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'There is huge growth potential for NetWeaver'

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CIOL Bureau
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IT services and consulting firm Accenture shares a very special working relationship with SAP. The engagement between the two companies spans over three decades.

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Accenture is also a founding member of the SAP Netweaver program introduced in 2003. Besides this, Accenture has set up an innovation center around SAP NetWeaver in Waldorf in Germany that enables the two to work together on industry specific solutions on the NetWeaver platform. Accenture’s Indian delivery centers are also playing an important role in developing business solutions. Neerja Aurora, executive partner, Accenture, shared insights on the company’s SAP business with Priya Padmanabhan of CyberMedia News.

How significant is Accenture’s NetWeaver practice?

The SAP business is a major area for Accenture and there is significant executive commitment. We have over 19,000 skilled SAP practitioners, around 2,000 SAP project implementations and 1300 clients. In terms of industry solutions, we have developed over 100.

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We have been associated with the company for over three decades. In 2004, we set up the Accenture Innovation center for SAP Netweaver in Walldorf, Germany, which is the headquarters of SAP.

We have built ten industry solutions based on the NetWeaver platform. There is a huge growth potential for NetWeaver.

What kind of work are you doing at the Walldorf center?

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The innovation center is Accenture’s global hub for thought leadership, training, and development activities related to next-generation SAP solutions. These solutions are designed specifically for organizations as they explore how Accenture solutions with SAP NetWeaver can help their organizations deliver higher performance.

The team in India works hand-in-hand with the Walldorf center, in areas like financial services, health care and Government. We also have engineers from India working there.

We have been working on developing extended applications for the oil and gas exploration industry. We are still figuring out the challenges faced by the industry.

The project is in the pilot stage of deployment at a major oil and gas company. In case of extended applications, we develop solutions jointly with SAP. These will become SAP-owned products and become part of their portfolio. SAP will own the IP for the solutions.

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How is Accenture’s India SAP practice contributing to the business?

India has the largest SAP practice in terms of headcount within Accenture's Global Delivery Network. We cannot split the exact number of people in the SAP practice, but this is a significant strategic part of the Accenture Global Delivery Center Network. We have been doubling the team headcount in the SAP group every year for the last three years.

Over 70 per cent of the SAP work undertaken at our delivery centers in India are design and development projects for some of the largest global companies.

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In what way does the Accenture team in India contribute? Does the team have the requisite domain expertise to create applications for niche verticals?

Deep industry knowledge is required. Our team in Europe that works closely with the clients has the expertise and this is needed to build process maps. The Indian engineers pitch in by building the technology architecture for these processes. What we do is to leverage on teams spread across various locations.

How is Accenture’s SAP practice different from that of other IT services competitors?

We have different SIs competing against us in different regions. In Europe, we have players like CapGemini and Delloite & Touche, and others like IBM and also Indian companies. The difference that we bring in is in terms of our deep knowledge on industry. It is a blend of technology and industry. We also have a long-term commitment with our clients. We engage with 85 per cent of the Fortune top 100 companies and the average tenure of the engagement is around five years. We also have over 43 global delivery centers and around 52,000 employees.

© CyberMedia News

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