In my Bilafer’s BHAG: The Quest For The Whole Product, I talked about SAP’s quest for “whole products”—products our partners build on SAP as a platform to add value right off the shelf so our mutual customers get additional leverage from their SAP investment. Whole products are the key to SAP’s transition to a platform company, and the expertise and creativity of our ecosystem and partners in developing these products is incredibly important to our quest. So, of course, is monetization.
In this three-part series of posts, I want to talk about how you can monetize the products you build on SAP.
“So Kurt,” you say, “How do I get started?” The answer is SAP EcoHub, our online marketplace.
It should be no surprise that SAP has several ways for you to market and monetize your whole product, but in my travels I find that EcoHub is still a well-kept secret.
Simply put, EcoHub is an "app store" for enterprise software, where customers and prospects can discover, evaluate, buy and launch SAP-based solutions. Market trends are driving partners to differentiate their offerings. The specialized marketplaces we’re building in EcoHub, such as Business Analytics, the SAP Store for Mobile Apps and SAP Business ByDesign, give partners an additional channel to reach customers and prospects connected to the SAP community in a very targeted way.
EcoHub is featured on the SAP Community Network, SCN, which has grown to over 2 million members. That's a lot of visibility. Plus, our internal research shows that 84% of those who visit SAP EcoHub are decision makers and influencers, so it’s a great audience to get in front of.
Once you establish a storefront on EcoHub, SAP offers you lots of marketing support to help convert visitors to customers, including social media, advertising, and search engine optimization. You’ll also have opportunities to present your product at SAP and industry events and get connected to other SAP groups and channels.
We already have some great success stories from partners with EcoHub storefronts, and I’ll share one with you in the third post in this series. But really, EcoHub is still in its infancy. We’ll be continuing to put a lot of resources into it, and our partners will benefit from all SAP is doing to drive traffic and make the EcoHub part of ours and our customers’ DNA.
If you haven’t visited EcoHub yet, stop by and see what our partners have to offer, and start thinking about your own EcoHub storefront. The cat is out of the bag.
