The best firms run on SAP - CIOL Interviews

'The best firms run on SAP'

Ranjan Das, SAP India’s head honcho, speaks on India’s impeccable performance

Monday, June 09, 2008

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Moments after the three-day annual business and technology forum of SAP, the SAP Summit 2008, news of SAP India being named the ‘Jewel in the crown’ came in and a visible excited Ranjan Das, president and CEO of SAP Indian Subcontinent spoke briefly to Prasad Ramasubramanian of CyberMedia News on his company’s impeccable performance, not just in India but across the world.

Excerpts from the interview:

How has the performance of SAP been in India?

It’s been great. We are the market leaders in enterprise applications in India. We are the number one player in the SME market and a leadership position in every market be it ERP, BI and its great to get appreciation from the members of the analyst and media community. It’s a validation of what we do.

I am happy to announce that we are maintaining the momentum and today the best (of companies) run on SAP. India today has become a great support system for SAP and India is the third largest subsidiary for SAP globally, behind Germany and the United States. There is tremendous amount of innovation that is happening here and the growth is rapid in this market.

More than 10-12 years ago, we realized that there is a lot of innovation here in India and we have solutions that cater to variety of industries here. SAP India has emerged as a de-facto partner for corporate India on its journey to global competitiveness. We intend to build on this partnership as India Inc. scripts the next phase of its growth.

How have you performed in adding new clientele to your ever-growing list?

Clients such as Greaves Cotton, HDFC Bank JK Cement and many more across industries work with us and you would notice that they come from all over the Indian sub continent, many different industries and across all segments. We have very large, large, mid-sized customers and small customers who we work with.

How much importance has SAP given to India as a region in the partner ecosystem?

In India, we have a host of partners with whom we work very closely. We always focus on raising the partner community. To give you an example to showcase the importance of India in the partner ecosystem -- at SAP we have a category of partners whom we call Global Services Partners and there are a dozen of such partners in the world and five of them are from India.

India is the bulls-eye for the partner ecosystem for SAP. There is a lot of human capital in India and SAP Ventures has taken an India focus investment. We have earmarked a significant amount of money to invest in companies in India. And I am really excited about this and now SAP ventures would tap the entrepreneurial potential in India, as there are some great companies in India.

Another exciting thing that is happening today is we are snatching the market share away from the competition. Customers are migrating from rival platforms to our platforms. Ultimately, we are here only to bring value to our customers. If we create value for our customers, we are happy.

How critical is the retail market in India for SAP?

Retail is a very important sector for SAP globally and we have a lot of customers in India. Now a large chunk of the retail market is unorganized and very few percentage in the organized domain. If you look at this organized market, almost all of them are powered by SAP.

How do you view the large amount of skill gaps that exist in the IT and technical space and what measures have you taken to fill the gap?

The areas where we face shortage of skills would be areas such as supply chain management, governance and in compliance management, which is very important. There is a shortage of people in the area of analytics and in the areas of business objects.

In India, we have seen shortage of SAP consultants in tier II and tier III cities and we have a lot of customers who have their businesses in these cities. Now, there are a lot of opportunities for people who want to get into the SAP ecosystem. The gap is there globally. We are doing a lot of things such as a program that is designed to train people and we are training people at multiple levels and I also want to mention the e-learning centers that we have started. Not everyone can go to a tier I city like New Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata and train. The demand of SAP in the coming years would intensify especially with the fast moving markets that are adopting SAP platform.

How important is it for the governments now to adapt to the SAP platform?

Absolutely, there is a tremendous pressure from citizens, global pressure and pressure from businesses. Governments nationally, regionally and locally are looking for automation and I feel there is a huge level of automation that would happen in this area in the next 5-7 years.

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