SAP to hold first board meet in India

For the first time in its 35 years of existence, SAP -- the technology leader in business software solutions -- will hold its board meeting in India (New Delhi) from August 27.

"SAP's India operations have registered over 35 per cent growth last fiscal, significantly higher than the growth rate achieved by us in any other country. It has also tripled its business in India over the last five years. We, therefore, thought of hosting our board meeting in India. This is also in sync with our growing interest in India as the revenues grow," said Ranjan Das, President and CEO of Sap India subcontinent.

SAP has seven members on board who will meet in Delhi from August 27. The board will discuss strategies and future plans. SAP started its operations in India in 1996, and after 10 years has garnered a market share of 34.4 per cent in ERP, 10.3 per cent in CRM, 39.3 per cent in SCM (IDC) and market leadership in the SME space (Frost and Sullivan). It has also lined up an investment of $1 billion in India between 2006 and 2011 in new recruits and new e-learning centres. It is planning to set up five more e-learning centres in India from 25 right now.

SAP's education business is growing at 50 per cent year on year. It has so far trained over 6000 students in various verticals. It's also on a hiring spree in India. At present, it has 4,235 employees in India.

According to Das, the hiring spree was triggered off by the growth in sectors like retail, public services, BFSI, manufacturing, among others. "We also want to introduce some of our best practices in India that were introduced in US and were roaring successes," Das said. These best practices would include staff training for better services to
customers.

"The new HR initiatives would be introduced in order to triple our revenues by 2010 as well as add 15,000 customers by then," Das added. At present, SAP has over 35,000 customers globally. SAP is also targeting to increase its SME revenue share to 50 per cent by 2010.