SINGAPORE - German enterprise software giant SAP has launched a Singapore data centre for SAP Commerce Cloud to support Asia-Pacific (APAC) businesses' digital commerce strategies.

Singapore was selected to host SAP's data centre due to its geopolitical stability and its adherence to data privacy, and will be the default data centre for customers in South-east Asia and India, said SAP.

The facility adds to SAP's network of APAC data centres, which includes locations such as Australia, China and Hong Kong.

Together they will "ensure customers are able to deploy the SAP Commerce Cloud with minimal latency and performance issue to deliver a seamless online shopping experience".

According to research and advisory company Gartner, a digital commerce platform is the "core technology that is enabling customers to purchase goods and services through an interactive and self-service experience". "The platform provides necessary information for customers to make their buy decisions and uses rules and data to present fully priced orders for payment."

The SAP Commerce Cloud solution is part of the larger SAP customer experience portfolio, the SAP C/4HANA suite, which also includes solutions related to marketing, sales and customer data.

SAP currently has two offices in Singapore, including SAP Asia's headquarters at Mapletree Business City.

"APAC's digital commerce environment offers businesses unprecedented growth opportunities and with our goal of helping our customers master their transition to the experience economy, the region has become a key market for SAP," said Atul Tuli, vice-president and head of customer experience, SAP South-east Asia.