“SAP has the largest cloud footprint today, with more than 100 solutions and 150M subscribers across industries globally which is enabling companies to innovate new edge scenarios to allow them to continuously adapt and advance.”

In an interview with Sarabjeet Kaur from BW CIOWORLD, Dilipkumar Khandelwal, President – SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud & MD, SAP Labs India speaks about how SAP HANA cloud has accelerated growth and helped numerous Indian organizations innovate to quickly deliver business outcomes, reduce risk, and drive IT and business transformation. Excerpts:

BW CIO: Cloud computing is often considered as the backbone of digitalization. What is your outlook on this?

Cloud is absolutely the backbone for the digital transformation of enterprises. Innovation is the top priority for most enterprises today to grow and remain competitive. Indian organizations are transforming at a rapid pace, but an increasingly connected world is creating new demands which has led to numerous new questions on data, analysis, automation and security. Cloud computing is the solution for organizations to scale, secure, analyze and store data while lowering operational cost and improving business agility. To digitally transform without cloud infrastructure is unthinkable. 

BW CIO: What is the contribution of SAP cloud environment in accelerating digital transformation in India?

SAP understands that today’s businesses demand more flexibility and speed than ever before and empowers enterprises to transform with its cloud solutions. SAP Cloud Platform creates an agility layer that allows businesses to manage and leverage information of all types and connect it to business systems. SAP Leonardo is the digital innovation system that combines design thinking services with platform capabilities of cutting edge technologies. With SAP Cloud Platform as the foundation of SAP Leonardo, our customers and partners are seamlessly integrating technologies such as IoT, machine learning and blockchain and capabilities such as user experience, business services to rapidly develop and deploy next-generation applications.

BW CIO: What are some examples of SAP’s constructive business use cases?

SAP cloud solutions have transformed Indian businesses to run in real time, providing the ability to transact, analyze and predict instantly and proactively in an increasingly unpredictable world. A few companies that SAP has empowered are –

• Celkon Mobiles has implemented SAP's cloud platform to aid its national distribution network. The solution has been implemented across Celkon’s more than 700 channel partners and employees and is expected to reduce data loading, improve sales, capture the company’s data efforts, eliminate duplicate transactions and improve the efficiency and accuracy of information.
• Mangalam Cement was looking to Gain Operational Efficiencies with SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management and deployed the SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management solution at 6 plants, 2 captive-power plants, 13 windmills, and 55 distribution centers.
• The British Grand Prix racing and automotive manufacturing McLaren is using SAP, including SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, to design cars faster, deliver applications from the cloud, and recruit the best talent. 
• Metinvest leveraged the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud as part of its digital transformation process. By using SAP, the mining & metals company is saving $17m annually through more accurate production planning, automated invoicing processes, and improved employee management. Metinvest is more flexible and closer to their customers. 

BW CIO: What is the growth outlook in cloud services solutions?

Gartner in a study forecasted that the worldwide public cloud services market is projected to grow 21.4% in 2018 to $186.4 billion, up from $153.5 billion in 2017. Additionally, the fastest-growing segment of the market will be cloud system infrastructure services (IaaS), which is forecast to grow 35.9% in 2018. This data clearly shows that cloud solutions are evolving rapidly and showing no signs of slowing down. The main reason behind the growth is the architecture which is desirable to businesses and delivers a strong return on investment. Several businesses are already using cloud technology in a public, private, or hybrid cloud environment and the pace of cloud adoption will only quicken in the years ahead.

BW CIO: What is the next phase of cloud evolution?

Businesses are evolving faster than ever before by adopting cutting edge technologies like AI, IoT, Blockchain, etc. Cloud computing is key for these technologies to achieve their full potential and it has become a natural part of how any business thinks about transformation. While many would say cloud computing is a mature technology, I believe it’s still evolving as new trends emerge and usage patterns change. Though Indian enterprises are growing rapidly, there are still many organizations that are yet to migrate to cloud completely. Additionally, many industries are still at a nascent phase which will take time to evolve and adapt.