SAP to hold board meeting in India

SAP, the technology leader in business software solutions, will hold its board meeting in India for the first time ever.

The seven-member board of the 35-year-old company will meet in New Delhi from August 27, to discuss strategies and future plans.

"SAP's India operations registered a more than 35 per cent growth in the last financial year. This is significantly higher than that achieved by us in any other country," said Ranjan Das, president and CEO of SAP (India subcontinent).

"SAP has also tripled its business in India over the last five years. We, therefore, thought of hosting our board meeting in India. This is in sync with our growing interest in India as the revenues grow," Das said.

SAP began its operations in India in 1996 and had by 2006 garnered a market share of 34.4 per cent in ERP, 10.3 per cent in CRM, 39.3 per cent in SCM (IDC). It is the market leader in the SME space (Frost and Sullivan).

SAP plans to invest about $1 billion in India between 2006 and 2011 in e-learning centres and new recruitment. It will set up five more e-learning centres in India in addition to the 25 it has now.

SAP's education business is growing at 50 per cent year-on-year. It has so far trained over 6,000 students in various verticals. It is also on a hiring spree in India where it has 4,235 employees.

SAP has over 35,000 customers globally.

Das said that the hiring spree was triggered off by growth in retail, public services, BFSI and manufacturing sectors.

"We also want to introduce some of our best practices in India that have become roaring successes in the US," Das said. These best practices include training staff to serve customers better.

"The new HR initiatives would help us add 15,000 customers and triple revenues by 2010," he said.