Having completed 25 years of its operations in India recently, German tech giant SAP still continues to remain a powerhouse in enterprise software. By providing a wide range of cutting-edge business solutions, the company is proud to be contributing to India’s digital transformation in its quest to become a $5 trillion economy in five years. Kulmeet Bawa, president & MD, SAP Indian Continent recounts how over the years SAP has built a dominant position in each cloud line of business, where it is growing faster than the market.

“For SAP, India is a strategic market and continues to be one of the strongest growth markets across the world. Today, more than 60% of India’s GDP touches a SAP system. Our customers represent 55% of India’s power generation capacity, and eight out of every 10 cars driven on Indian roads are manufactured by a SAP customer. Through our enterprise application software, we have empowered more than 10,000 SMEs by making them globally competitive,” says Kulmeet.

SAP’s focus remains on key sectors such as energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and services where it provides industry specific solutions on cloud that help clients to scale. The strategy is to intertwine with the socio-economic fabric of India so that it contributes more, and in that process, grows more.

Role played by cloud

Today, organisations are looking to deliver business results at an accelerated pace without getting constrained by infrastructure. Cloud has thus become a natural choice as it provides greater resilience, agility, and ability to scale while keeping business benefits at the core. “We believe that migrating to cloud provides companies a great opportunity to re-look at their business processes and bring the necessary focus on simplification and transformation,” says Kulmeet.

He continues, “The good news is, SAP understands and is prepared to respond to local market requirements. Our rise with SAP offering is aimed to deliver business transformation as a service via cloud. At the start of this year, we had made an investment of `500 crore on India data centre as our commitment to the country and organisations, to help them scale on our cloud solutions.”

The year 2020-21 brought forward new challenges and enabled new working conditions which all of us were never prepared for. However, SAP ensured business continuity for its customers, and provided seamless business operations and support to them. “Considering that the midmarket segment was one of the worst hit during the pandemic, we helped them restore their business operations in the best possible way. Our ‘Global Bharat Movement’ launched last year was aimed to help SMEs restore business operations and capitalise on the changing economic conditions,” explains Kulmeet.

SAP Roadmap

SAP believes that the healthcare industry in India is on the path of massive transformation in every aspect. Technology could be a key enabler of this transformation. “By 2025, we expect the healthcare sector will be characterised by a significant number of patient services delivered remotely,” says Kulmeet. “Cloud-based solutions and collaboration through mobility can seamlessly integrate provider and patient interactions. Our vision is to help healthcare providers become highly efficient at saving and improving lives, deliver a seamless patient experience, and ensure value-based care with innovative technologies,” sums up Kulmeet.