SAP BRINGS GLOBAL UNIVERSITY ALLIANCES PROGRAM TO ASIA PACIFIC

Program to Address Asia Pacific’s Top Concern - Shortage of Talent – By Developing the Next Generation of IT Leaders

May 5, 2008 - SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) brings its well established University Alliances Program to the Asia Pacific region. Students at Asia’s top schools will now have access to the same training benefiting the more than 150,000 students from 800 universities that have already participated in the SAP program across 36 countries in the U.S. and Europe. SAP is launching the program out of Singapore, one of Asia’s top educational hubs. By 2010, SAP expects to have made S$7 million1 in contributions to the industry in Singapore as a result of the program.

Aligned with SAP’s mission to contribute to economic growth on a grand scale, the University Alliances Program promotes scientific and technical education in tertiary institutions by providing students and lecturers around the world with access to SAP software training. The SAP training courses lead to student certifications and eventual hiring by SAP, SAP partners and customers. This in turn addresses the industry skills shortage by providing a ready pool of graduates who are already trained with hands-on practice of the SAP software.

According to IDA’s latest Annual Survey on Infocomm Manpower, Singapore’s infocomm employment growth rate has hit a new high of 8.9 percent in 2007, with the number of employed infocomm manpower reaching 130,400. As the demand for infocomm talent continues to grow, IDA and the industry have pledged to invest a further S$70 million in infocomm manpower development over the next three to five years, with the aim of deepening the technical capabilities and enhancing the global competitiveness of Singapore’s infocomm talent.

To meet the growing demand for enterprise resource planning (ERP)2 professionals, SAP has jointly collaborated with IDA to offer a SAP training course - the “Integrated SAP ERP Business Scenarios based on SAP Best Practices” (Best Practices ERP or “BPERP”) certification last year. Available at the seven institutes of higher learning in Singapore (Nanyang Polytechnic, Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic), the BPERP course is a 10-day workshop that will train and certify students to use SAP ERP software based on SAP Best Practices. Upon completion of the course and passing the BPERP certification exams, students will be awarded a SAP certification which is recognised globally.

In addition, students who successfully completed the course will be able to claim up to half of the S$400 certification fee under IDA’s Critical Infocomm Technology Resource Programme (CITREP) program. To date, 250 students have already taken and passed the BPERP certification exams. SAP partners like Accenture, Singapore Computer Systems (SCS), HP, Deloitte and Electra are committed to hiring graduates from this program as it saves them a substantial amount of time for getting their prospective employees up to speed. At least 1,000 students are expected to benefit from this course by 2010 in Singapore, amounting to S$7 million in contributions to the industry by SAP.

"The BPERP programme launched by SAP, in partnership with the Institutes of Higher Learning, will enable students to enhance their understanding and competencies of leveraging infocomm to strengthen business process efficiencies and productivity. IDA encourages more students to take advantage of the BPERP so as to ensure that they have relevant and up-to-date infocomm skills in this fast-progressing sector,” said Christina Gan, Senior Director (Infocomm Security & Manpower Development), IDA Singapore.

Following the success of the BPERP certification course in Singapore, the BPERP and other suitable SAP certification courses will be offered to students across Asia Pacific Japan who can enjoy the subsidised rates when their educational institutes become members of the University Alliances Program.

“With the talent crunch facing the infocomm industry today, SAP finds it a need to help groom talents to meet the growing manpower demands of the industry. Also, we feel that it is absolutely necessary that these future IT specialists be trained in a manner that will prepare them for the real world,” said Geraldine McBride, President & CEO, SAP Asia Pacific Japan. “Through the University Alliances Program, SAP hopes to reach over 300 universities in Asia Pacific by 2010 and to help establish a good talent pool from where suitable expertise and knowledge can be drawn from by the industry.”

In Asia Pacific Japan region, the University Alliances Program will have its University Competency Center (UCC) hosted out of Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia. As the dedicated data center for the universities participating in the University Alliances Program in the region, the UCC will take care of all the technical hosting aspects by operating the software, plus supporting the teaching and training of users. This allows the University Alliances members to focus on teaching SAP software rather than worrying about installing and maintaining the software on campus.

Currently, the program has drawn interest from over 100 universities in Australia & New Zealand, China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. This includes Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore (NUS) in Singapore, Australian National University (ANU), University of Sydney and Melbourne University in Australia, IIM Kohizode, Xavier Labour Research Institute, Jamshedpur, IIT Kanpur in India; Waseda University, Yokohama National University and Aoyama Gakuin in Japan; and Shanghai JiaoTong University, Tsinghua University, in China. Plans are also underway to roll out the program in more tertiary institutions in those countries as well as in Malaysia, and Vietnam.

Scott Sheppard, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International and Development), Queensland University of Technology, said: “QUT's real-world focus means that we have a strong emphasis on high-value education and research through key strategic partnerships. We therefore warmly welcome this further enhancement of our long-standing and multi-dimensional cooperation with SAP. As an institute of higher learning with a strong emphasis on IT and technology, we value this special opportunity to enhance the learning experience of both our students and their counterparts from other participating institutions. Multilateral international cooperation and joint projects are of critical importance to QUT, and this new endeavor with SAP provides us a strong foundation for further engagement and growth.”

Note:

1 Course Value and Industry Contribution Students of this course conducted by SAP or its training partners are normally charged S$6,900 each. As SAP is making its software and training systems available for free for at least 1,000 students to be trained by the institutes of higher learning by 2010, this is equivalent to a S$7 million contribution to the industry by SAP.

2 ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems enable a company to streamline and automate its business processes and increase its operational efficiency by planning and managing its resources more effectively. This results in better visibility and decision making, improved customer relationships and partner collaboration across its supply chain.