SAP Labs to double employee strength in India

Bangalore, Nov 8: SAP AG, the world's leading business software provider, is going ahead with expansion of its Indian subsidiary at Gurgaon at a fast pace, which was part of its one billion US Dollar investment in the country during the next five years.

Speaking to media persons at the four-day 'SAP TechEd '06' exposition, organised for the third successive year here, SAP Labs (India) Managing Director Georg Knise said the Whitefield facility near the city, eight years after the company set foot in India, had emerged as its second largest R and D service centre in the world.

He said that after its success story in Bangalore, where one fourth of ERP development and one third of global development for emerging solutions like xAPPS, Mobil B solutions and Duet were being carried out, the company had decided to double its existing headcount of 3,100 by 2011 and open its second location in Gurgaon.

''The second location is to ensure that further growth of SAP Labs happens in North India. Bangalore has given us a good foothold, both in terms of location and mind power. To expand in North India is a natural choice as that part of the country also has a vast talent pool like the South. The facility near Delhi, which began functioning late last year, would see expansion at a faster pace. We will have services, support and consulting lines of business, working in close support with our hub in this city,'' he said.

SAP AG Board Member Claus Heinrich said SAP's Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) had provided rapid growth momentum for its Business Process Expert Community (BPEC). SAP's BPEC membership had doubled, since its formal launch a year ago, to 60,000. In India, the number had grown at the fastest pace to touch 20,000.

BPEC was designed to foster co-innovation in an open forum that catered to business process experts looking to drive business value from SOA and NetWeaver platforms to adapt, compose and execute business processes in real time to accelerate innovation, he said.

SAP TechEd '06 brought together over 15,000 SAP customers, partners and technical community. In its 10th year, SAPs largest ecosystem education event of the year offered more than 900 hours of lecture-driven and hands-on sessions. The Bangalore session followed the successful events organised at Las Vegas, Tokyo and Amsterdam during the last two months.

UNI