World's third largest independent software vendor, SAP, has seen prospects in the Nigerian economy just as it plans to increase its market share in the country, according to the Lagos-based Punch newspaper yesterday.

The firm said it had so far invested US$1.3 billion in research and development.

Yemi Keri, Regional Manager in West Africa, said the company is planning to increase it investments in Nigeria because of growing demand of business solutions.

Reforms in Nigeria have attracted several international firms with foreign direct investment hitting US$13 billion in 2007.

She said the company had gained momentum in the last three years as more companies seek to build capacities of their staff.

She said companies and organizations must build the capacities of their staff in order to remain competitive.

According to her, SAP has evolved business solutions that measure the performance of sales representatives, market intelligence and appraises the performance of firms over a given period of time among others.

The business solutions provider said it had significant investment in research and development to answer customers' evolving needs and able to hold insight into best practices and business knowledge transfer.