SAP’s long-standing commitment to help the world run better and improve people’s lives has again been reinforced in India through the latest innovation partnership between SAP Labs India, the tech giant’s biggest R&D centre outside Germany, and the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), a leading graduate school of management in Asia. SAP Labs India and IIMB launched a brand new 16 -month-long management course to upskill managers’ knowledge of Artificial Intelligence encompassing Machine Learning, Statistical Learning, and Deep Learning.

Sindhu Gangadharan, SVP, SAP User Enablement & MD, SAP Labs India, emphasised SAP’s commitment to offer immersive upskilling, reskilling, and newskilling experiences to colleagues. She explained:

“In order to realise SAP’s vision to help the world run better and support our half a million customers in their journey to become intelligent and sustainable enterprises, it is imperative our workforce remains agile and constantly reinvents itself to fuel unfettered innovation.”

“The AI for Managers programme, in partnership with IIMB, is a step forward in this regard and is designed to upskill our managers in the fast-evolving business landscape. The programme focuses on an action-oriented approach where SAP colleagues can bring in their current problem statements and explore solutions. As we start with the AI for Managers programme, we are keen to expand this to our developer community, Product owners, and Product managers in the near future to become an AI-first organisation,” Gangadharan added.

IIMB is recognised as an Institute of National Importance under the IIM Act of 2017 and is home to 109 full-time faculty members, nearly 1,200 students and about 5,000 annual Executive Education participants. Aside from being the pioneer management school in the country to offer Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the edX platform, IIMB also boasts of 10 Centres of Excellence that focus on emerging areas of research and education.

AI Training Designed for Managers

The AI for Managers training programme by SAP Labs India and IIMB, which officially commenced on the 22nd of April, offers 11 online modular courses that incorporate concepts, applications, and case studies. Throughout the duration of programme, managers will have extensive exposure to AI techniques and ML algorithms that would help them create solutions to critical management challenges.

The certification programme is comprehensively designed to ensure participants that have passed the stringent admissions procedure will achieve maximum learning experience and have access to deep-dive concepts and applications of AI such as: 

• AI and ML as a competitive strategy 
• Data Science in relation to AI models
• Descriptive, diagnostics, predictive, and prescriptive analytics vis-a-vis creating business solutions 
• Function and application of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)
• AI in key industries such as Aerospace, Banking Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), e-Commerce, Retail, Sports and Services

“Research estimates that AI will result in increasing the global GDP by about 1.2{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} annually by 2030. The program ‘AI for Managers’ being launched by IIMBx is designed to impart industry ready skills to the participants in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning and enhance computational thinking to solve business problems and facilitate effective decision making,” stated Vasanthi Srinivasan, Chairperson, MOOCs and Digital Learning, IIM Bangalore.

The AI training programme is supported by an esteemed faculty of AI experts with a combined experience spanning over seven decades in teaching and consulting, including Professor U Dinesh Kumar, Decision Sciences and Chair of Excellence; Professor Rajluxmi V Murthy, Decision Sciences, and Kumar Rahul, IIM-B alumnus and IIMK research scholar. A completion certificate will be given to participants with a 60{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} and above passing rate across nine individual courses.

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openSAP has been known in the SAP ecosystem to deliver innovative, expert-led learning at zero cost. With the coronavirus pandemic putting a halt on almost everything including training and learning sessions, openSAP has now reached the mainstream. New learners outside the SAP community like students, teachers, professionals, and organisations that are looking for a safe, healthy, and continuous online learning environment now know openSAP. 

One of the organisations new to the SAP ecosystem that has recently utilised openSAP is the ASEAN SME Academy, an online training tool developed by US-ASEAN Business Alliance for Competitive Small and Medium Enterprises (Business Alliance). Business Alliance was established by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US-ASEAN Business Council (US-ABC) in 2014 to train over 4,000 SMEs utilising the world-class expertise offered by US-ABC corporate members in areas such as Marketing and Business Management, Finance, Legal, Logistics, and Information Technology. 

openSAP Courses in the Academy

The Academy incorporates training materials focused on SMEs from Fortune 500 companies including regional firms and international organisations. The curated set of courses is part of a larger program to provide training and mentorship to enhance ASEAN SMEs’ access to financial products, regional and international markets, information and advisory services, and technology and innovation.

In today’s economic climate, ASEAN SME Academy aims to further support the MSMEs with openSAP courses that would boost their digital capabilities and strengthen competitiveness.

The following new online learning courses are now accessible to Academy users who want to learn more about SAP’s latest innovations and how to thrive in the digital economy:

Enterprise Architecture in the Era of the Intelligent Enterprise

The Internet of Things with SAP

Intrapreneurship – Employee-driven Innovation

Sustainability: Learning from Leading Companies

Design Thinking and Challenge Management

Digital Supply Chain – From Design to Operate

Cloud-Native Development with SAP Cloud Platform

Sustainability through Digital Transformation

openSAP Adoption

Since March 2020, when SAP announced free access to several of its intelligent solutions to help organisations navigate and thrive in the new normal, the demand for openSAP, in particular, has been overwhelming. Over 25,000 records of achievement and more than 35,000 confirmations of participation were awarded in self-paced courses between March 31 and June 30. 

The pandemic has encouraged the openSAP team to open courses from previous years to allow learners to catch up and earn certificates– an opportunity for new learners to catch up with what they might have missed. 

SAP’s digital learning platform openSAP also features a variety of learning options with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), Microlearning, and Podcasts. 

MOOCs leverage tried and trusted classroom concepts, with digital enhancements including gamification and discussion forums, to interact with other learners and experts in an online delivery format. Users can choose from two types of openSAP MOOC: Enterprise MOOCs, which focus on SAP technology; and Thought Leader MOOCs, which feature external speakers who share thought-leading ideas around business and technology.

Microlearning features self-contained videos that are all prepared by SAP experts to complement the users’ level of knowledge.

openSAP Podcasts is SAP’s Podcast channel providing knowledge from members of the SAP ecosystem, including SAP employees, partners, and customers. Users can stream or download episodes on any device with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, or directly from openSAP.

“Life changed so suddenly,” Michaela Laemmler, Global Head of openSAP, said. “We were glad to be in a position to provide additional support for those who were ready to start learning online and looked to openSAP.”

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