The Blending of Passion and Profession - An SAP Employee Story

 

The Blending of Passion and Profession

 

 

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	For Sriharsha GN, the stage and software development share a lot. Through theater, the SAP employee from SAP Labs India is helping colleagues discover hidden talent.

Acting is much more than a hobby for Sriharsha Grama Narasimha Prasad – it’s spiritual. “I forget myself and become the role,” he reflects. “This helps me explore myself, what am I, what can I be, and what is inside me.” Talking to Sriharsha, you can tell he is on a personal journey, that nothing can stop him reaching his goal. When he’s not working in SAP Labs India (SLI) as senior software engineer in Quality Governance and Production, Sriharsha runs a weekend theater group in Bangalore called WeMove, or is helping colleagues in the SLI theater group.

Sriharsha’s passion for drama started at a very young age, when he participated by chance in an acting competition and won first prize. “From then on, I was very keen about performing onstage,” he reflects. In 2001, Sriharsha won “Best Supporting Actor” from India’s National School of Drama. Even after finishing his engineering degree and beginning his career as a software engineer, his passion for theater remained. That’s when he joined WeMove, “the place where people like me meet on Saturdays and Sundays out of passion and talent,” as Sriharsha puts it.

The 28 year old has since won many accolades for his acting talent, taking part in the planning, direction, coordination, and even the writing of poems and scripts for WeMove. Today, he is in charge of all creative elements for the theatre.

But the story doesn’t end there. Since joining SAP in 2008, the boundary between Sriharsha’s profession and acting has blurred. He maintains a very real connection between his role as software engineer during the week and performer/director/coordinator on weekends. And this is the way he likes it.
Sriharsha attributes his passion in each discipline to his ability to balance both activities in his life. “I heartily thank SAP for giving me so much space that I am able to manage both my work and my passion outside work so effectively that I am a key player at both places,” he explains. The activities have created a reciprocal effect on each other: “Pursuing my passion on weekends has only made my work at SAP more exciting and created a passion for SAP in me for the work culture. This has enabled me to learn and implement so many things in both places.”

Drama as a Way to “Learn by Unconventional Means” In June, as part of SAP’s 40 year celebration, SAP Labs India (SLI) produced an adaptation of Moliere‘s comedy. The more than 20 cast and crew members of the play were all employees of SAP Labs India, many of them had never set foot onstage. The production combined the disciplines of acting, directing, design, art and technology, and fostered the development of employees in the areas of teamwork, coordination, and self expression.   According to V R Ferose, managing director of SLI, the theater production for 40 years SAP was part of a larger initiative with focus on learning via unconventional means. Drama is just one activity that the leadership team in Bangalore is supporting to expose employees to unconventional sources of learning. Another activity is visiting and learning at schools for the blind. Ferose is sure that this trend is not only relevant to India. The recent international bestselling book “Jugaad Innovation,” documenting frugal and flexible innovation practices, mentioned SAP Labs India for its unique practices in this area, saying it is a testimony to the creativity of its employees.

Show production as a process
For example, coordinating productions for his theater group has inspired Sriharsha to apply LEAN methods at work. “Coordinating with so many people and artists, and creating and defining processes under deadline pressure in my theater group has enabled me to take up the challenge of introducing LEAN culture in my team at SAP,” says Sriharsha. “I am now a Continuous Improvement Round Table member for my team and I have thus contributed my part in this journey of SAP towards LEAN.”

In turn, Sriharsha’s work experience has flowed back into his theater projects: “SAP has taught me the true spirit of balancing processes and creativity while making a product. I also have a vision to use what I have learned at SAP to create entertaining products through my theater group.” Sriharsha has even instituted SAP’s collaboration and decision-making tool, SAP StreamWork, in his theater group. “There were times when we had to plan for several theater performances in parallel – including the complexity of work streams for each production. Since I knew about SAP’s social collaboration tool, we were able to use the solution to take decisions quickly while working remotely.” Sriharsha took advantage of SAP’s offer to non-profit organizations to use the tool for free. “It was a golden opportunity, and people liked it,” he explains.

Theater instills confidence
Theater has had another positive effect on Sriharsha’s work life. It’s improved his confidence in himself and the connection to colleagues. “The praise and feedback from my colleagues when they watch my performances increases my closeness with them at office. This has made me very creative and confident in my daily work, as well as when taking up challenges on the job,” Sriharsha reports.
Sriharsha has seen the same transformation happen to colleagues in theSLItheater interest group. He is one of the founding members of “Rangabhoomi – AnSAPTheatre Interest group”. Here Sriharsha plays a leading role in engaging employees in theater and the creative process. “Software engineers should experience the power of theater acting, and it will really help change perspective,” believes Sriharsha. “I’ve seen a huge change in the people that have participated. Their confidence levels were higher and their thought process was totally different,” he assesses.
SAP Labs managing director VR Ferose recognizes the value of theater to support personal development. So much so that SLI employees were given the opportunity to put on their own theater production as part of SAP’s 40^th anniversary celebrations (see Box “Drama as a Way to “Learn by Unconventional Means”).

Life on the stage has helped Sriharsha connect better with people, develop empathy for others, and approach life in a better way. “I think it is very important to dream and achieve what you have dreamt as it only makes the world a better place to live,” he says.

Written by Paul Baur, SAP

SAP Women Spotlight

A conversation with Anastasia Race

 

Tell us a little about your yourself

My name is Anastasia Race. Born and bred in Australia and have been Sydney based for a large part of that time. I am an Economics law graduate from Sydney University and have spent the last 20 plus years in IT and T in a capacity of roles spanning Channel management, Business development and large enterprise sales.

I am a proud mother of a soon to be16 year old daughter who is about to go through the trials and tribulations of year 11 and 12 over the next two years. I have to say that there is nothing like the grounding, humility and inspiration a child can give to a parent.

My many passions are travel, cycling, kayaking, film and reading anything that inspires and teaches me something new or helps me see things from a different perspective. My Russian and Greek Heritage has imparted to me a love of food, family and culture and a strength and resilience that comes from being a child of migrant parents forging and new life in a strange new country full of opportunities. My philosophy on life is that luck happens to those who recognize and act on opportunities and have a clear focus on the things they want to achieve. Persisting in this vs changing tack continuously is what creates success in the end.

What were you doing before your recent arrival at SAP?

Prior to SAP I was working for Oracle Corporation in Australia as an Account Director responsible for the sale of Database, Technology, Business analytics and Exadata solutions for 3.5 years. I have been fortunate to have worked for organisations such as Microsoft. IBM, Cisco and Optus in a variety of sales and Partner/Channel l Management roles all across Public Sector, Insurance, Retail and professional services which has provided me with broad commercial experience and insight into IT and IT and its many complexities.

What does your role as Channel Sales Manager for the Cloud team entail?

My role is Channel Sales Manager (ANZ) looking after Infrastructure Technology and Business Process Outsourcing as well as Hosting and reporting to Greg Harbour VP cloud. The role focuses on selling SAP applications through the many partner cloud environments that are established and being established. To this end I am responsible for driving incremental revenue in conjunction with our partners across ANZ and establishing a portfolio of key partners that we will proactively manage in driving our joint GTM execution plans. Our customers are telling us that they want to move to consumption based software and infrastructure as a service model.

Our partners need our assistance in equipping them with the frameworks and enablement to address this market. SAP is evolving and maturing in how we do this (with challenges along the way) but the exciting things is we are creating and innovating new possibilities and through that reinvigorating our business and relationships with customers and partners. Our success in meeting 40% growth in channel sales by 2015 depends on our ability to adapt quickly and address this market opportunity, and through our partners, grow our addressable market space.

Where do you see Cloud Computing heading in the future? What role does SAP have to play in this?

Organisations like Forrester, in their 2012 Sizing the cloud Market Asia Pacific Report are predicting strong growth in this market and we have a window of opportunity now. Australia is still the most mature cloud market in the Asia Pacific Region. Cloud procurement is being centralised and Managed more formally through IT, spending on dynamic infrastructure services is doubling . Saas is the largest cloud market segment and we will see ERP, HCM business intelligence growing the fastest. Business process as a service will evolve allowing shared resources across multiple customers on a per user, self-service and consumption based model approach . Dynamic applications services will evolve from traditional managed services . Customer will be able to control how and where their data is stored.

In addition market developments such as the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) , The federal government’s Cloud Computing Strategic Direction and other Government initiatives will drive increased demand for cloud based services across all cloud market segments in Australia and NZ

SAP is in an excellent position to address these market developments through the way in which we enable our partners to meet this market and also through the development and delivery of our software and technologies like HANA.

What do you think diversity is? Why do you think it’s important to see more women involved in SAP?

Diversity is a simple word that highlights “difference” within a very broad context of race, gender ethnic, beliefs, Lifestyle, cognitive style, education and so on .It is what makes us the unique and interesting individuals we are . Diversity forms the basis of the society we live in and often the organisations we work in. Supporting and managing diversity in the workplace successfully is what enables greater business outcomes because of better Communication problem solving, team synergy , loyalty, and the ability to adapt to change. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Nothing we do in this company is the product of one person and one idea. It is the power of the collective whole that creates that higher outcome. I have seen firsthand many times how women can contribute to not just successful business outcomes because of their personal style, communication skills, capability and experience but also in contributing to a corporate culture that is fun, interesting and dynamic.

What are you plans for the next 12 months? Personally and professionally.

I am very focused on getting some key wins in Q4, building a strong pipeline and portfolio of excellent partners to help SAP address the growing market . Building the internal and external relationships and connections to do this is so important and I am really encouraged with the support and assistance I have had from everyone so far. We will be challenging the boundaries and trying to overcome obstacles along the way, but I believe we have absolutely the right attitude and focus.

Personally I would like to get fitter and attempt the tougher mudder challenges with my much tougher SAP colleagues this year.