Kagermann boosts Wipro’s SAP street cred

(By Anthony Miller – Friday 25th September 2009 8:30am). Wipro has appointed SAP ex-CEO, Dr Henning Kagermann, to its board. This is actually a bit of a scoop for Wipro and should significantly boost its SAP ‘street cred’ as well as give the India-based player even closer ties to the ERP software giant.

I have enjoyed many lively conversations over recent years with Wipro’s SVP and Head of Enterprise Application Services (EAS), Sangita Singh, especially about Wipro’s relatively low revenue contribution from EAS compared to peers. Last quarter, Wipro generated 13% of its IT services revenues from EAS compared to 18% at TCS, 24% at Infosys and – thanks to Axon – 24% at HCL. However, my scepticism was somewhat turned around in August 2007 when Wipro became only the second India-based SI to gain SAP’s elite Global Service Partner status (TCS was the first, in May 2006), even ahead of the erstwhile Satyam (now Mahindra Satyam) which had boasted some 45% of its business from EAS. Size, as they say, is not everything!

Despite the economic downturn, the EAS segment is still generating business for SIs, especially in SAP. Even though there’s not much new SAP work out there (but there is some), many companies are trying to cut costs by rationalising their (usually) multiple SAP platforms and standardising on common product releases. But Wipro still has a long way to catch up with TCS and Infosys in terms of worldwide EAS revenues. Over the past 12 months, both Infosys and TCS reached over $1b in EAS revenues, with Infosys’ $1.2b just pipping TCS’ $1.1b. Wipro’s 12 month take was $525m, still ahead of HCL’s $400m. But knowing the fiercely competitive Ms Singh as I do, I am sure Wipro will eke every drop of kudos from Kagermann’s appointment to further their EAS cause!

By the way, for those curious to see who else is among SAP’s services ‘elite’, just look here. You may (or may not) be surprised to learn that 7 of the 21 GSPs are what I would refer to as India-based SIs.