SAP Labs India sinks its R&D teeth into cancer genomics

SAP Labs,which claims 14% of SAP India’s yearly budget for research,is not nailed to any profit or loss commitment. “But then,the innovation team leaders do work on specific targets in the five market categories that we are engaged in. There are tangible targets for almost all of our 4500-odd employees in India,” Ferose said.

The challenge of engaging with genomics and cancer diagnosis starts with the analogy of human brain and the computer. The human brain is visualised as a computer of about 300 GB in size and about 30,000 sequences of DNA. There was indeed an emotional trigger as to why SAP took to an unlikely research detour as genomics. “It was when an SAP employee’s father passed away from untreated cancer,after the diagnosis period took over two months,that the critical importance of data-processing speed dawned on us,” says Ganapathi Subrahmanian,vice-president,Design and New Applications (DNA),SAP.

For a firm,which takes B2B pride in trimming the business processing time of its clients,the challenge of creating a system to toothcomb the human DNA sequences faster,was a spontaneous call. “This calls for long hours of collaboration and brainstorming with gene scientists,but we are going to give it an all out try,” says Subramanian,who is also pegged to the 90-days innovation cycle with his 30-member team.

SAP has entered into a cooperation pact with Bangalore-based Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) to fuel the genomics research.

Although its long-serving ERP solutions suite remains the loyal cashcow for SRP,Hana,the latest in-memory platform,is the financial manager’s darling,after it fetched 85 million euro revenue in Q2 of 2012 for SAP India,in the very first year of its existence. Hana,likely to be plied in the ambitious genome study too,is a compressed data storage system that enables faster processing. For instance,in Hana,1 TB of data can be compressed up to 100 GB,enabling it to be processed up to 100 times faster.

Out of mobility alone,the company had notched 54 million euro in Q2. Hana is now plied in cloud space too. “The combination of processors getting faster and memory becoming cheaper has set firms making a beeline for Hana,” says DK Venkatesh,vice-president,Innovation.

SAP’s customer base in India includes Vodafone,MTS,ONGC,Power Grid,HDFC,Essar,Tata Motors,ITC. “Our running philosophy is to invest more in R&D in the downtime,” he adds,dismissing that 2012 is any ‘downtime’. “Compared to 2009,2012 is not downtime for us. In fact,our German parent is growing in double-digit in 2012,” Venkatesh insists.

After it recently purchased Success Factors,a cloud firm in the US recently for $3.4 billion,SAP’s Indian subsidiary too has been in pressure to pull its weight to achieve the parent firm’s target to net 20 billion euro revenue by 2015. “All the same,making pathbreaking innovations will remain my only brief,” says Ferose,justifying the DNA research foray of SAP’s DNA team. “Indeed it is a chance for us to prove that we are more than a business-wise IT firm,” he quips.

The correspondent was in Krabi Island,Thailand on the invitation of SAP Labs