SAP Services partners JKH to broaden spectrum services

John Keells Holdings PLC (JKH), the largest listed company on the Colombo Stock Exchange with a AAA+ credit rating from Fitch Rating Lanka Ltd., who were appointed as a SAP Services’ Partner in 2011, announced that it has teamed up with SAP Services to broad base its spectrum of SAP centric services’ portfolio to meet the growing demands of the Sri Lankan market.  

This is a significant milestone in the partnership between JKH and SAP.  This further consolidates this partnership relationship, having worked together since 2003, to enable John Keells group to realise enhanced business benefits with investments in SAP solutions, enabling them to deliver enhanced value to the market with domain expertise, platform experience and significant local presence. John Keells adds more strength to its next-generation offerings consulting practices, and requisite support to the SAP eco-system at large.

JKH’s IT arm, SGIT, has been implementing and supporting SAP across the industries and companies of the group since 2004 and started offering these services externally to the group since 2008. JKH together with SAP plans to setup a ‘Centre of Excellence’ in Colombo to showcase and demonstrate the value innovation that could be delivered through SAP solutions.

The centre will also create value added customer immersions and proof of concepts to provide customers insights to demonstrate the value and efficiencies that could be delivered through enterprise applications platforms and related infrastructures.

SAP Services has over 100,000 installations across a broad spectrum of industries over the last 30 years, using an integrated global service delivery model with access to 10,000 highly-trained resources worldwide. SAP Services offers an unrivalled combination of skills, experience and best practices to drive greater value for customers’ investments in SAP whilst delivering real business improvements which can enhance the Return of Investment (RoI) while lowering the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

The partnership between JKH and SAP signifies SAP’s commitment to the Sri Lankan market. SAP is poised to increase the breadth and depth of engagement in the Sri Lankan market. With SAP Services’ deep knowledge of the product and experience in implementing complex solutions and with John Keells’ deep understanding of the industry domain, local business context and the localised expertise – this partnership can deliver an unparalleled innovative and flexible engagement model to Sri Lankan companies who have and are looking to invest in SAP as their platform of choice.

This value proposition will be enhanced by SAP’s proven best-practices, tools and methodologies and direct access to the SAP industry and product development teams.

“JKH and its IT arm, SGIT, have consistently demonstrated close ties with SAP, and the culmination of same is this partnership and marks a significant milestone in our journey. We are delighted, to say the least, on partnering with SAP Services in broad basing our service’s portfolio in Sri Lanka. This is indeed an acknowledgement of our commitment to the Sri Lankan market and to SAP. We are very passionate about what we do and are proud of the path that we have trod with SAP,” said Ramesh Shanmuganathan, Executive Vice President and Group CIO at John Keells Holdings PLC

“We are very confident that we can be of significant value in helping you realise and unleash the full potential of your investments in SAP, as a platform of choice, through value innovation and eagerly await an opportunity to partner you in your journey with SAP!”

He further stated: “The expanded partnership underscores our commitment to innovative SAP solutions in line with our vision of enabling businesses through value innovation to meet the challenges of the new and changing global economy. We have been already enabling clients to not only benefit from greater operational efficiencies, but also transform their businesses. By leveraging our consulting talent, domain expertise and industry best practices, our clients can achieve innovative SAP implementations that deliver unique business value.”

SAP is a market leader in enterprise application software.  They have successfully operated in public and private sector organisations in Sri Lanka for many years adopting its solution to drive operational efficiency and growth. SAP applications and services enable more than 176,000 customers of all sizes and industries to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably.

Elaborating on this partnership, Sanjay Hiranandani, Head of Services, SAP Indian Subcontinent stated: “This partnership with JKH reaffirms our commitment to expand SAP Services’ ecosystem in Sri Lanka. As a customer and now a Services Partner, JKH brings SAP expertise to develop next-generation offerings, consulting practices, and to support marketing activities across the region. We will help them deliver next-generation solutions rapidly and help customer realise value faster.”