SAP Strengthens Customer Focus and Brings Innovation Faster to Market through New Organizational Structure

WALLDORF, Germany, Jan. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the redesign of parts of its board to further strengthen its customer focus and deliver innovation faster to market. Customers will benefit from these organizational changes because the changes enable SAP to respond more quickly and flexibly to customers' rapidly changing business requirements. After the successful completion of the Business Objects integration, SAP now further adjusts its organizational structure to address customer needs more effectively through product development, and bring the right solutions more rapidly to its customers. Consequently, SAP will create a new Industry and Solution Management Board area under the leadership of John Schwarz, which will translate market requirements faster into SAP's future portfolio of solutions designed for their respective industry needs. Similarly, to develop scalable innovations and bring "best in class" products based on state-of-the-art technology faster to market, SAP will create a new Product Design and Development Board area under the leadership of Jim Hagemann Snabe.

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"Our goal is to enable SAP to bring the right innovations and solutions to all of our customers in a much shorter timeframe. With these changes, we become more responsive to customer feedback, and can leverage collaboration and synergies across our organization more effectively. They will enable us to expand our industry leadership and successfully execute against our strategy for sustainable growth," said Leo Apotheker, chief executive officer, SAP. The organizational changes will become effective in April 2010.

In addition, Bill McDermott, president, Global Field Operations (GFO), and member of the SAP Executive Board who oversees all customer operations worldwide, has made the following management changes to the GFO Board area:

Steve Watts will serve as new president of Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), succeeding Geraldine McBride who will pursue opportunities outside the company. Watts has a 20-year track record in leading software business operations and for the past two years has served as chief operating officer (COO) for APJ.

Michael Kleinemeier will assume responsibility for Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH) as managing director. He succeeds Volker Merk, who has taken a sabbatical. Kleinemeier returns to SAP after two years and brings along broad industry and management experience. He has held several executive-level positions at SAP, including sales, consulting and training, and was managing director of SAP Deutschland AG & Co. KG and president of the former Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) Central region.

To strengthen SAP's global focus and help drive growth in the DACH region and Japan, Michael Kleinemeier and Garrett Ilg, president of SAP Japan, will join the GFO leadership team directly reporting to Bill McDermott.

Furthermore, India becomes part of SAP's EMEA region and will be overseen by Jose Duarte, president of EMEA and India. The new region, called SAP EMEA+India, will be better able to take advantage of growth opportunities, natural trade flows and synergies among India, Middle East and Europe. The company also announced the appointment of Peter Gartenberg as managing director of India, replacing Ranjan Das, who passed away suddenly last year. Gartenberg was hired by Das and has been serving as COO of India since October 2009.  He will report directly to Duarte.  Alok Goyal will assume the role of COO of India.

"I would like to thank Geraldine McBride and Volker Merk for their longstanding contributions to SAP, and their leadership in the APJ and DACH regions. Their dedication to our customers made a significant difference and ensured success in these key markets," said McDermott. "With the new field management team and structure in place I am confident that we are on the clear path to sustainable growth and will continue to deliver on SAP's strategy."

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 92,000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol "SAP." For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

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