Why can’t “they” figure out that we won’t do business with them if they treat us like dirt – or worse, cash cows? Don’t they realize that, ironically, the more they don’t try to “sell” us something we don’t believe we need – and instead help us figure out what we need – the more likely we are to buy from them, not just once, but over and over? With competition cutthroat in the market right now, only the strong will survive – and “strong” in this case means knowing how to care for your customer.

So, given the tough economic climate right now, SAP Israel can consider itself lucky that it has a manager of the caliber of Gilad Gans. Gans, Managing Director of SAP Israel, is responsible for the overall marketing, sales and distribution of SAP products in Israel. Gans oversees the strategic planning and implementation of sales and field activities, professional services and product development, as well as leading investment opportunities in the region. And, he is a chief reason for SAP’s strong showing in an otherwise so-so economy. How strong? “Israel is the second largest market in the world for rampups of SAP’s CRM 2007, after Germany,” Gans says, a significant sales accomplishment that bespeaks a winning strategy – something not lost on SAP executives from countries around the world, who pile into SAP Israel’s Ra’anana office to learn how the local branch has come up with one of the most winning sales strategies of any of the company’s branches anywhere.

SAP, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is the multinational software and information management company, originally based in Germany, that provides a wide range of solutions to customers seeking to make their businesses more efficient, or compete more effectively in the marketplace. Some of SAP’s products include database management, customer relationship management (CRM) software and systems, enterprise resource planning systems, financial planning, and much more. The case of SAP Israel is interesting because it highlights Israel’s unique position and creativity in the world of hi-tech and business – even in the context of what would seem to be a staid, conservative multinational corporation.

When one thinks of a company like SAP, the financial centers of New York, London, or Tokyo come to mind – and while Tel Aviv is certainly advanced enough, none but a handful of Israeli companies would seem to need the services of such a giant.

But one would be wrong to think thus, says Gans. “In Israel, we have about 3,000 customers, 2,500 of which are classified as small businesses with fewer than 50 employees – and many with as few as one employee!” It turns out, says Gans, that his philosophy of working with individual customers to find solutions, not just to sell licenses, has proven a big hit. “Israel is a unique market, because many people have worked in development and engineering. Every Israeli is an ‘engineer,’ having worked at – or established – their own startup at one time or another. Israelis are a very technological people, and in that sense it’s easier to sell solutions here than in many other places,” Gans says.

But what has really made the difference for SAP Israel is Gans’ philosophy of treating even small customers like big ones – by “partnering” with customers to help them find the ideal solution. “Previously, SAP sold licenses for products like other software companies, but now we work with customers as partners, to ensure they are getting what they need to succeed. Personally, I’m more interested in providing a customer with a solution than selling a license – and with the worldwide experience and resources of SAP, I know that we have a solution that will help them accomplish their goals.”

In essence, Gans’ approach is the way high-end sales and marketing staff work with their top customers – except here, it’s SAP’s strategy for working with even small customers. “We are way ahead in sales of other countries with similar sized markets.” In fact, Gans adds, SAP Israel is at the top of the list of company sales organizations selling to small businesses. His next target is the mid-sized business – with between 50 and 2000 employees – which have until now been serviced by local companies. “I think I can prove to them that they are better off with SAP than with their local vendors,” Gans says.

As a result, SAP executives from around the world troop to Israel to get ideas on how to improve their own sales efforts, as well. In fact, Gans says he even gets calls from SAP offices in the Arab world. “We have been working at a steady pace converting SAP products for use in Hebrew systems, and offices in Arab countries often call seeking help on how to make certain features work properly from right to left, like in Hebrew,” he says.

Although Gans expects a somewhat tougher time selling in the near-term, due to the worldwide economic slowdown, he’s not particularly worried. “One thing customers seek during tough times is greater efficiency – saving money wherever possible – and that’s exactly what SAP can do for them,” he says. “In fact, the current situation is an opportunity for us and for our customers. We’re here for the long term, and we want to help them plan for the long term as well. The downturn won’t last forever, and we want to help them – and ourselves – to be here when things clear up.” It’s not about selling licenses – it’s about helping customers find solutions, Gans says. But that, as it turns out, is what prompts them to buy – specifically from SAP.

It’s a lesson I wish the supermarket, the post office, the bank, and all the other places I have to do business with would learn.

More than 50,000 people visited the 1,200 or so exhibitors at the show last year, and this year organizers hope to increase the number of visitors substantially.

Out of the 1,289 exhibitors this year, 88 are from Israel – more than any other country, except for the United States (208), Britain (188), France (146) and Germany (111). In fact, one could say that Israel is far more innovative than even these technology superpowers, since almost every booth run by an Israeli company at this year’s show works primarily in R&D, as opposed to the many service providers representative of other countries, both large and small, who are attending the show solely to build partnerships using their existing resources.

And it goes without saying – but we’ll say it anyway – that the entire Arab world was barely able to muster a minyan of representatives for the show – even “hot” Middle East economies like the UAE (three). Of Israel’s immediate neighbors, Lebanon (three), Jordan (two) and Saudi Arabia (10) have companies that will be attending, while none came from Syria or Egypt, which is the largest country in the Arab world and has had a GDP growth rate of more than 6 percent that has rivaled Israel’s over the past several years. Makes you wonder.

You may have already heard of the first bit of big news to come out of an Israeli company exhibiting at Barcelona – the “modular phone” being introduced by Israeli start-up Modu (http://www.modumobile.com/). You slip the credit-card-sized Modu component, the “guts” of a cellphone/PDA/GPS/Entertainment device/alarm clock/whatever into a “jacket” that primarily performs the function you are interested in at any given moment.

The product was announced with great fanfare last week and featured in the computer press around the world, guaranteeing that the Modu booth at the Congress will be jam-packed, as service and content providers clamor to join the three service providers Modu says it has already made a deal with.

This is pretty big news, if you ask me. And while it would seem that Israel has, with the Modu announcement, already received its share of Barcelona glory and fame, there are plenty of other innovative companies that will be presenting innovations no less impressive, in my humble opinion. I actually have written about a number of them in my “Stellar Start-ups” column, the latest being InfoGin, http://tinyurl.com/2hr9rp, whose technology could revolutionize the way cellphone surfers see and use Web sites.

With convergence the watchword in the computer, Internet and cellphone industries – and manufacturers and service providers trying to pack as much communications punch into their devices – cellphone/device development is now where it’s at in the technology world, attracting the best and brightest people and ideas to solve a whole new crop of problems that are preventing the cellphone revolution from moving forward.

One typical problem is battery power, which tends to fail when you need it most on portable devices like cellphones – but also on laptop computers, iPods and PDAs. Elaborate chargers are supplied when you buy these devices, but they’re difficult to lug around. Why can’t someone come up with a normal power supply – say, AAA batteries – to power cellphones? Probably because such batteries wouldn’t provide enough power to run a cellphone, but maybe they could help recharge the device’s lithium battery pack when you’re on the road.

Now that’s one idea most of us would never have thought of. Luckily, Israeli start-up Techtium (http://www.techtium.com/) did, and will be presenting their line of standard alkaline battery backup solutions for cellphones, laptops, video cameras and other devices at the congress. Batteries may not be as “sexy” an innovation as Modu-type “jackets,” but it’s a great solution to a practical problem faced by everyone who uses devices with rechargeable batteries.

Israeli companies will also be showing off software innovations this week, such as the one offered by Aerotel (http://www.aerotel.com), which takes GPS-based safety to a whole new level. Aerotel will be showing its GeoSkeeper GPS quad-band GSM module; it allows parents to keep track of their children’s whereabouts via GPS. If the kid leaves the specific area s/he is permitted to be at (school, the mall, etc.), the phone can send an SMS to parents, caregivers or security personnel – sort of like an electronic security guard following the wearer. The company also has a number of interesting solutions in the area of “Telemedicine,” enabling caregivers to provide long-distance assistance to patients.

There are plenty of others, too. EIM Telecom (http://www.eimtelecom.com/) has developed a bridge device to connect cellphones and laptops, enabling users to make Skype-style free and low-cost IP phone calls from their cell devices (http://www.skuku.com/).

Dblur (http://www.dblur.com/) develops software to enable cellphone cameras to take better pictures. Nexperience (http://www.nexperience.com) develops innovative testing procedures for cellphone makers.

It’s worth checking out the full catalog of Israeli companies at the congress site (on the home page, click on Exhibition > 2008 Exhibitor Listing, where you can select by country and/or industry). Many of the companies presenting at the congress are members of the Israel Mobile and Communications Association (IMA), which is sponsoring several events for the Israeli companies attending. In addition, the IMA will broadcast recorded video blogs from the show, so you can feel like you’re there, at least in spirit.

It seems that there’s nothing that can’t be blamed on the Jews – whether its missing Christian children during the Middle Ages, in the classic take on the “Blood Libel” – or the massive Internet outage that hit the Arab world over the past week. Well, not just the Arabs; India has had a lot of Internet problems, and Iran may still be 100% without Internet access, after several underwater fiber optic cables were damaged or cut.

The outages, which many in the Arab world and the far-left hate-Israel community are already blaming on you-know-who, began about a week ago, when a pair of undersea communications cables between Egypt and Europe – the data “lifeline” for much of the Arab world, it turns out – broke about 8 kilometers off Alexandria harbor, which was closed most of last week due to the massive storm that hit the region. India, which uses the FLAG Europe Asia and SEA-ME-WE 4 cables as well, was severely hampered, wreaking havoc with much of the world’s backoffice data-processing, and leaving frustrated Americans without the technical assistance that India does so well.

Banks in the Gulf region were hurting, and officials said it could be a week, maybe two, until things got back to normal. Besides being used for fast Internet communications, the cables also carry digital phone calls and TV signals, so even the many in the region who don’t use the Internet at all were affected, as the legions of guest workers in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia couldn’t make phone calls to family or transfer their salaries home to places like the Philippines and Pakistan (which had Internet problems of its own). Several African countries which use the cables, as well as Egypt and Syria, were all out of Internet luck too.

And then there was Iran. On Friday, a third cable (maybe a fourth, according to some accounts) got cut in the Persian Gulf, slowing the already bottlenecked traffic that could still get through – and cutting off Iran altogether. Curiously, the anti-Israel crowd crows, there were only two countries left unscathed by the cable fiasco: Israel and Iraq (I read contradictory reports on Lebanon). Hmm.

Actually, according to the companies that owns the Mediterranean cables, the outage was apparently caused by the anchor of a ship that spliced the cable when it fell overboard (I haven’t heard any explanation yet for the Gulf cable). Although it seems a little too coincidental, it’s not unreasonable for weather related mishaps to occur in the middle of a major winter storm on the high seas – and as far as the Gulf is concerned, I wouldn’t be surprised if this (http://tinyurl.com/yqf3ka) was the explanation. Of course, logic never comes into play for these people; it’s got to be Israel’s fault! Well, I’ve got a theory of my own; instead of saying that Israel and/or the CIA (which, as we all know, controls Iraq nowadays) deliberately cut the cables in order to isolate the Arab world, and especially Iran, to set them up for “something” (which has yet to take place), I think it was the Arabs/Iran themselves that did the cutting to make Israel look bad by having something to blame on us! Or we could just call it a draw, and attribute the breakages to bad winter weather and infrastructure failure, not unheard of with underwater cables.

Why wasn’t Israel affected? Simply because we use a different cable, with Egypt and company refusing to allow Israel to rent bandwidth on the same one it uses. Israel’s cable is called MedNautilus (http://www.mednautilus.com), originally put together by a consortium that involved Israelis, but now wholly owned by Spain’s Telefonica. “Our” cable travels under the Mediterranean from Tel Aviv to Sicily, and looks on the map to be several dozen kilometer north of the broken Egyptian cable.

Considering how important these cables are for business and telecommunication, one would think there would be a backup system of some sort, to avoid the outages and data-pipe shortages that have affecting nearly a billion people over the past week. Unfortunately for the Egyptians, Kuwaitis and Iranians Indians, there was apparently no sufficient backup data communications system to keep their businesses going. And the same holds true for us!

Actually, we have it worse than others in our neighborhood. While some reports said that Saudi Arabia was able to partially restore its service using “terrestrial routes” (overland cables, I guess), we don’t have that option. For high-speed communications, MedNautilus is the only option. There are two other cables available, the EMOS and CIOS systems, which have been around since the early 1990s (MedNautilus was set up in 2001), which, according to one Internet expert I spoke to, “couldn’t hold the bandwidth of even one big Israeli ISP today, much less all of them.” Not to mention that the price of access on MedNautilus has been rising in recent years, making things much more expensive for ISPs and keeping prices relatively high for many customers. And what would happen to Israel’s hi-tech economy if the line to the West was down for a couple of weeks?

The solution to both the redundancy problem and the high prices on MedNautilus would seem to be the construction of another high-speed underwater communications cable, and last month a number of Israeli ISPs got together to discuss doing just that (http://tinyurl.com/ypak5e). Unfortunately, given that the investment in such a project could reach tens of millions of dollars, it’s unlikely to get off the ground, many experts believe, even if all the communications companies work together to lower risks. If the mess in the Arab Internet world last week should teach us anything, it should teach us three things: One, the importance of redundant systems for an an advanced hi-tech economy; two, the importance of a strong navy, to keep troublemakers bent on economic terrorism from cutting the cable; and three, the importance for ship captains to make sure they don’t drop anchor in the wrong place!