Business Management and Strategic Innovation Report for SAP

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of SAP's business innovation strategies, examining the company's operational history and current practices. It explores SAP's approach to innovation, from its early days to its present-day operations, and identifies key activities driving innovation within the organization. The report focuses on SAP's Buyer Relationship Management software, detailing its benefits and potential for future development. It also discusses the importance of research and development, distribution channels, and customer engagement in the successful launch and growth of new products. The report concludes by highlighting the strategic importance of innovation for SAP's continued success in the competitive software market, including the integration of its Buyer Relationship Management software with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Product Life Cycle processes. The report also emphasizes the need for continuous adaptation to market changes and the importance of a smooth flow of goods and services, from manufacturer to buyer.

Running head: BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
Executive Summary
The main purpose of the research paper is to an innovation approach which will in a way help the
paper to determine the past, present and future operation of the company. The paper in first of all
apply and as well as evaluate approach to a range of business data as well as sources of
information backed up with appropriate methodologies in order to identify the drivers if
innovation within the business operations. In the end the paper will thus try out to explore the
innovation and development approaches which will be appropriate for the chosen organization.

2BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Purpose of the report & structure.....................................................................................................3
The Organization & Industry Overview..........................................................................................4
Industry overview............................................................................................................................4
The Organization and its Innovation History..................................................................................5
Identification of the key activities...................................................................................................8
The Industry in 2017 – present......................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

3BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
Introduction
The paper will in a way try out to cover the business innovation approach for the selected
organization and then it will further examine the organization’s operational history. It will also
compare them along with the present date operations performed by the company and thus
recommend few of the future innovation strategies so that the business organization can perform
well with the operations. It will also discuss the factors in a wider approach as well as discuss
few of the environmental factors in an upstream and downstream supply chain participants.
Purpose of the report & structure
The main purpose of the research paper is to discuss the innovative strategies which were
used by the company till the present date. The paper will research various types of innovative
approaches which will be further used by the company in order to operate smoothly in the future.
The paper will also discuss with the identification of a new product which can be launched by
the company or has been already under the process of innovation by the company. The paper
after identification of the chosen product and service offered by the company will conduct an
activity which will be required by the company in order to make the product or service run
smoothly in the market. This will help the chosen company or business organization to gain a a
competitive advantage over the competitors in the market.

4BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
The Organization & Industry Overview
Regarding the chosen business organization for the paper it can be said that it is a big
multinational software corporation which is known for making and applying various types of
information technology and software based jobs for the betterment of the organizations. SAP SE
is known for standing Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing. The main aim of
the company or business operation in the market is to develop various types of useful software’s
for the customer relationship and business operations. The business organization is mainly
known or is famous for its ERP software. SAP is also known for having its headquarters in
Walldrof, Baden present in Germany. The company or business organization is known for
having its various types of regional offices in more than 180 countries all over the world. The
company according to the author Akhtar (2016) is known for having more than 16500000
customers from all over the world.
Industry overview
As of the industry overview it can be said that the company is known for working on a
full time software based projects and business. According to the author Akhtar (2016) it has been
found out from a research work that SAP is world’s third largest software and as well as
programming company. The corporation is known for working under few main countries like
tehe Europe, Asia, South Africa and South America. The company is known for having its main
focus on over more than 25 countries and six industry sectors which mainly include the process
industries, discrete industries, service related industries, financial service providers, public
services and as for the large enterprises. The business organization is known for providing

5BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
various types of integrated products as well as services for the large enterprises, mid-level
enterprises and as well as short enterprises. The company or business sorganziation is known for
sharing various type sof partnership programs with the Global Service Partners with diverse
cross industry multinational consulting capabilities. These types of Global Service Partners are
thus known for providing the integrated product components for the company so that they can
successfully develop the software according to the need of the companies. The partner
companies are known for providing SAP with a wide range of product and services like the latest
technology, vendor of the hardware components and software components, database and storage
devices which are used for keeping various types of company useful data. The company has in
the present few years packed up a partnership with one of the biggest smartphone providers
Apple. Inc in order to build a software which will be able to work with various types of
smartphone devices as well as in computers with special security forces.
The Organization and its Innovation History
The organization has been known for completing the first commercial product which was
launched back in the year of 1983. The first software which was developed back in the year 1983
was eventually bearing the name of SAP R/1. The software at that time was known for offering
various types of common system multiple task. This was later on permitted with the use of
centralized data storage systems. The software was generally known for clearing various types of
centralized data that was stored in the computers used by the companies. According to the author
Burns (2018) after various types of extensive research work initiated by him itself that
innovation was at the cornerstone of +SAP business from the very early start or beginning of the
company. The company had with the help of extensive research and development with
innovative approaches penetrated in to the conservative market of accounting software which

6BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
was the dominated by the local legal systems without bringing out any kind of value added
services, or updated new technologies and services. The companies in those days never used any
kind of updated tools or managerial tools which was later on first introduced by the SAP
multinational software organization. With the extensive use of the updated technologies and few
of the latest tools the business organization thus became popular over the other companies and
business organizations. In order to gain competitive advantage over the competitors SAP had
decided to bring out a change with extensive process of innovation. The company had then
decided to host a solution for ache ad every problem which is offered by the company. The
company had offered the solution based approach to various types of small companies and to
customers on a monthly license basis which had thus created the first SP cloud based solution.
Therefore according to the author Shim and Shim (2019) the company or business organization
is providing various types of SAP based application and software which has a customer base of
more than 165000 customers worldwide. It thus can be clearly highlighted that the company has
been using innovative approaches to operate profitably, adapt continuously according to the
changes in the business market of operations and grow sustainability.
Regarding the product or the service which is chosen for the business organization and
the paper will try to identify the key activities which is required for the successful development
of the product in the next future. The new product which can be developed by the company in
the next few years is Buyer relationship Management where the buyer can in a way create
various types of delivery reports which can be made relation with the procurement activities,
contract and compliance management and manage various types of costing in the process of
business procurement. Therefore the buyers with the help of SAP Buyer Relationship
Management can manage various types of contracts with a secure central depository. This will

7BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
directly help the buyers in the business to reduce the compliance and reduce various types of
violations, thus allowing the users to follow the general business process which is mainly used
by all the other experts during the process of self-procurement.
The major benefits of the SAP BRM will be in the present scenario will thus be :
 Managing various types of Live Auction Cockpit in order to perform real time
monitoring and process of bidding in the process of product procurement process.
 The second most advantage which will be faced by the buyers in the business
engagement will be with the help of business intelligence the application will be helping
the buyers to perform diverse activities which are related with data warehousing,
analytics and web based process which have a direct link with the smooth functioning of
the business.
 The third advantage which will be faced by the buyers will be the easy mode of
transaction. The application will be able to help the buyers of the business engagement to
create various types of important quotations and process them with the help of direct
involvement of the application.
 However with further more involvement with technological innovation the company or
business organization can make the Buyer Relationship Management Software be used
with the Enterprise Resource Planning or the ERM and the Product Life Cycle to ensure
the effectiveness of the application as well as implementation of the cross application
business process, to ensure that the application is really effective enough (Shim and Shim
2019).
 Overall in a process sit will directly help the reduction in the requisition and processing
of the life cycle process and supply chain management in a direct time which does not

8BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
cause any kind of delay in the manual procedure. It will thus enable a smooth flow of
goods and services from the manufacturer to the seller and to the buyers, enabling a
smooth collaboration of work.
Identification of the key activities
Regarding the identification of the key activities which are required for the successful
development the new product are described below:
Before jumping into the key activities which the company needs to consider they first of all
have to evaluate the key activities which are performed by the business organization in the
present date. The key activities according to the author Burns (2018) is considered as essential
building blocks to take the business organization an holistic overview and evaluate accordingly.
With the help of the key activities the business organization will thus contribute to the key
activities which ahs to be improved by the company in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the
new product or service offered by the company.
1. Based on the concept of value proposition the company needs to highlight the key
activities which are performed in the business?
2. The company or business organization also needs to acknowledge the main aim of the
new application issued by the company in the market.
3. The activities involved in the business organization as well as the kinds of activities
which are performed by the business?
4. Distribution channel of the particular business or new application issued by the company?
5. Which are the activities that are important if the company wants to market the product
and help out the customers.

9BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
6. Which are the activities that have the first priorities or are of fundamental important in
the revenue system.
Regarding the typical activities which the company has to outperform in order to ensure that
the product is successfully working and is developing day by day through various types of
enhancements in the process. In order to cope with it the company has to go through extensive
amount of research and development which will in a away help the company to liase with all the
other functions of the company. The company also have to go through the process sof product
process and development, where the company has to design the software in an appropriate way.
According to the author Burns (2018) it is a very crucial step because combination of the right
product and right designs very important for the value proposition. The last process will thus be
the marketing of the product which will be created in such a way so that the company is able to
reach each and every customers in the business environment. Therefore it is recommended that
the marketing department should have full knowledge regarding prior to the launch of the
software to the customers. The company can try to getting involved in various types of social
media coverage activities as well as press release communication. These types of activities will
help te company to determine the extensive marketing of the product.
Last but not the least the company should try to gather a sales and customers service
which will help the company to take care of the customer who have involved themselves in
buying the service or product delivered by the company. This department is thus of very
important as because here in this department the company has to ensure that they are standing by
the side of the customers who might be facing various types of issues related with the product.
This will also help in creating various types of small busies leaders in the market who will be
spreading the business cycle and increasing the demand of the product. It will thus help the

10BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
company to drive in more market and customers in through the word of mouth. This will, in a
way help the company by increasing the sales of the company. The department also might have
to educate the customers in order to help them.
The Industry in 2017 – present
Regarding the business operation for the SAP Company in the year 2017 it can be said
that the company had reported an earnings of around EUR 4 billion dollars, with an annual
revenue earned of more than 26.65EUR billion dollars. Regarding the present time it has been
extensively researched and found out that there was a 6.3% percent increase in the earning from
the previous years. With the use of innovation and technologies the company in the present time
has shares which are traded over US $ 105 per share. As reported by the author Saha, Gantayat
and Mitchell ( 2017)in the year 2019, the market capitalization was valued at US$128 billion
dollars. Therefore with this types accustomed increased performance in the operation of its
business, SAP is found out to be one of the most valuable company found in Germany.
Year Revenue
Earned in EUR
Total asset in
EUR
Net Income in
US $
Employees
2016 16.815 3.265 27.094 66,572
2017 17.639 2.693 38.507 74,406
2018 20.369 3.654 41.635 84,965
2019 23.658 4.120 48.369 88543
Fig 1. Represents the annual earning of the company from 2016 to 2019
Source : (Saha, Gantayat and Mitchell 2017)

11BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
In the present year the company is deciding to split into various types of functional units
across different organization unit for the Research and Development needs. The company is
trying to manufacture various types of scientific labs that will be responsible for product
development. There will be field operations such as huge amount of sales, marketing and
consulting services.
Conclusion
In order to conclude the above research paper, it can be said that it has discussed the
innovative strategies which were used by the company till the present date. The paper has
researched various types of innovative approaches which will be further used by the company in
order to operate smoothly in the future.