Enterprise software solutions provider SAP India is taking a persona-based approach towards upskilling its workforce in artificial intelligence, a senior executive said.
The firm, which employs 14,000-15,000 professionals in the country, is looking to position India as a strategic hub for AI innovation, R&D, and workforce development, Shweta Mohanty, head of human resources, SAP India, told FE. The firm’s hiring strategy for AI skills is a mix of campus hires and lateral hires of experienced professionals. Mohanty stressed that having fresh graduates work on AI is an important part of SAP’s strategy for building its AI capabilities.
SAP’s AI talent strategy comes at a time when the company is looking to significantly ramp up its workforce in the country. Declining to divulge specifics, she said that the hiring momentum from SAP is likely to pick up in India as it looks to populate its new 41-acre campus in the coming months. The company’s existing campus houses around 15,000 employees, and the new one will allow it to double capacity over time. Its AI talent strategy also includes upskilling its existing workforce. However, the firm does not want to look at it only from a technical skills perspective. “We believe in a multi-pronged approach in terms of AI upskilling and (we need to) make it an all-inclusive AI learning strategy,” she said.
To address the AI skills gap, SAP has introduced AI upskilling programmes at various levels in the company. Different levels of the hierarchy will address AI differently in every organisation, Mohanty said. This is the foundational thought behind SAP’s AI upskilling programmes.
“We believe that how people leverage AI to drive business processes or expertise in their work varies from an early talent to a mid-manager to an expert. We have deployed an inclusive learning approach that includes persona-based learning journeys,” she said. Housing five generations of employees, Mohanty added, requires the firm to take such an approach to a new technology like AI.
The programme has three levels — AI developer foundation, AI leader foundation, and AI expert foundation. The developer foundation helps employees learn foundational skills and tools which can then be translated into development projects for SAP. The programme for leaders focuses on training how they can converse better about the benefits of AI while dealing with clients. “There is limited AI talent and you really need to have a good strategy in terms of buying (talent) but more importantly building (talent),” Mohanty said. SAP is also working with over 50 institutions to offer SAP courses and co-develop AI-related research.