From Start-Up Software Vendor to Global Market Leader

Over the course of three decades, SAP has evolved from a small, regional enterprise into a world-class international company. Today, SAP is the global market leader in collaborative, inter-enterprise business solutions. The company now employs more than 39,300 people, whose commitment and innovative spirit pace our future success.

The 1970s: A Real-Time Vision

In 1972, five former IBM employees -- Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira, and Claus Wellenreuther -- launch a company called Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing in Mannheim, Germany. Their vision: to develop standard application software for real-time business processing.

One year later, the first financial accounting software is complete, forming the basis for the continuous development of other software components in what later came to be known as the "R/1 system." "R" stands for real-time data processing.

By the end of the decade, intensive examination of SAP's IBM database and dialog control system leads to the birth of SAP R/2.

The 1980s: Rapid Growth

SAP moves into the company's first building on Max-Planck-Strasse in an industrial park in Walldorf, near Heidelberg. Our software development area and its 50 terminals are all now under one roof. Fifty of the 100 largest German industrial firms are already SAP customers.

The SAP R/2 system attains the high level of stability of the previous generation of programs. Keeping in mind its multinational customers, SAP designs SAP R/2 to handle different languages and currencies. With this and other innovations in SAP R/2, SAP sees rapid growth.

By the middle of the decade, SAP founds its first sales organization outside Germany, in Austria. The company makes its first appearance at the CeBIT computer fair in Hanover, Germany. Revenues reach DM 100 million (around $52 million), earlier than expected.

In August 1988, SAP GmbH becomes SAP AG. Starting on November 4, 1.2 million shares are listed on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges.

Germany's renowned business journal, manager magazine, names SAP its Company of the Year -- a distinction we would receive twice more in the next few years.

With the founding of subsidiaries in Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and the United States, SAP's international expansion takes a leap forward.

The 1990s: A New Approach to Software and Solutions

SAP R/3 is unleashed on the market. The client-server concept, uniform appearance of graphical interfaces, consistent use of relational databases, and the ability to run on computers from different vendors meets with overwhelming approval. With SAP R/3, SAP ushers in a new generation of enterprise software -- from mainframe computing to the three-tier architecture of database, application, and user interface. To this day, the client-server architecture is the standard in business software.

A growing number of subsidiaries are managed out of Walldorf. The new Sales and Development Center in Walldorf officially opens it doors. It symbolizes the global success of the company. In our twentieth year, our business outside Germany exceeds 50 percent of total sales for the first time.

By 1996, the company has earned 1,089 new SAP R/3 customers. At the end of the year, SAP R/3 has been installed in more than 9,000 systems worldwide.

SAP celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1997 and now employs approximately 12,900 people. We continue to strengthen our industry focus and build more and more industry-specific solutions. Henning Kagermann becomes Co-Chairman and CEO of SAP AG with Hasso Plattner. On August 3, 1998, the letters S-A-P appear for the first time on the Big Board at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the largest stock exchange in the world.

As the decade draws to a close, Hasso Plattner, Co-Founder, Co-Chairman, and CEO announces the mySAP.com strategy, heralding the beginning of a new direction for the company and our product portfolio. mySAP.com links e-commerce solutions to existing ERP applications, using state-of-the-art Web technology.

The 2000s: Innovation for the New Millennium

With the Internet, the user becomes the focus of software applications. SAP develops SAP Workplace and paves the way for the idea of an enterprise portal and role-specific access to information.

Currently, more than 12 million users work each day with SAP solutions. There are now 121,000 installations worldwide, more than 1,500 SAP partners, over 25 industry-specific business solutions, and more than 41,200 customers in 120 countries. SAP is the world's third-largest independent software vendor.

Today, with enterprise services-oriented architecture and the underlying integration and application platform, SAP NetWeaver, SAP is providing our customers with solutions for end-to-end business processes. With SAP NetWeaver, your company can integrate people, information, and processes within the company and beyond.

About SAP AG

SAP AG (FWB:SAP, NYSE: SAP) is the largest European software enterprise, with headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. SAP was founded in 1972 as Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung by five former IBM engineers in Mannheim, Germany. The acronym was later changed to stand for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung ("Systems, Applications And Products in Data Processing") and since the 2005 annual general meeting the company's official name is just SAP AG.

Reputation:

SAP is the third-largest software company in the world. It ranks after Microsoft and Oracle in terms of market capitalization. SAP is the largest businessapplication and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution software provider in terms of revenue.

Products:

SAP's products focus on ERP, which it helped to pioneer. The company's main product is SAP R/3; the "R" stands for realtime data processing and the number 3 relates to a 3-tier architecture: database, application server and client (SAPgui). SAP R/3's predecessor was R/2 which ran on a Mainframe architecture.

Other major product offerings include Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO), Business Information Warehouse (BW), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Exchange Infrastructure (XI), Enterprise Portal (EP) and Knowledge Warehouse (KW).

The APO name has been retired and rolled into SCM. The BW name (Business Warehouse) has now been rolled into the SAP NetWeaver BI (Business Intelligence) suite and functions as the reporting module.

The company also offers a new technology platform, named SAP NetWeaver. While its original products are typically used by Fortune 500 companies, SAP is now also actively targeting small and medium sized enterprises (SME) with its SAP Business One and SAP All-in-One.

Reportedly, there are over 100,800 SAP installations at more than 28,000 companies. SAP products are used by over 12 million people in more than 120 countries

SAP Implementation is the whole of processes that defines a complete method to implement SAP software in an organization. The SAP implementation method described in this entry is a generic method and not a specific implementation method as such. It is based on best practices and case studies from various literature sources and presents a collection of processes and products that make up a complete implementation method to allow any organization to plan and execute the implementation of SAP (ERP) software.

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