German technology SAP is celebrating its 25th anniversary in Portugal with a solid track record of growth and plans to hire 60 workers in different areas of its international service centre in 2019 and expand the facilities.
“I think it is a solid growth path,” which translates into “the number of customers, the more than 5,600 companies using SAP in Portugal, more than 100 partners working in SAP and more than 420 employees” , the director general of the company in Portugal, Luís Urmal Carrasqueira, told after a meeting with journalists about the company’s 25 years in Oeiras.
He noted that in recent years SAP has grown “always above market growth” and exceeded the “100 million euro billing barrier” last year, doubling the amount recorded 10 years earlier.
By 2018, the estimate is that this growth will continue, according to Luís Urmal Carrasqueira: “Thus we hope”.
“Our growth has been not in large companies, but especially in the Portuguese business community and SMEs,” an area in which “have been the best years ever,” he noted.
In terms of employees, SAP hired 80 people this year in the country, with a total of 420 employees.
“For 2018, we thought we would only reach 400 employees by the end of the year and we could surpass 420 by the end of the year,” the company’s director general noted.
Asked about new hires, Luís Urmal Carrasqueira spoke about “about 60 new people for the next year” for the group’s international service centre, which advice on applying SAP solutions in other countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. to have more than 300 people.
About the profile of these collaborators, Luís Urmal Carrasqueira admitted that SAP privileges “areas of engineering and management”.
Still, “obviously we extend to other areas,” since “we work with customers from different sectors and the knowledge of the industry is no less important than the knowledge of technology,” he added.
According to company data, there are employees of more than 10 nationalities, with a mean age of 36 years, 36% of which are women.
The SAP is also looking for new facilities, since the ones it is in, in the Lagoas Park business park in Oeiras, are starting to be small.
“At the moment, we need to grow and this is a good sign and we are evaluating the solutions and we are in the process of proposing,” said the official, refusing to point out hypotheses for being “all on the table”.
The move, which “should have” already taken place, is due in 2019.
“We needed about 2,000 to 3,000 square meters more, to safeguard some growth, not immediately. In the immediate future, we should need 400 to 500 square meters more,” he said, explaining that this expansion includes the international service centre.
Also next year, the technology wants to bet on innovative solutions for the companies it serves, in areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and user experience.
