SAP was founded in 1972 by five former IBM engineers — Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner, Claus Wellenreuther, Klaus Tschira, and Hans-Werner Hector — in Mannheim, Germany. The name stands for Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing. SAP’s core product was enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, and it became the global leader in that category.
SAP’s ERP systems run the backend operations of some of the world’s largest companies. Over 400,000 customers in 180+ countries use SAP software, including 99 of the 100 largest companies in the world. SAP’s software handles procurement, finance, HR, supply chain, manufacturing, and sales operations.
The flagship product is now SAP S/4HANA, an in-memory ERP suite that runs on SAP’s HANA database. It replaced the long-running SAP R/3 and ECC systems. SAP has been pushing customers to migrate to S/4HANA, with mainstream maintenance for older versions scheduled to end in 2027.
SAP has been transitioning aggressively to cloud computing. RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP are cloud-first offerings for large enterprises and mid-market companies, respectively. Cloud revenue has been growing rapidly, and SAP reported total revenue of approximately 31 billion euros in 2023.
CEO Christian Klein has led the company since 2020, overseeing restructuring that included laying off about 8,000 employees in early 2024 to accelerate the cloud and AI transformation. SAP Business Technology Platform provides a suite of data, analytics, and AI tools on top of the core ERP.
Headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, SAP employs over 105,000 people. The company’s market cap regularly exceeds $200 billion, making it Europe’s most valuable tech company.
