How HARMAN ensures SAP compliance with India’s Companies (Accounts) Rules, 2014

For over a decade, HARMAN has relied on EPI-USE Labs’ Data Sync Manager (DSM) Suite to manage SAP data copies across its global landscape. When India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs updated the Companies (Accounts) Rules, 2014 to require daily, locally stored backups of financial records tied to India-specific company codes, HARMAN needed a scalable, secure, and efficient solution to maintain daily, locally stored backups of India-specific financial records – without overloading its network or inflating storage costs.

Using DSM Client Sync, HARMAN implemented a fully automated process that extracts only the required company-code data relevant to India. This approach minimized the data footprint, accelerated backup processing, and ensured continuous accessibility within India – all while meeting stringent compliance requirements.

Why did India’s updated financial data regulations create SAP compliance challenges for HARMAN?

Amendments to India’s Companies (Accounts) Rules introduced strict expectations for financial data storage and access. Books of Account and supporting records must be:

• Accessible in India at all times
• Backed up and stored on servers physically located within India.
• Retained for extended periods.
• Comprehensive, auditable, and inclusive of all supporting financial documents.

Because HARMAN’s primary SAP systems operate outside India, compliance posed several challenges:

• Only a small subset of global SAP data pertains to India, yet this must be captured daily.
• Full-system backups would be too large to transfer and too costly to store long-term.
• Large data movements could impact network performance and production workloads.
• A selective, automated approach was essential to back up only what was necessary – reliably and every day.

How Data Sync Manager (DSM) helped HARMAN meet India’s  data residency requirements

HARMAN turned to DSM’s selective data-copying capabilities to isolate only the India-relevant financial dataset required under the regulation. DSM enabled precise, secure, and auditable extraction without full-system replication.

Why DSM worked:

• Isolates and copies only India-relevant company code data
• Eliminates the need for large global backups across geographies.
• Provides secure, controlled, and auditable extraction.
• No impact on production performance
• Aligns directly with India’s data residency and accessibility requirements.

Implementation approach:

Using DSM Client Sync, HARMAN:

• Identified specific financial tables and records required under the Companies Act
• Excluded all global or non-India data from the backup scope.
• Executed daily imports to a dedicated server located in India.
• Automated and scheduled the process for zero manual intervention.
• Ensured Books of Account remain physically stored and accessible in India.

DSM’s selective, table-level extraction made this approach practical and sustainable

How HARMAN implemented the solution with DSM

With DSM, HARMAN now operates a stable, fully automated, and compliant process for extracting and storing India-specific financial data daily – without impacting global operations.

Key outcomes:

HARMAN now confidently meets India’s Books of Account regulations with a reliable, efficient, and fully automated process under its control.

About HARMAN 

Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, HARMAN (harman.com) designs and engineers connected products and solutions for automakers, consumers, and enterprises worldwide, including connected car systems, audio and visual products, enterprise automation solutions; and services supporting the Internet of Things. With leading brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, Mark Levinson® and Revel®, HARMAN is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where they perform around the world.

More than 50 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and connected car systems. Their software services power billions of mobile devices and systems that are connected, integrated and secure across all platforms, from work and home to car and mobile. HARMAN has a workforce of approximately 30,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In March 2017, HARMAN became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.