Business software maker SAP AG is creating a new unit to meet the consulting needs of multinational customers who implement the company’s products on a global scale.
The Global Professional Services Organization (Global PSO) is scheduled to begin work by the end of the year, SAP said Wednesday.
The new unit will not replace existing regional PSOs, which currently serve most clients out of the company’s 50 to 60 national subsidiaries, said SAP spokesman Gerhard Rickes.
“Those subsidiary PSOs will continue to exist; they will continue to work on regional projects, so whenever a customer has a regional project that just spans a country or two, that is handled out of those operations. But if a customer has a global operation … that’s when the SAP global PSO comes into play.”
SAP plans to build a new team of specialized staff, said Rickes, but he declined to say how many people might be hired or how much the company plans to spend on the new unit.
“We’re looking for a very specific skill set for employees of this organization, because they’re going to be dealing with international projects that span more than one country. So we’re looking for people both internally and externally who meet those criteria,” he said.
Rickes added that the company does not seek to take business away from the major international consulting firms, like PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, that also offer global consulting to multinational SAP users.
“We really want to tackle this issue together with our partners, since we’re in no way out to increase our market share,” he said. “We simply want to set a standard for global projects consulting which will have an effect on the overall SAP consulting ecosystem.”
SAP AG, in Walldorf, Germany, can be reached at http://www.sap.de/.
