Event

In recognition of the best customer

On completing a decade in India, SAP presented the first-ever SAP Awards for Customer Excellence. Aishwarya Ramani reports

SAP India celebrated the completion of a decade in India with the first-ever SAP Awards for Customer Excellence—SAP ACE 2006—which were presented recently. The awards were given away as recognition to the best IT projects running on the SAP platform. The winners were selected from among 156 nominations from 85 organisations across India and Sri Lanka.

There were 16 categories, which included the Best Public Sector Implementation, Best Financial Sector Implementation, and Best Service Sector Implementation. The awards primarily highlighted IT innovation in the Indian industry.

Alan Sedghi, President and CEO, SAP spoke on the occasion applauding the role of SAP’s partners in the company’s growth. He pointed out that SAP India was approaching the figure of 1,200 customers in India and added, “SAP will invest $1 billion over the next three years. We aim to be the enterprise solution provider in India and take the customer count to 15,000 by 2010 and also double our head count during the same period.

During his address, Leo Apotheker, President, Customer Solutions and Operations, and Member, SAP AG Executive Board said, “Corporate India’s adoption and leverage of SAP Solutions is becoming an industry benchmark across the region and the globe.”

And the award goes to…

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and Macmillan India Ltd won in the first category of awards to be announced for Best Business Impact. Mahindra & Mahindra was accredited with creating a truly collaborative environment with suppliers and improving supply chain efficiency by ensuring high satisfaction levels for its suppliers. Macmillan was awarded for being a clean integration project that helped improve inventory and receivables and also the company’s financial and HR processes.

Industry leaders highlighted the focus that SAP has for Indian customers and the way in which technology has been used innovatively to solve the problems of industry verticals.

For instance, Titan Industries and ITC-IBD got awards in the same category of Best Business Innovation but represented two different verticals and addressed unique requirements. Titan Industries deployed SAP in an innovative manner to improve its order fulfilment. Whereas ITC-IBD was adjudged a winner for its e-Choupal project that goes right to the bottom of the pyramid and tackles the problems of farmers through a strong IT backbone.

On receiving the award, Raghuram Pulavorty, Senior IT consultant, ITC said, “This project spans 6,000 choupals. The challenges were many— remote locations, getting the right kind of people from the villages to operate this suite and so on.”

The ONGC team seen receiving the Special Jury Award at the SAP awards ceremony

An IT implementation makes sense only if it results in a decent RoI. The winners in this category were Maestro Engineering and Navin Flourine. Maestro won the award for improving operations, shortening time to market and allowing serious online collaboration with foreign customers. Navin Flourine’s efforts in building a project that encompasses all aspects of its business through integration and business process re-engineering were appreciated.

SAP also evaluated companies on the basis of the time taken to implement a project. Two companies with a pan-Indian presence won the award—IOC and Apollo Tyres.

IOC won for the sheer speed with which it implemented a SAP-based programme across 300-plus far-flung locations in less than a year, despite being the largest company in India. Apollo Tyres’ aim was to integrate 120 offices, four manufacturing plants, 15 CNF agents and 6,000 dealers and connecting all these entities to a data centre and offering them disaster recovery services, all in a time frame of seven months.

Under the Best Consumer Sector Implementation Videocon was selected for its unique business diary concept to track achievements, by coming up with a performance and reward tracking system. In the retail segment it was DCM Shriram for its retail initiative in the rural markets of Northern India and for integrating SAP with various third party POS solutions.

Bajaj Automotive and Sundaram Clayton won awards for the Best Discrete Sector Implementation (Automotive). The solution has been implemented for the dealers with regard to the after sales services they provide. If the vehicle is under warranty, it can be brought back to the dealer in case a faulty part needs to be replaced. The sales contract of the respective vehicle will be checked by the vendor to see if it falls within the warranty period. The SAP solution at work would then make a note of this transaction between the dealer and the end-user and the adjustment of the dues between Bajaj Auto and the dealer would be taken care of internally by the system.

Sundaram Clayton won for their project which showcased a focussed SAP implementation with a well documented implementation process and a clear series of benefit indicators. “It is nice to know that all our hardwork has finally been acknowledged,” said T G Dhandapani, Corporate CIO, Sundaram Clayton.

The next set of awards was the Best Process Sector Implementation (Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals). Nicholas Piramal walked away with this award. The jury zeroed in on the company’s project that operates on a ‘First to Expire’ material consumption basis, leading to significant reduction in claims as well as integrates information from legacy systems, while significantly improving the procurement processes.

Finally, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) was honoured with a special jury award for integrating geographies by connecting 500 physically dispersed locations ranging from mobile survey units to deep sea vessels, from production installations to drilling rigs, and seamlessly connecting facilities across India. ONGC is using SAP version 4.6C for its ERP implementation. The project started in 2002 and was completed in 2004.