To All of SAP and the extended SAP family:
Together we will persevere.
Moments of extraordinary challenge test our collective will, but also bring out the best of our collective humanity. With the unpredictable and fluid situation around COVID-19, the world is navigating through an uncertain period with few precedents.
At SAP, we have colleagues and customers in every corner of the world. Our thoughts are with all those affected and the many communities that continue to face extreme measures as we work to slow down and contain the spread of the virus. We also want to express our deepest thanks and appreciation to all the healthcare workers, first responders, police officers, emergency workers, and all others in essential functions and on the front lines caring for the sick and keeping us safe.
Naturally, the health, safety, and livelihood of the extended SAP family and the communities in which we serve is top of mind for us. Our focus first and foremost has been and will continue to be our workforce and colleagues. We’ve restricted travel, re-imagined in-person events as digital experiences, and our 100,000 colleagues are almost entirely working remotely. Our customers are also a part of the SAP family, and we’re focused on standing by them as they navigate an incredibly challenging period.
Since our founding nearly 50 years ago, SAP has been synonymous with mission-critical business operations. We firmly believe that securing our business allows us to better secure those of our customers. In recent years, SAP has invested a great deal in crisis preparedness: SAP business, support, and cloud delivery teams have developed and documented business continuity plans to respond to disruptive incidents such as COVID-19, while ensuring reliability of our cloud solutions and the delivery of services to you. You can read more about some of the specific actions we are taking to ensure business continuity for SAP and for our customers here.
As we have seen, every day brings more information, but at times, more uncertainty. The more change we confront, the more important it is to understand how our people are feeling and adjusting to what may seem like a new normal on a daily basis. While we are all adapting to different work and collaboration models, the newness and the experiences are all unique to each of us depending on our job or industry. Understanding, acknowledging, and acting on the challenges and questions our employees have will help us equip them to navigate this new normal. All of us want employees who feel safe and productive, but it starts with understanding how they feel and what they need. To that end, Qualtrics has helped us get to the heart of every employee and we have opened up the same listening platform for any who need it. We hope this is helpful.
As a company we have always believed in our responsibility to support the next generation of professionals and users with our best-in-class digital learning. Now students and subject-matter experts need safe and healthy learning environments to continue their education virtually. Therefore, we are broadening access to some of our offerings to facilitate the continuity of innovation and enablement. This includes free access to select learning journeys for students at one of the 3,800 member universities of the SAP University Alliances program, online courses allowing young learners to explore technology, as well as the massive open online courses (MOOCs) available on the openSAP platform. All offerings are free – please find more information here.
We also recognise the massive disruptions impacting global supply chains, and we’ve opened up access to SAP Ariba Discovery so any buyer can post their immediate sourcing needs and any supplier can respond to show they can deliver. Our TripIt from Concur and SAP Litmos teams have offered up free services to help with travel issues and remote training capability. Check back here for updates as our teams continue to come up with new ways to help.
For all of us at SAP, our vision to help the world run better and improve people’s lives has never been more important than in this current moment. We remain focused on our people, our customers, and our communities. Together, we will persevere.
All our best,
Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein
This article first appeared on the Global News Centre.
