Headstart expands through United VARs LLP

The limited liability partnership United VARs LLP was established in conjunction with the start of SAPPHIRE NOW, SAP's global user conference held in Madrid on 8 November 2011.

This move gives the alliance, which had its beginnings in March 2006 as the United VARs partner network, a powerful marketing, sales and co-ordination platform that will not only enhance the globally co-ordinated service and support provided to established clients, but also promote the acquisition of new international client projects. And it will bring United VARs and SAP AG closer together, especially now that the alliance has assumed an important »sounding board« function for SAP when it comes to partner issues and concerns. This is why United VARs LLP will have its registered offices within the PartnerPort at SAP's headquarters in Walldorf starting in January 2012.

United VARs is one of the world's largest alliances of SAP consultants with its 22 partner members, which share in the funding of the newly established United VARs LLP and employ more than 4,000 SAP consultants in 57 countries, including all of the world's major commercial centres of the manufacturing industry, and which together represent an SAP-related sales volume of over $1.5 billion. The members of this alliance are all leading SAP software resellers within the small to mid-size enterprise (SME) segments in their respective countries. They differ markedly from other SAP partners in the amount of regularly generated software licensing revenues, and the number and scope of newly acquired SAP implementation projects. As a result, most have earned Gold Partner status as part of the SAP PartnerEdge programme.

The management structure of this newly formed United VARs LLP consists of a 3-member board of directors comprising Detlef Mehlmann (All for One Midmarket AG, Filderstadt/Germany), Alejandro Daniel O'Davoren (Seidor S.A., Barcelona/Spain) and John McGrath (Answerthink Inc., Florida/USA), along with a steering committee for the five regions of North & South America, DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), Central Europe, EMEA (Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa) and Asia Pacific, as well as one representative from the global SAP organisation. The guiding principle of United VARs LLP is to serve and support small to mid-size SAP users on site and across the globe through strong local consulting firms using uniform operating and quality standards, and to do this in their local language and in accordance with local legal requirements. In most cases clients will continue to contract directly with the respective United VARs partners. In addition to United VARs SAP Business All-in-One Partners the alliance is having to become open for SAP Business One channel partners and SAP Business ByDesign solution resellers and is also seeking SAP Global Partner status.

Eric Duffaut, SAP Executive Vice President and General Manager Global Ecosystem & Channels: »Today's successful SMEs are innovative, entrepreneurial and flexible. They are sometimes cross industries, and often have expansion and growth plans beyond their local market. They require a multi-industry and/or multi-country end-to-end support infrastructure, which United VARs is able to provide. United VARs promotes a full SME portfolio approach to cater to customers' heterogeneous expectations regarding different deployment options, deep vertical depth, and the implementation expertise to provide customers with a 'best fit' solution. Further, as one of the largest alliance of SAP consultants for the midmarket, United VARs continues to be a leading voice in the SAP Ecosystem bringing innovation of our entire SME portfolio – SAP Business One, SAP Business All-in-One and SAP Business ByDesign – as well as our analytics solutions and mobility platform to customers.«.

Detlef Mehlmann, All for One Midmarket AG and Chairman of the United VARs LLP Board of Directors: »Even in its set up as just a partner network, United VARs made a significant contribution to SAP's success among internationally operating small and mid-size companies over the past five years and regularly generated outstanding results. For us as a United VARs partner, it is both an extra special challenge and a great pleasure to form United VARs LLP into not only one of the world's largest, but also globally most powerful co-operations of leading SAP partners«.

Sari Mikkonen, Headstart Oy Managing Director:  "We have been the Finnish representative for the United VARs network for a few years and our experience of the network has been positive. We have co-operated with our international partners on customer cases involving futher development needs as well as supported our partners cases by offering local resources to their customer's needs within project delivery. Our current and future SAP-customers benefit of United VARs LLP through our ability to deliver high quality services and comprehensive,sustainable and innovative solutions regardless of our customer's geographic location."

www.headstart.fi
www.facebook.com/Headstart-Oy
www.united-vars.com
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• Strong growth signal: Global partner network gains powerful marketing, sales and co-ordination platform
• Wide range of services on site in 57 countries 
• More than 4,000 SAP consultants 
• Alliance sales volume of more than $1.5 billion 
• »Sounding board« for SAP 
• Headquarters within the SAP PartnerPort in Walldorf 
• Seeking SAP Global Partner status