SAP elevates Paul Marriott as president for APJ region

German enterprise software giant SAP has appointed Paul Marriott as president for Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) markets.

Marriott will be responsible for driving SAP’s growth in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, the company said in a statement.

He will report to Scott Russell, SAP executive board member, customer success.

“SAP has a heritage of over 30 years in Asia, helping over 46,000 enterprises big and small to be successful. I am confident that Paul’s tenure with customers in APJ as well as his relentless focus on delivering customer value and outcomes will help enterprises accelerate their next phase of digitization,” Russell said.

A technology veteran with over 25 years of experience in Asian economies, Marriott was most recently the region’s COO at SAP.

“The economic growth in Asia Pacific did not come without consequences. The region is also the largest carbon dioxide polluter in the world, with an estimated 17 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually. We aim to onboard the top organizations through 2021 to our Climate 21 initiative in APJ – ‘21 in 21’, to help reduce their carbon footprint,” Marriott said.

SAP’s Climate 21 initiative offers insights to organizations to help them assemble, assess and act on their carbon emissions footprint along the supply and value chain to manage their green line.

SAP’s portfolio includes industry cloud, business technology platform, and S/4HANA enterprise resource planning. In January 2021, the company launched a digital transformation programme named RISE with SAP.

In the APJ region, SAP’s cloud revenue increased 18% (IFRS) and 21% (non-IFRS at constant currencies) with Japan, South Korea and Singapore being the highlights, the company said. Cloud and software revenue was flat (IFRS) and up 2% (non-IFRS at constant currencies). Japan, Australia and India had a robust performance in software licenses revenue, it added.

SAP’s customers in APJ include Asian Paints, Bank Central Asia, BHP, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Hyundai-Kia Motor, Sony, The Australian Federal Government, National Australia Bank, NTT, Nikkei, Standard Chartered Bank, Yodobashi Camera, and Zespri International.

Last month, SAP announced that it will invest Rs 500 crore in India to localise and offer a multi-cloud choice to its customers. The company plans to make available its multiple cloud solutions in India data centres. 

In May last year, SAP launched the SAP S/4 HANA Cloud and SAP commerce cloud on its India data centre. In June, it launched a programme to equip micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in India with digital technologies to make them globally competitive. Dubbed Global Bharat, the programme provides business owners access to the global marketplace, digital skilling opportunities for the workforce and business transformation processes to drive efficiency in the MSME sector.