SAP To House Data Of Indian Users Locally

Software major SAP will house data of its Indian consumers in local servers in anticipation of move by the country to mandate data localisation and is exploring options of either setting up its own data centres or partnering with third-party firms.

SAP provides business software for its more than 10,200 customers in the Indian subcontinent, which includes neighbours Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

“We (will) find ways and opportunities that can keep the data of Indian customers here in the country,” Christian Klein, chief operating officer, SAP, told ET. “It doesn’t matter if there is no final decision yet (on the law), but we are creating infrastructure in India that allows us to really react in a flexible way to any potential new data privacy rules”.

India’s draft data protection policy has proposed critical personal data of Indian users to be stored and processed locally while recommending organisations to store a copy of personal data locally in a server or data centre in the country. A panel led by former Supreme Court judge justice Srikrishna has allowed the government to decide on what is critical personal data. The draft bill is expected to be placed in Parliament once a new government takes over.

SAP said that while the company has a principle that “data is owned by the customers”, it would remain flexible to comply with the ensuing data protection law in India. It is carefully evaluating the options for either creating its own infrastructure or working with partners in India.

“Our customers are on a waitand-watch mode. It is on top of people’s mind, but I don’t think anybody clearly knows what will happen,” said Dilipkumar Khandelwal, managing director, SAP Labs India.

SAP also plans to have an open ecosystem, allowing multiple cloud service providers, as customers demand different cloud storage systems. “Talks are on to discuss how we can provide our customers here in India the best cloud infrastructure you know out of India,” said Klein, who is the youngest member on SAP’s board.

Interestingly, various teams of experts in SAP’s India offices helped customers in Europe comply with GDPR, which was implemented in May last year, and deliver application services.

“The good thing is also that in India, huge parts of our application management in the cloud is already delivered out of India. So this is why here, we don’t have to do much extra work. For example, when there was the EU privacy regulation, it was tougher because you had to put up a workforce in place that you didn’t have before,” Klein said. “Here in India, it is different because we already have a strong workforce delivering services out of India”.

He said the teams in India are in a “comfortable position” to abide by any data protection law. The German enterprise software company, which has 7500 of its core research and development workforce in India out of the 27,000 across the world, will begin construction for a second R&D facility in Bengaluru shortly.

SAP is actively screening startups in India that can add value to its product portfolio. The company is teaming up with startups through SAP.iO programme, which invests in early-stage startups in the seed, pre-Series A and Series A funding rounds that can leverage SAP APIs, data, technologies or business content.―India Finance News