Guest Blog by Jacqueline Vanacek, SAP Vice President, Cloud Computing Evangelist, and US CLOUD2 Commissioner
SAP has a growing list of partners who are delivering or will deliver a variety of cloud services to SAP customers – both in the US and abroad.
Gartner predicts that the cloud computing market will grow from $74B in 2012 to $177B in 2012, and Forrester predicts that the cloud computing market will grow from $27B in 2010 to $118.17B by 2014. In either scenario, new business opportunities abound for everyone in the cloud ecosystem.
In light of the massive growth predicted, many SAP users are looking to expand their own business, and better serve their own customers, by accessing the agility and IT cost benefits of the cloud. Accordingly, they will need access to proven and transparent cloud computing services all over the world.
Therefore, I wanted to make the SAP community aware of a new resource that can help SAP partners grow their cloud services business overseas, especially those partners with limited in-house resources available to fully explore the global cloud computing opportunity.
In my role as SAP’s representative on the U.S. Cloud2 Commissions for Federal and State/Local government, I recently convened with Ms. Aileen Nandi of the U.S. Commercial Service (USCS), which is a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce. As a Commercial Officer in San Jose, Calif., Ms. Nandi is one of the more than 1400 trade professionals within the U.S. Commercial Service. With offices located in 108 U.S. cities and U.S. Embassies and Consulates in nearly 80 countries, the U.S. Commercial Service connects U.S. companies with international buyers.
Because of the sheer size of the global cloud computing opportunity, and the complexity of the legal issues around “data crossing borders,” the U.S. Commercial Service could be a great resource for SAP users and partners looking to globalize their business and access cloud computing services overseas to do so.
Below, Ms. Nandi outlines some of the ways that the U.S. Commercial Service can assist cloud computing companies in building their business overseas. For more information, visit http://export.gov/ or email Aileen.Nandi@trade.gov
Helping U.S. Cloud Companies Do Business Overseas
5. For small and medium-sized companies, the U.S. Commercial Service (CS) offers trade counseling, export strategy development, help with documentation and customs issues, market research, and much more. They also arrange matchmaking meetings or virtual introductions with potential international resellers, channel partners, distributors, end-users – whatever kind of partnership is needed abroad. With their network of commercial and business experts in Embassies and Consulates around the world, they are uniquely poised to help you enter new international markets.
4. The CS also liaises with foreign governments on policy issues affecting your business (privacy concerns in the European Union, as an example) or directly advocate for your company if you are involved in a competitive tender. Whether it’s promoting a U.S. sale on behalf of your company or eliminating a trade barrier to allow you to do business in a particular market, they help your company thrive in other countries.
3. If you are interested in partnering with a foreign company to sell your products/services in another country, the CS can do a background check on that company to help with your due diligence efforts. The background check on your potential partner can either be done anonymously, or in coordination with the potential partner through a meeting with one of their Embassy/Consulate commercial specialists.
2. If your company seeks enhanced exposure in other countries, the CS can work with you to structure an event (i.e., product launch, press announcement, promotional forum, etc.) to brand your company and increase your sales abroad. They create the guest list together with your company, and send out invitations to demonstrate to your foreign buyers/partners that the U.S. Government supports your business efforts.
For example, as I had noted in my previous blog in Forbes entitled Cloud is The World’s Economic Opportunity, Japan sees cloud computing as a new business accelerator for small- and medium-sized companies.
And since Japan’s own cloud services market is still emerging, the CS in Japan organized seminars with key chambers of commerce to promote major U.S. cloud service provider offerings to small/medium-sized companies. Japanese business interest was high per the immediate need for proven cloud services as an IT strategy to help make communities and businesses safer and more resilient from the devastating impact of natural disasters,like the most recent tsunami.
1. Finally, if you are befuddled with foreign regulations or tax requirements (and foreign taxes on software can be tricky!), have questions about potential export licenses, are concerned with intellectual property rights (IPR) infractions, would like to benefit from research reports, or need assistance on how to navigate your business in another country, the CS can provide you with the answers you need or provide referrals to appropriate agencies or organizations.
For anyone in the SAP community interested in more information on how the U.S. Commercial Service can support
the expansion of global cloud services opportunities for U.S. companies, contact SAP or see export.gov and email Commercial Officer Aileen.Nandi@trade.gov in Silicon Valley.
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Jacqueline Vanacek is SAP Vice President, Cloud Computing Evangelist and US CLOUD2 Commissioner.
She brings 25 years of business, IT and operations experience in the software and hardware industries. She has been with SAP for 3.5 years, was previously with a cloud infrastructure partner, and before that was a longtime SAP customer. Jacqueline has a special interest in how cloud computing as the next IT wave can strategically enable new business creation, mergers and acquisitions and global expansion – and invites customers to share their success stories.
Contact Jacqueline at j.vanacek@sap.com and follow her at Twitter @JacquelnVanacek
