At a glittering awards ceremony titled “Celebrating Customer Success”, held on 27th September 2006 in Mumbai, Videocon Group of Companies has been awarded the coveted SAP ACE– Awards for Customer Excellence, by SAP, the world’s leading provider of business software with 34600 customers in more than 120 countries.

Videocon won the award in the category of “Best Consumer Sector Implementation (Consumer Products)”. Instituted on the occasion of SAP completing a decade of operations in India, SAP ACE 2006 received 156 nominations from 85 organizations from India and Srilanka for awards in 16 categories. The SAP ACE 2006 award was held to recognize the maturing IT usage by Indian enterprises. This was the first edition of SAP’s annual awards in recognition of customer excellence. An expert judging panel comprising Mr. Subir Raha, Former CMD, ONGC, Mr. Prithipal Singh, Former CMD, BSNL, Mr. S.R Balasubramanian, EVP-Special Projects, ISGN & Former VP-IS, Hero Honda and Mr. Alan Sedghi, President and CEO, SAP Indian Sub-Continent, adjudged Videocon as a winner in the said category after a detailed panel discussion.

Videocon, which is a ramp up customer of SAP, was given this award in recognition of the implementation of a unique business diary concept to track achievements, for coming up with an interesting performance and reward tracking system and for an aggressively fast implementation within 7 months.

The Award ceremony was attended by senior management from SAP, Partners and a good representation of Customers. Mr. Leo Apotheker President, Customer Solutions and Operations and Member of the SAP AG Executive Board presented the awards. Top management including board members and senior IT personnel from across SAP’s customer base participated enthusiastically and was in attendance to receive the awards. “It was a tough job for us to pick the winning projects from a list of outstanding nominations,” said Mr. Alan Sedghi, president and CEO, SAP Indian sub-continent on the quality of nominations at SAP ACE 2006.

Mr. Pawan Kalra, Joint President, Videocon Industries Ltd who had spearheaded this project in Videocon received the award from Mr Alan Sedghi and Mr. Leo Apothekar. On the occasion Mr. Pawan Kalra, said, “In today’s dynamic world, keeping abreast with the market forces is of paramount importance. The mySAP project at Videocon was initiated and driven by the vision of a work environment where every employee will be empowered with knowledge, information, statistics and data that would facilitate in taking faster decision, increased proficiency, better service deliveries to customers and expedited response to the market dynamics. Relentless efforts, undivided attention and the spirit of core team members resulted in the final completion of the mySAP project and the jubilant phase of Go Live in a record time of 7 months”. “Videocon has aptly used SAP solutions to enable strategic decision making, as a change agent for business transformation and to manage growth” he added.

Videocon has emerged as the first company in India to have successfully implemented mySAP (ERP version 2004) across the organization. This installation combines all the futuristic modules like Enterprise Portal (EP), Business Warehousing (BW), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Human Capital Management (HCM) amongst others and is thus one of its kinds in India. Videocon has spent close to Rs. 25 crores to upgrade IT systems at workplace and this installation. mySAP Germany has also categorized Videocon as the ramp-up partners for this state-of-the-art execution. Videocon Group has also provided its 1500+ Sales staff with laptops and sierra cards to enable them to carry office with them always and to respond effectively to the business requirements.

Videocon has recently celebrated the anniversary of mySAP execution. The award is a re-affirmation of the growing maturity of IT adoption in Videocon Group of Companies. It underlines how information technology is being leveraged at Videocon for effective business transformation and for consolidation of its global spread. It bears a testimony to the fundamental practice at Videocon to achieve excellence in its operational efficiencies while delivering strong return on investment to its stakeholders.