Only our India hub has SAP's full product portfolio: SAP Labs India MD

SAP Labs India’s managing director and senior vice-president, Sindhu Gangadharan, has been with the company for 22 years. Her tenure at SAP Labs, which will complete 25 years in India next year, is also a lesson on how companies engage with employees as they traverse through their personal journeys. In an interview with Shivani Shinde, she talks about what binds her to SAP, the importance of SAP Labs’ India hub, its tech offerings, and the way ahead. Edited excerpts:

Twenty-two years with one company is a long time. What binds you to SAP?

SAP is a very purpose-driven company, which also means that if we are offering something to clients, we would have already implemented it at SAP. We’ve been able to attract some of the best talent in the industry, because we are solving some of the world’s most complex business problems.

For me, SAP opened the world. For instance, when I was asked to drive the intelligent enterprise strategy at SAP, it meant working across our different lines of business. Each is a world of its own. The learning opportunities, our purpose-driven culture, phenomenal employee benefits and the platform for driving that innovation mindset -- all these factors are what keeps somebody like me, or for that matter anybody who had long careers, at SAP.

Is it fair to assume that these kinds of opportunities are becoming fewer, especially when you look at attrition and moonlighting?

I can talk about the product and research field. When you are building products over a sustained period of time, you are also involved in how a product gets built, designing it with the best customer experience, looking at commercialisation models, and looking at what business models can be applied. I think you have to keep them (employees) challenged from an IQ point of view and give them opportunities to have fun.

It’s about innovation. A decade or so back, employees did not ask these questions, but now they want to know how their journey will pan out. What’s my learning curve? How do I give back to society? How do I contribute to the country that I’m part of? It’s a different kind of conversation. And maybe it’s also because there’s a multitude of opportunities.

What has been the attrition at SAP Labs India and the total employee strength?

Definitely way below that in any of the top four IT services firms. I also believe that healthy attrition is good. People go out, sometimes they come back, they learn new things. For me, and at SAP, it’s about retaining talent because, being a product company, we cannot have people staying with us for just a year or so. Overall, SAP in India has 14,000-plus employees, of which SAP Labs India is 12,000-plus.

What’s your take on moonlighting?

It is clearly mentioned in the contract that one cannot have a second job. Yes, if someone wants to open a bakery, we are fine. Or, if a team manager is OK with what that person is doing, then it’s OK. But it cannot be voluntary. With moonlighting getting talked about so much, we have also become vocal about the issue within the company, especially for employees who have joined us in the last two years. We have been adding on average 2,500-3,000 new hires every year, and even this year it’s the same. We are taking conscious efforts to sensitise these people. These folks who joined SAP this time are saying, ‘let’s talk’.

With SAP Labs India set to complete 25 years in India, what do the next few years look like?

Today SAP Labs India is the largest R&D hub for SAP, and it will continue to be so. That’s a clear commitment from SAP. SAP Labs has 20 labs across 18 countries, and five hubs across the United States, Germany, China, Canada and India. Of all the hubs, only the India hub has the entire breadth of SAP’s product portfolio. The core research that’s happening for the key parts of our portfolio -- business network, intelligence spend, or procurement and sourcing -- is all happening in India.

New parts of the portfolio like enterprise cloud for sustainability products are also being built here. We are rebuilding our second campus, which is also in Bengaluru. This is also testimony to our growth in India. Almost 87 per cent of the world’s business transactions run on SAP systems, as the company caters to over a half a million customers worldwide.

There is also a shift happening. Earlier, we looked at customers who were predominantly in Europe and the US, but now all of them are coming to India, and setting up centres of excellence here. The reason is access to talent, but also to the world’s largest consumer of technology. This means, for SAP’s continued growth in India, we will focus on innovation across our portfolio -- and continued growth in terms of talent as well.

What will SAP Labs’ key focus areas in India be over the next few years?

A big part of the business technology platform is the focus on key areas like the artificial intelligence foundation, our composable business processes, and sustainability. The Government of India has mandated that the top 1,000 listed companies need to have their business responsibility and sustainability reporting in place by 2023. For a product company like ours, it becomes our responsibility to make sure that we have a common standard. That is one of the biggest research efforts actually happening in Europe. Quantum is another area that we are working on.

SAP has been an early partner with ONDC. ONDC is similar to the network system that SAP is working on globally. How do you see ONDC and the network play coming together?

It is really about how, from a business network point of view, we make sure that we integrate into ONDC as a protocol, and make sure that through our network, we expose buyers (consumers) to all the suppliers on the business network today. This is a learning experience for us too, as ONDC will have several businesses on one network.

You had said a big focus for you is to bring more diversity at SAP Labs India, like 50 per cent by 2025. Where are you on that?

We’re working on that. Today we are at 34 per cent. For us, getting to that number is not a challenge, but it is about getting the balance. One is women in the workforce, but what is equally important is women in leadership, because women tend to take breaks. I took a break when my second daughter was born, but SAP was successful in convincing me to come back. Both the employer and employee need to look at options.