On the eve of SAP’s most important annual customer conference, and one week before he officially takes the reins as sole CEO of the Walldorf, Germany-based company, Leo Apotheker said that he would focus SAP on helping businesses and other organizations overcome “a crisis of values” laid bare by the current economic recession.
“We are living in a new reality,” he told a group of journalists during a breakfast meeting in New York City Monday. “We have a crisis of values. The economic downturn didn’t just happen out of the blue. The world wants to move in a new direction. It is time to rebuild trust and credibility.”
His vision for the future of business, and what he intends to rally the company around, is a concept SAP is calling the Clear Enterprise. Intended to be the next step following SAP’s long-running operational message — the idea that best-run businesses run SAP — the new “clarity” message is meant not only to provide an answer to the issues arising from the current economic downturn, but also to suggest a more proactive way to look at opportunities with information technology.
“In order to survive and thrive, companies must do things clearly,” said Apotheker, who will deliver a keynote this morning on the subject at the company’s Sapphire customer conference in Orlando. “Customers are telling us they need transparency for internal and external stakeholders. People want businesses to demonstrate accountability. We believe that clarity is essential for today’s business — for agility, for sustainability, to be customer-focused. We must close the loop between strategy and execution. I want to drive value for SAP in the future the same way as [for] our customers. We want to operationalize the principles of clarity.”