In today’s COVID-19 environment, SAP Labs India remains unfazed implementing initiatives for its team and customers to help them thrive in these challenging times. Programmes such as SAP Transformation Demo webinar session, All-Hands Meeting with Thomas Saueressig, COVID-19 City Scale Epidemic simulator, and the CSR initiatives of the company keep SAP’s community together.

In a recent interview with Business Line, SAP Labs India’s SVP and Managing Director Sindhu Gangadharan talked about the company’s plans and outlook during and after the coronavirus pandemic. An SAP Veteran who has been with the company for about 20 years, Sindhu has deep technical expertise, business knowledge, and leadership skills that led her to manage several global teams.

Explaining what she foresees after COVID-19, Sindhu shared that COVID-19 has forced companies and employees to adapt to the ‘new normal’, which includes remote working. Before, working from home is not widely accepted in India. She exclaimed:

“…overnight, customers and companies had to get comfortable with online communication, collaboration and delivery. “

“In doing so, companies will realise that a digital transformation is no longer an option, but essential to their survival. They will also realise that only by transforming into an intelligent enterprise can they future-proof their operations against disruptions,” Sindhu stressed.

In Keeping Businesses Running

The SAP Labs India MD shared that business continuity plans developed by SAP business, support, and cloud delivery teams have always been in place in case disruptive incidents such as the coronavirus pandemic happen. This ensures that there will be minimal impact on the delivery of services to customers while also safeguarding the health of its employees. 

“We have been entrusted by our customers to run their mission-critical business processes,” she emphasized.

Some of the company initiatives and plans in place to help employees and businesses going are:

Working from home as an option. SAP Labs India was one of the first companies to introduce flexible working hours and work-from-home options so transitioning to it as needed during the pandemic was seamless. Rotating schedules were also implemented for onsite business-critical work.

Prioritising employees’ well-being. Virtual platforms, applications for communication, group work, and data backup were set up to ensure employees’ health and safety while working remotely. SAP Come Alive initiative, which delivers online fun, wellness, and motivational programmes, was launched to keep employees’ spirits up.

Constant contact with suppliers. To ensure SAP maintains its service levels and manage supply operational resources, the company is focused on scheduling and in-office practices to reduce the impact of any potential event. SAP also maintains a database of updates and feedback from suppliers concerning COVID-19.

Seizing the Digital Supply Chain Solutions. Recognising the growing digital supply chain management, Sindhu indicated that SAP’s supply chain software would be an area of growth for the company as well as of significant assistance to customers in terms of operational visibility and intelligence in managing their entire supply chain digitally, future-proofing their business with flawless execution. In a report from Transparency Market Research, the global supply chain management solutions market to grow at a CAGR of 11.2 percent within 2018-2026 and anticipated to reach a value of $32.9 billion by 2026.

Sindhu shared a bit about her recent blog on the future of work that encourages agility, flexibility, and security. She explained:

“At SAP, agility and flexibility have always been a part of the work culture. SAP has consistently been identified as an employer of choice due to the forward-looking and innovative policies that we have introduced in our journey towards becoming the workplace of the future.”

“We have created a workplace where our employees can do meaningful and rewarding work. We understand that advances in artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and big data are making a profound impact on how we work, learn, communicate and collaborate, thus we are leveraging the power of these technologies to make our workplace more agile, flexible, and secure,” Sindhu stressed.

SAP Labs India was recognised as the number 1 company in the list of India’s Best Companies to Work for 2019 by the Great Place to Work Institute. The same recognition was given to the company in 2018.

The post SAP Labs India:Post COVID-19 Outlook appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

Together we will persevere.

Moments of extraordinary challenge test our collective will, but also bring out the best of our collective humanity. With the unpredictable and fluid situation around COVID-19, the world is navigating through an uncertain period with few precedents.

At SAP, we have colleagues and customers in every corner of the world. Our thoughts are with all those affected and the many communities that continue to face extreme measures as we work to slow down and contain the spread of the virus. We also want to express our deepest thanks and appreciation to all the healthcare workers, first responders, police officers, emergency workers, and all others in essential functions and on the front lines caring for the sick and keeping us safe.

Naturally, the health, safety, and livelihood of the extended SAP family and the communities in which we serve is top of mind for us. Our focus first and foremost has been and will continue to be our workforce and colleagues. We’ve restricted travel, reimagined in-person events as digital experiences, and our 100,000 colleagues are almost entirely working remotely. Our customers are also a part of the SAP family, and we’re focused on standing by them as they navigate an incredibly challenging period.

Since our founding nearly 50 years ago, SAP has been synonymous with mission-critical business operations. We firmly believe that securing our business allows us to better secure those of our customers. In recent years, SAP has invested a great deal in crisis preparedness: SAP business, support, and cloud delivery teams have developed and documented business continuity plans to respond to disruptive incidents such as COVID-19, while ensuring reliability of our cloud solutions and the delivery of services to you. You can read more about some of the specific actions we are taking to ensure business continuity for SAP and for our customers here.

As we have seen, every day brings more information, but at times, more uncertainty. The more change we confront, the more important it is to understand how our people are feeling and adjusting to what may seem like a new normal on a daily basis. While we are all adapting to different work and collaboration models, the newness and the experiences are all unique to each of us depending on our job or industry. Understanding, acknowledging, and acting on the challenges and questions our employees have will help us equip them to navigate this new normal. All of us want employees who feel safe and productive, but it starts with understanding how they feel and what they need. To that end, Qualtrics has helped us get to the heart of every employee and we have opened up the same listening platform for any who need it. We hope this is helpful.

As a company we have always believed in our responsibility to support the next generation of professionals and users with our best-in-class digital learning. Now students and subject-matter experts need safe and healthy learning environments to continue their education virtually. Therefore, we are broadening access to some of our offerings to facilitate the continuity of innovation and enablement. This includes free access to select learning journeys for students at one of the 3,800 member universities of the SAP University Alliances program, online courses allowing young learners to explore technology, as well as the massive open online courses (MOOCs) available on the openSAP platform. All offerings are free – please find more information here.

We also recognize the massive disruptions impacting global supply chains, and we’ve opened up access to SAP Ariba Discovery so any buyer can post their immediate sourcing needs and any supplier can respond to show they can deliver. Our TripIt from Concur and SAP Litmos teams have offered up free services to help with travel issues and remote training capability. Check back here for updates as our teams continue to come up with new ways to help.

For all of us at SAP, our vision to help the world run better and improve people’s lives has never been more important than in this current moment. We remain focused on our people, our customers, and our communities. Together, we will persevere.

All our best,

Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein

The post Co-CEOs Write to SAP Community Amidst COVID-19 appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

SAP India has closed its offices in Bengaluru, Gurugram and Mumbai as a precautionary measure after two of its employees in Bengaluru tested positive for H1N1, also known as Swine Flu. According to the report, an internal memorandum was released encouraging employees to work from home from 20-28 February 2020.

The aforementioned SAP offices undertook extensive fumigation and sanitisation.

In an email statement, SAP India said:

“Two SAP India employees based in Bangalore (RMZ Ecoworld office) have tested positive for the H1N1 virus. Detailed contact tracing that the infected colleagues may have come into contact with is underway.”

The German ERP company has also advised its employees to seek medical advice if they, including their families, if they experience any symptoms of cold, cough with fever. This is part of the company’s effort to closely monitor the situation. It said:

“The health of our employees is our priority and it is critical that we provide the current information and guidance to help limit the spread of the H1N1 virus.”

SAP India Pvt. Ltd. is located at the RMZ Ecoworld, an IT Special Economic Zone in east Bengaluru. Other global and Indian companies like Accenture, Honeywell, Danske IT, Capgemini, KPIT Technologies, and Subex are also in the same business park.

RMZ has released an advisory to all tenants on measures to take regarding the unfortunate situation mentioning SAP’s actions. 

 “While an isolated incident has been reported, it has since been contained at a tenant space. Action has been taken as a precautionary measure,” RMZ said in a statement.

Jayaram S Govindaiah, Head of Group Real Estate and corporate services at Danske IT, shared their company’s move regarding this. He said:

“We requested our employees not to visit the food court, which is where the SAP tower is located. We quickly brought in sanitisers all over the floor for employees to use. We also had a stock of N95 masks and asked employees to make use of it. We started sanitising the handles and doors of all conference rooms and cafeteria. We asked our Danish visitors to work from their hotel and not to come to office.”

Further to RMZ’s efforts to ensure the safety of its tenants. Contact areas like lift surfaces, nobs, and taps in the common area, placing hand sanitisers, and sterilising the food court.

However, a top official of the Karnataka Health Department was quoted to say that there was an overreaction to H1N1. He said:

“We think the coronavirus fear is behind this H1N1 scare. It’s good to take precautions to avoid infection but there is no need to panic.”

In the Times of India (TOI) assessment of H1N1 data from 1 January- 20 February 2020, the state saw significantly lower cases of H1N1 versus the same period last year, wherein 175 cases were reported this year and 482 last year. Zero fatality reported this year.

“H1N1 is regularly seen and there is herd immunity to it. There is no need to quarantine, but the affected person can take rest at home till s/he recovers. Over 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of H1N1 cases are self-limiting. Complications are seen in 1{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the cases only. We are not aware of the measures taken by tech companies. But there is no need to panic,” said Dr. Prakash Kumar, Joint Director.

The silver lining with the Swine Flu in India is that no spike in the number of H1N1 cases was recorded and there is no reason to panic as said by Dr. Kumar.

Meanwhile, the impact of COVID-19 in India is starting to be a cause of concern, especially with the disruption in the supply of raw materials from China. Industry leaders told Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that this could have a serious impact on several Indian industries. China supplies 43{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of India’s imports of the top 20 goods including mobile handsets, computers, integrated circuits, and other inputs, fertilisers, APIs, and antibiotics.

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