SAP Australia in Metcash win

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Suzanne Tindal, ZDNet.com.au
05 August 2009 07:54 PM

In the announcement for its first half results to 30 June, SAP Australia today let fall a number of key wins, including Oracle customer Metcash.

"I think that's a very important one," SAP head for Australia and New Zealand Tim Ebbeck told ZDNet.com.au.

"They're coming to SAP because they see the journey we'll take them on. In that whole [consumer packaged goods] space, that's quite an important win for us," he said. The focus in the project would be "on time, on budget, on value" according to Ebbeck.

The win comes only three months after Metcash revealed it had carried out an Oracle database upgrade earlier this year.

This quarter, Supercheap Auto also became the first company to buy the company's new SAP Business Objects Explorer. "They've got a high volume business with a huge number of transactions where the executives of the organisations start looking in real time at some of the trends," Ebbeck said.

The company had also won deals with the Good Guys, ASICS, ERM Power, Mondial Insurance and Ego Pharmaceuticals. Optus had extended its investment too.

The company has increased its overall revenue in this quarter by 16 per cent on the second quarter last year, while this half compared to the same period in 2008 saw revenue rise by 14 per cent. "We're certainly operating in post GFC right now, so we're pretty happy with the first half results.," Ebbeck said.

2008 had been a spectacular year, he said. SAP had not tried to fleece its customers, which had stood it in good stead for 2009. There was a significant amount of work in the market, he said, but in a counterintuitive manner, not in the public sector. SAP has been carrying on with its traditional focus and the continuation of its large projects such as the Commonwealth Bank, Australia Post and Rio Tinto.