SAP journey with GST

SAP has came up with GST offerings which gives enterprises an opportunity to get GST ready in 100 days on a hosted cloud model

Has the industry been taken by surprise on the GST regarding the technology readiness which is required?

Companies who are listed in India, that is about 10-20% of all enterprises and have statutory regulations- these enterprises have been preparing for GST since last 6-12 months, at least. For these companies, it is not just about getting themselves GST ready; it is about their tier one/ tier two suppliers to get GST ready. It is also about their customer contracts and internal processes being updated. We are aware of these facts because A) a significant portion of corporate taxes in India are paid by an organization’s customers. B) As a philosophy and a policy, ever since we started our operation in India, we have tried to ensure that our business solutions are statutory compliant.

SAP started its GST journey way back in November 2014 and six months ago, we created GST awareness workshops. We realised that many mid-sized businesses and SMEs and MSMEs across the nation are the ones that needed education and hand-holding. We went to 21 cities for our GST health check drives and also launched specific GST solutions for their benefit.

What are some of the biggest challenges that you see with respect to gearing up for the GST? What are the challenges that you have experienced while working with large organization?

Large organizations usually have multiple suppliers. But not all suppliers will be GST ready, which is a threat to these organizations, as well as to the suppliers. Some of these big organizations have taken a very principled approach and are willing to not work with suppliers who aren’t GST ready. This will push a lot of tier two and tier three suppliers to become GST compliant. Also, large organizations