| |November 20189CIOReviewtise so as to rapidly transform a business into an Intelligent Enterprise. Our scalable approach to digital transforma-tion helps in creating future-ready technologies which is accessed through the cloud and augmented by design thinking services for rapid prototyping and adoption. To give you an example, Kansai Nerolac, the leading Indian paints company, is adopting SAP Leonardo to streamline operations by leveraging next-generation technologies in-cluding Machine Learning and IoT. This is a prime exam-ple of how SAP helped one of its customers in the digital transformation journey. Another of SAP's latest offerings is the SAP C/4HANA which covers consumer data, marketing, commerce, sales and customer services. With this offering, we are able to help build stronger relationships with customers and earn and keep their trust. This in-memory customer experience (CX) suite offers cloud solutions for marketing, commerce, sales, service, and customer data ­ and uses technologies like machine learning to power real-time engagements.Businesses need innovative tools that would cut down on product development lifecycle, enhance network-ing and collaboration and help with strategic planning. How do you think companies can deploy cutting edge innovative tools to bring in more creativity in handling core operations? Let me begin with an example to explain this better. Glo-bus, one of India's leading fashion retail chains, is accelerat-ing its growth roadmap, by transforming operations with SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. The implementation aims to build omnichannel retail for the brand through seamless integration on the cloud. The company also benefits from insights into operational data to empower store staff with contextual details, while providing real-time information for faster and better decision making to the board.The basis of this success is SAP HANA that has been our flagship in-memory database, enabling businesses to make business decisions based on the most up-to-date information. The innovative architecture in SAP HANA reduces time-consuming tasks and supports in-telligent applications that use advanced analytic process-ing. HANA has helped simplify working processed for companies, minimize the total cost of ownership of their technology, and has allowed for faster and more informed business decisions.We also launched S/4HANA Cloud last year ­ an in-telligent ERP Cloud offering leveraging the same game changing innovations we delivered with S/4HANA, but now via a SaaS delivery model. S/4HANA Cloud is best suited for large organizations as well as for subsidiaries and operational units of larger enterprises, and we have already started witnessing immense traction in India for the same. Running a successful digital transformation includes IT-Business collaboration and acquiring right talent is of paramount importance for this. How do we address the lack of skill set and how will this impact the growth of digital transformation?India is slated to become the world's youngest nation by 2022. A shortage in digitally skilled workforce could come in the way of India establishing itself as a technol-ogy superpower. Large, medium and small organizations are transforming with the deployment of new age tech-nologies for digital initiatives like Industry 4.0, connected products, connected assets, connected people or connect-ed markets. To ensure this growth is scalable, it's critical to have a pool of talent that is equipped with skills to ide-ate, innovate and work on transformational technologies. We recognized this early on and have been engaged with several programs to augment the entire ecosystem­ right from school children to graduates to the elderly. We are not only preparing the present workforce but also prepar-ing and training the future workforce. For example, our i360 Program works with universi-ties to ensure students find themselves at the top of the skill curve of IoT, Machine Learning, AI, Analytics, and Big Data. SAP's customers and partners have joined in bringing in real industry projects for students to propel young India to take a leadership position in innovation. Last year SAP signed a Memorandum of Understand-ing (MoU) with the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (M/o MSME) to jointly launch Bharat ERP an exclusive program to empower MSMEs with next-gen technology to fuel their digital journey. As a part of the MoU, SAP India and the Ministry of MSMEs have been working to make MSMEs become future-ready by helping them focus on innovation and business profitability. Subramanian Ananthapadmanabhan
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