SAP SE

SAP SE was founded in April 1972 by five former IBM employees in Mannheim, Germany. The founders had developed a program at IBM that was rejected for customer proposals, which led them to leave and start their own company. SAP originally stood for Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing. The company aimed to develop standardized software for real-time business processing. Over the years, SAP SE grew to become one of the largest software companies in the world, specializing in enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations.

SAP SE went public on November 4, 1988, marking a significant milestone in the company's history. The IPO was an important event as it provided SAP with the financial resources necessary to expand its operations and continue developing innovative enterprise software solutions. Listing on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges, SAP attracted a wider base of investors and increased its visibility in the global market. This move also helped SAP solidify its position as a leader in the software industry.

In 1992, SAP introduced the R/3 system, a revolutionary step in enterprise planning applications. Unlike its predecessor software R/2, which was targeted at mainframe computers, R/3 was designed for open systems and client-server technology. This allowed more businesses to deploy the software on a wider variety of computer systems, thereby expanding SAP's market. The introduction of R/3 helped SAP serve a larger number of clients and climbed the ranks to become a leader in enterprise software solutions.

In 2001, SAP acquired TopTier Software for $400 million. This was an important acquisition as it brought key technology and personnel to SAP, including Shai Agassi, who later became a member of SAP's executive board. TopTier's expertise in enterprise portals added significant value to SAP's technology offerings, enhancing the user interface and experience for SAP's clientele. This acquisition marked a strategic move by SAP to strengthen its products and services in the competitive enterprise software market.

SAP NetWeaver was launched in 2004 as an integrated technology platform for building and deploying applications. NetWeaver was essential in SAP's strategy to enable service-oriented architecture (SOA) and allow for seamless integration and optimization of various business processes. This platform offered a wide range of capabilities supporting integration of data and business processes across multiple systems, helping enterprises adapt and respond more quickly to changing business requirements.

SAP announced its acquisition of Sybase in May 2010 for $5.8 billion. This acquisition was a strategic move to strengthen its database technologies and mobile capabilities. Sybase brought robust database management software and strong presence in mobile applications, which complemented SAP's solutions. The merger allowed SAP to expand its reach in delivering enterprise mobility solutions and to leverage Sybase's database technology for analytics and data management enhancements, thereby broadening its market and product offerings.

In 2014, SAP officially released SAP HANA, an in-memory database platform that promised to transform the landscape of business computing. HANA offered real-time analytics and applications on a single in-memory platform, which dramatically increased the speed of data processing and analysis. By enabling real-time insights, SAP HANA empowered companies to make faster and more informed business decisions, thus providing a key competitive advantage. This was a pivotal move for SAP as it reinforced its leadership in the enterprise computing space.

In 2018, SAP announced an ambitious strategy to expand its cloud offerings and improve its cloud-based business applications. This strategic plan included increased focus on the SAP Cloud Platform and SAP's suite of cloud applications such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, and others. By committing to a cloud-first approach, SAP aimed to meet the growing demand for scalable, flexible, and efficient cloud solutions, and to foster innovation and transformation in businesses globally. This marked SAP's determination to stay ahead in the cloud computing era.

SAP acquired Qualtrics in 2019 for $8 billion, just days before Qualtrics's planned IPO. This acquisition was a strategic move to expand SAP's offerings in customer experience management. Qualtrics, known for its experience management platform, allowed organizations to capture and act on experience data—customer, employee, product, and brand experiences—in real-time. By integrating Qualtrics into its own portfolio, SAP enhanced its ability to provide a holistic view of the customer and advanced its Intelligent Enterprise strategy.

In January 2020, SAP's CEO Bill McDermott, who had led the company since 2010, stepped down and was succeeded by Jen Morgan and Christian Klein as co-CEOs. This leadership transition was significant for SAP as it marked the end of an era under McDermott's tenure, during which SAP notably expanded into the cloud business. The new co-CEO structure was intended to drive SAP's cloud-first strategy further and bring reinvented leadership perspectives to sustain the company's innovative and competitive edge in the dynamic software industry.

In July 2021, SAP announced new initiatives to expand its leadership in sustainability technology. The company introduced tools and solutions to help businesses measure and manage their sustainability performance, catering to the increasing importance of ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) criteria in corporate strategies. SAP's solutions enabled organizations to analyze their carbon footprints and manage sustainability data more effectively, which aligned with global efforts to combat climate change and promote sustainable business practices.