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IU'S KELLEY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND SAP ANNOUNCE AGREEMENT TO TEACH R/3 SYSTEM
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- This fall, students in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University will learn how to use a popular enterprise resource planning (ERP) software package that is used by more than 7,500 companies worldwide, including most of the top 10 corporations in the Fortune 500.
IU's Kelley School has joined a select group of top U.S. educational institutions in the University Alliance Program of SAP AG, the fourth largest software company in the world. SAP, a German company which has its U.S. headquarters in Philadelphia, has donated to the school the latest operating version of its R/3 software package, along with professional training materials and extensive tuition-free training for faculty and staff.
"The SAP initiative is a splendid example of a partnership between the Kelley School of Business and its corporate friends," said Dean Dan Dalton. "This is a multi-million dollar project that promises to markedly improve our undergraduate and MBA curricula. Exposure to SAP also provides an important edge for our students as they assume leadership roles here and abroad."
Daniel Pantaleo, director of the University Alliance Program of SAP, said his company is excited to be associated with one of the best operations and decision technologies programs in the nation. Recently, U.S. News and World Report ranked the Kelley School's undergraduate program as the fifth best in the nation and its Operations and Decision Technologies Department as eighth best.
Ash Soni, IU associate professor of decision sciences, said the Kelley School's decision to adopt SAP's system into its curriculum is consistent with its efforts to keep up with the pace of change in the corporate world. Important results of corporate re-engineering and global expansion by companies has meant that there is a greater need for more sharing of current, organization-wide data among employees. SAP's R/3 system enables corporations to do this.
SAP's R/3 system, which alone is valued at more than $1.5 million, is designed to integrate the full range of business functions and to link related business tasks. It offers business organizations of any size the ability to create and offer access to corporate-wide solutions on any combination of computer systems, while meeting requirements for functions such as financial accounting and controlling, sales and distribution, materials management, logistics, production planning and human resources management.
While not the only software company to offer such an enterprise resource planning system, SAP does lead other companies with more than one-third of the overall market share of ERP software sales. SAP's client list includes Fortune 500 'Top 10' companies such as General Motors, IBM and Chrysler Corp., as well as recognizable names such as Microsoft, Colgate-Palmolive and Coca-Cola.
"SAP and ERP-trained professionals are in very short supply," Soni said. "This will make our business process management, operations management and information systems majors very valuable. We think the starting salaries for these students are going to go up significantly as a result of the SAP exposure they will get in our program. There is a lot of student interest. We are currently swamped with students inquiring about SAP classes."
The R/3 System incorporates more than 1,000 best business practices for all key functions within a company, which makes it an excellent tool for teaching how various functions of a business interrelate, added M.A.Venkataramanan, IU associate professor of decision sciences.
This fall, the Department of Operations and Decision Technologies in the Kelley School will offer two new undergraduate-level courses on operating an integrated business environment that use the new software as a training tool. Existing courses in operations management, marketing and information systems also will use SAP as a teaching component.
Other undergraduate courses in accounting, finance, management and marketing will feature modules that use SAP. Since the software is put to use throughout companies, it makes sense that students in the Kelley School of Business become familiar with it, Soni said. One new course, "Enterprise Resource Planning," will conclude with a "capstone experience" -- in which students will run a "virtual corporation" to show how it might function over several quarters using the SAP system.
Many graduate business students similarly will be exposed to SAP through existing courses. Second-year students enrolled in the MBA Leaders Program will use the system in completing a major project for companies partnering with IU.
In the near future, the Kelley School expects to develop a "virtual center" on ERP, a Web site that will provide the latest information on research and practices for academics, doctoral students and business people. "Right now, the field is wide open from a research point of view," Soni said. "We would like to become known as the resource center on ERP. Our grant from SAP is a progressive step in that direction."
(George Vlahakis, Office of Communications and Marketing, 812-855-0846 or 812-855-3911, gvlahaki@indiana.edu)