Bangalore: Henning Kagermann, CEO and chairman of the executive board of SAP AG of Germany has obviously found the contribution by SAP Labs India to the IT multinational''s numbers heartening. So he has announced several initiatives to expand the company''s India involvement on the engineering and product development front.

The latest is the inauguration of a new facility on the company''s already extensive SAP Labs campus at Whitefield in Bangalore. The new facility can seat over 2,000 employees. The German enterprise software company has also announced a SAP Scholar Program, an industry-academia initiative to encourage engineering talent to opt for advanced degrees combined with professional training.

Kagermann was on a first ever visit to India by the SAP Executive Board. The board visit reflects the rising importance of the country to SAP, both as a big market and as a centre for technology development and for the delivery of services support.

Commenting on the rationale behind the 350,000-sq. foot, eco-friendly facilities, Kagermann said, "This new facility is both a sign of SAP''s acknowledgement of the breadth and quality of work being delivered by our colleagues in India, and our commitment to deepen our engagement with Indian engineering talent even further. SAP Labs India is today a critical link in our global strategies and we expect it to continue to play a definitive role in our future strategy as well."

SAP has also announced a new initiative in partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and Birla Institute of Technology and Science, better known as BITS-Pilani, to help students to enrol for advanced engineering degrees while simultaneously getting professional training on a part time basis with SAP Labs. Promising students are selected though a rigorous technical entrance test and an interview on soft skills and behavioral analysis. On completing their courses they would get offers to join SAP and would be treated at par with experienced candidates.

Peter Zencke, a member of SAP''s executive board has this to say about talent: "Today, India has a vast engineering talent pool but there are two areas where there exists a gap between what colleges offer and what the industry wants - a practical knowledge of industry realities among students, and lack of people with advanced and specialised degrees." The SAP Scholar Program deals with this gap.

The German company has also this week reaffirmed a $1-billion investment in India, part of which will also go into SAP Labs India in Gurgaon. It had previously announced this in 2006, when it elevated India''s status to that of a ''strategic hub'' for SAP.

According to Kagermann, "SAP Labs India is today the largest research and development hub and support presence for us outside Germany. While the Bangalore centre will continue to play a central global leadership role, we now foresee the Gurgaon centre focusing on global service and support scaling up significantly in the next few years to enable us to meet our aggressive goals for India."