'SAP is Ready to Dominate the Mobile Enterprise Application Market'

As almost every enterprise is on the verge of a mobile transformation, what do you think is the current state of enterprise mobility? What are the most significant trends you see here?
Mobility has emerged as an integral part of business strategy. People today use their mobile device to communicate, collaborate and share experiences via SMS, MMS; they check bank balances, transfer funds, pay bills, send money to friends and family. There is a combination of several trends that are driving and re-enforcing the overarching mobile trend. These trends are shaping the mobile competitive landscape and fueling the demand for enterprise mobility solutions. The year 2014 will see information solutions go on to the next level and become platform-agnostic. Gartner, had predicted that by 2014, most mobile workers will be using their mobile phone as the primary communications device.

One of the big challenges for CIOs or IT leaders is to identify the kind of applications they should develop or deploy to enable a mobile enterprise. And according to a Citrix mobility report last year, Windows apps, used on desktops and laptops, were still dominating the scene. So is it still a long way to go for mobile apps?
Mobile technology has liberated us in ways that were previously unimaginable, enabling us to connect instantly to what matters most and move seamlessly between various spheres in our lives. This fluid transition between thoughts and immediate action is the ultimate user experience. It can be argued that today's smartphone is the single biggest contributor to personal and business productivity.

Productivity apps on smartphones are at the cutting edge of this movement. SAP offers numerous mobile apps for all industries and LOBs, along with SAP Fiori for creating your own beautiful, powerful apps, or to renew existing ones for a more elegant look and feel.

With any technology, we often start with a period of early adoption. Here only innovators are willing to take a chance with new technology. However, we are now reaching the point with mobility where it becomes ubiquitous. Combine increasing employee expectations, consumerization of IT, and decreasing cost of hardware and you see a sudden explosion in demand for quality mobile technology in the workplace. SAP's Mobile technology is arguably the most delightful user experience our customers have seen. We're ready to dominate the mobile enterprise application market.

There are several challenges to wider deployment of enterprise applications on mobile devices including development cost, security concerns, increased maintenance costs etc. How can this be resolved? What is the role enterprise mobility players have to play?
Cost, security, maintenance - These are all very real concerns for our customers. Regardless of industry, we all face a pressing need to transform business for the digitized world. It may seem intimidating, but the companies that survive and thrive are those that rethink their operating model and seamlessly integrate technology to better serve their customers.

It's our job to think through these challenges with them and for them so that they can focus on whatever it is that they do best for their customers. Burberry is a great example. SAP partnered with Burberry to digitize their business and their end-to-end customer journey so that their customers have an exceptional experience. Leveraging technology, Burberry can exceed their customers' expectations both in the store and online.

While SAP is clearly one of the leaders in the enterprise mobility space, it must also be facing tough competition from emerging players. Will leaders like SAP have to realign their strategy or product offerings to maintain their position in a changing market?

SAP's vision is to extend its leadership in Enterprise Mobility to enable the best, most scalable, most secure user experience for SAP Services. There is a specific user experience associated with each of the areas including development of applications, the security of data, content, devices and applications, and providing the best platform for mobilizing applications, and here is where we aim to excel; Mobile First is the guiding principle behind all our solutions and applications running on premise or in the cloud and powered by SAP HANA.

We're just launching SAP Mobile Platform (SMP) 3.0, the platform that allows enterprises to develop new, innovative apps like STM Merci and mobilize existing applications in unique and powerful ways.

Analysts had predicted that in 2014 enterprise mobile apps will become a "core part" of the enterprise IT application stack. What is the opportunity for players in enterprise mobility?
Technology is integral to businesses of all sizes across the globe. Whether you're a shea nut farmer in Ghana or a Fortune 100 company, it's real-time data in the palm of your hand that allows you to make the best decisions for your company. Mobile apps as a core part of the enterprise IT application stack give your employees the power to access data on your existing infrastructure and respond more effectively to keep your business moving forward.

Going ahead, what will be SAP's key strategy to strengthen its leadership position in enterprise mobility? 

While SAP has had a mobile strategy for over 15 years, our position in enterprise mobility started with the acquisition of Sybase in 2010. That sent the first clear signal to the market that we would not start from scratch by building everything ourselves. Instead, we would adopt a more pragmatic approach to buy as well as make.
SAP has a three-part growth strategy, which will aggressively accelerate our growth:
The Platform:
- Mobile and cloud are at an intersection and inflection point that create a tremendous opportunity for customers
- SAP is the cloud company powered by HANA and mobile is the most popular user consumption paradigm for cloud services. Almost everyone carries a mobile device in their pocket and they rely on data that is in the cloud, businesses run in the cloud and applications run in the cloud.

The Channel:
- With a "Partner First" strategy, SAP has built a thriving mobile community consisting of VARS, SIs and Telcos. This mobile partner ecosystem helps extend our reach by hosting and delivering mobile solutions that enable customers to simplify their mobile experience.

Internet of Things:
- The need to connect devices, things and people is exploding. SAP is fundamentally in a stronger position than anyone else in the market because our heritage and experience in overcoming business challenges brings our product portfolio together to enable secure end points, back-end predictive data, the back office and everything in between. Our entire portfolio and expertise will help shape and securely manage the internet of things.