SAP, a leader in enterprise application software, recently opened its new office in Kuwait.

The occasion was marked with the presence of the German Ambassador to the State of Kuwait, Frank Marcus Mann, who was joined by Gergi Abboud, country manager for SAP Gulf, as well as several key SAP clients.

Also present was Rami Kichli, SAP’s recently appointed sales manager for Kuwait and Bahrain.

Kuwait represents SAP’s third largest market in the Gulf, with IT market intelligence firm IDC noting the country’s 2011 IT spend stood at $1 billion.

“SAP’s investment in Kuwait is hugely welcome, and is set to play a vital part in the country’s development and economic diversification,” said Mann.

“The German government places the highest importance on the development of IT infrastructure in Germany. IT innovation is worldwide more important than ever before, and I am delighted that a German company shows its commitment to contribute to this development in Kuwait.”

“SAP has been truly ‘Partners in Success’ with EQUATE as we manifest continued excellence in every aspect of our operational processes,” said Mohammad Husain, president and CEO of petrochemical firm EQUATE, one of SAP’s longest-running clients in Kuwait.

“Innovation drives our success, which is founded on a potent combination of distinguished human resources, business growth, social responsibility and environmental best practices.

“Through working with SAP, we have gained a notable edge on the competition and been able to deliver better returns for all our stakeholders. It is no wonder that the company is scaling up its operations across Kuwait to help businesses across all sectors run better.”

SAP’s enhanced Kuwait operations form part of a recently announced four year additional spend plan across the Mena region.

The plan includes recruiting more than 500 additional employees, opening several new offices and expanding the SAP partner ecosystem and the SAP University Alliances program.

Additionally, significant increases will be made in the availability of comprehensive, innovative and localized service offerings.

SAP Mena has also established a training and development institute that aims to certify 2,000 new consultants within the next four years. This will triple the company’s existing consulting capabilities in the region and further support the localization of SAP solutions to meet fast-growing regional industry needs.

Kuwait is seen as central to SAP’s ambitions in the region, and the company hopes to build on its successes to date, which includes a strategic partnership with Kuwait University to create the country’s first SAP University Competence Center (UCC).

 “Kuwait is an exciting market for SAP,” said Abboud.

“Today’s office opening signifies a new level of investment in the country as we seek to expand our ability to help businesses and organizations run better through IT innovation in areas such as analytics, mobility, cloud and in-memory computing.”

Further indicative of SAP’s increased focus on Kuwait is the fact it will host its SAP Forum, a knowledge and networking conference, in Kuwait City on November 27. – TradeArabia News Service