SAP mulling dedicated cloud sales force to push on-demand products

SAP is considering setting up a sales team focused exclusively on selling the firm's growing portfolio of cloud products, in an attempt to better promote its offerings in this growing market.

SAP European president Franck Cohen admitted to V3 that the company has not been the best at articulating its cloud proposition to customers.

An SAP User Group survey last week found that 58 per cent of customers thought there was a lack of clarity about SAP's cloud roadmap, while 27 per cent were not even aware of SAP's cloud computing offerings.

"I think historically SAP has been an ERP driven company and an on-premise company and we have to do better promoting cloud solutions, so we're looking at a dedicated sales force to sell on-demand solutions in future," he said.

"By having this we'll have a way around the complicated situation of 'should we promote on-premise or should we promote on-demand?' and we can be more agile."

The move is only in the planning stages at the moment but could go live as soon as next year, Cohen said.

Cohen also revealed that SAP is on track to reach 1,000 global customers for its flagship cloud offering for SMEs, Business ByDesign, with 650 already signed up.

"It was originally targeted at the mid-sized segment but we're seeing more and more larger companies adopting this solution," he said. "It's an interesting situation with larger customers now using it for their subsidiaries."

Cohen also said that SAP will continue to expand its portfolio of cloud-based products to improve customer choice, and hinted that an HR-related product will soon be available to buy as a software-as-a-service offering.