Sindhu Gangadharan could not have known that six months after taking on her new role as senior vice president and managing director for SAP Labs India she would be navigating one of the company’s largest development centers through a global pandemic and economic crisis.
With nearly 9,000 employees across five cities, SAP Labs India is the second largest location in the SAP Labs Network and is central to the company’s product development strategy. Despite a dynamic environment, the forced virtual teamwork as a result of the COVID-19 has not hampered productivity.
The India-based teams, together with other teams globally, just released to customers the second version of the essentials edition of SAP S/4HANA Cloud. “We stuck to the timeline as well as to the scope that was promised to our customers,” Gangadharan reports proudly.
Gangadharan believes that the pandemic will expedite the move to digitalization in India, and notes that SAP’s strategy is resonating strongly with customers. The same trend toward digitalization and cloud computing has been confirmed in other markets, including China and Europe.
If there is anyone that understands the benefits of digitalization, it’s Gangadharan.
She formerly served as head of the Intelligent Enterprise Program, where she worked side-by-side with SAP colleagues from key functional areas and across multiple Board areas. Those close connections are extremely valuable to her today in the current virtual work mode.
“I’m pretty confident that SAP will come out stronger post-COVID-19, and we will also help many of our customers come out stronger as well,” Gangadharan emphasizes.
But the business is only one side of the coin; supporting the most vulnerable parts of society is her other priority. SAP has always led a very strong corporate social responsibility (CSR) program in India, and those relationships are now enabling it to make a contribution.
By opening the large kitchens on campuses in Bangalore and Gurgaon, SAP Labs India is helping distribute more than 17,000 meals a day to the poor and is also donating personal protection equipment and ventilators to local hospitals.
“It’s so gratifying to see a lot of people are being touched by this, and it is only possible by people coming together and collaborating to make it possible,” says Gangadharan.
To learn more about how SAP is helping India surmount business and humanitarian challenges, watch the full interview with Sindu Gangadharan:
Listen to the podcast on Spotify or Anchor.
