SAP Leonardo CenterSAP, the market leader in enterprise application software, just launched a new SAP Leonardo Center in Singapore to support its customers, partners and the broader ecosystem of universities and start-ups across the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region. The new center will play a key role in realizing SAP’s growth strategy, pointing out that according to the World Economic Forum, Singapore is the most competitive economy in Asia Pacific and third globally.

SAP Leonardo integrates new technologies on the SAP Cloud Platform and offers design thinking services and expertise to help fast-track digital transformation. The system can be used to rapidly adopt new business models and capabilities – and add future technologies as they emerge.

Collaborative business environment

The SAP Leonardo Center Singapore aims to foster a collaborative environment for businesses, start-ups, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises, to experiment and innovate.

For instance, one of SAP APJ’s first SAP Leonardo customers, Hanon Systems from Korea, a global leader in automotive thermal and energy management solutions, used the insights gained through SAP Leonardo to identify manufacturing performance and equipment health as areas of measurement to pilot the Leonardo platform at one of its plants in Europe.

Robert Oh, Chief Information Officer and Business Transformation Executive at Hanon Systems, believes a supplier’s ability to compete in today’s automotive market is no longer measured by just its product offering. “At Hanon Systems, we believe our digital transformation can change the way we manufacture in a positive way to improve our productivity, increase our overall efficiency and further strengthen our customer relationships.”

Hub for Ecosystem

The SAP Leonardo Center Singapore also serves as a hub for SAP’s broader digital technology ecosystem including universities, startups, tech communities and accelerators.

SAP APJ prepares the next-generation innovators with knowledge and skills for the digital future through the SAP University Alliances program, which exposes 1.7 mio students in educational institutions in APJ to innovative technologies. So far, SAP APJ has established 13 Next-Gen labs in APJ with plans to open more in the future.

SAP India, for instance, designed a modular offering called i360 for Ajeenkya DY Patil University, which includes SAP Leonardo IoT, SAP Leonardo Machine Learning and SAP Open SAP Learning. India has seen an increase in the uptake of modular offerings that focus on Industry 4.0 and Smart Cities. Demand for talent in India with skills in IoT, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Big Data and Analytics is high. Hence, educational institutions have found merit in collaborating with technology firms to close this gap.

Globally, SAP spent €3,352 mio on R&D last year and the new launch obviously expands SAP’s innovation footprint in the region, adding to the three Innovation Centers and four SAP Labs in APJ.

The SAP Leonardo Center Singapore is the fifth in the global network of SAP Leonardo Centers and designed to serve as the “front-end” for APJ customers and partners to accelerate their digital innovation journeys using the capabilities of SAP Leonardo and Design Thinking.

SAP Leonardo brings together Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning, Blockchain, Big Data, Analytics and Data Intelligence on SAP Cloud Platform. It also applies SAP’s leading technology capabilities and deep knowledge of 25 industries, in a live technology-delivery environment to deliver the Intelligent Enterprise for every customer.

“The SAP Leonardo Center in Singapore will showcase the art of the possible in digital innovation and help our customers scale quickly, easily and effectively,” said Scott Russell, President, SAP APJ. “Together with our customers and partners, we aim to leverage the SAP Leonardo Center Singapore as a think tank to drive purpose-led innovation that will ultimately improve the lives of one billion people and deliver the Intelligent Enterprise for over 70,000 customers in APJ by 2022.

For more information, go to SAP Leonardo.

By Daniela La Marca