The Hindu : Business : Indian team to 'mobilise' SAP's next wave

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 04, 2004

Business

Business

Indian team to 'mobilise' SAP's next wave

By Anand Parthasarathy

BANGALORE, AUG. 3. Even as it prepares to double the size of its development muscle here, the Germany based enterprise software leader, SAP, is banking on its India-based engineers to signpost its roadmap to the next-generation mobile business environment. "Our Indian e-business team is not some extended workbench, but a frontline force for us,'' Executive Board member, Peter Zencke, told The Hindu. He and CEO Henning Kagermann, were here today for the ground breaking ceremony of its 20 million-euro (Over Rs. 160 crores) Phase-III facility at SAP Lab's Whitefield campus. By the time the new structures are ready, 12 months from now, the lab — its largest R&D unit outside Germany — is expected to double its developer strength from a current 1100. Key development tasks for SAP's flagship products such as MySAP and NetWeaver, were accomplished at Bangalore, Dr Zencke said, adding that its new slogan, "Talk with the Real World'' — to allow businesses to harness portable access tools such as pocket PCs, laptops and mobile phones — would also be honed in Bangalore.

Of particular interest to India's burgeoning apparel industry is the new application niche for which SAP's India lab would be the lynchpin. "We see a lot of expertise here in the hosiery and footwear business and are depending on our Indian engineer to develop applications and solutions in this 'vertical','' Dr. Zencke said.

In recent months, leading Tirupur based export units like Jupiter Mills and NCC, have deployed SAP enterprise solutions across their manufacturing and supply chain operations — to better exploit the expected opening up of global apparel markets when all ceilings and quota restrictions are removed at year end.

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