Moveable Feast # 23 : Building the SAP practice in PwC India
Roopen Roy
In the mid-1990’s, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) was beginning its unstoppable campaign of conquests in the corporate world. Germans were known for their manufacturing prowess but not for the excellence of their software products. Yet, a German company called Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung (“System Analysis and Program Development”) SAP for short emerged as a market leader, a position it has held to this day.
The journey of SAP dates back to 1972 when five engineers from IBM decided to create SAP. They had approached the IBM leadership for assistance in setting up a business division within IBM. But IBM asserted that their business was to sell hardware, not software. The first client of this company was the German branch of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). Starting with one customer and a handful of employees, SAP set out on a path that would not only transform the world of information technology, but also forever alter the way companies do business.
The US consulting practice of Price Waterhouse was collaborating with SAP and it became a leading implementer of SAP ERP. Within just a few years, SAP became the hottest selling ERP package and PW began winning large implementations of $50 million fees each and more. Around March 1996, I received a call from Tom Beyer, the leader of consulting in PW that we were venturing on an ambitious project and the Project Director Bill Niergarth would call me from the SAP Centre of Excellence (COE) in Philadelphia.
Bill told me that an ambitious project was in the works. SAP, Gartner and PW had come together to create 40 titles of Computer-based training (CBT) courses which will be marketed to clients to train their people in various facets of SAP. It will also be used for training consultants.
They needed about 40 SAP trained consultants who would physically fly to Philadelphia and work with the US consultants and partners to deliver the CBT project over a period of 12 months. I told Bill I could provide 40 of the best consultants hired from top tier engineering colleges and IIMs but they would need to be trained as we had no SAP practice in India.
However, once they delivered the CBT project, we would have 40 or more trained and certified SAP consultants who would return and form the nucleus of a strong Indian SAP practice. Bill came down to India to interview a few consultants and was, as expected, very impressed with their caliber and capabilities.
We applied for the visas and went ahead with the logistics. A few people were also joining the project from Australia and from cities outside Philadelphia. Therefore, the US firm of Price Waterhouse negotiated the booking of almost 50 rooms for a year in Korman Suites in Philadelphia. Korman had cooking facilities and the aroma of spices converted it into a Little India in Philly. This project also sowed the seeds of a dedicated communication link between Tampa, Florida which was the hub of Price Waterhouse’s Global Technology Services (GTS) and Calcutta and Philadelphia. This project not only created the core of PW India’s SAP practice, it also laid the foundation of our offshore software factory in Calcutta. The designs were mainly done by experienced PW consultants in Philadelphia, whereas some of the coding moved offshore to Calcutta.
Price Waterhouse announced the project on May 15, 1996 in The SAP Technical Developers Conference in Orlando. A press release disclosed the following:
“PW PowerSuite is comprised of four segments: PW PowerTools, PW PowerGuide, PW PowerVision, PW PowerShare. Each segment has an equal role in assuring the firm’s clients receive a seamless SAP solution. Developed by the market’s leading SAP practitioners, PW PowerSuite will improve the speed, quality, control and SAP knowledge transfer of a SAP R/3 engagement and will assure a consistent, global implementation that harnesses the power of a business with the technology needed to integrate information across an enterprise. PW PowerTools includes the R/3 Toolkit, the on-line version of Price Waterhouse’s SAP R/3 methodology, ESPRIT, a proprietary interfacing tool and SAP Security & Control Toolkit, a proprietary SAP systems security feature.”
The modules of SAP training began rolling out each month in the form of CD s and began to sell in the market. Gartner, SAP and PW realized that without the contribution of the PW India engineers and the offshore software factory in Calcutta, it would have been nearly impossible to complete such an ambitious project at such low cost. The model of off-shore delivery was firmly established.
When the fully-trained consultants returned to India, the SAP magic was at the cusp of weaving its spell. A super salesman of SAP Rudy Van Der Hoeven was selling big projects. PwC was in the thick of these large projects: Tata Steel, Indian Oil Corporation, ONGC, Reliance and Bharat Petroleum just to name a few.
Rudy was Dutch by birth, had a British wife and lived near the Jura Mountains in Switzerland. He was like the James Bond of ERP. We used to go on sales calls to large clients together and he always showcased PW’s large core of trained consultants.
I vividly remember an anecdote. We were going to Jamshedpur one morning to make the final presentation to the CIO Varun Jha and his team at Tata Steel. We had a courtesy meeting scheduled with Dr. J.J. Irani as well. We arrived at the airport and on seeing that it was a Vayudoot Fokker F27 aircraft, Rudy refused to board .
“What on earth is the matter?” I asked Rudy. Rudy said his insurance policy did not permit him to travel on small Fokker Friendship aircrafts. I told him, “Flying this aircraft may be a risk not covered by your insurance. If you reach safely, it would not matter. But if you decline to fly, we will surely lose the deal and we will have an insulted client. Then your relationship with PW and me will be severed for ever -that is not a risk, it is a certainty.” Rudy reluctantly boarded the aircraft. It was a short flight and as luck would have it, the aircraft tried to land but just before landing it went up again. Rudy let out a shriek, his face was ashen and he was praying. At the presentation, Rudy was at its best, we sold the deal and he came back by train.
Our SAP practice was expanding and we began winning large offshore projects as well. The most exciting was the Nestle project where the SAP server farm was in Vevey in Switzerland and the Indian consultants were both in Vevey and Calcutta working via dedicated communication links. Hundreds of Indian consultants went to work in the US on SAP projects and stayed back and are successful professionals there.
PW’s SAP practice has produced some of the finest leaders in the consulting industry in India. Amitabh Ray is the CEO of Ericsson Global Services in India, Ambarish Dasgupta is the consulting leader of KPMG and Anjan Majumdar became the Managing Director of IBM Philppines. Arnab Basu who started life in the SAP practice in India is now PwC’s Technology Consulting Leader.
It is a matter of record that the largest SAP implementations in India were handled by PwC and they include Tata Steel, ONGC, Haldia Petrochemicals, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum, Reliance, ITC, British Oxygen and many more. The SAP practice was the jewel in the crown.
When IBM acquired the PwC consulting business in October 2002, by market share, profitability and head count PwC’s SAP practice was the largest in India which IBM expanded many times under Amitabh Ray. And come to think of it, it started with two phone calls to Calcutta from Tom Beyer and Bill Niergarth.