"We are digitizing the midmarket"

SMEs have long since gone digital. This was confirmed by our study "Digitalization Index for SMEs 2019/2020". Discussions with our customers show us on a daily basis that they know they need to change in order to remain competitive.

And they are already developing digital services and products that address the needs of their customers. I am delighted that more than half of small and medium-sized enterprises have now anchored digitalization in their business strategy.

Companies have internalized that cloud and transformation are inconceivable without each other. This is because local servers cannot keep up with the cloud - it scores points with its flexibility as well as its efficiency and scalability.

As a result, more and more SMEs are moving at least part of their ERP infrastructure to the cloud - and because 80 percent of SAP customers are SMEs, there will be a large migration movement.

Our customers want to be able to concentrate on the important things. On their core business, which they need to transform digitally. On innovations that strengthen their competitiveness.

This means, for example: What can be automated, they want to automate. For example, with technology from SAP. Ideally, such managed services should therefore range from network connection, IT infrastructure and security to consulting and operation as well as services for SAP solutions.

This is precisely why we have changed from the ground up in recent years: Of course, connectivity, our core business with its fixed and mobile network components, remains important. But increasingly as the basis for IT applications. Because IT is becoming the real growth driver - for us and for our customers.

Making digitalization simple

Regardless of which IT infrastructure, which type of cloud or which software service is involved: We are committed to making digitalization easy for our customers.

Connectivity must be as easy to use as electricity from the socket. The same applies to IT services. For many years, we have been responsible for ensuring that our customers are always available for their end customers - by phone and online. We are committed to ensuring that their business-critical processes run without interruption.

Over the years, we have also built up an excellent partner network. Why is this important for our customers? Because it enables us to offer them managed services for SAP applications on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, for example - worldwide, as many of our SME customers have long since gone global.

With SAP on Azure - and also with our Open Telekom Cloud - SMEs are already in the starting blocks for future technologies such as big data, AI and IoT.

They can tap into their data potential and ensure smooth data exchange between a wide range of applications and devices in the cloud.

With us, customers have the choice. Companies want maximum flexibility - and everything from a single source. Service providers have to be measured against this.