As leveraging the advantage of IT has become a matter of survival for organizations across the globe, choosing the right technology partner is proving to be a ball game. Organizations are in pursuit of a strategic IT partner who not only understands their business, but also has deep knowledge of the respective industry. Recognizing that one size never fits all, sa.global – one of the globally leading Microsoft Partners providing dedicated Microsoft Azure-based ERP, CRM, HCM, and business intelligence solutions - has built a plinth of industry experience, which is diverse in nature and comprises subject-matter experts.

The company, which is well-known for its consultative approach and a diverse, highly skilled and experienced workforce, has received 11 Microsoft Partner of the Year awards for providing outstanding solutions and services. CIO Insider engages in an exclusive chat session with sa.global’s country head, Kapil Gupta. A technology thought leader & an IT strategist, Kapil is an expert in enterprise architecture with multi-geography experience.

In conversation with Kapil Gupta, Country Head - India, sa.global

The market for Microsoft solutions is riding along a high growth curve, thanks to the cloud market. While Microsoft has more than 64,000 cloud partners, where is sa.global positioned? What’s your USP?
sa.global is a part of Microsoft’s elite Inner Circle – the top one percent of Microsoft business partners. We have been in the business applications space for over 30 years. In fact, we were working on the core platforms that underpin Microsoft Business Solutions for several years before Microsoft acquired them. As the product moved to the cloud, we were amongst the first few partners to have implemented the cloud solution globally. Today, our entire business is 100 percent focused on delivering solutions and services on the Microsoft Azure cloud.

From an industry standpoint, we are Professional Services specialists and have a deep appreciation of the entire lead to cash cycle. We believe our

expertise and solutions in the area make us a great partner for our clients. Our understanding of the complexities of a project based business makes us an obvious choice for a Professional Services Organization (PSO) looking to leverage the power of Microsoft technology, and deliver a superior experience for their end customers.

How do you ensure understanding the customer’s precise pain-points and delivering the problem/ requirement centric, integrated solutions rather than just selling the deliverables? Is there any SOP in place to ascertain this?
Our process starts when we plan and execute on business transformation strategies that we collaboratively build with our clients using the Microsoft Catalyst framework of Inspire, Design, Empower, and Achieve (IDEA). This is then put into practice through our proven delivery methodology - ACCelerate - which provides the much needed framework, tool sets, IPs, and enablers for our teams to work along with our clients and to be a part of their success - more like an integrated team rather than an external partner. Furthermore, being a global organization allows us to work as distributed teams and bring in the appropriate expertise on projects.

create a digital backbone for modern businesses, enabling real-time business insights, fostering collaborative work environments in global firms, and driving sustained realization of investments through Managed Services. In addition, our consulting workforce provides assessments and guidance towards creating resilient businesses, while the Advisory Services across financial and digital transformation help us work alongside our clients in their transformation journeys. Above all, we provide our global clients with 24x7 support.

Could you tell us a challenging case study, including the before-after scenario?
A few years back, we started our engagement with Quant, an organization divested from ABB. Quant replaced their existing partner to engage with us. While we have implemented larger projects and smaller ones, this one was the most challenging in terms of scope and time involved.

The divestment from ABB was a huge business change for Quant, as they were now against a task of implementing the Microsoft Dynamics solution across their 35 legal entities in 28 countries within their acquisition transition period of nine months. Our teams stood to the challenge and rolled out the designed global template to all their entities across the globe. The rollouts were done in multiple waves, considering factors such as revenue, geography, and technical complexities, as well as impact on business.

The entire project was similar to conducting parts of an orchestra, given the localization and regional regulatory compliances requirements. Quant went live across the globe, running on Microsoft Dynamics in one of our largest professional services implementations of Microsoft Dynamics that was delivered flawlessly in record time. I am proud to say that, to date, Quant is amongst our prestigious clients and now engages with us for Managed Services for the Microsoft Business Platform.

What is the kind of future roadmap ahead of sa.global? What are the areas that your company is going to invest in?
We aim to remain aligned with Microsoft business solutions as a platform of choice. With this, we will bring our global expertise to the India client base rapidly and help them prepare their businesses for global operations at a faster pace. Keeping this in mind, we are investing in areas like building a Model Office - a preconfigured solution for PSOs, a readymade set of reports and KPIs that can help in decision making, and Workforce Collaboration Apps leveraging Microsoft Teams, the Power Platform, and AI.