Saeed Al Khotani Saudi Gazette ISTANBUL – SAP AG, a world leader in enterprise software and software-related services, re-emphasized its commitment to train Saudi youth in the field of IT, in particular to those products and services it provides. The announcement was made by Luis Murguia, SVP Ecosystem and Channels, SAP Europe, Middle East and Africa, in his opening address at the SAP Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) summit held in Istanbul, Turkey last Thursday. The summit attracted mainly senior officials of SAP, its heads of branches, partners, customers, consultants and experts from major countries in the world to discuss the main themes of the summit: Youth unemployment and Enhancing SMEs in the Middle East & North Africa states, including Saudi Arabia. “We have launched Al Mawarid (means the resources in Arabic), six months ago, through which we made a commitment to train 2000 unemployed young Saudis over the next two years on Information technology skills, in collaboration with a number of ministries and governmental agencies, and get them employed, ” he said. “We commend the efforts being made by the government and private sector in the Kingdom, specially these days, to train more Saudis to mobilize them to the workplace,” he further said. Murguia also re-emphasized SAP commitment not only in training youth, but in also in developing SMEs in Saudi Arabia, as well as in MENA region, in a thrust to unlock new routes to innovation and competitiveness. "SMEs are the engine of growth of the region's economy. They are adopting innovation faster than ever, they are winning against larger players, and more than ever before, we need to partner with them and to empower them with the right technology at the right time," Murguia said. Citing the International Finance Corp (IFC) report, he said that Middle East needs to create around 75 million jobs to keep up with growing populations. SMEs in the region represent 80 percent of all business, making them a crucial employment engine. However SMEs in the region face considerable challenges, he said. In particular, their progress and effectiveness is hampered by a lack of finance. The IFC noted that only a fifth of the MENA region's SMEs have a bank account or loan. This is in part driven by caution during uncertain times. Murguia pointed out that business software can play a significant role addressing these challenges, from providing banks with more accurate, analytical overviews of investment prospects, to furnishing SMEs with rapidly deployable solutions that enhance both performance and profit. “Whether it is enterprise resource planning, mobility, analytics, the cloud or in-memory computing – or all of these elements combined – SMEs now have access to an unprecedented set of tools to truly mark them out as forces to be reckoned with. It is up to companies like SAP to help these companies better realize their potential.” Murguia stressed that SAP's longstanding commitment to SMEs – referring to that more than 80 percent of SAP customers worldwide are SMEs, 88 percent of new business clients are small and 35 percent of SAP's sales – come through indirect entrepreneurs. Globally more than 80 percent of SAP's customers are small and midsize companies and the majority of those are coming through partners and other channels.
