Ramco Systems Ltd is strengthening its top management to take on industry giants such as SAP and Oracle in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) space.
The latest top ranking official to come on board is Alan Sedghi, former CEO of SAP India.
Strategic advisor
He will be a strategic advisor to help Ramco enter new regions in Asia, where he has worked for over two decades.
The Chennai-based software company has also roped in Alan Laking, Managing Director at Joint Venture Sales Consultants Ltd, as a consultant to advise the company to widen its base in Europe.
The appointment of Sedghi and Laking comes after Ramco brought on board Virender Aggarwal as CEO last May. The new appointments will help Ramco increase its global presence in offering products and solutions on the cloud, which is the next big wave in information technology industry.
With a career spanning over 30 years in the IT industry, Sedghi was Managing Director, Hewlett-Packard Thailand, CEO at SAP India and ASEAN region and an Associate Partner at Accenture.
When asked why he chose a smaller company after serving big global brands, Sedghi said, “Ramco has a great product and solution. They have the best stories to tell to customers and I will help them by taking the message to some of the clients with whom I have dealt with before.” Ramco’s drawback is its lack of branding in the market and knowledge of the market. “There is a bit of gap, which we can fill by getting the message across to clients,” Sedghi told Business Line .
SAP continues to have ‘legacy systems’ and is capitalising on its large existing customer base and maximising it. On the contrary, Ramco’s products are ‘user-driven’ and can be customised for a particular client at a short time.
“We can beat companies like SAP and Oracle, if we get the message right to customers. This is, however, going to be a major challenge,” he said.
Cloud biz
Globally, Ramco wants to increase its footprint in cloud by adding customers and partners. Its thrust is to offer ERP on mobile with a “new user interface, in-memory computing, social and context-aware solutions.”
A number of companies are using legacy systems of other companies. “We need to tap these clients, who can switch over to the latest technology in a few weeks,” he said.
Countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia offer great opportunities for Ramco, he said.
raja.simhan@thehindu.co.in