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The 75,000 square foot facility in CityWest Business Campus has been set-up by SAP Service and Support Centre (Ireland) and is one of three SAP global support centres in Europe. Liam Ryan, managing director of SAP SCC, said that the centre will handle around 60 percent of all European enquiries and "a significant" number of enquiries from the US.
According to the company, the global support centre will provide a variety of on-line services and support for e-business solutions including customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), along with support for Internet transaction server technology and database platforms.
Ryan told ElectricNews.Net that Ireland had been chosen as one of the global support centre destinations because of its highly skilled workforce and the ability of the Irish operation to attract well qualified staff.
SAP SSC (Ireland) was set-up in April 1997 and currently employs 280 people. The company had previously established a local support centre in Eastpoint Business Park, which was the first such SAP centre outside Germany, but due to space considerations decided to move to CityWest. In preparation for the move, SAP SSC had increased its workforce by 110 over the last eight months and further jobs are in the pipeline, said the company.
"Our current plans will see us increase employee numbers by 70 within the next year and we are aiming to have 400 staff by the end of 2003," commented Ryan. As its new building can cater for around 400 people, Ryan confirmed that expanding the facility was being actively looked at. "We have an option to build on both sides of the building and we do envisage exercising that option at some stage," he said.
Mary Harney TD, Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, who launched the centre, said the fact that one of Europe's largest software companies had chosen to locate such a facility in Ireland was a "clear indication" of Ireland's continued reputation as a leading location for the world's best software companies and was a "further positive development" for the technology sector.
SAP, with headquarters in Germany, is a provider of e-business software solutions with an estimated 10 million users worldwide. According to the company, more than 15,000 companies in over 120 countries run more than 36,000 installations of SAP software.
On Thursday the company said that an initial assessment of current business activity indicated that it was on track to reach previously announced revenue and margin goals for the nine months through 30 September 2001. At the time of its second quarter results, SAP said that revenue growth for the first nine months of 2001 would slightly exceed 23 percent, with full year 2001 revenues growing by more than 20 percent.
The announcement gave a boost to the company's share price, which was up 1.06 percent in New York at 11:13am EST to USD23.75.
SAP is at http://www.sap.com/.
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