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Presenting: Unique Marketing Panache

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DQI Bureau
New Update

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

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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.

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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

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