By Freya Purnell
Capitalising on strong growth by SAP in Victoria, the company last week opened its innovation centre in Melbourne.
The Hon. Louise Asher, Victorian Minister for Innovation, and SAP Active Global Support senior vice president, Wolfgang Eschenfelder, open the centre.
Demand for in-memory database solutions, cloud delivery capability and enterprise mobility has seen SAP grow its revenues in Victoria by 117 per cent year over year.
The growth has come from across the energy and natural resource, financial services, retail and public services sectors, and has resulted in a 20 per cent increase in the company’s Victorian employee base.
With SAP planning to invest $60 million incrementally in staff and infrastructure in Victoria over five years, the new facilities provide both the physical space and technology infrastructure to accommodate this recent and planned job growth.
According to SAP ANZ general manager, Southern region, Justin Williams, the company is on track to fulfil its plan, announced in March 2013, to create 120 jobs in the wider ICT industry in Victoria by October 2014.
SAP’s investment in jobs in Victoria also aims to support business development for local technology and channel partners, whose contribution to SAP’s revenue has grown from 12 per cent in 2013 to 30 per cent in 2014.
The new innovation centre also houses SAP’s latest mission control centre, one of five customer support facilities globally. Employing 20 staff locally, the mission control centre will provide more than 85 Australian and 44 international organisations with real-time, around-the-clock access to SAP’s global network of support and development experts.
The mission control centre is equipped with enhancing monitoring systems, video conferencing and telepresence capabilities and a government-secure facility to support federal and state agencies.
According to SAP, the centre also offers tighter integration between on-premise and cloud support to help customers as they transition to a cloud environment.
