Frequently Asked Questions

Company

In 1972, five former IBM employees founded the company they call SAP Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung ("System Analysis and Program Development").Taking the initial form of a private partnership under the German Civil Code, the company establishes its headquarters in Weinheim, Germany, and opens an office in nearby Mannheim. However, SAP's five founders spend most of their time in the data centres of their first customers, which include the German branch of Imperial Chemical Industries in Östringen.

Further information can be found on the SAP History page.

"SAP" stands for Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing.

We bring out the best in every business.

That's SAP's vision. 

 

To turn this vision into reality for our customers, we have set ourselves the following three goals as mission:

 

Agility at scale

Confidently navigate dynamic markets with purpose-built innovations designed for quick implementation, swift scaling, and rapid response

 

Achieve more across the value chain

Tap into the trusted and scalable business ecosystem, harnessing the intelligence across your internal systems and external partnerships to optimise performance across your value chain.

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Sustainability at your core

Transform your operations with next-generation solutions that drive more accurate and actionable sustainability management across your entire enterprise.

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The outlook and mid-term ambition can be found in the Quarterly Statement on our Recent Results page.

Organic growth remains the primary driver of our strategy. We will continue to invest in our own product development and technology innovation, improving the speed, number of projects, and innovations brought to market. We will also continue to acquire targeted, strategic, and “fill-in” technology and software to add to our broad solution offerings and improve coverage in key strategic markets. By doing so, we will strive to best support our customers’ needs for simplified operations. Additional information and details about acquisitions in the past can be found on the Acquisitions page.

Find more information about the SAP Executive Board here.

The change of legal form from a stock corporation under German law to a European Company was made to manifest SAP’s self-image as an international player with European roots. Presenting itself as a European Company thus reflects the importance of the Company’s European and international operations.

Our employee headcount is updated regularly in the Quarterly Statement. 

SAP offers its employees and managers various investment programmes. A comprehensive overview about all employee related topics can be found in the SAP Integrated Report.

Sustainability

SAP’s purpose is to help the world run better and improve people's lives with sustainability at the core. Our objective is to create a positive economic, environmental, and social impact worldwide within planetary boundaries. We bring this to life by providing products and services that meet the sustainability challenges and opportunities of our customers (enabler) and leading by example in our own sustainable business operations and practices (exemplar). Learn about our approach to sustainability.

SAP has been on its sustainability journey for more than a decade and is a recognised leader as a sustainably run company. This has given us the insights and experience to respond to the increasing demands from customers, partners, investors, and employees for SAP to not only run our company more sustainably, but also to use our position to enable customers to run more sustainably, too. There is an urgency to this as many reports indicate that climate change, waste, and social inequalities are becoming increasingly acute problems around the world. We believe sustainability is the new frontier of digital transformation. We want to help customers reinvent themselves as intelligent and sustainable enterprises. We want to help them make sustainability profitable and profitability sustainable. We believe this is a long-term strategic imperative that will help SAP grow while helping our customers achieve their overall corporate ambitions which increasingly centre around running sustainably.

SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises is a flexible solution bundle of sustainability-focused applications to help companies achieve holistic sustainability management. Companies can now integrate sustainability metrics seamlessly into their end-to-end business processes. We realise each company is at a different stage of implementing sustainable performance, so SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises provides maximum flexibility for customers to choose which solutions and capabilities they want to incorporate into their sustainability management portfolio at the time that is right for them. The solutions can be broadly adopted for holistic management, or selectively implemented to operationalise specific areas of sustainability performance. The customisable suite is easy for companies to adopt with a single license, and SAP expert implementation support and our highly skilled partner ecosystem.

SAP’s products and services help deliver environmental and social impact on four dimensions including climate action, circular economy, social responsibility, and holistic steering and reporting.

  • Holistic sustainability management: SAP’s sustainability and ESG reporting solutions contribute to a future where decisions in our global economy are made based on their sustainability impact. Example: SAP Sustainability Control Tower helps organisations connect their environmental, social, and financial data holistically so they can steer their business towards sustainability.
  • Climate action: SAP’s climate change solutions contribute to a future with zero emissions. Example: SAP Product Footprint Management enables organisations to assess and reduce greenhouse gas emissions of their products and operations along their entire value chain.
  • Circular economy: SAP’s circular economy solutions contribute to a future with zero waste. Example: SAP Responsible Design and Production enables organisations to make circularity a key principle of product design and production. It helps them re-use materials, protect resources, eliminate waste, and build regenerative businesses.
  • Social responsibility: SAP’s social responsibility solutions contribute to a future with zero inequality. Example: SAP Business Network and our SAP SuccessFactors HCM provide the visibility needed to support organisations in integrating ethical and socially responsible sustainable business practices to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion across the entire value chain.
  • The most sustainable companies across industries run SAP
  • 97% of the greenest companies in the world run SAP
  • 90% of the most socially responsible companies in the world run SAP
  • SAP has the best ESG Score in the Software industry
  • The most sustainable companies run SAP with 73% higher ESG Scores and 24% lower CO2 emissions
  • The most sustainable companies run SAP S/4HANA with 50% higher ESG Scores
  • The data used comes largely from our internal Best Run Intelligence team which has licensed the S&P 500 ESG disclosure data set and has run analysis on the data. Many of the S&P 500 companies are SAP customers. Other data comes from commissioned research conducted by Oxford Economics.

(All data based on a 2021 data set.)

Yes, we are working with companies of all sizes, across geographies and industries, at various stages of maturity from pilots to full deployment.  Hear the stories of our visionary customers using SAP Sustainability solutions.

Global market analysis of GHG emission efficiency (a measurement of GHG emissions as a percent of revenue) indicates the gap between average and top performers by industry is 14%. SAP customers are responsible for 87% of total global commerce, they are also responsible for 84% of total global GHG emissions. SAP can help customers reduce their emissions by up to 14%, or an equivalent of 5 billion tons annually.

SAP addresses sustainability, including climate action, as one of our key focus areas through a dual approach. As an enabler, we aim to provide products and services to our customers to reduce their carbon emissions and pave the way toward a low-carbon future together. As an exemplar, to live up to our responsibility and build climate resilience, we strive to lead by example by running our own business operations and practices more sustainably.

 

To get insights into how SAP addresses climate change with our three-fold approach “avoid-reduce-compensate,” please see the SAP Integrated Report. SAP’s environmental efforts and targets are also outlined in the Global Environmental Policy.

 

For an overview of how SAP embeds sustainability in our solution portfolio, please visit our Web site.

 

Since 2018, SAP reports in alignment with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations. The topic of climate change-related risks is addressed in the chapter "Energy and Emissions"  of our Integrated Report.

More than a decade ago, SAP set out on its sustainability journey with the objective to create positive economic, environmental, and social impact within planetary boundaries. Along the way, we have continuously added and raised financial as well as pre-financial targets and established ourselves as a front-runner in integrating economic, social, and environmental performance into how we measure and steer our business success holistically. 

 

In January 2022, we committed to achieve net zero across our value chain by 2030 – 20 years earlier than originally planned. This moves forward our commitment by 20 years. 

 

On our pathway towards net zero, the next intermediate milestone is 2023, when SAP aims to be carbon neutral in its own operations – two years earlier than originally targeted. This includes all direct (Scope 1), indirect (Scope 2), and selected categories of value chain (Scope 3) carbon emissions, such as business flights, employee commuting, and external data centres (co-locations and hyperscalers). The potential for decarbonization can however be amplified considerably if we enhance our efforts along the entire value chain. In 2022, gross carbon emissions amounted to 10,688 kilotons (kt) along SAP’s entire value chain (including upstream and downstream emissions), compared to 441 kt gross emissions for SAP’s own operations (see Integrated Report 2023).

SAP is committed to protecting the environment and continuously improving our own environmental performance. Therefore, we are gradually introducing an EMS reflecting the ISO 14001 standard at SAP sites worldwide. We aim to increase the EMS scope to 100% of SAP’s major company-owned sites by 2025 (2022: 85%). In addition, an ISO 50001-certified energy management system is integrated with existing management systems at selected sites, such as SAP’s headquarters. View our ISO certificates on sap.com (go to “Energy and environmental management”).

SAP aspires to a world of zero waste and is eager to move to an interconnected, circular economy through ambitious enabler and exemplar activities. As an example, in July 2019, SAP launched the initiative Beyond Single-Use Plastics to phase out single-use plastics in our own operations, a project which concluded in June 2021. In 2020, at the World Economic Forum, SAP joined the Global Plastic Action Partnership to create a cleaner ocean by 2030 and became part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to pave the way to a circular economy. 

We also manage our electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) responsibly by cooperating with international and local IT asset lifecycle partners that help us to refurbish, recycle, and sustainably dispose our discarded devices. Further details can be found on our Circular Economy Web site and our Integrated Report.

 

SAP also aims at helping its clients fighting against plastic pollution and becoming more circular. More about SAP solutions for Circular Economy  can be found on sap.com. 

Since 2012, we annually release an Integrated Report which combines our full-year financial, social, and environmental performance, allowing us to present a clear and holistic overview of what drives our company and our long-term success. The current SAP Integrated Report can be found at www.sapintegratedreport.com.

Connecting financial and non-financial ESG metrics is key to comprehensively analysing all dimensions of a company’s performance and working toward their integration and harmonisation. On this journey, digital technologies play a fundamental role in delivering embedded, validated, and real-time data. In addition to the perspective of connecting financial and non-financial ESG metrics, holistic steering and reporting integrates the dimensions of positive and negative impacts that businesses create along their complete value chain.

 

Building on our experience in connecting financial and non-financial measures, we co-founded the Value Balancing Alliance (VBA) in 2019 to support the development of a standardised impact measurement and valuation methodology that helps companies, investors, and other stakeholders understand, quantify and compare financial and non-financial performance. These insights enable companies to create business value beyond revenue or profit growth while taking into consideration the long-term impacts of business operations on the environment and society as a whole. Further details on SAP’s journey on holistic steering and reporting and the results of the third VBA methodology pilot phase can be found in our Integrated Report.

SAP uses the following three key measures: Customer Net Promoter Score (NPS), Employee Engagement Index, and carbon impact. Outlook and results for the current year can be found in the SAP Integrated Report.

 

In addition, SAP tracks further social and environmental indicators, such as women in management, employee retention, the Business Health Culture Index, energy consumption, and e-waste. Please review SAP’s Finance and ESG Data Hub where we display employee indicators and environmental metrics.

Since 2020, SAP’s executive short-term incentive (STI) compensation includes sustainability targets (sustainability KPIs) on top of our financial targets with a total weight of 20%. The sustainability KPIs are: Customer Net Promoter Score, which measures SAP’s customer loyalty; Employee Engagement Index, which measures SAP’s employee commitment, pride, and loyalty; and Carbon Impact, which measures SAP’s greenhouse gas emissions.

To select the topics to be included in our integrated reporting, we conducted a comprehensive materiality assessment in 2022, applying the requirements of the German Commercial Code as well as the newly introduced materiality definition of the Universal Standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI): “Material topics are topics that represent an organisation’s most significant impacts on the economy, environment, and people, including impacts on their human rights.”

 

Have a look at our Integrated Report for further details about the key stages of the process we followed to assess the significance of each economic, social, and environmental impact.

Yes, the social and environmental data and information included in SAP’s Integrated Report was prepared in accordance with the GRI Standards. Please see our latest GRI Content Index for further details. Furthermore, we have committed to several additional multilateral standards to cover a wide scope of responsibilities, stakeholder needs, and sustainability aspects:

SAP is committed to the highest standards of ethical business. We have a robust compliance framework to support employees in acting ethically and compliantly and within the law in all the markets in which we operate. The framework includes clear Policies, Codes, and a Global network of experts, all underpinned by a Global Code of Ethics & Business Conduct (the Code) which includes, amongst other topics, loyalty, bribery and corruption, and confidentiality.

 

For more information, please see the chapter “Business Conduct” in the SAP Integrated Report and/or Ethics and Compliance at SAP on sap.com.

Yes, learn more about SAP’s Global Tax Principles here.

We have implemented safeguards to help protect the fundamental rights of everyone whose data is processed by SAP, whether they are our customers, prospects, employees, or partners. In addition, we work toward compliance with all relevant legal requirements for data protection. You can find more information in the chapter "Security, Data Protection and Privacy" of the SAP Integrated Report, on SAP Trust Center, in the SAP Privacy Statement.

As a signatory of the UN Global Compact since 2000, SAP believes companies have a responsibility to respect human rights throughout all business operations. SAP is committed to respecting and promoting human rights across our operations, extended supply chain, and product lifecycle. We set high standards of fairness, diversity, and inclusion for ourselves, and expect all of our business partners to respect human rights and avoid complicity in any abuse. 

We take guidance from the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as well as legal requirements like the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz, LkSG), to operationalise our commitment.

 

Further key References:

Please see our Integrated Report for related disclosures.

SAP embraces the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and embedded the framework as a foundation to our strategic approach to sustainability. We use this framework to evaluate global progress – both for our roles as a role model and exemplar and as an enabler. Our contribution to the SDGs is a cross-company effort driven by experts from almost every board area and aligned through the internal SDG Network. Engagement with customers and other activities contributing to the SDGs are addressed in our Integrated Report, where we describe the potential positive and negative direct or indirect impacts of our company and of our products and services related to the SDGs.

About 43% of SAP’s institutional investors are classified as SRIs. Learn more in the SAP Integrated Report.

Yes, learn more about SAP's sustainability awards and recognitions here. You can also access SAP’s ESG performance directly via the web sites of rating agencies such as: