"There Is No Market More Important Than India"

Bill Mcdermott, CEO and executive board member of software services firm SAP AG, says companies that capture Asia will be the ones to run the world

- N MadhavaN

The fact that he was raised in the working class neighbourhood of New York’s Long Island and, as a teen, began working in a corner deli for hourly wages (he acquired the deli later) did not deter Bill McDermott from dreaming big. He wanted to become the CEO of a company. He sold his deli and pursued a corporate career. His dream came true when he was made co-CEO of SAP in 2010 and, four years later, the German firm’s sole and first non-European CEO. Under him, the world’s largest software services company (with revenues of 20 billion euros) has got its mojo back by re-focusing on customers, and embracing innovation to deliver value. His thrust on OnPremise (SAP’s core enterprise software), OnDemand (cloud-based offering) and OnDevice (mobile strategy) has put the company firmly in line to achieve its revenue target of 26-28 billion euros by 2020. A freak accident last year cost McDermott, 54, his vision in the left eye, but that has not slowed him down. During a recent visit to India, he spoke to Forbes India about his plans for SAP and the critical role India has in its growth. Edited excerpts:

Almost 87 percent of the Forbes Global 2000 companies, 98 percent of the most valued brands and 100 percent of dow Jones top scoring sustainability companies are your customers. Where will your future growth come from?

A lot of our growth will come from growth in the same-account revenue [existing customer base] as our product portfolio is a lot broader than it used to be. If you look closely at our same-account revenue growth, based on the innovation that we have put into the portfolio over the last six years, 80 percent of our revenues are coming from businesses we were not there in five years ago. We are having an amazing up-sell and cross-sell within our existing customer base.

You have been focusing on small and medium enterprises (sMes) as well...