SAP Americas, one of the world’s largest business-software companies, is aggressively pursuing business in Colorado on the heels of a local acquisition by its chief rival, Oracle.
SAP Americas is holding its annual sales-team conference this week at the Colorado Convention Center. More than 4,000 SAP sales employees and partners are attending. They heard Tuesday from SAP Americas president and chief executive Bill McDermott.
“If you’re selling a commodity and not adding value, you will have a very difficult time in this environment,” McDermott told The Denver Post. “If the technology that you are selling helps companies manage their business processes better, (or) automates the way in which they bring products to market, you are going to be a strategically relevant company.”
SAP Americas, based in Newtown Square, Pa., is the North American and Latin American subsidiary of Walldorf, Germany-based SAP AG.
The company makes software that runs the back end, or “guts,” of a business, such as payroll and accounts-receivable operations. SAP posted $3.1 billion in revenues in the U.S. and Canada in 2005.
Database company Oracle, based in Redwood Shores, Calif., acquired Denver-based PeopleSoft in 2004. PeopleSoft had merged with Denver-based J.D. Edwards in 2003.
Last week, SAP AG chief executive Henning Kagermann said his company lost some market share to Oracle and Microsoft in the second quarter.
According to McDermott, SAP controls 62 percent of the enterprise resource management market, compared with “the mid- teens” for Oracle.
SAP employs 8,000 worldwide, with 91 in Colorado. SAP clients in Colorado include Molson Coors Brewing Co., Samsonite Corp. and Johns Manville Corp.
Staff writer Kimberly S. Johnson can be reached at 303-820-1088 or kjohnson@denverpost.com.
