German technology company that more or less invented enterprise resource planning (ERP) in the 1970s. As of mid-2025 it is Europe's most valuable company, worth $380bn.
Roughly nine in ten Fortune 500 firms rely on SAP. Its systems cover a wide range of back-office functions—finances, supply chains, human resources—and contain data that is notoriously hard for non-SAP systems to extract. Its share of the ERP business fell from 21% in 2020 to 14% in 2024, according to Gartner, as rivals like Workday gained ground.
SAP has expanded into front-office territory by acquiring CRM firms (CallidusCloud) and marketing platforms (Emarsys). In February 2025 it teamed up with Databricks, a $60bn AI startup, to help clients deploy its Joule AI agents. Irfan Khan is its data-and-analytics chief.
On January 29th 2026 SAP said it expected a "slight deceleration" in its cloud-based software business in 2026. Its share price plummeted by 15%, dragging down other enterprise-software stocks including Salesforce, ServiceNow and Workday.
Like Salesforce, SAP relies on hyperscaler cloud providers rather than building its own data centres. It does, however, offer a fully sovereign cloud option for selected national governments, with security-vetted personnel and data kept in Europe. Christian Klein is its chief executive.
You will be held hostage by a radical group.