The company said the expansion in Gurgaon is a strategic move that will provide further impetus to its growth and reinforce its commitment to the Indian market. With significant presence by SAP's lines of businesses, housing Global Services and Support Center (GSC) (including: Active Global Support, SAP Custom Development, SAP Partner Services Delivery) as well as SAP India Field and SAP Global Delivery Center, the Gurgaon office also offers the advantage of bringing SAP closer to its customers in the Northern and Eastern regions of the country. SAP will have over 250 employees working out of the new office by the end of 2006.

SAP Labs India is the company's second largest R&D hub and is part of a dynamic community within SAP's global R&D organization. By the end of this year, SAP Labs India is expected to contribute to about 20% of SAP's global research and product development. Likewise the GSC in India will also be looking at an equal share of contribution along all major lines of services.

Henning Kagermann, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Board Member of SAP AG, said, "India is a vital component of SAP's research and development and global services and support network. The quality of talent, innovation and performance coming from India is truly impressive and our additional investments are designed to harness more of the same. We hope to further leverage India's present performance as well as future potential through all our initiatives."

Kagermann also announced that in recognition of the fast-paced growth in the Indian market, SAP has elevated India to the status of a strategic hub. This status will bring to SAP India more attention, resources and additional focus required to sustain and build upon the current momentum of SAP's broad-based growth in the Indian Sub Continent.

"India continues to grow in its importance to SAP globally. As one of our top eight strategic markets globally and now a strategic hub in the region, we are seeing phenomenal growth in demand for our solutions from Indian enterprises," said Kagermann.

SAP also announced the setting up of new CoEs around key focus areas that will highlight its best-in-class solutions to Indian enterprises and provide a platform for SAP partners to showcase their capabilities. This move is designed towards sustaining and building on the outstanding partner ecosystem SAP has in India. SAP's Centers of Excellence provide support on a project basis to assist SAP partners in developing prototypes and pilot solutions for unique customer requirements. The company had set up the SAP NetWeaver CoE last year at SAP Labs India in Bangalore.

The company said a CoE for the Public Sector will be set up in the new Gurgaon office to showcase how SAP applications enable government transformation at all levels by providing solutions that bridge across organizational boundaries, enable faster, more flexible service and deliver higher public value at lower costs. SAP will also set up CoEs in the Retail and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) focus areas. SAP, together with its partner Siemens Information Systems, is already operating two CoEs, one for Airports and other for Media industry.

SAP also announced that it has become the first enterprise software provider to cross the 1000th customer mark in the Indian market. Coinciding with the completion of SAP's decade of operations in India; this milestone in customer adoption further strengthens SAP's leadership position in the Indian enterprise software solutions market.

Godrej Industries Ltd. (GIL) has chosen mySAP Business Suite to consolidate business-critical information, improve visibility across the group and enable more effective management across its entire operations. The mySAP implementation at Godrej Industries Limited would cover all its group companies including Godrej Agrovet, Godrej Consumer Products, Godrej Beverages and Foods, Godrej Properties, Godrej HiCare and Godrej Sara Lee.’