When big corporations try to innovate from the inside, it helps to form highly driven teams who rethink existing structures and hierarchies, are open to fresh ideas and who enjoy building something new.
SAP has shown many times that they take this approach very serious. We all remember the ‘Think like a startup' sessions at SAPPHIRE NOW 2014 and the discussion during SAP Select in Berlin, where Prof. Dr. h.c. mult. Hasso Plattner joined the panel along with prominent guests from the start-up and corporate world.
The SAP Startup Focus program is probably one the most consequent initiatives inside SAP for innovation from within, but also in enabling startups to innovate. To put it into simple words: We work with startups and we function like a startup.
What is SAP Startup Focus?
Everything started almost three years ago in Palo Alto, California – The first startup forum was hosted at SAP Labs with the mission to help entrepreneurs innovate with the SAP HANA technology. A few weeks later, the first ten members of the Startup Focus program were presented at SAPPHIRE NOW Orlando 2012.
A couple of SAPPHIRE events and 130+ startup forums later, the SAP Startup Focus program has become global with offices in Silicon Valley, Dublin, Ireland, Bangalore, India and many supporters worldwide. We have engaged with more than 1800 startup companies in 57 countries of which 130+ have delivered a productive solution and are selling to SAP customers.
Watch: Hasso Plattner at SAPPHIRE NOW 2013 calling SAP Startup Focus “one of the best ideas in the last 10 years”
Who are these companies?
Every startup company that is building an application for enterprise customers and wants to leverage SAP HANA for big data, predictive analytics and/or real-time applications, should talk to us. The startups that have joined the accelerator program have usually attended one of our live startup forums or our virtual forums where we provide an overview about the SAP HANA technology. Once they have decided to join the program, our developers support them in building their product on SAP HANA. After that, our Value Engineering and GTM team help them deliver a productive solution and sell to enterprise customers. You can find some of the solutions online, visit twitter and look for #HANAusecases.
Do you know a startup that would fit? Let us know! Klick here
Watch: Startup founders that have joined SAP Startup Focus
2015 and the future
While the highly dynamic startup ecosystem encourages us to readjust the program strategy on a regular basis, our main goal is still supporting the startups that want to use the groundbreaking SAP HANA technology. In 2015 our Virtual Forums remain focused on on-boarding new program members but our live forums are becoming much bigger this year: We are kicking off the world tour in London on February 18th, followed by New York City, Sao Leopoldo, Brazil and many more startup hubs, where we will be hosting events that speak to the whole startup ecosystem - including Venture Capitalists, enterprise customers, media experts, influencers and of course startups.
Check out the events section on our website from time to time and come to one of our forums. In addition to these big buzz events we will be hosting and attending meet-ups. Check out and register for our "Connected Car" meet-up on March 10th in cooperation with the German American Business Association (GABA). Stay tuned for updates, visit our website and make sure to follow us on twitter @SAPstartups
