What does the acronym "SAP" stand for?

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

What is SAP’s vision and mission?

SAP’s vision is to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. Our mission is to help every customer become a best-run business. We do this by delivering new technology innovations that we believe address today’s and tomorrow’s challenges without disrupting our customers’ business operations: Enterprise mobility will transform consumption of IT; in-memory technology will simplify the IT architecture in the enterprise and drive high-value applications; and the cloud delivery of IT solutions will simplify the consumption of technology and enable business networks. By leveraging our leadership in applications and analytics and combining them with new technology innovations, we can offer solutions that make our customers run better. To help our customers derive value from their SAP solutions in a fast, cost-effective, and predictable way, we also provide professional services and support.

What are SAP’s goals for success?

SAP has strong ambitions for sustainable business success, both for itself and for its customers. By 2015, we expect to reach more than €20 billion in revenue, with a 35% non-IFRS operating margin. In addition, we aim to see one billion people interacting with our software. Our customers’ IT requirements are complex and ever changing and SAP helps meet this challenge. Consequently, we aim to build a €2 billion cloud business and remain the fastest-growing database company to complement our market leading on-premise business. Furthermore, in 2013, we aim to increase the indicator for customer success by eight percentage points and the employee engagement index to 82% (2012: 79%), all while minimizing our environmental impact and positively impacting society. These goals affirm our focus on innovation and sustainability and help us deliver on our vision and mission.

What is SAP’s strategy for the key 5 market categories?

SAP seeks to secure the growth of the company primarily through organic innovation of our portfolio product and solutions, focusing on market-leading innovation in five market categories – Applications, Analytics, Cloud, Mobile, and Database and Technology – powered by SAP HANA. We intend to increase SAP’s market leadership in the existing market categories of applications, analytics, and mobile, and to position SAP as a market leader in the new categories of cloud and database and technology. Our SAP HANA platform allows our customers to take advantage of real-time in-memory technology across all five market categories. Expanding our partner network offers additional opportunities to develop innovative products and solutions and significantly increases our potential sales channels.

Are you planning to grow organically or through acquisitions?

Both. SAP remains dedicated to driving growth through organic development of its product and services portfolio, SAP spent almost €2.3 billion on research and development in 2012. SAP’s growth strategy also involves strategic acquisitions of specific technologies and capabilities that meet the needs of customers, adding to its broad solution offerings within and across industries. Examples include the acquisitions of BusinessObjects (2007), Sybase (2010), SuccessFactors (2011), Syclo (2012), and Ariba (2012). Additional information can be obtained here.

Where can I find information about SAP's most important acquisitions?

Detailed information on our acquisitions can be found on the Financial News and Reports page

What are SAP’s 2015 goals?

We are aiming to increase our total revenue to more than €20 billion by 2015. In the same period, we aim to widen our non-IFRS operating margin to 35%.

To achieve these goals, we want to further strengthen our position in our five market categories and have one billion users by 2015.

• We want to extend our leadership in the applications segment.
• We want to extend our market share in analytics.
• We want to extend our leadership in mobile computing.
• We want to become a profitable market leader in cloud computing, generating around €2 billion total revenue in  this segment by 2015.

Our plan is for indirect sales (partner revenue) to contribute up to 40% of software revenue by 2015.

Where can I find information about the SAP Executive Board?

Access the Executive Board page for information about the SAP Executive Board.

Why did SAP introduce a new Global Managing Board?

This body was established in addition to the SAP Executive Board, which retains ultimate responsibility for overseeing and deciding on the activities of the company. The Global managing Board allows SAP to appoint a broader range of global leaders to help steer the organization. The establishment of the Global Managing Board will help SAP drive innovation and scale faster in its core markets as well as in its new categories mobile, database/in-memory and cloud.
Access the Global Managing Board page for more information

What is SAP's current headcount?

On December 31, 2012, we had 64,422 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees worldwide (December 31, 2011: 55,765). This represents an increase in headcount of 8,657 FTEs in comparison to 2012. Of the overall headcount increase in 2012, 4,816 resulted from acquisitions. The average number of employees in 2012 was 61,134 (2011: 54,346).

Do SAP employees participate in the company's success?

SAP offers its employees and managers various investment programs.

Can you explain SAP’s commitment to sustainable business practices?

Sustainability is core to the overall business strategy at SAP and our vision to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. For us, sustainability means holistically managing the financial, social, and environmental dimensions of business, in order to reduce economic risks and to seize opportunities for increased profitability.

As our Integrated Report 2012 shows, SAP is committed to not only providing a comprehensive view of the dependencies between our economic, social and environmental performance. It also helps us move closer towards a sustainable business strategy. Such a strategy is defined by embedding sustainability deeply into how we create value for our customers in the first place, i.e. through the software we create for businesses around the world.

Where can I order SAP's latest annual report?

You can order a free printed copy of our annual report through our Information Order Service.

Where can I read current SAP business and financial news?

Current SAP business and financial news are listed under Financial News and in the Press Room.

I bought my shares before January 1, 2009, and in Germany any price gains on these shares are not subject to German capital gains tax/withholding tax. Does the conversion of SAP to an SE affect this in any way?

We intend to convert SAP AG to an SE without changing the identity of the Company as such, and for the new legal form to apply from next year. Under German tax law, the change of legal form has no tax implications for the Company or its shareholders. For shareholders selling SAP shares after the Company has converted to a European company, the German capital gains tax on the income from such sales will be the same as before the conversion. The conversion of SAP AG does not result in any German capital transaction tax, turnover tax, or stamp tax.

What will it cost to convert the Company to an SE?

We expect costs to be somewhere in the low- to mid-single-digit million euro range. We expect to offset these costs in the next few years by making appropriate economies.