Naukri JobSpeak’s August 2020 report, IT-Software (14{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}) industry, along with other industries such as Recruitment/Employment (19{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}), Auto (17{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}), and BPO/ITES (16{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}), has shown an upward hiring trend. From a city perspective, there was a sequential growth in hiring across all metro cities led by Kolkata (27{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}) and Bengaluru (22{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}). The 2020 recruitment game plan of SAP India, which is headquartered in Bengaluru, is very much in sync with the said data, especially, since the company has never halted hiring amid COVID-19.

Despite many IT firms putting on hold their recrutiment plans in this economic environment, SAP India remains committed to completing its mission of hiring 1,600 by end of 2020 in addition to its existing 101,150 employees. SAP Labs India, the largest Research and Development center outside SAP’s headquarter in Germany, will be taking onboard the majority of the hirees to add to its existing 13,000 employees.

Sindhu Gangadharan, Senior Vice President and Managing Director at SAP Labs India, shared the status of their recruitment plan and how the company is taking advantage of technology in the recruitment process through SAP SuccessFactors. She said: 

“Of the total hiring target, we have already onboarded about 1,100 of them and the remaining 500 open positions will be filled by end of this year.” 

“During the pandemic, we did not want any of our normal recruitment process to stop, so we switched to e-hiring mode,” Gangadharan said. “We leveraged technology to our advantage and used our SAP SuccessFactors recruitment platform to support our hiring process.”

As part of SAP’s $1 billion investment commitment in R&D and expansion plans in India, SAP Labs India will have its second campus in Devanahalli in Bengaluru within 4-5 years. SAP has also recently announced the chosen 16 startups– 14 based in India and two headquartered in the US– for the fourth cohort (2020-2021) of the SAP Startup Studio programme. The programme represents SAP’s advocacy on R&D and innovation by offering expert guidance, opportunities to co-innovate, and access to its partner ecosystem.

India’s Promising Hiring Trend

Despite the country’s year-on-year level of hiring being down by 35{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} in August ’20, the month-on-month hiring uptrend is a reflection of India’s effort to revive the economic activity. The Naukri JobSpeak Index shifted from 1413 from August to 1263 in July– a remarkable jump in these uncertain times.

In terms of hiring across experience levels, a 10{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} growth in August ‘20 was seen versus July ’20, which was led by a 14{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} increase in hiring for entry-level executives (0-3 yrs. experience) and 13{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} growth in mid-management roles. There was also an 11{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} growth in leadership hiring (>16 yrs. experience).

Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com said:

“It is encouraging to see the month on month progressive growth in hiring from the past three months as a result of the nation-wide unlocking. While the Pharma/Medical, IT, and BPO/ITES sectors continue to spearhead hiring, it is encouraging to see other key sectors like Telecom, Retail, and Real Estate signaling strong recovery in August’20.

We are hopeful that the recoveries will become more robust in the coming months.”

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As part of the SAP.iO Accelerator Program, Adaface had access to curated mentorship, exposure to SAP technology and application programmable interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers for 13 weeks. The company takes pride in their chatbot Ada facilitating conversational preliminary interviews of candidates.

Aside from being chosen to be included in the first batch of SAP.iO Southeast Asia cohort, coincidentally, Adaface was also recognised as part of the SAP.iO No Boundaries initiative of promoting a healthy ecosystem through diversity and inclusion in the SAP community by having Deepti Chopra as a co-founder and a female entrepreneur. Recently, Chopra shared with E-3 Magazine the backstory, product offerings, and latest update on the company.

Revolutionising Recruitment

Adaface aims to revolutionise traditional assessments in hiring developers by equipping recruiters with the right tools to assess candidates objectively for on-the-job skills in an efficient and automated way.

Co-founders Siddhartha Gunti and Deepti Chopra recognise the tech recruiters and the applicants’ predicaments in the whole hiring process. For the recruiters, the increase in tech roles means they have to screen a massive list of qualified applicants to find the best fit for the company– a lengthy and rigorous process. For the developers applying for the role, going through an interview knowing they are competing against hundreds and the conventional tests that use obscure computer science questions or niche algorithms that are never really used in practice are intimidating and stressful.

Adaface simplifies and shortens the rigid selection process by automating first-round tech interviews with shorter, candidate-friendly assessments, which lasts between 45-60 minutes, to test on-the-job skills. The customised assessments use simpler questions with a generous time allowance and extremely granular scoring that eliminates false positives and false negatives.

Chopra said:

“Our pre-built assessments for popular roles require no setup time, and you can use them by subscribing to a plan from our website in under 5 minutes.”

“For custom assessments that are tailor-made for your role according to your job description, our subject matter experts select the most relevant questions from our internal library of over 1,0000 non-googleable questions and make the assessment live on your dashboard within 48 hours,” she detailed.

Ada: The Intelligent Chatbot 

The conversational approach of the Adaface skills assessment platform with the help of intelligent chatbot Ada is known to give candidates a pleasant application experience. Chopra shared that Gunti came up with the initial version of Ada.

“We built an intelligent chatbot, Ada, to enable companies to automate first-round interviews and understand if there is a mutual fit. This creates a friendly candidate experience and gives companies the ability to screen thousands of candidates within a few days,” she explained.

Ada has an in-built code editor to evaluate aptitude, technical and coding skills. 

For coding/programming skills, the AI chatbot asks questions of all difficulty levels in data structures and algorithms. For on-the-job skills, Ada can screen for fundamentals and tech stack knowledge (Python, JavaScript, ReactJS, AngularJS, Android, iOS, etc.)

Ada can answer common candidate questions about the company, role, work culture, and career progression to assess candidate engagement. Furthermore, Ada creates a detailed scorecard for every conversation with a section-wise breakdown and a pass/ fail recommendation.

Since becoming part of the SAP.iO family, Adaface has received commendable reviews from candidates about Ada’s conversational assessments. Chopra shared that the company is focusing its efforts on SEO and content marketing for the past four months to reach companies that are already looking for recruitment automation tools. She commented:

“The goal is to always stay in touch with the ground reality of the problems faced by our customers. As long as we’re focused on solving a real pain-point faced by our customers, we will stay relevant.”

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The accounting sector has experienced seismic changes in the past decade but are finance teams keeping pace? In the era of automation, it’s more important than ever for Australian organisations to find and develop the optimum skills mix.

Australia is home to around 189,000 accountants, according to the federal Department of Jobs and Small Business. More than 80 per cent are in full-time work and they command an average weekly pay of $1400.

Cloud based technology, changes in global regulations and tax reporting and the expansion of shared services models have impacted on the way they work, over the past decade.

Meanwhile, senior management has come to expect finance teams to perform as much more than mere bookkeepers and number crunchers. Accountants and finance professionals are commonly required to be strategic partners within the enterprise; all-rounders who can be called upon to lend their expertise and insight to all aspects of operations.

Disruption in the sector looks set to intensify as automation continues to relieve the profession of a swathe of its traditional tasks.

Managing the transition

Against this backdrop, many organisations face a two-fold challenge. They need to assist existing employees with traditional finance skillsets to adapt to new duties and expectations and ensure staff are provided with opportunities to undertake challenging, non-routine work.

The latter has become more of an issue as millennials continue their rise through the ranks of the profession. As a cohort, they’re more educated than their predecessors – many millennials begin their working lives with advanced degrees in hand – and are typically more resistant to the notion of spending their early career years doing repetitive, transactional work.

Requiring them to do so is not just a poor use of valuable resources. It may result in a revolving door of recruits, if new hires opt to look elsewhere rather than serve out their ‘apprenticeships’ undertaking unsatisfying and unchallenging work.

Old skills and new

Data analysis is high on the list of skills accountants may do well to acquire, as their roles evolve beyond their traditional number crunching.

Becoming proficient in predictive modelling and forecasting – along with the tools used to carry out the data analysis companies increasingly rely on to inform decision making – can make finance folk even more valuable members of the corporate team.

Meanwhile, many in the profession are positive about the prospect of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) relieving them of many of the repetitive tasks of yore.

The term RPA refers to the use of systems with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities to complete high volume, repeatable tasks, such as simple calculations and reconciliations.

Research has found RPA can reduce operating costs by up to 80 per cent. Researchers expect up to 40 per cent of transaction accounting work may be performed by the technology within the next few years.

Planning tomorrow’s team

Organisations need to plan and restructure their finance teams to reflect these emerging realities, or risk being caught with skillsets which no longer meet their requirements in the AI-driven automation era.

Here are five ways to build the right talent mix.

1. Create a roadmap

Developing a roadmap that shows how business processes will evolve as automation takes hold will provide clarity about the future direction – for both executives and finance employees.  The starting point should be an audit of accounting and finance functions to identify which roles which will be most heavily impacted.

2. Retain, retrain and realign

As automation relieves finance professionals of more rote tasks, finding higher value assignments for them to complete should become an imperative. Creating individual development plans to help employees upgrade and broaden their skillsets will ensure the organisation helps them achieve their potential and derives maximum benefit from their expertise.

3. Communicate and set expectations

Regular communication is vital during any period of major change. Helping staff recognise the value of automation and working with them to ensure their new roles are well defined will help ensure a smooth transition.

4. Change the hiring mix

Reduced focus on manual accounting and greater emphasis on data analytics and other business tasks calls for a different mix of skills. To avoid recruiting for yesterday’s jobs, organisations’ hiring criteria will need to evolve. Employees who can use data to challenge convention and inform business decision making should be high on the list of desirable hires.

5. Encourage technology leadership

The shift to cloud computing has seen IT departments’ control of technology systems and infrastructure loosen. The onset of the automation era may see their trend continue, particularly as self-service data analytics become the norm in more workplaces. Finance and accounting professionals should be encouraged to take the lead in the move towards machine learning and data modelling and analysis.

Claudia Pirko is Australia and New Zealand Regional Vice President at financial automation software provider, BlackLine.

The post Building a finance team to tackle the digital era appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

Andresen will report to recently appointed SAP Asia Pacific Japan president, Scott Russell, who was his predecessor in the role.

“Connectivity in Southeast Asia is growing at an impressive rate and we foresee a lot more customers accelerating their digital transformation and journey to the cloud in the next few years. While the level of digital maturity in Southeast Asia varies across the region, SAP has the extensive capability to help our customers scale and succeed in this new digital economy,” said Russell.

“Claus brings with him the experience and vision to help our customers translate their strategy into action. I am confident that SAP Southeast Asia will continue to shine under his leadership.”

In his previous role for SAP Indian Subcontinent, Anderse was “instrumental in making India amongst the fastest growing market units in SAP”. Prior to this, he spent over a decade in various global and regional senior leadership roles in SAP’s Global Services and Support organisation.

Based in Singapore, Andresen will now oversee SAP’s business across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Indochina and other emerging markets in the region.

“Southeast Asia plays an important role for SAP’s business. There are plenty of opportunities for us in this part of the world as more organisations understand the value that digital innovations can deliver to their business and how they operate. Across the region, we are seeing the trajectory and we are committed to helping our customers and partners build a solid foundation for their digital future,” he said.

The post On the Move: New president and MD of SAP Southeast Asia appointed appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

Russell will be responsible for growing the SAP business across Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.

He was previously president and managing director for SAP Southeast Asia (SEA), who was instrumental in driving strategy, operations and growth across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and other emerging markets. He also held the role of chief operating officer for SAP in APJ between 2014 and 2016, and was senior vice president of SAP APJ Services prior to this. Russell was also managing consultant at Pricewaterhouse Coopers and led the Systems Integration and Application Maintenance business for IBM Australia New Zealand.

“Our customers are looking to SAP for a vision of their digital future and for flexibility and choice in the way they consume technology,” said Jennifer Morgan, SAP Executive Board member and president, Americas and Asia Pacific Japan.

“In a region as diverse as APJ, the opportunity has never been bigger for SAP to continue to transform our customers’ businesses and help them grow and thrive in the 21st century economy. Scott’s vision and commitment to the customer, together with his impressive technology background and leadership experience, make him the right leader to help write the next chapter of SAP APJ’s growth and innovation story.”

Russell said he is honoured to be leading the APJ business.

“SAP is an innovation-driven company that has helped enterprises and small and midsize businesses digitalise and simplify, and our innovation is inspired by our vision to help the world run better and improve people’s lives,” said Russell.

“The fourth industrial revolution has created unprecedented opportunity to fundamentally improve the state of Asia – across society, the economy and the environment. By infusing our innovation into our purpose, SAP’s innovative solutions, built on SAP HANA and in the cloud, empower private and public organisations in Asia Pacific to become sustainable digital businesses.”

The post On the Move: Russell succeeds Fox-Martin as APJ president appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

Khor was previously head of cloud in SAP Southeast Asia, with responsibility for revenue, demand management, strategy, and industry cloud go-to-market plans. In his new role, he will report to Scott Russell, president of SAP Southeast Asia. His responsibilities will include leading co-innovation projects with customers, and developing the SAP Singapore workforce.

“Singapore is a key market for us in the region, being the headquarters for our operations in both APJ and Southeast Asia. It is also a hotbed for developing innovation and innovators, and is the top country for ASEAN for innovation as ranked by the Global Innovation Index. We have been investing in our relationships with customers and partners to drive our Singapore Smart Nation Vision 2020 forward, and I am confident that Khor will be able to deliver accelerated growth for our business in the market,” Russell said.

“There are plenty of opportunities in Singapore as the government advances its Smart Nation agenda. We’re already seeing huge investments in digital technologies such as big data as well as machine learning, analytics and blockchains and expect this to go on an upward trajectory as the government implements the recommendations put forward by the Committee on the Future Economy earlier this year.

“SAP has a solid track-record of delivering innovative solutions to our customers and helping them navigate the new digital environment. I look forward to this exciting chapter of leading SAP Singapore as we continue to partner our customers in achieving Singapore’s Smart Nation vision,” said Khor Chern Chuen, managing director, SAP Singapore.

Khor began his IT career in 2001 and joined SAP in 2007, managing large and strategic accounts. He took on the SAP Cloud leadership position in Southeast Asia in 2016.

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Lucas joins the Marketo team from his most recent position as SAP’s president, enterprise platform and analytics, where he drove innovative strategies to accelerate enterprise and analytics offerings from inception to market. During his SAP career, he held progressively more senior global leadership positions in their business analytics database and technology, BusinessObjects, and corporate strategy and market development organisations. Lucas was previously the force leading growth and expansion at Salesforce.com as senior vice president, platform marketing and Force.com.

“I am excited to join the company as Marketo accelerates its growth through enterprise expansion, its unprecedented next-generation marketing platform, and its robust partner ecosystem,” said Lucas. “I look forward to leading this incredible organisation and enabling anyone using these market-leading solutions to innovate faster and accelerate their digital transformation through marketing, all with a firm commitment to Marketo’s unique culture that champions diversity, inclusion, and social responsibility.”

The move cements San Mateo-based Marketo’s commitment to accelerated growth and innovation in engagement marketing software and solutions designed to help marketers develop long-term relationships with their customers. The company is looking to leverage Lucas’ extensive experience in selling data analytics, cloud services, database, and mobile applications.

Marketo’s founder and current CEO Phil Fernandez is stepping down immediately, after 10 years during which he led the company through launch, a successful IPO and the recent acquisition by Vista Equity Partners.

“I founded Marketo with a bold vision that marketers would take on a powerful new role within their organisations, owning customer engagement and digital transformation,” said Fernandez. “I am confident that the Marketo team under Steve’s leadership will maintain and extend our commitment to innovation, integrity and customer success, as well as to the thousands of successful, passionate individuals who are the heart of the Marketing Nation.”

Martin Taylor, principal at Vista Equity Partners and Marketo director said,”I want to welcome Steve to the leadership team as Marketo CEO and thank Phil for his instrumental role pioneering a new industry and building Marketo into a world-class brand that serves nearly 5000 customers and more than 650 partners around the globe.”

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C. Vijakumar began his career with HCL in 1994 as a senior technical engineer, and during his tenure, has worked his way through numerous role to hold senior executive positions in India and the US, including as executive vice president – global service delivery and president – infrastructure services.

C. Vijayakumar has been charged with the execution of HCL’s strategy to grow “experience-based and business outcome-oriented next generation services” in the cloud, Internet of Things, digital and cybersecurity arenas, maintain the company’s leadership position in core services and “achieve greater momentum in the ecosystem-driven products and platform business”, according to a statement by the company.

“HCL has always identified emerging opportunities and pivoted early during market inflections. Over the last couple of years, by organizing itself for transformation, the company has sustained consistency in its growth and has achieved a differentiated market position,” said Shiv Nadar, chairman and chief strategy officer, HCL Technologies.

“Vijay has been a transformational leader in the company leading from the front. His vision and flawless execution track record best positions him for taking our journey forward. I wish him all the very best.”

C. Vijayakumar will continue to be based in the US as he takes this new role.

“I am deeply humbled and honoured to be given an opportunity to lead HCL Technologies, where we are uniquely positioned to win in the new world. Over the last two decades, I have had the privilege of working with world class teams, creating collective value for our clients, employees, investors and communities in which we operate. I look forward to partnering with each one of our HCL ideapreneurs as we embark on the next phase of our journey”, he said.

HCL Technologies operates in 32 countries and has consolidated revenues of US$6.6 billion. The company’s SAP practice has over 8500 SAP consultants.

The post On the Move: HCL Technologies appoints new CEO appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

SAP formed the Connected Health group to bring together numerous initiatives within the company to address the healthcare market holistically. SAP has previously stated its commitment to enabling smarter health decisions and advancing medical knowledge through the world in order to improve lives and reduce costs across the healthcare continuum.

“SAP has contributed to the improvement of healthcare for more than a decade,” said Seve Singh, member, SAP Executive Board.

“With the recent establishment of the SAP Connected Health group, we are now poised to take a broader role, and Thomas is the right leader to move our efforts forward. The SAP Connected Health platform and the ecosystem of partners we’re building around it are dedicated to taking advantage of the latest medical and technological advancements to solve real-world problems in global healthcare.”

Laur brings to the role expertise in global revenue management, product innovation, corporate strategy, organisational strategy, and mergers and acquisition.

“Healthcare globally is going through unprecedented change as a result of new medical insights, technological advancements, and the changing expectations of patients,” said Laur. “Because SAP technology supports the entire cycle of care, from providers to researchers to patients, we are uniquely positioned to drive digital innovation across the healthcare system through a connected health platform. I’m thrilled to join the SAP team at this critical moment in the evolution of healthcare.”

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Mueller, 34, has been head of SAP’s Innovation Center Network since September 2013, and managing director of SAP Labs Berlin since June. He will continue in these roles while taking on his new responsibilities.

The SAP Innovation Center Network operates from nine locations around the world, creating new growth businesses for SAP by “pioneering new markets and disruptive technologies such as machine learning, blockchain and future enterprise applications”, a statement by the company said.

Prior to joining SAP in 2013, Mueller was co-representative of Professor Hasso Plattner’s research chair at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) for Software Systems Engineering in Potsdam, Germany. He holds a doctorate in IT systems engineering.

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