Business Trends
SAP Business Women’s Network – Who we are and what we do
Gender equality is an important part of SAP’s mission to make the world run better and improve people’s lives. SAP has taken many steps in the past years in working towards a gender equal workplace, with the recent highlight of receiving the EDGE (Economic Dividends for Gender Equality) certification.
Having a thriving women’s network is a hallmark of companies that prioritize diversity & inclusion. With over 13,000 members and 67 chapters globally, SAP Business Women’s Network is the largest employee-driven network at SAP. It aims to help women advance their careers by building strong relationships, sharing professional insights, developing skills and seizing career advancing opportunities to drive SAP’s success.
SAP Business Women’s Network focuses on the following priorities:
- Foster an inclusive atmosphere and drive initiatives that will help women at SAP realize their full potential.
- Drive and expand women’s leadership skills, career development opportunities, and business acumen.
- Strengthen and extend our professional network by building mutually beneficial relationships, both inside and outside of SAP.
- Enhance SAP’s reputation as an employer of choice, in order to attract and retain top female talent.
- Encourage visibility of female role models at all levels at SAP.
- Contribute to SAP’s social sustainability objectives.
SAP’s Business Women’s Network is a grassroots initiative, with local representation in all regions of the world. Many chapters extend their activities to include customers, partners and external organizations. The global team presiding the network represents diverse areas of the company, ranging from SAP’s Global Customer Operations to Products & Innovations, and includes female leaders from acquisition companies, thus showcasing one of SAP’s core values : “Building Bridges, not silos”. The Business Women’s Network has grown exponentially in the last years, now reaching about 1 in 3 women of SAP’s female workforce (26,000). The network fosters an inclusive atmosphere and drives initiatives that help women at SAP realize their full potential. Anyone who supports this goal is welcome to join the network. Typical activities include workshops, speaker engagement and mentoring. But the network also engages in corporate social responsibility work, ranging from helping unemployed to return to the workforce to mentoring students.
More information:
- for anyone outside SAP who wishes to join the community: www.sap.com/womenforward
- for SAP employees: https://jam4.sapjam.com/groups/about_page/uJ5gy43pYaBoVediHaAE7K
Thank you for your leadership and support of #SAPBWN!
Agree that women should be building bridges and not silos. But creating an insider vs. outsider culture is in essence creating an exclusive silo all unto its own. I have seen many women SAP consultants and Project Managers external to the firm snubbed and excluded when they attend ASUG and other SAP events.
Women external to SAP want to cross those bridges, but they have to first be invited to drive through the toll booths and not face blockades.