Dubai — March 12
SAP AG announced a four-year plan worth $450 million to up-skill local talent and drive sustainable innovation and growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The decision highlights the region as a fast-growth market and an integral part of the company’s overall business strategy.
The plan was made public at a press conference held in the United Arab Emirates and hosted by Werner Brandt, chief financial officer and SAP Executive Board member. It includes recruiting more than 500 additional employees, opening several new offices and expanding the company’s partner ecosystem and the SAP University Alliances program.
SAP MENA will also establish a dedicated “Training and Development Institute” that aims to certify 2,000 new consultants within the next four years. This will triple the company’s existing consulting capabilities in the region and further support the localization of SAP services to meet fast-growing regional industry needs.
SAP expects to significantly grow its MENA revenues by 2015, building on an impressive double-digit compound growth rate between 2008 and 2011 and establishing the region as one of the company’s top 10 growth markets globally.
SAP’s plan to bolster its business across MENA comes following the company’s best-ever financial year in 2011, with global software revenue increasing 25 percent at constant currencies to EUR 4 billion and IFRS total revenue increasing 14 percent to EUR 14.2 billion. The robust performance is reflected in a recent study by IDC, an IT intelligence and market advisory firm, which named SAP as MENA’s leading enterprise application software vendor with a more than 37 percent market share.
Source: SAP AG
