SAP SE

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SAP SE

Type Societas Europaea

Traded as FWB: SAP

NYSE: SAP
DAX Component

Industry Enterprise software

Founded Weinheim, Germany

(1972; 47 years ago)
 Founder Dietmar Hopp
Hans-Werner Hector
Hasso Plattner
Klaus Tschira
Claus Wellenreuther

Headquarters Walldorf

Germany

Area served Worldwide

Key people  Hasso Plattner (Chairman)

 Bill McDermott (CEO)

Products See list of SAP products

Revenue €23.46 billion (2017)[1]

Operating income €4.88 billion (2017)[1]

Net income €4.02 billion (2017)[1]

Total assets €42.5 billion (2017)[1]

Total equity €25.54 billion (2017)[1]

Number of employees 96,498 (2018)

Website www.sap.com

SAP SE (/ɛseɪˈpi/; Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung,

"Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing") is a German-based
European multinational software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business
operations and customer relations.[2] SAP is headquartered in Walldorf, Baden-
Württemberg, Germany with regional offices in 180 countries.[3][4] The company has over 335,000
customers in over 180 countries.[4] The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market
index.[5]

Contents

 1History
o 1.1Formation
o 1.2Enterprise Resource Planning
 o 1.3Corporate restructuring
o 1.4Focus on cloud
o 1.5SAP S/4HANA
 2Finances
 3Acquisitions
 4Business and markets
 5Enterprise service-oriented architecture
o 5.1Enterprise SOA
 6Partnerships
 7SAP PartnerEdge
 8Communities
 9Organization
 10SAP Labs
 11SAP User Groups
 12SAP Cloud Platform
 13SAP Store
 14SAP App Center
 15Conferences
 16Competitive landscape
 17Philanthropic efforts
 18Autism hiring
 19Bribery and corruption
o 19.1South African allegations
o 19.2Panamanian bribery
 20See also
 21References
 22External links

History[edit]
Formation[edit]
When Xerox exited the computer hardware manufacturing industry in 1975,[6] it asked IBM to migrate
its business systems to IBM technology. As part of IBM's compensation for the migration, IBM was
given the rights to the Scientific Data Systems (SDS)/SAPE software, reportedly for a contract credit
of $80,000.
Five IBM engineers from the AI department[7][8] (Dietmar Hopp, Klaus Tschira, Hans-Werner
Hector, Hasso Plattner, and Claus Wellenreuther, all from Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg) were
working in an enterprise-wide system based on this software, only to be told that it would no longer
be necessary. Rather than abandoning the project, they decided to leave IBM Tech and start
another company.[9]
In June 1972, they founded the SAP Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung ("System Analysis
and Program Development" / "SAPD") company, as a private partnership under the German Civil
Code.[10]
Their first client was the German branch of Imperial Chemical Industries in Östringen,[11] where they
developed mainframe programs for payroll and accounting. Instead of storing the data on punch
cards mechanically, as IBM did, they stored it locally in the Electronic System which using common
Logical database for all activities of Organization.[clarification needed] Therefore, they called their software
a real-time system, since there was no need to process the punch cards overnight (for this reason
their flagship product carried an R in its name until the late 1990s). This first version was also a
standalone software that could be offered to other interested parties.[12]
Enterprise Resource Planning[edit]
In 1973, the first commercial product was launched. SAP completes its first financial accounting
system - RF. This system serves as the cornerstone in the ongoing development of other software
modules of the system that will eventually bear the name SAP R/1[10].
This offered a common system for multiple tasks. This permitted the use of a centralized data
storage, improving the maintenance of data. From a technical point of view, therefore,
a database was necessary.[13]
In 1976, SAP GmbH Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung ("Systems,
Applications, and Products in Data Processing") is founded as a sales and support subsidiary. Five
years later, the private partnership is dissolved and its rights are passed on to SAP GmbH.[10]
The headquarters moved the following year to Walldorf, Germany. Three years later, in 1979, SAP
launched SAP R/2, expanding the capabilities of the system to other areas, such as material
management and production planning. In 1981, SAP brought a re-designed product to market.
However, SAP R/2 did not improve until the period between 1985 and 1990. SAP released the
new SAP R/3 in 1992. SAP developed and released several versions of R/3 through 1995. By the
mid-1990s, SAP followed the trend from mainframe computing to client/server architectures. The
development of SAP's internet strategy with mySAP.com redesigned the concept of business
processes (integration via Internet).[9] As a result, R/3 was replaced with the introduction of SAP ERP
Central Component (ECC) 5.0 in 2004.[14] Architectural changes were also made to support an
enterprise service architecture to transition customers to a services-oriented architecture. The latest
version, SAP ERP 6.0, was released in 2006. SAP ERP 6.0 has since then been updated through
SAP enhancement packs, the most recent: SAP enhancement package 8 for SAP ERP 6.0 in
2016.[15]
Corporate restructuring[edit]
In August 1988, SAP GmbH became SAP AG, and public trading started on 4 November 1988.
Shares were listed on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges.[9] In 1995, SAP was included in
the German stock index DAX and, on 22 September 2003, SAP was included in the STOXX Europe
50.[16]
The company's official name became SAP AG (a public limited company) after the 2005 annual
general meeting. In 2014, SAP changed from an AG to a European Company (Societas Europaea or
SE).[17]
Focus on cloud[edit]
Since 2012, SAP has acquired several companies that sell cloud-based products, with several
multibillion-dollar acquisitions seen by analysts as an attempt to challenge competitor Oracle.[18] In
2014 SAP bought Concur Technologies, a provider of cloud-based travel and expense management
software, for $8.3 billion, SAP's most expensive purchase to that date.[19] Analysts' reactions to the
purchase were mixed, with Thomas Becker of Commerzbank questioning whether Concur was the
right choice for SAP, while Credit Suisse called the acquisition an "aggressive" move.[20]
In 2014, IBM and SAP began a partnership to sell cloud-based services.[21] Likewise, in 2015, SAP
also partnered with HPE to provide secure hybrid cloud-based services running the SAP
platform.[22] Both HPE and IBM provide infrastructure services to SAP, and SAP runs its SAP HANA
cloud solution on top. SAP has announced additional partnerships with Microsoft in order to give
customers tools for data visualization, as well as improved mobile applications.[23]
SAP exceeded its revenue projections due to the expansion in its cloud business and the success of
SAP HANA. The growth can also be partially attributed to the acquisitions of Concur and
Fieldglass.[24]
The company announced plans in 2016 to invest heavily into technology relating to Internet of
Things (IoT) as part of a strategy to capitalize on the growth in that market. For that purpose, €2
billion is planned for investment in relevant sectors by the end of 2020.[25] SAP will also launch a new
product line called SAP IoT, which "will combine large amounts of data from things connected to the
Internet with machine learning and SAP's real-time database S/4 HANA."[25]
SAP S/4HANA[edit]
In 2015, the company launched SAP S/4HANA, the newest generation of the SAP Business Suite. It
was written natively for the SAP HANA platform. It offers cloud, on-premises and hybrid deployment
options to customers, with its benefits including a smaller data footprint, higher throughput, faster
analytics and faster access to data. It also allows existing SAP Business Suite customers to upgrade
to this product from SAP Business Suite.[26]
In 2016, SAP introduced SAP HANA, Express Edition which is meant to run on personal computers
or on cloud computing platforms for students and other small-scale developers.[27]
On January 29, 2019, SAP announced plans to cut approximately 4,000 positions at the company in
a strategic plan to shift to a more modern cloud-based technologies such as blockchain, quantum
computing, machine learning, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence.[28]

Finances[edit]
For the fiscal year 2017, SAP reported earnings of EUR€4 billion, with an annual revenue of
EUR€23.5 billion, an increase of 6.3% over the previous fiscal cycle.[29]SAP's shares traded at over
USD105 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at USD128 billion in December 2018.
This makes SAP the most valuable company in Germany.[30]

Revenue Net income Total Assets

Year Employees
in bn. EUR€ in bn. EUR€ in bn. EUR€

2013 16.815 3.326 27.094 66,572

2014 17.560 3.280 38.507 74,406

2015 20.793 3.064 41.390 76,986

2016 22.062 3.646 44.277 84,183

2017 23.461 4.018 42.497 88,543

Acquisitions[edit]
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Acquisition Acquired Acquisition Country Acquisition

Specialty
number company date of origin costs

Experience
70 Qualtrics Jan 2019[31] USA $8.0b
Management

Robotics Process
69 Contextor Nov 2018[32] France
Automation

platform for field

68 Coresystems June 2018[33] Switzerland
service management

Sales Performance
67 CallidusCloud Jan 2018[34] USA $2.24 b
Management Tool

Conversational User
66 Recast.ai Jan 2018[35] Experience France
Technology

65 Gigya Sep 2017[36] Identity Management Israel $350m

64 Abakus Dec 2016[37] Marketing attribution USA

63 Plat.One Oct 2016 IoT USA

Big Data and Hadoop

62 Altiscale Aug 2016 USA $125m+
Hosting

61 Jun 2016 IoT Norway

Fedem
Acquisition Acquired Acquisition Country Acquisition
Specialty
number company date of origin costs

Technology

MeLLmo Inc. Mobile Business

60 Feb 2016 USA
(Roambi) Intelligence

Concur Travel and Expense

59 Sep 2014 USA $8.3b
Technologies Management

Behavioural target
58 SeeWhy May 2014 USA $1.1b
marketing

Contingent labour and

57 Fieldglass Mar 2014 USA
services

56 KXEN Oct 2013 Predictive analytics France

55 hybris May 2013 E-Commerce Solutions Switzerland

54 Camilion March 2013 Insurance solutions Canada

53 SmartOps Feb 2013 Inventory optimization USA

Ticket systems and

special CRM solutions
52 Ticket-Web Feb 2013[38] Germany
for sports and
entertainment

51 Ariba Oct 2012 Supplier network USA $4.3b

Mobile asset
50 Syclo Jun 2012 USA
management
Acquisition Acquired Acquisition Country Acquisition
Specialty
number company date of origin costs

Electronic performance
49 datango Jan 2012 Germany
support technologies

Human Capital
48 SuccessFactors Dec 2011 USA $3.4b
Management

47 Right Hemisphere Sep 2011 3D visualization USA

46 Crossgate Sep 2011 B2B eCommerce Germany

Security software (Not

the whole company,
45 Secude Mar 2011 Germany
only some assets were
acquired)

Disclosure
44 Cundus Dec 2010 Germany
Management

Database, middleware,
43 Sybase May 2010 USA $5.8b
mobile software

Environmental, Health
42 TechniData May 2010 Germany
and Safety

41 SAF Sep 2009 Inventory Management Switzerland $91m

40 Highdeal May 2009 High-volume billing France

Manufacturing
39 Visiprise Jul 2008 USA
Execution
Acquisition Acquired Acquisition Country Acquisition
Specialty
number company date of origin costs

38 Saicon INC Oct 2014 US Recruitment India

37 BusinessObjects Oct 2007 Business Intelligence France $6.78b

Yasu
Business Rules
36 Technologies Pvt. Oct 2007 India
Management Software
Ltd.

Internet
Wicom
35 May 2007 Communication Finland
Communications
software

34 MaXware May 2007 Identity software Norway

Planning &
33 Outlooksoft May 2007[39] USA
consolidation

Strategy Management
32 Pilot Software Feb 2007 USA ~$200m
software

Lean scheduling and

31 Factory Logic Dec 2006 USA
supply synchronisation

Praxis Software Web-based CRM and

30 Jul 2006 USA
Solutions eCommerce

Frictionless
29 May 2006 SRM software USA
Commerce

28 Virsa Systems Apr 2006 Compliance solutions USA

Acquisition Acquired Acquisition Country Acquisition
Specialty
number company date of origin costs

SAP Systems
27 Dec 2005 Consulting services Germany
Integration

Enterprise Integration
26 Callixa Nov 2005 USA
Information software

25 Khimetrics Nov 2005 retail software USA

24 Triversity Sep 2005 POS software Canada

Manufacturing
Intelligence and
23 Lighthammer Jun 2005[40] USA
Collaborative
Manufacturing

Automotive Dealer United

22 DCS Quantum Feb 2005
Management Kingdom

21 TomorrowNow Jan 2005 grey-market support USA

SAP BusinessOne
20 ilytix Jan 2005 Norway
Business Intelligence

Master Data
19 A2i Jul 2004[41] USA
Management

SPM IT architecture
18 Dec 2003[42] Germany
Technologies consulting

17 DCW Software Jul 2003 OS/400 Applications Germany

Acquisition Acquired Acquisition Country Acquisition
Specialty
number company date of origin costs

NetWeaver Visual
16 Guimachine Dec 2002 USA
Composer toolkit

Integrated managed
15 IMHC May 2001 USA
health care from IDS

14 Expression May 2002 real-time file sharing ?

SAP BusinessOne
13 Topmanage Feb 2002 Israel
Suite

Paynet
12 Dec 2001 Invoice Processing Germany
International AG

Beverage industry
11 COPA GmbH Nov 2001 Germany
consulting

Infinite Data Trade Management /

10 May 2001 USA
Structures CRM

Enterprise Information
9 Toptier Mar 2001 Portal and Integration USA ~$400m
Infrastructure

Prescient
8 Feb 2000 Consulting services USA
Consulting

In-Q-My
7 Technologies 2000 J2EE Server Bulgaria
GmbH

6 1999 USA
Campbell Workforce
Acquisition Acquired Acquisition Country Acquisition
Specialty
number company date of origin costs

Software Management

AMC Call Center telephony

5 1998 USA
Development integration software

Warehousing and
4 OFEK-Tech 1998 distribution centre Israel
software

Kiefer & Sales force

3 1997 Germany
Veittinger Applications

2 Dacos 1996 Retail solution Germany

Software and
1 Steeb 1991 Germany
Consulting Services

Business and markets[edit]

As of 2016, SAP is the world's third largest software and programming company.[43] The corporation
operates in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, North America, and South America.[44]
SAP focuses on 25 industries and six industry sectors: process industries, discrete industries,
consumer industries, service industries, financial services and public services.[45] It offers integrated
product sets for large enterprises,[46] mid-sized companies and small businesses.[47]

Enterprise service-oriented architecture[edit]

Service-oriented architecture has been incorporated into the SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource
Planning) system and other products defined within the SAP Enterprise Services Architecture
(Enterprise SOA).
Enterprise SOA[edit]
SAP Enterprise Service Oriented Architecture (or Enterprise SOA) is SAP SE's service-oriented
architecture implementation.[48] Enterprise SOA is enabled by the SAP NetWeaver platform and
builds on the benefits of Web services. SAP has positioned Enterprise SOA to deliver the benefits
offered by service-oriented architecture, including enabling both flexibility and business efficiency.
SAP markets Enterprise SOA as a cost-effective way of adding new applications to existing
infrastructure.[49]SAP Solutions that currently use Enterprise SOA are mySAP CRM, mySAP ERP,
and mySAP SRM.
Partnerships[edit]
SAP partners include Global Services Partners with cross-industry multinational consulting
capabilities,[50] Global Software Partners providing integrated products that complement SAP
Business Suite solutions,[51] and Global Technology Partners providing user companies with a wide
range of products to support SAP technology, including vendors of hardware, database, storage
systems, networks, and mobile computing technology.[52]
Extensions partners are companies which provide functionality that complements SAP product
capabilities. Their products are certified, sold, and supported by SAP. These partner companies
include Adobe, CA Technologies, GK Software,[53] Hewlett-Packard, IDS
Scheer, Mendix,[54] OpenText,[55] Knoa Software, and BackOffice Associates.[56]
SAP has also partnered with Apple to work on the mobile experience for SAP enterprise customers.
As part of the partnership, a new SAP HANA Cloud Platform SDK would be delivered exclusively
for iOS. As a result, developers can build applications based on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform for
the iPhone and iPad devices. The partnership was announced in May 2016.[57]

SAP PartnerEdge[edit]
SAP products for small businesses and midsize companies are delivered through its global partner
network. The SAP PartnerEdge programme, SAP's partner programme, offers a set of business
enablement resources and program benefits to help partners including value-added resellers (VARs)
and independent software vendors (ISVs) be profitable and successful in implementing, selling,
marketing, developing and delivering SAP products to a broad range of customers.[58]

Communities[edit]
SAP Community Network (SCN) is a community of SAP customers, partners, employees, and
influencers – typically in roles such as: developers, consultants, integrators, and business analysts –
who gain and share knowledge about ABAP, Java, .NET, SOA, and other technologies, plus
analytics and dashboards, business process best practices, cloud, mobile, big data, and a range of
other topics via blogs, discussion forums, downloads and code samples, training materials, and a
technical library.[59]

Organization[edit]
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SAP uses a two-tier structure of boards, with an executive board and a supervisory board. As of
2016, members of the executive board were Bill McDermott (CEO and Chairman, joined in 2008),
Robert Enslin (2014) Bernd Leukert (2014), Luka Mucic (CFO, 2014), Michael Kleinemeier (2015),
Stefan Ries (2016), Steve Singh (2016), Gerhard Oswald (1996).[60] Juergen Mueller will join the
executive board in 2019. [61]
Functional units of SAP are split across different organizational units for R&D needs, field activities
and customer support. SAP Labs are mainly responsible for product development whereas the field
organizations spread across each country are responsible for field activities such sales, marketing
and consulting. Headquarters is responsible for overall management as well as core Engineering
activities related to product development. Worldwide customer support is not provided by the field
organizations but by a unified organization called Active Global Support (AGS).[62]
SAP Labs[edit]
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SAP Labs are R&D locations that develop and improve SAP core products. SAP Labs are
strategically located in high-tech clusters around the globe.
SAP Labs are located in Germany (main locations: Walldorf/Rot, Markdorf, Berlin), United States
(main location: Silicon Valley), India (main location: Bangalore), China (main location: Shanghai),
Brazil (main location: Sao Leopoldo), Bulgaria (main location: Sofia), Canada (main
locations: Vancouver, Montreal), Vietnam (main location: Ho Chi Minh City), Israel (main
location: Ra'anana), CIS (main location: Moscow), France (main location: Paris, Sophia Antipolis),
Ireland (main location: Dublin), Hungary (main location: Budapest), Slovakia (main
location: Bratislava), Czech Republic (main location: Brno), Poland (main location: Gliwice)，China
(main location: Shanghai);
The four most prominent labs of SAP SE are located in Germany, India, China and the US. Labs
Walldorf was founded in 1972 and became SAP's primary location. At the beginning, the focus of
SAP's expansion was entering highly developed IT markets; in 1993 Palo Alto became a part of SAP
Labs. Aiming to acquire talented employees, SAP opened another lab in Bangalore in 2003.
Among the latest SAP Labs are labs in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. All three labs have
been established in 2016. The labs in India are now the largest labs outside Germany.
In order to manage SAP Labs, SAP Labs Network (SLN) was created. SLN is a global unit that
manages regional Labs and shares best business practices. It coordinates and distributes
development projects among individual SAP Labs locations, accelerates product delivery, gives SAP
full access to talent, and drives SAP corporate strategy regarding innovation and business growth.[63]

SAP User Groups[edit]

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SAP User Groups are independent, nonprofit organizations of SAP customers and SAP partners.
They serve as communications channel for their members towards SAP and for SAP towards the
markets. The Americas' SAP Users' Group (ASUG) is the company's largest user group, with
100,000 individuals at 3,800 companies. ASUG members are professionals who work in more than
17 industries. Many are technical and business process experts in the SAP ecosystem; they have
varied levels of experience, and come from small businesses to global corporations, as well as
universities. In 2007, the SAP User Group Executive Network (SUGEN) was established.
SAP provoked controversy and frustration among its users in 2008 by raising the cost of its
maintenance contracts. The issue was the subject of intense discussion among user groups.[64]

SAP Cloud Platform[edit]

SAP Cloud Platform is SAP's platform-as-a-service (PaaS)[65] that is used to deliver in-memory
capabilities and microservices for building and extending, mobile-enabled cloud applications. The
infrastructure is offered through a global network of SAP managed data centers. SAP Cloud Platform
is an open platform-as-a-service, which includes the in-memory SAP HANA database management
system, connects to both on premises and cloud-based systems running SAP or other third-party
software and relies on open standards, like Java, JavaScript, Node.js and Cloud Foundry for
integration options.
SAP Cloud Platform is promoted to build and extend business applications with rapid innovation
cycles. SAP and Apple Inc. partnered to develop mobile applications on iOS using cloud-based
software development kits (SDKs) for the SAP Cloud Platform. SAP founding development
partners[66] for their Cloud Platform include Accenture, Celonis, EnterpriseAlumni & Walmart
SAP Cloud Platform is based on open source technology, developed & supported in partnership with
SUSE. The company is also in partnership with Cloud Foundry for a beta offering of SAP Cloud
Platform that enables customers to test out and give feedback for the functionalities coming with
Cloud Foundry.

SAP Store[edit]
SAP launched the SAP store in March 2015 as its principal e-commerce property to allow customers
to buy its products directly on the Web rather than through traditional sales channels. Customers can
purchase free trials or starter editions and can pay by credit card or PayPal.

SAP App Center[edit]

Launched in 2016, the SAP App Center is an online application marketplace for third-party
applications that integrate with and extend SAP products. Applications are available for free, as well
as via yearly or monthly subscription models. Applications available range from integrations with
content management software to mobile approval management and payment platforms. As of July
2018, it features over 1,500 applications.

Conferences[edit]
SAP has two annual conferences:

 SAPPHIRE is SAP's customer-facing event, where it generally

announces major product changes and strategic direction. It is
typically held in the spring in North America.[67][68]
 SAP TechEd is the company's more technical conference, aimed at
SAP's ecosystem of consultants and software development
partners.[69][70] SAP TechEd has been held annually since 1995.

Competitive landscape[edit]
SAP competitors are primarily in the enterprise resource planning software industry. In this
field, Oracle Corporation is SAP's major competitor. SAP also competes in the customer relationship
management, marketing & sales software, manufacturing, warehousing & industrial software, and
supply chain management & logistics software sectors.[71]
Oracle Corporation filed a lawsuit against SAP for malpractice and unfair competition in the
California courts in 2007. SAP lost the case in 2010 and was ordered to pay $1.3 billion, which was
cited as the largest copyright infringement judgment in history.[72] The verdict was overturned in