SAP Strengthens Innovation Focus in Asia Pacific with Regional Research Headquarters in Singapore

SAP Next Business and Technology will spearhead latest technology and co-innovation with customers in social business networks and real-time intelligent economy

Kuala Lumpur — December 10, 2012 — SAP (NYSE:SAP) today announced the official opening of the SAP Next Business and Technology Research Centre in Singapore, the largest research location and headquarters in Asia Pacific. Situated in the National Research Foundation’s CREATE campus, the centre is a collaboration between Singapore’s Economic Development Board, the Singapore National Research Foundation and SAP.

The centre joins a family of SAP’s research locations worldwide, with multi-million dollar investments over the next three years, to further broaden efforts by SAP to work with government, industry partners and academia to accelerate the innovation and delivery of new solutions designed to address the challenges facing markets and societies around the world. It will focus on research in social business networks and collaboration, real-time intelligence and analytics, with a myriad of applications across different industries, including transportation, logistics, urban management and smart cities, machine-to-machine sensor-enabled objects, and retail. Future areas of advanced development could potentially be around financial and medical industries.

Incorporated in the centre is a Co-Innovation Living Lab, which provides a real-world, hands-on collaboration platform to drive co-innovation with customers, partners, and developers around research and development of new products and services. The centre will also be the second location in Asia Pacific to house the SAP Global Business Incubator, creating opportunities globally for entrepreneurs to participate and collaborate in the creation of new businesses.

“Asia Pacific is experiencing a rapid growth in urbanization and has an exploding middle class with increasing consumption power. There is also an increasing demand on infrastructure, logistics, and environment with the rise of mega-cities in this region. By being in the heart of Asia Pacific with our new research centre, this reinforces SAP’s commitment in the region to continue our growth investments and drive the innovation agenda to address the pressing economic, social, and environmental challenges here. Singapore is also strategic hub and springboard for business owners and entrepreneurs, and our Global Business Incubator team will be able to leverage the vibrant scene here,” said Jason Yotopoulos, Global Head of SAP Next Business and Technology.

The new SAP Next Business and Technology Research Centre is home to a diverse, cross-discipline team of researchers and business developers with expertise from biomedical fields to computer science. To meet the anticipated demand from the region, the size of the research team will triple by 2014, making up 15% of the global research team. The centre will also be leveraging the local talent pool through a PhD and student internship program with Singapore universities. The centre’s location at CREATE Campus will also facilitate interaction and collaboration with other research groups targeting urban solutions such as the Singapore-ETH Centre - Future Cities Laboratory. SAP Next Business and Technology and CREATE have established an active collaborative relationship with prestigious local and international universities such as National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), MIT, ETH Zurich and Cambridge.

Mr. Jayson Goh, Executive Director of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) said: “SAP’s decision to locate their regional research headquarters here reinforces Singapore’s role as a home for innovation for companies. The research centre, which is located in the Campus of Research Excellence and Technology Enterprise (CREATE), focuses on Real-Time Intelligence and Analytics and will contribute to Singapore’s vision to be a leader in applied data analytics. We believe Singapore possesses the necessary research capabilities, collaboration partners, talent and sophisticated end-users for companies like SAP to innovate for both their Asian and global clients.”

Driving Co-Innovation with Asia Organizations
With its customers’ success as an overarching goal, SAP has committed to co-innovation by harnessing the value of its ecosystem. From an urgent business need for a solution, or an opportunity for first-mover advantage, or simply the need for specific application be built, SAP’s co-innovation efforts can quickly move from idea, to solution, to tangible customer results.

Patrick Chong, CEO, Luxasia Group, one of SAP’s customers, said, “We are collaborating with SAP Next Business and Technology to create a new level of customer experience that we believe will become the future of the beauty industry. In a rapidly changing retail environment, we want to delight customers by offering premium quality products and services that differentiate us from the customers. Most of all, we aim to bring value to every business partner by innovating with new tools and concepts, alleviating the overall shopping experience in the region.”

Dr Ting See Ho, Managing Director of YFind Technologies, which is working in collaboration with SAP Next Business and Technology, said, “Businesses and governments who want to create Location-Intelligent Smart Cities will find themselves faced with a massive undertaking. It's a deeply compelling vision, and one that requires the right technology and partners to deliver. We are partnering with innovative companies like SAP who see the tremendous potential for Indoor Positioning Technology, and who can help customers execute flawlessly.”