HP and ITM sign MOU to open Dubai based SAP Competency Centre at Gitex

The successful joint initiative is set to open its doors to students in January 2005 at The Dubai Knowledge Village and the development of the centre is in direct response to the growing requirements in the Middle East for certified SAP Consultants which can cater for the rapidly expanding IT industry. HP is currently talking with other Multi National Companies on joining this initiative with themselves and ITM.

During the signing ceremony today, Peter Karg, Director, TSG Consulting & Integration, International Sales Europe for HP said, "This SAP Competency Centre will assist HP and our IT and Consulting partners by providing a considerable knowledge bank of professionals, whose in-depth knowledge of SAP solutions and HP technologies will grow, support and sustain the burgeoning IT market. The announcement of the new Centre in Dubai illustrates HPs commitment to providing maximum aptitude in SAP solutions to the Middle East region."

The facility is one of only 17 HP SAP Competency Centres worldwide, including the recently launched Khobar centre in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is also in partnership with ITM. The Dubai Centre will operate three streams, the Executive Briefing Centre, SAP Solutions Centre and the SAP Solutions Lab, all of which will complement the HP Centre in Khobar, which offers technical courses, and the interchange of students from the UAE to the Kingdom will be actively encouraged to maximise student's studies.

Joseph Hanania, Managing Director for HP Middle East commented that, "As the region has now been widely recognised as the third fastest growing IT market in the world after India and China, it was essential that there are enough qualified personnel to maintain the IT industry and HP believes that the Dubai Centre will enable Middle East SAP clients to be world class in their utilisation of SAP technologies and solutions by the deployment of HP-trained SAP consultants rolling out best practices into their business."

The Centre will offer students the opportunity to certify themselves in mySAP and SAPindustry module training which is key for the development of business processes for enterprise businesses.

"ITM is proud to work closely with HP in the regional market for SAP solutions and we are both very committed to the transfer of knowledge and technology to the region, firstly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and now in Dubai, UAE. This new SAP Competency Centre widen un-paralleled training opportunities and will create a local pool of highly qualified GCC National consultants to support SAP implementations region-wide," concluded Nabil Al Hudaib, General Manager, Industrial & Management Technology Methods.

The three training steams provide the following:

The Executive Briefing Centre is designed to accommodate HP Adaptive Enterprise and SAP experts and C-level customers to discuss and draw up future blueprint of SAP implementation in their organisations and to understand how technology affects their business agility when applying SAP investments to Adaptive Enterprise architecture.

In the SAP Solutions Lab, HP will describe and demonstrate the latest components of SAP solutions targeted at functional management and determine how new products and technologies can be incorporated into SAP landscapes. Clients will see Business Suite Industry Solutions (mySAP) and Infrastructure Solutions provided by HP along Adaptive Enterprise lines, including IT Consolidation and High Availability.

The SAP Training Centre provides both SAP technical and functional training. The sessions principally target the predominant Middle Eastern industries such as Oil and Gas, Aviation, Utilities and Government, and through this centre, HP will drive knowledge transfer through consulting, best practices, standards, policies and procedures. It will also offer university graduates and customer employees training in ABAP and SAP functional and technical courses.

HPs existing clients will continue to pass personnel through both the Dubai and Khobar training Centres, and the opening of the Dubai Competency Centre provides enhanced service to these clients and a greater opportunity to a wider graduate audience in the GCC to build their professional competencies.