Presenting: Unique Marketing Panache

A veteran of the APAC enterprise market, Ruth Connolly joined PeopleSoft from
SAP, where she held the position of senior V-P (marketing), Singapore, and
managing director of SAP’s India operations. Earlier, Connolly headed Autodesk
Asia and Sterling Commerce Asia. She spoke to Dataquest on PeopleSoft’s focus
on Asia and the challenges faced by enterprises on the IT front

What do you see as the most challenging aspects of your new assignment?

I’m incredibly excited about working for PeopleSoft. The company has
demonstrated its leadership in technology and has strong, focused management
centered on growing the international business–with Asia Pacific being a
central region. Our market leadership is at different stages in difference
countries–so building that leadership and maintaining it is going to be a
challenge. It’s also challenging and thrilling to be working on new market
strategies at a time when organizations are shutting down operations.

Could
you outline your vision for PeopleSoft APAC, as well as PeopleSoft India in
particular?

India has been identified as one of the key markets in the Asia Pacific region.
PeopleSoft’s strategy is to focus on financial services, communication, ITeS,
government, education, healthcare, and retail industries to offer our best in
class applications. PeopleSoft plans to grow the market through its direct
presence while also building partnerships with reputed Indian consulting and
system integrators. We will leverage on the skilled manpower resources through
our software development initiatives in India.

Given your extensive experience in APAC, what are the issues that are
unique to this region?

Asia-Pacific is a really diverse community–geographically and culturally.
Businesses are at different levels of technology adoption and business
practices. In some countries, working on mainframe systems is still commonplace.
In others, client server architectures are prevalent. So, levels of technology
adoption are different across the region. Every country has varying economic
conditions, but countries across Asia have different growth rates and economic
health. Competitors are also to some degree, unique.

Which are the Asian countries that display maximum market readiness in the
enterprise application space?

It varies enormously, but countries that have displayed readiness for
enterprise applications include India, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, and
Japan. In countries like India and China, companies are really enthusiastic and
keen to drive best practices and maximize productivity and efficiency. That is
really fuelling their adoption of enterprise applications.

What do enterprises need to do in order to derive full benefit from
enterprise applications?

The first thing a company needs to do is to start with identifying the
business pain or need. The company that thinks in terms of the business process
rather than a complete solution is far more likely to drive quick returns and
success in its enterprise application deployment. Executive sponsor support is
of course essential. Without support from the top, driving successful change can
be difficult.

Which areas of enterprise application software do you think will drive
markets in the future?

There is a strong focus on Return on Investment–so applications that can
present fast returns will continue to be key. In terms of specific applications,
organizations are moving fast toward best practices in financials and HR, while
and corporate accountability is part and parcel of the financials focus. SRM–supplier
relationship management–and total spend management also addresses a real
business need and will also drive the market.

Manjiri Kalghatgi in New Delhi