e-journals, e-periodicals and e-magazines. The internet is a multiple source of information as all of
the above mentioned sources can be obtained from the internet. Most recent and most up to date
information can be obtained from the internet as it won’t be available in books and other forms.
Getting information from the internet is inexpensive as compared to other sources. You can get
membership of different periodicals, sometimes this membership is free otherwise you have to pay a
small amount of money. Few sources from which the information is collected are Onesource
(avention), Factiva, Bloomberg, Data.com, Thomson research, DiscoverOrg, Zoominfo,
Rocketreach, Hunter.io, SAP partneredge, LinkedIn, Discover.org, Open network, Inside view,
Trade India, India mart, Zawaya.com, Zaubacorp, Facebook are few sources from which the
information is collected.

Limitations of the study:

Accurate, up-to-date information obtained by marketing research can be of enormous value to a

business in gaining and/or maintaining its competitive edge. However, there are a number of reasons
why, in reality, these potential benefits may not be realized.

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  Budgetary constraints

Gathering and processing data can be very expensive. Many organizations may lack the expertise to
conduct extensive surveys to gather primary data, whatever the potential benefits, and also lack the
funds to pay specialist market research agencies to gather such data for them. In these cases,
organizations may be forced to rely on data that is less than ‘perfect’ but that can be accessed more
cheaply, e.g., from secondary sources.

In this case, time is the money spent, a good amount of time is spent on gathering the business
intelligence of the target companies.

 Time constraint

Organizations are often forced to balance the need to build up as detailed a picture as possible
regarding customer needs etc. against the desire to make decisions as quickly as possible, in order to
maintain or improve their position in the market

 Reliability of the data

The value of any research findings depend critically on the accuracy of the data collected. Data
quality can be compromised via a number of potential routes, e.g., leading questions,
unrepresentative samples, biased interviewers etc. Efforts to ensure that data is accurate, samples are
representative and interviewers are objective will all add to the costs of the research but such costs
are necessary if poor decisions and expensive mistakes are to be avoided.

 Legal & ethical constraints

The Data Protection Act (1998) is a good example of a law that has a number of implications for
market researchers collecting and holding personal data. For instance, researchers must ensure that
the data they obtain is kept secure, is only used for lawful purposes and is only kept for as long as it
is necessary. It must be made clear as to why data is being collected and the consent of participants
must be obtained. In addition to this, there are a number of guidelines, laid down by such

18
organizations as the Market Research Society, that, although not legally binding, encourage
organizations to behave ethically when dealing with members of the public. It can be difficult to
verify the accuracy of research conducted by a third party. It is unlikely that the objectives of
secondary research will fully match your research objectives.

Secondary research results may be affected by the assumptions and motivations of the organization
which carried it out or funded the research. By its nature, secondary research was conducted in the
past so it may no longer be fully relevant.

 Geographical Constraint

In few cases, the countries are barred from research due to the lack of the local language, and due to
their biasedness, no communication would be seen in return.

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 CHAPTER III
ANALYSIS OF THE DATA COLLECTED

My Research in the Europe Region:

Europe is a regional designation used for government, marketing and business purposes. It is
particularly common amongst North American based companies, who often divide their
international operations into the following regions. Increasingly, companies are separating their
region separately from the Western/Central European (mostly European Union) region.

With the growing share of the IT sector in the current market, it’s important to have a keen idea
about the market entry strategies, in order to expand and grow the business. As discussed above,
Europe is an emerging market as it has a lot of developed and developing nations, and equally
increasing number of firms and organizations. It’s a huge area to cover with numerous number of
firms, but all these countries under the Europe will have some common terms in case of business
relationships.

They have their own set of regulations for trade and business development, but one of the better
ideas to expand your business in these areas is to partner with the firms of the existing Europe
companies. Partnering with other companies, in other countries, fits well with this philosophy.
Especially for small and medium sized companies, it’s very desirable to develop overseas by using
partnerships. This is because it is so demanding to set up abroad entirely on the basis of your own
resources. And the partnership should be strategic because the effort and commitment entailed could
hardly be justified for a one-time profit.

In case of SAP (ERP), there are a lot of budding companies in the EUROPE region. In the current
situation, India, is one of the prominent players of the IT industry, as well as one of the major
contributor of the SAP application services, with its Platinum range players in the SAP industry. It’s
now the Organization’s capability on how far will they succeed in capturing the partners’ trust and
build a business with them on the foreign waters.

20
The company needs to categorize each and every target company in to four categories:

 Advanced technology

 Breadth of functionality

 Customer base

 Depth of client services.

EUROPE is not a homogeneous market with no restrictions at all, it’s a gigantic list of countries with
multiple cultures, languages, trade policies, currencies and more on the list. The list of countries to be chosen
should be in such a way, where there should be a minimal availability of the English language, fairly
acceptable trade policies, and a good reach in their own country’s market.

Considering all the above factors, a data set is collected is used for generating the following statistics and an
analysis is made:

FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=Name Contacts

/ORDER=ANALYSIS.

Frequencies

Notes
Output Created 02-AUG-2017 13:16:31
Comments
Active Dataset DataSet1
Filter <none>
Input Weight <none>
Split File <none>
N of Rows in Working Data File 14
User-defined missing values are
Definition of Missing
treated as missing.
Missing Value Handling
Statistics are based on all cases with
Cases Used
valid data.

21
 FREQUENCIES
Syntax VARIABLES=Name Contacts
/ORDER=ANALYSIS.
Processor Time 00:00:00.02
Resources
Elapsed Time 00:00:00.02

[DataSet1]

Statistics
Countries No. Of Contacts
Valid 14 14
N
Missing 0 0

Frequency Table

Countries
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Belgium 1 7.1 7.1 7.1
Denmark 1 7.1 7.1 14.3
Finland 1 7.1 7.1 21.4
FranceandSpain 1 7.1 7.1 28.6
IcelandandGreece 1 7.1 7.1 35.7
Ireland 1 7.1 7.1 42.9
Valid
ItalyandNetherlands 1 7.1 7.1 57.1
Norway 1 7.1 7.1 64.3
Luxembourg 1 7.1 7.1 71.4
Sweden 1 7.1 7.1 85.7
UnitedKingdom 1 7.1 7.1 100.0
Total 11 100.0 100.0

22
 No. Of Contacts
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
10 1 7.1 7.1 7.1
109 1 7.1 7.1 14.3
116 1 7.1 7.1 21.4
15 2 14.3 14.3 35.7
17 1 7.1 7.1 42.9
18 1 7.1 7.1 50.0
Valid 23 2 14.3 14.3 64.3
240 1 7.1 7.1 71.4
37 1 7.1 7.1 78.6
4 1 7.1 7.1 85.7
41 1 7.1 7.1 92.9
44 1 7.1 7.1 100.0
Total 14 100.0 100.0

CROSSTABS
/TABLES=Name BY Contacts
/FORMAT=AVALUE TABLES
/STATISTICS=CHISQ
/CELLS=COUNT
/COUNT ROUND CELL.

23
Crosstabs

Notes
Output Created 02-AUG-2017 13:19:06
Comments
Active Dataset DataSet1
Filter <none>
Input Weight <none>
Split File <none>
N of Rows in Working Data File 14
User-defined missing values are
Definition of Missing
treated as missing.
Statistics for each table are based on
Missing Value Handling
all the cases with valid data in the
Cases Used
specified range(s) for all variables in
each table.
CROSSTABS
/TABLES=Name BY Contacts
/FORMAT=AVALUE TABLES
Syntax
/STATISTICS=CHISQ
/CELLS=COUNT
/COUNT ROUND CELL.
Processor Time 00:00:00.05
Elapsed Time 00:00:00.07
Resources
Dimensions Requested 2
Cells Available 174762

[DataSet1]

Case Processing Summary

Cases
Valid Missing Total
N Percent N Percent N Percent
Countries * No. Of Contacts 11 100.0% 0 0.0% 11 100.0%

24
[DataSet1]

Countries * No. Of Contacts Crosstabulation

Count
No. Of Contacts Total
10 109 116 15 17 18 23 240 37 4 41 44
Belgium 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
Denmark 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
Finland 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
FranceandSpain 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
IcelandandGreece 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Countries Ireland 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
ItalyandNetherlands 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Norway 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Luxembourg 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
Sweden 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
UnitedKingdom 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
Total 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 11

Chi-Square Tests
Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-
sided)
a
Pearson Chi-Square 154.000 143 .250
Likelihood Ratio 68.348 143 1.000
N of Valid Cases 11
a. 168 cells (100.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count
is .07.

Below table shows the list of 21 countries along with the number contacts that were gathered from
the respective countries.

25
 No of
Country Accounts
Belgium 44
Ireland 15
Luxembourg 4
Denmark 23
Finland 17
Iceland and Greece 15
Sweden and Portugal and Mauritius and
Lebanon 37
Norway 18
Italy and Netherlands 116
France and Spain 109
United Kingdom 240
Total 712

26
 CHAPTER IV
FINDINGS, SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION

Findings

A set of primary objectives were set before the research work was initiated, and the end results were
as follows:
 A considerable number of contacts of the SAP partner firms have been recorded from the
Europe region.
 A good number of contacts of the probable prospects have been jotted down, to whom the
product can be pitched directly. These firms were chosen based on the type of industry they
belong to. For example: Pharma, FMCG, manufacturing etc.
 The mustered contacts were then grouped in to sets and each set of data was used in a
weekly basis. The main sources of communicating the respective Point of Contact of the
target companies were
o E-mail
o Cold calling
o LinkedIn invites
o Inviting the company through their website
o Social networking websites
 Upon succeeding the previous step of communicating with the PoC, a client meeting is
arranged in order to give them a demo on the products of the company.
 The team were successful in closing three deals during the period of two months. The
countries where Infiniti partnered were, Sweden & UK.

Suggestions

After the completion of the project, few observations have been made, and a few suggestions have
been given and these suggestions are only from my point of view.

27
  Most of the start-ups always try to be on an economic game play, but there are a few
circumstances where they need to buy some tools which are of low cost, and are admirably
effective. Hence, to get more reliable data, some paid tools should be used.
 A proper CRM tool should be maintained in order to keep a track on what all tasks have
been done. Whenever a communication is generated or a lead has been converted to a
prospect, the tool needs to be updated with the status of the respective contact.
 Also, storing the data on a CRM tool would help you keep the data in a safe zone. And is
accessible to multiple employees of the organisation.
 If a communication is generated by an employee, he/she should hold the contact till the end
of closure of the deal, else there might be an occurrence of some miscommunication.
 The person communicating should be very attentive, as the communication is being made
with the CXOs and other chiefs of the company, proper attention should be given.
 A lead should be constantly followed up. Once a communication has been generated with a
partner, it should be followed up till the end.
 Proper background check needs to be done before contacting a partner, their language, their
business terms, currency and more.

Conclusion
ERP is now the main tool to run any business, and SAP has grabbed the largest share in the market
and captured most of the customers. Partnering with such a huge firm will make you a value added
organisation too. And making deals with such other partners will just boost your business at God
speed, to make such good deals one should go through an immense hard work and a deep research.
Based on the research this study has formed, an understanding on the usage of the SAP products in
the Europe region, and the scope of ERP adoption including: training, documentation,
communication, change management, process optimization, integration/extension, informate and
enrich usage in all sorts of sectors. My report says that there are numerous opportunities to spread
your business in the respective field and to do so, a proper market research needs to be done, and I
have done it.

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 Bibliography
 http://www.guru99.com/what-is-sap-definition-of-sap-erp-software.html

 https://www.tutorialspoint.com/sap/sap_evolution.html

 https://www.smb-gr.com/blogs-sanjeev-aggarwal/sap-anywhere-enabling-smbs-to-market-
sell-and-commerce-with-an-integrated-front-office-solution/

 SAP-ERP Implementation: Change Management Model using Qualitative Approach

 readingcraze.com

 ori.hhs.gov

 chss.uonbi.ac.ke

 Enterprise Resource Planning: Literature Review Galin Zhelyazkov

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