SAP: Building a Leading Technology Brand

1. Why didn't SAP pay adequate attention to branding and marketing?

- As the company was worlds largest enterprise software company and 3 rd largest
independent software supplier overall, the need of marketing was not preferred by the
company.
- Company had sales in 50 countries, so marketing was not the primary concern for the
company for the expansion.
- SAPs reputation was built on its products and company was focusing on technology and
product development.
- Branding and marketing had not been the strong focus of companys culture, their
cultural focus was only product driven.

2. What were key branding related issued that SAP had to address in the year 2000?

- Sales people spoke in technical terms and complex jargons, which often lead to
confusion in market.
- The marketing was decentralized. Multiple ad agencies produced their own campaigns
which was not in sync with company and product messaging.
- The advertisements were extremely product focused instead of market, business
focused, which leads to question What does SAP do?
- SAP was the late-comer to internet compare to competitors like I2, Siebel.
- Companys internet enabled suite mySAP.com itself viewed as outdated.
- The changing of SAP logo with new mySAP.com logo allowed a new product line for the
company but this change put SAPs own brand equity at risk.
- The inconsistency and confusion regarding the websites: from SAP to mySAP and
corporate to product website.
- Continues change in branding every year: 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 etc. which leads
to variations across the world.
- The global website and local country sites, subsidiary websites with >90k webpages
were inconsistent in design, content, governance.

3. What should SAP stand for? What is its key brand promise?

- The SAP transformed dynamics of businesses and enabled companies across the world
to leverage technology to :
o Improve efficiency
o Accountability
o Visibility
o Ultimately profitability of the business
- The SAP should have identified itself with their innovation culture in e-commerce and e-
business market, which differentiate them from their competitors. It should stand for
Transforming Businesses Through Innovation or Transforming businesses - Run
Simple.
Key Brand Promise:

- SAP assimilates a promise and a trust valued contract with each of its business
customers.
- SAP brand promises Leaders, Innovation, Market driven, Reliability, Efficiency, and
Simplicity.

4. What should be done with SAP brand architecture and what should be done with the
logos?

A.
- SAP should focus on marketing and branding which should be consistent globally and
locally.
- SAP should work on internet and improve the e-commerce businesses.
- Brand positioning should be relevant to customers and convey true value of SAPs
products and services.
- The promise for customers should be communicated consistently.
- The parallel shift from technology focused along with market focused.

All above transformation should be done without changing the values that customers
receive from SAP.

B.
- SAP should have a single corporate logo which should be in consistent with the product
line of SAP.
- This logo would be for every tool and support of SAP i.e. Advertisement, Websites,
Marketing campaigns etc.
- Use only SAP instead of mySAP.com
- Use brand motto along with the logo i.e. Run Simple.