[Study] [HBS] SAP 2014: Reaching for the Cloud

In 1972, originally from IBM, SAP staked out new ground in the automation of business processes. Over the next three decades, SAP developed R/1 aimed at automating companies' accounting functions.

In 1980, SAP offered a mainframe database (R/2). R/3 came up as a client/server version a decade later. R/3 could automate all enterprise's business processes.

In 1990s, the Internet exploded.

In 1999, Virtualization, first introduced to servers by VMware (shared server computing resources) - the concept of Cloud computing.

In 2000, the dating problem (Y2K) grind the planet to a halt, prompted massive reevaluations of IT policies, strategies, technologies, and purposes.

In 2000, Microsoft also entered into the ERP market with the acquisition of accounting software firm Great Plains.

In 2003, SAP revealed its NetWeaver based platform (using ABAP programming language) that could be the basic for further application software innovation by third party independent software vendors like EY (ISVs) which is one of the idea for Biological Organizing Logic created an decentralized and self-organized playing field. The advantage of this move is to allow a larger pool of brainpower to be tapped and provide access to a greater diversity of domain insights than R&D departments (Tiwana, 2014). Also based on this idea, the concept of community was core to the SAP ecosystem. For example, the SAP Developer Network (SDN).

In 2004, Oracle acquired PeopleSoft, Siebel CRM to create Oracle EBS.

In 2010, SAP added 3 new categories:

1. Mobility for business
2. In-memory computing
3. Cloud computing

In 2010, Snabe (SAP co-CEO) launched an agile and lean principles that focus on customer and time to market as well as time to consumption.

In May 2010, SAP acquired Sybase specialized solely in Infor. Man. and Mobile Data.

In 2010, SAP HANA released which is designed to utilized an in-memory approach.

In Dec 2011, SAP acquired SuccessFactors specialized in Cloud-based human capital management. 

In May 2012, SAP acquired Ariba a world's largest web-based B2B commerce network.

End of 2013, revenue in each of the new categories had grown by over 50 times

Looking ahead to 2014, it is the time of SAP HANA which empowered with real-time data modelling and analytic functionality. Therefore,working as an platform, it targets to transition SAP into a cloud-based company.

References:

Lakhani, KR., Iansiti, M., & Fisher, N. (2014) 'SAP 2014: Reaching for the Cloud', Harvard Business Review, pp. 1-25. Avalable at: https://hbr.org/product/sap-2014-reaching-for-the-cloud/614052-PDF-ENG (Accessed 16 September 2015).

Tiwana, A. (2014) 'Separating Signal from Noise: Evaluating Emerging Technologies', MIS Quarterly Executive, 13(1), pp. 45-61. Available at: http://misqe.org/ojs2/index.php/misqe/article/view/518 (Accessed 15 September 2015).