Christian Klein says about 80% of the world's business-to-business transactions touch an SAP system.
“80% of the world's, you know, B two B transactions, one and touching an S A P system.”
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Christian Klein
1 episodes · 20 quoted claims
Klein says 95% of the world's largest companies use at least one SAP system.
“Actually, and 95%, uh, use one or the other S A P system, many of them finance, supply chain, obviously”
Klein says 80% of SAP's customers are mid-market companies.
“but we are also having actually 80% of our customers are mid-market customers.”
Klein says mid-market customers that follow SAP's standard templates can go live in three to four weeks.
“when you actually adhere to our template, our best practices, you can also have go live in three to four weeks, absolutely possible.”
Klein says SAP serves twenty-five industries with a common horizontal layer and deeper vertical applications in many of them.
“I mean, actually, we won twenty five industries and the horizontal layer is actually oftentimes really S A P.”
Klein says SAP runs customer businesses in more than 140 countries and commits to following local laws, including sovereign cloud requirements.
“for us, I mean, running businesses in almost over 140 countries, I mean, that is our commitment to our clients”
Klein says SAP delivers new cloud releases every quarter, or yearly if the customer prefers.
“we deliver, you know, new releases in the cloud, you know, every quarter, or if the customer wants, every year.”
Klein says that when he became co-CEO of SAP in 2019 he concluded the company had to double down on its cloud transformation.
“in 2019, when I became the co-C E O of the company, that we have to double down on our cloud transformation, absolutely.”
Klein says SAP has about 50,000 developers.
“we are have 50,000 developers, they're coding great stuff every day, a lot of A I use cases, a really good stuff.”
Klein says SAP researchers expect quantum computing to be mature enough for SAP products in three to four years, with logistics optimization as a leading use case.
“when I'm talking to our researchers, they actually would say now in three to four years, I mean, the the the technology should be that mature”
Klein says SAP has already shipped its first agentic AI use case, in services.
“Actually, the the first one we already shipped. Yeah, that is about, you know, the services and the services agents we have”
Klein says SAP promises customers that end users working with its AI assistant can raise productivity by up to 30%.
“every end user who is working with our A I, so our digital assistant tool with the embedded A I use cases, yeah, we can actually drive productivity up to by 30%.”
Klein says SAP is building sovereign clouds in Germany and, in France, a venture called Blue with Capgemini and Microsoft.
“we have, uh, De Lucy in Germany, we have in in France, we have together with Cap Gemini and Microsoft, we have Blue.”
Klein says he has seen warehouses in China where robots do 95% of the work.
“I have seen warehouses in China and other places in the world where 95% of the work in a warehouse is done by robots.”
Klein says SAP had to double its European legal department in the last two years because of regulatory complexity.
“we here in Europe, in the last two years, we had to double the size, you know, of our of our legal department.”
Klein estimates SAP's European legal team for commercial contracts and compliance checks at around 150 people.
“Here in in Europe, uh, I have to check, but it's probably around, you know, 150 people.”
Klein says SAP was founded by five people who were doing the same task repeatedly in their jobs and left to start the company, despite being turned down by many banks.
“there was actually, you know, five people who did a job, and they found, hey, I'm doing the same task all over again.”
Klein moved to San Mateo to help Lars Dahlgaard run SuccessFactors, where he learned the business from sales to delivery.
“I was moving from here to, um, San Mateo in in San Francisco, and I was ab able to help Lars Dahlgaard back in the days to one SuccessFactors end to end.”
Klein says Bill McDermott asked him to become SAP's Chief Operating Officer, a role in which four predecessors had failed.
“Bill McDermott asked me to become the Chief Operating Officer. And because, uh, four C E O's before all failed.”
Klein says he was 38 when he became SAP's CEO and asked leaders such as Satya Nadella for advice early on.
“I was thirty eight when I became the C E O. I mean, oftentimes, I at the where we especially at the beginning, I asked them for advice.”