ERP Reaches Schools With Manipal-PeopleSoft Deal
By Hinesh Jethwani
Mumbai, Dec 18, 2003

In a "first of its kind' deal, Manipal Education and Medical Group, has chosen PeopleSoft’s enterprise applications, putting ERP on the Indian school map.

Speaking to CXOtoday, Thiru Vengadam, country manager, PeopleSoft India, said, "Educational institutions in India have crossed the scalable threshold, and are now beginning to realize the advantages that ERP offers. Yes the cost factor has been a limiter, as an installation for a 5000 seat institution would cost approximately Rs 10 Crore.'

Vengadam, citing the example of Singapore’s virtual university U21, which is also an ERP user, added, “Global educational facilities are setting the trends, and we are already receiving a lot of interest from the IIT’s of India."

The project will automate and streamline the groups campus management, financial management and human resource management, and will be spread across 15 campuses in Manipal, Nepal, Sikkim, Melacca and their corporate office in Bangalore.

Justifying the tremendous expenditure involved in the ERP deal, D.A. Prasanna, Executive Chairman of the group said, "Manipal is on an expansion path, and we needed a world-class enterprise application to streamline our processes."

PeopleSoft will engage Satyam Computer Services for the project delivery, and will work closely with the implementation team from Manipal, to complete the task in the next 9 months.

Manipal Education has 2 universities, 53 educational institutions and over 90,000 students with 3000 faculty. The Medical Group runs 11 Hospitals, 7 rural health centers and 9 medical colleges.

According to sources, PeopleSoft outbid Oracle and SAP to bag the Manipal deal.