SAP, the multinational enterprise application software company, has seen tremendous growth in this country. Maggie Chan Jones, its US-based chief marketing officer, talked about on its plans for India and partnership with government initiatives like Digital India. Edited excerpts:
Q: Where is India in SAP’s scheme of things?
A: SAP India is one of the fastest growing within SAP worldwide, with more than 7,500 customers. With almost 10,000 employees, also our second largest subsidiary, globally. We have a network of 600-plus partners, helping in reaching out to SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and start-ups; 80 per cent of our customer strength comprises SMEs. This strongly reflects our commitment here to create localised innovations that cater to the large SME sector, the backbone of India’s economy.
From SAP’s point of view, India is at a crucial transformational stage. Fiscal reforms, Smart Cities, financial and social inclusion, manufacturing excellence, universal digital access — everything is focused on the much-anticipated turnaround.
Q: Is the company interested in partnering the government on schemes like Digital India?
A: SAP proudly stands as India’s foremost IT (information technology) enabler. We have recognised the increasing importance of public services for the ongoing IT transformation. Digital India is an ambitious vision and an opportunity for the ICT (information and communications technology) sector to take the lead in creating a knowledge-based economy.
SAP has also collaborated on flagship schemes like Smart Cities and Make in India that offer tremendous transformational potential. We have a number of government customers, central and state.
Q: What is the update about SAP’s association with GSTN (network for the proposed goods and services tax)?
A: SAP is working in close collaboration with its user group representing multiple industries, for providing a smooth transition from a compliance perspective. And, in understanding the data flows and providing a seamless connectivity from enterprise to GSTN. We are already delivering workshops for our customers to understand the implications and how SAP can support. Also, training to our implementation partners. SAP has gone about ensuring that our software is ready to address the GST requirement. We’ve also collaborated with some of the ‘Big Four’ consulting firms, our implementation partners as well.
Q: Some examples where companies in India have used SAP solutions for data analytics?
A: We help businesses unlock the real value in their data and drive smarter decision making, with our business analytics software. These solutions close the gap between transactions, data preparation, analysis and action.
Last year, Shoppers Stop adopted SAP hybris technology. It has enabled them to have a single view of the customer, by linking multiple identifiers (mobile number, citizen number, Facebook, e-mail) to a single identity. For five years, Asian Paints has experienced rapid growth, with its dealer base soaring past 35,000. This growth led to massive data volumes in multiple data cubes, creating significant data access, visibility, and usability issues. After migrating data to our HANA platform, the company leveraged near-line storage functionality to affordably store data, enable real-time analytics, and streamlining of data-intensive tasks.
Also Usha International has been using the HANA platform, creating high-availability and disaster-recovery environments, with a five-fold improvement in reporting performance.
(By: Kiran Rathee)
Source: Business Standard
