SAP SE (SAP) Presents at BNP Paribas Exane 27th CEO Conference Call Transcript

SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) BNP Paribas Exane 27th CEO Conference Call June 3, 2025 5:45 AM ET
SAP SE BNP Paribas Exane 第 27 屆 CEO 會議通話 2025 年 6 月 3 日 上午 5:45 ET

Company Participants

Christian Klein - Chief Executive Officer
Christian Klein - 首席執行官

Conference Call Participants
會議通話參與者

Unidentified Analyst - BNP Paribas Exane
未識別分析師 - BNP Paribas Exane

Unidentified Analyst

Okay. In the interest of time, we'll get started just while the last few seats are filled. Christian, thank you for joining us.
時間有限，會議開始。Christian，感謝參與。

Christian Klein

Yeah. Thanks for having me.
謝謝邀請。

Unidentified Analyst

Nice to see you. We heard a lot from you two weeks ago in Orlando at Sapphire. A lot of innovation, which we're going to get into. But maybe let's start just on the present, the current operating environment. I think investors, financial markets see and read the headlines. Why don't you start us off just by telling us a little bit, what are you seeing on the ground? What are customers telling you? How are they coming to SAP in this sort of time of uncertainty? How is it impacting their decision-making?
兩週前 Sapphire 會議分享創新。請談當前運營環境：客戶反饋、決策影響。

Christian Klein

Yeah. Actually, the type of C-level conversations I have these days, I mean, obviously, when all the trade conflicts came up, a lot of companies immediately needed to reshuffle their supply chains. We had earnings, others had earnings, and then what should we tell you in times of uncertainty about the financial outlook for the year? So that on the one hand side, it created a lot of good conversations with clients on how to get more transparency, business data cloud, how to steer a company of uncertainty, and not only steer it financially or steer my supply chain here or steer my workforce here. How SAP can you bring this all together?
貿易衝突促使供應鏈重組。SAP 協助客戶透過數據雲端和 AI 套件應對不確定性。

I mean, I and this mobile here need to see not only my financial data to understand how my quarter will end. I need the risk in the pipeline based off trade conflicts. I need to see the upside. But I also then need to see how a Sapphire or other events are driving demand.
需要即時數據了解風險和機會，如活動帶來的需求。

And then the second piece is, of course, reshuffling of supply chain inventory data, supply chain planning, sourcing. I mean, that is a big plus of what SAP can deliver, not in the transnational monolithic ERP systems of the past, but in the highly modern AI powered suite in the cloud. So, that is good.
SAP 的 AI 雲端套件在供應鏈規劃是優勢。

Now, of course, are you also wanting into C-level? Say, Christian, it's good that we meet, but I just wrote such a letter to the US government about, hey, I'm producing here in the United States. Now I pay a hell out of tariffs just to getting all the spare parts in. And then I pay tariffs again to export the stuff I produce in the US. And now you're asking me to spend some more money on solutions, on software. I mean, you see this as well. But overall, I would say the sentiment is still positive. AI helps a lot. BDC helps a lot. The suite helps a lot. And so, we remain positive still. The uncertainty in the market is there and we need to watch what will happen now in the next weeks.
儘管成本擔憂，客戶對 AI 和 BDC 保持正面。市場不確定，需觀察未來。

Question-and-Answer Session
問答環節

Unidentified Analyst

Understood. At Sapphire, it felt to me like there was an emphasis on SAP becoming a data and an AI company, kind of fueled by your application footprint. So, how would you describe what SAP is striving for here? And perhaps for the benefit and the people in the room, can you explain what and expand on why that is so significant today looking-forward?
SAP 強調成為數據和 AI 公司，請解釋其重要性和未來展望。

Christian Klein

I would say what we have done is very significant. Just you have to imagine, yeah, there was SAP now exists since over 50 years and for many years our data module was the best kept secret in SAP. And one of our founders, I talked long nights with him and said, Hasso, I'm not sure if HANA will be the covetous for every Data Lake in the world. I don't believe so when it comes to real-time and what kind of data you need real-time.
SAP 成立 50 多年，數據模組曾是秘密。討論 HANA 潛力。

And then the second piece is, as much as we want, not all companies will run only on SAP software. And looking at, when I was running SAP as a CIO, Chief Operating Officer, and looking at many customers, they all have one big problem. They spend a ton of money on BW SAP, BigQuery, Data Fabric, Databricks. And then they technically create a Data Lake. Now, does your consumer data now make more sense just because you have technically your data in one place? Absolutely not at all. The biggest challenge, what they all have, they need to make mean of the data semantics and no data integration tool does that. No Data Lake does that.
企業面臨數據整合挑戰，現有工具無法解決語義問題。

And so we said -- some people retired from SAP, I said, let's use the opportunity and in a controlled environment share our data module and what we are now is there are these virtual data layer of data products. So, we are saying you have your customer master in SAP, not in Salesforce, because a pipeline ID is not a master data object. You need to form your customers with 60 around the first binding object. And that is the business partner of a customer sitting in SAP, the time when you send an order out, the material master, the employee master, the supply chain, it's all SAP. And now we share that. And now think about that.
SAP 提供虛擬數據層，統一客戶和供應鏈數據。

Instead of then bringing a cohort of data engineers in to somehow match data and spend a whole of money of IT budget, just to -- on software to make mean out of the data, you are now building once the semantics for your company, and then you have a highly automated a semantic layer for all of your data in the company.
自動化語義層節省 IT 預算，無需額外工程。

Second, then what can you do with it? Not only that you understand your consumer, your employees much better, the AI agents now who can -- who need this data to do their job in cash collection, in sourcing, in quoting, in pricing, in supply chain management, they now suddenly have access not only semantically to high valuable SAP data, but also to non-SAP data.
AI 代理存取 SAP 和非 SAP 數據，提升採購等效率。

So, I hope this explains why I have never seen in the history of SAP so much excitement after the launch of a solution, which we did back in February. So, yeah, it's just a different architecture. It's a mega step from SAP in the way how we share data, how we build data, how we build the semantics for our customer.
此架構是 SAP 重大進步，客戶反應熱烈。

Unidentified Analyst

And given this is relatively new to SAP, but also to the financial markets, how do you think about sizing that data and AI opportunity? I think we're quite familiar with what the application migration to the cloud framework, that multiplier effect looked like. But this data and AI opportunity is much newer. So, how are you thinking about that in terms of size of opportunity if you look out five, 10 years from now?
請評估數據和 AI 機會規模，相比雲端遷移，未來 5-10 年展望。

Christian Klein

Yeah. So, the transformation of an SAP customer so far before BDC was heavily said, hey, Christian, we love the modular suite. We love automation of business processes. We love the AI piece. And the BW piece was somehow left aside. We have our data strategy. Is SAP now a major player on that? So, we made a decision on Databricks on Snowflake and so on.
過去在 BDC 之前，SAP 客戶喜愛其模組化套件、業務流程自動化和 AI 部分，但忽略了 BW 部分。客戶擁有數據策略，詢問 SAP 現在是否在此領域是主要玩家。因此，決定採用 Databricks 和 Snowflake 等解決方案。

Now, all the wise conversations are, okay, we need to anyway tackle the data layer when we migrate our data. What is the role of Databricks? BW, let's move it to the cloud, build the partner connect to a Databricks. By the way, we get a lot of pressure now where's Snowflake in the game, where's BigQuery, where are all the others? Always a good sign when you get these questions and you know you're up for something.
所有明智的討論都聚焦於：遷移數據時必然要處理數據層。 Databricks 的角色在於——將 BW 系統移轉至雲端後，建立與 Databricks 的合作夥伴連接。 值得注意的是，當前面臨諸多市場壓力：Snowflake、BigQuery 等競爭對手的動態備受關注。 當被追問這些競品動向時，恰恰證明企業佈局具有前瞻價值。

And then we monetize first the shift to BW Private, then we modernize, we build a partner connect, and then, of course, what comes with a premium is the data products, the semantics, this is the high value. And then all of our product owners have now two priorities next to features and functions. It's about AI and building data products and the intelligent apps. Because as a success factor, we told now our sales people, don't lead against workday against features and functions, lead with AI, but also lead with, hey, when you really want to understand your total workforce, go with SAP SuccessFactors because there is the data product, that is BDC, who gives you out of the box all of your skills, all of your people data, like also attrition data, like market data on inflation, like payroll data. We delivered all of these analytics for you, so you understand your workforce out of the box much better. So that is then the monetization of BDC moving up to the app layer where we now have the intelligent apps coming up for each line of business.
我們先將 BW Private 商業化，接著進行現代化改造並建立合作夥伴連接系統。高價值的數據產品與語義技術是進階服務核心。現今所有產品負責人除功能開發外，更聚焦兩大重點：AI 技術應用與數據產品開發，藉此打造智慧應用程式。 我們已指示銷售團隊改變策略：不再以功能對標 Workday，改以 AI 優勢和數據產品作為銷售主軸。特別強調 SAP SuccessFactors 的 BDC 數據產品能開箱即用，完整提供： - 全員技能與人力數據 - 人員流失分析 - 市場通膨指標 - 薪資資料等整合分析 協助企業深度掌握人力資源狀況。 最終將 BDC 商業化延伸至應用層，為各業務線開發專屬智慧應用程式。

Unidentified Analyst

I heard your Chief Product Officer, Muhammad Alam, the other week say that SAP is competing in a class of one, which is quite a statement. Can you explain just why you believe that to be the case? You also talked about you're taking the fight to those point solution cloud vendors more today than you ever have done. I think you've called out regaining market share in those markets. Can you just expand on that and just articulate why that is that class of one analogy?
聽聞 SAP 首席產品官 Muhammad Alam 稱 SAP 在「一類中的唯一」競爭，請解釋為何如此，並詳細說明 SAP 正積極挑戰點解決方案雲供應商以奪回市場份額的原因。

Christian Klein

I mean, I have to say -- I mean, more at is, of course, right. The hard work and the immense work we put into cleaning up our stack, the Frankenstein stack, where I would say five years back, some of the others said, oh, look, SAP can only acquire the way to the cloud. I would say we have now the most modern modular tax stack with a cohesive platform underneath and some others, I don't know.
我們投入巨大努力清理 Frankenstein 堆疊。五年前，其他人曾說 SAP 只能收購進入雲端，但現在我們擁有最現代的模組化稅務堆疊，下面有統一的平台。

Now, the point is having this stack now enables us to say the category of one, when you land in the private cloud or device journey with finance, I mean, you do financial planning, you do cash collection, you bring in Taulia, you bring all of these things. And the next step is then, okay, let's go sourcing. If you do sourcing, by the way, and you do supply chain planning, sourcing and supply chain planning needs to be one. It's pretty simple to explain this ahead of supply chain. When you actually do demand and supply chain planning, you need manufacturing execution because you can plan a lot. If your manufacturing execution is decoupled from that, you miss a very important point and it will hit your productivity, but it will also hit the experience of your consumers. Now, I can spin this further and further and further, but this is what the category of one.
現在，關鍵在於，有了這個堆疊，我們就可以講「一類」。當你帶著財務踏上私有雲或設備之旅時，我的意思是，你會做財務規劃，你會收款，你會引入 Taulia，你會把所有這些東西都帶進來。下一步就是，好的，讓我們開始採購。順便說一下，如果你既做採購，又做供應鏈規劃，那麼採購和供應鏈規劃就需要合而為一。在供應鏈之前解釋這一點非常簡單。當你真正進行需求和供應鏈規劃時，你需要製造執行，因為你可以做很多規劃。如果你的製造執行與製造執行脫鉤，你就會錯過一個非常重要的點，這不僅會影響你的生產力，還會影響你的消費者體驗。現在，我可以進一步闡述這一點，但這就是「一類」的意思。

And then second, I mean, when I was running SAP, and I know this for many CIOs, four or five years back, there was no reason to go with SAP versus best of breed. Now you can always say, oh, this feature here, this feature there. At the end, when you have one data platform, one semantic layer, when there are AI agents now coming on top, not like you build a million of AI agents who don't talk to each other. Now they understand the business context of business processes. They are connected to the rules, they are connected to the authorization because not every agent can share whatever piece of data they like with every end user in the company. So, the business context is important. Now you also see how this category of one plays out.
過去，許多 CIO 認為沒有理由選擇 SAP 而非最佳解決方案。如今，統一資料平台和語義層支援 AI 代理運作，這些代理理解業務流程背景、連接到規則和授權以控管數據共享，突顯業務背景重要性，並展現「category of one」的效益。

And then it's more like it's interesting to see now at Sapphire. We have a discussion about not about features and functions, about what can this AI agent now do? So, the feature and function discussion is about now, what can these AI agents do for me? And the broader they can orchestrate work across end-to-end processes, of course, the higher is the value. And that is the category of one. That's why after the initial landing phase, now, of course, also comes with many customers already depart how to cross sell and make them a strong believer in the category of one in the modular best of suite, while having a hodgepodge of solutions and no one understands and how to make the processes work, how to make the data silos work, et cetera.
在 Sapphire，討論焦點從功能和特性轉向 AI 代理的實際能力。AI 代理協調端到端流程的能力越強，價值越高，此即「category of one」。初始落地階段後，客戶如何被說服採用這種最佳模組化解決方案，儘管存在解決方案混雜和數據孤島問題。

Unidentified Analyst

You touched on it there, but I think it's worth digging in a little more around Joule, your co-pilot. It feels like this is quite quickly moving from looking inwards at the SAP ecosystem to connecting with external agents, connecting with external applications. And touching on the Perplexity AI and Palantir partnerships and even the agent-to-agent protocols. Like, how do you see that ecosystem playing out? What gives SAP the right to win now in this kind of deeply integrated ecosystem looking-forward?
請深入探討 Joule 協作工具如何從 SAP 內部生態轉向串聯外部應用，包含與 Perplexity AI、Palantir 的合作及代理間通訊協定。分析 SAP 在此深度整合生態中的定位與制勝優勢。

Christian Klein

I mean, I'm first of all, very happy that Philip, our CTO, had a conviction to say, Christian, let's not acquire and jump on the hype of LLMs and SAP needs to have an own LLM. They are becoming now heavily commoditized. We invested into our own AI foundation. And these AI agents, it's not like that we develop an agent and suddenly they do magic. I mean, in our AI foundation, not sure how others are doing it, there's heavy work. I mean, there's a knowledge graph who makes understand that Joule can orchestrate all of these AI agents. And when you are touching a sourcing decision, an RFP in sourcing, you need millions of connections to other data points to in order to make an informed decision on which supplier is the best.
SAP CTO Philip 堅定認為不應跟風收購 LLM，主張自主開發 AI 基礎架構。他強調 LLMs 正快速商品化，而 SAP 的 AI 代理系統需紮實建構知識圖譜才能發揮功效。以採購決策為例，需串聯數百萬數據點才能評選最佳供應商，展現 Joule 協調 AI 代理的核心價值。

Can the supplier deliver? Has the supplier always had the height or the right quality? Is actually the supplier closest to factory XY? And so, in our AI foundation, we make business data work. We have a lot of business data, but you need things like a knowledge graph and others to make you really make sense of this business data. And that's why now, Joule, when you think about -- ask me -- you answer me everything or you everywhere. A lot is, of course, orchestrated via our AI foundation and why we are so excited about it. I mean, I'm as a heavy end user of BW and analytics and all kinds of HR and sourcing systems of SAP in the past.
評估供應商能否交付、品質是否正確、是否靠近 XY 工廠。在 AI 基礎上，我們利用知識圖譜等工具讓業務數據發揮作用。Joule 作為 AI 助手協調一切。作為 SAP 系統的重度用戶，我對此感到興奮。

In the future, me as an end user, I would never deep dive anymore so deep into a transactional ERP system. I tell my best friend, Joule, to say, give me an analysis when Christian wants to and with Dominik Asam, how we going to end up the quarter, give me an analysis, give me the risk profile and how has Sapphire now impacted my financial prediction for the year? And by the way, tell me on the hyperscaler side, when there are some customers going crazy now about US tech, what is the kind of risk actually you see for SAP in this? And so that is the future of how you will work with SAP software.
未來，作為終端用戶的我將不再深入交易型 ERP 系統。我會告訴 Joule 提供分析：當 Christian 和 Dominik Asam 需要時，提供季度結束分析、風險概況，以及 Sapphire 對年度財務預測的影響；同時詢問超大規模雲服務方面，客戶對美國技術的狂熱對 SAP 的風險。這就是與 SAP 軟體互動的未來方式。

And then all the others building a layer on top and say, SAP is this transactional system. I mean, Joule walk me, I mean, this is like the digital adoption platform where we guide end users, of course, SAP and non-SAP apps to make sure they are adopting our software, create on its own case. But now we have this Joule diamond icon everywhere and you say in service now, there is this ticket, let's read through this ticket. This is about a customer XY. Let's relate it back with the knowledge graph and our AI foundation to the customer information in the SAP system and let's solve this supplier risk in the SAP system, starting with the ticket in the service now solution. I have to say that works.
SAP 作為核心交易系統，Joule 數位平台則提供應用引導功能，協助用戶操作 SAP 與非 SAP 軟體。現透過整合 ServiceNow 票證系統與 Joule 平台，能直接從客戶服務單關聯 SAP 系統資料，結合 AI 知識圖譜分析客戶資訊，有效解決供應商風險問題，此流程驗證可行。

Unidentified Analyst

Since the announcement was made at the beginning of last week, and since we have yourself, Mistral, and Capgemini here this week, that partnership agreement that was announced, what can you expand on there as far as how those partnerships come about? The positioning of SAPs being independent from any given LLM provider, any given infrastructure? How does that play into geopolitics around data sovereignty?
上週初宣布合作夥伴協議，本週有相關方在場，請問這些合作關係如何形成？SAP 獨立於任何 LLM 提供商和基礎設施的定位如何影響數據主權的地緣政治？

Christian Klein

I mean, obviously that announcement was done with the intent to show we have sovereignty also in Europe. Because, I mean, sitting here a year ago, probably the two of us would not have thought that we are talking about these kind of geopolitical conflicts we are having now. And now, of course, more and more customers also coming to SAP and say, hey, across the technical stack, it's not anymore only about where do you store my data or who is touching my data? What kind of AI large language modules you are using? And it's good to have Mistral on our side to say, you know what? We can also plug in Mistral and to run our AI use cases, so that we have complete sovereignty from the top to the bottom.
該宣佈旨在彰顯歐洲的自主權。 回顧一年前，我們難以預料現今的地緣政治衝突。 如今越來越多客戶向 SAP 提出全方位技術需求：不僅關注數據存儲與存取許可權，更重視採用何種 AI 大型語言模型。 與 Mistral 合作的優勢在於，透過整合其技術運行 AI 應用場景，我們能實現從底層到頂端的完整主權控制。

Now, the only thing what I caution a little bit here in Europe is the competitiveness of European car industry or chemical industry will not be by building now 20 different data centers here in France and try to compete against the US hyperscalers. It's completely crazy. And that is sovereignty completely done in the wrong way. We need the best here in Europe to apply AI, to apply intelligent software to be the best to produce much better, much faster, better cars or be way more efficient on how to run our supply chains here when we have anyway -- huge pressure on energy prices, et cetera. So, we need to be here in Europe.
歐洲產業競爭力關鍵在於應用 AI 與智慧軟體，而非盲目興建數據中心與美國科技巨頭抗衡。此舉不僅不切實際，更是對主權概念的誤解。面對能源價格等成本壓力，我們應聚焦提升汽車/化工產業的生產效率與供應鏈管理，透過科技創新實現更優質高效的製造能力。

And that's why I also share I'm heavily involved these days with governments also here and say, hey, think through it. Sovereignty is needed. We don't need a login, but building data centers, I'm not sure if this is really now the solution. And so, we really need to think that's for us at SAP. No matter if a customer is in China, here in Europe or in the US, we actually can give them different levels of data security, of data sovereignty. And that is for us very important. That's why we are super agnostic on the infrastructure layer, and we are agnostic on the way how we embed LLMs in our stack as well.
因此，我分享 SAP 近來積極與各國政府合作，強調數據主權不可或缺，建設資料中心未必是解決方案。無論客戶在中國、歐洲或美國，我們都能提供不同層級的數據安全和數據主權，這對我們至關重要。因此，我們在基礎設施層和嵌入 LLMs 的方式上保持中立。

Unidentified Analyst

At Sapphire, you collectively spoke about the longer term growth algorithm for SAP and you referred to the markets that you're playing in growing mid to high teens. I think for much of the community, the prospect of SAPs are referring to that level of growth for a durable length of time is new and therefore, interesting. You also touched on that maintenance multiplier going from two to 3x to even 5x now. So, could you just expand on that, and your thinking of -- how you're thinking about that longer term sort of sustainable growth rate of SAP and the comfort level within that?
在 Sapphire 大會上，貴公司提及 SAP 的長期成長策略，預期所屬市場將以 15%-20%的中高速增長。此持續性成長前景對業界而言屬新穎觀點。另針對維護費用乘數從 2-3 倍提升至 5 倍的現象，請進一步說明： 1. 如何規劃 SAP 的長期可持續增長率 2. 對此增長前景的把握程度

Christian Klein

Yeah, I mean, inside SAP to make this multiplier not two to 3x, but 5x, maybe even know more of what kind of innovation we're going to ship now in the next years. But this is not like -- of course the potential is there. Now, the execution is what matters. That's sometimes harder. And so, what we are doing already now is, okay, 40%, 50% of the customers now initially landed with Wise in the private cloud.
在 SAP 內部，我們計劃將乘數從 2-3 倍提升至 5 倍，並了解未來幾年的創新。潛力雖在，但執行是關鍵且更具挑戰。目前，40-50%的客戶在私有雲中初步採用 Wise。

But second, our salespeople, I tell them, your best friend, the CIO, is great. We need the CIOs. But I want to now see how often are you meeting with the head of supply chain, the head of HR, et cetera. Because the cross sell then will only happen with a business transformation and we need the buy-in of the lines of businesses. That's why with the category of one now, we are also changing already now gears where we landed. Now SAP wants to be loved not only by the CIO, but also by the other lines of businesses. And you see also in the way how we spend our marketing dollars, it's not anymore we are doing 20 events for a CIO. I mean, you see a lot of focus also on the lines of businesses and make them a believer of the suite.
銷售團隊需改變策略，不僅要接觸首席資訊長，更要頻繁拜訪供應鏈與人資等部門主管。交叉銷售的成功關鍵在於推動業務轉型，須獲得各業務部門的支持。因此 SAP 正調整方向，目標是讓所有業務部門都認同我們的解決方案。這也反映在行銷預算分配上：我們不再只為首席資訊長舉辦活動，而是投入資源說服各業務部門主管。

Now, the second piece is then when you look at the overall growth potential, I mean, with BDC and AI coming on top, that is, of course, for us huge also with regard to monetization potential. It also makes our apps more attractive. It's not for us, it's rather less about standalone, of course, it's nice, but of course, making our apps more winning, higher win rates in our core solution portfolio is, of course, what matters the most to us. So that that is good.
第二點是，當你看整體成長潛力時，我的意思是，隨著 BDC 和 AI 的崛起，這對我們來說當然也是巨大的獲利潛力。這也使我們的應用程式更具吸引力。這對我們來說並非如此，它與獨立性無關，當然，這很好，但當然，讓我們的應用程式更具吸引力，提高我們核心解決方案組合的勝率，這對我們來說當然是最重要的。所以這很好。

And now, of course, in short term this year, it's about the uncertainty, but the resiliency now when you look also at the revenue mix, you have this cloud revenue growing really well. Now you have, of course, what brings the total revenue growth down is the support revenue, but the mix will just go more into the right direction. So, when we are talking about double-digit growth on total revenue, I mean, absolutely, I would say this is a safe bet just looking at the revenue mix.
短期雖存不確定性，但整體營收展現韌性。 雲端業務增長強勁，雖支援服務收入拖累整體增速，然業務結構持續改善。 綜觀營收組合，達成兩位數成長實屬穩妥預期。

And then about the cloud revenue growth, can we sustain that kind of growth? Really depends on now on the success of BDC of AI and how we can monetize that. And then, of course, being able to cross sell. Because the question about do we move now to the cloud, yes or no? That question was asked four years ago. That question is not asked anymore. So, the two to 3x multiplier, I would tick my bet. Now it's about how to expand and yeah -- and something you should never forget. An ECC on-premise customer, I mean, just we put the monolith into the data center doesn't mean that they used all lines -- the software which was built into this monolith. So, some people ECC customers only use finance, some others use finance, HR and manufacturing. So, there is a lot of cross sell potential then also later on in the cloud.
能否維持雲端營收成長取決於 BDC AI 的獲利能力及交叉銷售成效。現今企業已無需爭辯是否上雲（此議題四年前即已終結），關鍵在於擴張策略。需特別注意：原 ECC 本地部署客戶雖擁有整套系統，實際僅啟用部分模組（如財務、人資或製造），未來轉雲後仍具龐大交叉銷售潛力。

Unidentified Analyst

And much has been made of you driving growth from your installed base, but I think more recently there's been an appreciation of winning new customers and maybe even going down in towards the mid markets, if you like, rather than the very large enterprise market. So, how's that going? What's different about that go-to-market, the use of the reseller network and ecosystem there? And what does that do for your operating model that wasn't there five or six years ago?
過去強調從現有客戶基礎驅動成長，但現在更重視贏得新客戶並轉向中型市場。請問進展如何？市場策略、經銷商網絡和生態系統有何不同？這對營運模式帶來哪些新影響？

Christian Klein

Yeah. I mean, probably one issue challenge we still have as SAP is that the brand of SAP is still connected to ERP, large enterprise, long projects, expensive upgrades, and in the mid-market, many customers don't even know, hey, we have customers going Greenfield finance, sourcing, take a buy VD in China. They started like, when they were very small in China, now they conquered the world with our software and they started with three, four weeks go live of our finance solution of our sourcing. I mean, that is SAP.
SAP 面臨的品牌挑戰在於，市場普遍仍將其定位於大型 ERP 系統、冗長專案與昂貴升級。實際上，我們已協助眾多中小企業客戶在中國市場快速部署財務與採購系統，例如有客戶從三至四周完成系統上線起步，最終成長為全球企業——這正是當代 SAP 的實質價值。

The SAP is not like, oh, you need to pay 20 times more on services than for software than to get go live on an ERP. That is not the SAP anymore. And I guess we see more and more now that the mid-market is getting that. But we need to intensify our work there. I mean, it's ridiculously small still, the amount of business we are doing given the size of the market. And that's why we are heavily expanding now our reseller channel. We are giving them complete territories where no salesperson of SAP will ever compete with them. That was not the case two years back. And so, we give them more autonomy, more responsibility, more business. We give them marketing development funds, and let's go. I mean, there's no reason why you should not win with the category of one. And so that is now a major focus for us in the next year. And quo with SAP is of course, the methodology, what we give them to apply the best practices for the industry.
SAP 已不再需要支付高額服務費才能上線 ERP 系統，中端市場逐漸明白這點，但我們在該領域的業務規模仍遠低於市場潛力。因此我們正大力拓展經銷通路：劃分專屬區域確保直營業務不與其競爭，賦予經銷商更多自主權與業務責任，並提供行銷基金支援。憑藉業界唯一的方法論與最佳實踐方案，我們確信經銷模式將成為明年的發展重點。

Unidentified Analyst

If we look at the sort of internal operating model, a lot has been made of that and then becoming more efficient in the way the business operates. It feels like one of the bigger opportunities is around becoming more efficient in your go-to-market, your sales and marketing intensity. I think you talked about getting closer to some of your more efficient peers if we look at selling and marketing intensity.
改善內部營運模式雖受重視，但提升市場進入策略的效率才是關鍵機會點。特別是在銷售行銷效率方面，應貼近表現優異同業的水準。

So, my question is, is there anything structural at SAP that you think limits how close you can get to those best-in-class peers, or can you get close to where they are?
SAP 是否存在结构性限制，使其無法接近頂尖同業水準？或者能達到同等水平？

Christian Klein

Definitely. I hope you can see on the sales and marketing ratio how it's now going in the right direction? Have we reached a ceiling? Absolutely not. I mean, as I said, the channel is highly profitable. We want to make it a highly close and a highly profitable expanding way of go-to-market now in the next year. So, there's more to come.
銷售與行銷比例顯示正向發展，尚未達到上限。渠道獲利豐厚，我們計劃明年打造成高度密切且獲利的擴張市場策略，還有更多發展空間。

In the last year, yes, we culturally, we had to change some leaders because if they don't believe in it, then it's hard to drive change. If you don't have a leadership team who is behind you. So, some people had to leave SAP also on the market unit level. We have brought great leaders in Bessie in Greater China doing a fantastic job now with a SaaS mindset, Simon Davies in APJ, North America, we did a few changes here on there. Now I would say there is now a team who believes to transform the go-to-market in a highly scalable, but also high-close function. That is good.
去年更換部分領導，因他們不信服變革則難以推動，需有支持團隊，故有人離開市場單位。引入新領導如大中華區 Bessie 以 SaaS 思維表現出色，APJ 的 Simon Davies，北美也有變動。現在團隊能將市場策略轉型為高度可擴展且高密切功能，這是好的。

And now the second piece is about the execution. And we are now, when I would say how far we have come that we are not arriving with a bus of people at every large enterprise customer, it got better. I'm not happy everywhere, but such changes need time. The good pieces for you, there's still potential left to get also more efficient in the large enterprise space. We made good steps, absolutely, you see it, but we can do better there and for sure get much more scale in the mid-market actually, where we can scale much more with now expanding our channel there.
第二點是關於執行。現在，我想說我們已經取得了多大的進步，我們不再像以前那樣，帶著一大堆人馬去拜訪每一個大型企業客戶，情況正在好轉。我並不滿意所有情況，但這種改變需要時間。好的方面是，在大型企業領域，我們仍有潛力提高效率。我們確實取得了一些進步，這一點你也看到了，但我們還可以做得更好，當然，在中端市場，我們肯定能獲得更大的規模，現在我們可以透過拓展管道，進一步擴大規模。

And then on the marketing side, I mean, of course, AI has to help. I mean, why should commercial deal support people do all the compliance checks for a deal, all the refact [ph] checks that's done with AI, with business AI, with SAP saves a ton of money for sales people, not going through 400 pages of contracts anymore with the finance people.
在行銷方面，AI 能協助自動化交易合規檢查，透過商業 AI 或 SAP，為銷售人員節省大量成本，避免與財務人員處理冗長合約。

Second, on the marketing side, content creation, lead routing, lead qualification. I'm happy with the volume of pipeline, but not always with the dollar what we get out of the pipeline. So, there is also still some efficiencies left, I would say, in the operating module of SAP.
其次在行銷方面，內容產製、潛客分流與資格審核環節，現有銷售管道數量令人滿意，但轉化金額未達預期。我認為 SAP 系統的操作模組仍存在效率提升空間。

And then I always tell Dominik, as long as we grow that much, the economies of scale, oh, my God, that will solve some things out just per se, because the ratios will look better, the more business volume you can put on the system.
只要業務規模持續擴大，規模經濟效益自然能改善財務比率，系統承載量愈大，營運表現就愈好。

Unidentified Analyst

Prior to your leadership, SAP undertook almost a decade of larger M&A to sort of piece together the cloud portfolio that you now have. Since you became CEO, it feels like it's more of a tuck-in technology focused prioritization. We've also noticed SAP forming these significant partnerships, Databricks, Perplexity AI, Palantir, they're just the recent ones. What's your philosophy stood here, comparing building versus buying as you look at new pockets of technology and opportunity? And what's the risk that you give up some of the economics by partnering when not fully owning?
在你接任執行長前，SAP 歷經近十年大型併購拼湊雲端產品組合。自你上任後，策略轉為側重整合技術，並建立關鍵合作夥伴關係（如近期 Databricks、Perplexity AI、Palantir）。對此策略轉變的核心理念為何？面對新技術與機會時，如何權衡自主開發與併購策略？合作模式可能喪失部分經濟利益的風險為何？

Christian Klein

Yeah. This is a good question. I mean, the way how we won portfolio at SAP now and my QBRs is there's always a slide in build partner buy. And then we categorize what is very close to the core that needs to be owned by SAP because customers again don't want to replicate data in a third-party product and so on. Then there's the level two where it's okay to partner. Because the far you get out there in the vertical in an industry, the less is probably the need to have really strong out of the box integration. So, SAP will never develop the operating system of BMW, that's not what we want to do for a car. We are more like spare parts and everything around the car. This is SAP. So that is then partner.
SAP 在產品組合策略上分層管理：核心功能必須由 SAP 自主開發，避免客戶需在第三方產品複製資料。次要層級則開放合作，尤其在垂直產業領域，因對開箱即用整合的需求較低。例如 SAP 不會開發 BMW 操作系統（汽車核心），而是聚焦於汽車周邊零組件等領域，此類業務即透過合作夥伴實現。

And then the acquisition comes into play where we say, okay, look, first there is a white spot in our portfolio, which we need to close because organically we are probably not fast enough, and that's something what can also still happen in the future. But this is then this kind of tuck-ins. But what I can promise to you, we will never fall back, never ever, ever again into we are leaving them on an island. When we acquire them, then in the business case, full integration, automated, out of the box, sweet category of one is a mandatory thing. And if we feel a company which we want to acquire is culturally not up for that, and there is huge resistance, then we refrain from this acquisition because it doesn't make sense to fight against a whole company you acquire in order to do good for SAP. And so that can happen. These tuck-ins, but I'm now not seeing on the horizon something where I would say we need to buy a larger company just to buy some revenue or fill some -- maybe some shortcomings on AI because maybe my data layer is not that strong.
然後到了收購環節，我們會說，好吧，首先，我們的投資組合中有一個空白點，我們需要填補，因為從有機成長來看，我們可能不夠快，而且這種情況在未來仍然可能發生。但這就是所謂的「補強」。但我可以向你們保證，我們永遠不會再回到把他們孤立起來的情況。當我們收購他們時，從商業角度來看，全面整合、自動化、開箱即用、一站式服務是必須的。如果我們覺得我們想收購的公司在文化上不具備這些條件，而且阻力巨大，那麼我們就不會進行收購，因為為了 SAP 的利益而與你收購的整個公司對抗是沒有意義的。所以這種情況是可以發生的。這些「補強」是必要的，但我現在還沒有看到我們需要收購一家更大的公司只是為了獲得一些收入或彌補一些——也許是人工智慧方面的一些缺陷——因為我的數據層可能不夠強大。

Unidentified Analyst

Understood. The company's going through a lot of change. There's a product upgrade cycle, there's a cloud migration, adopting AI, operational changes, changing the go-to-market, headcount changes. So, there's a lot of plates that you're spinning.
公司正經歷多重組織變革，包括產品升級、雲端遷移、導入 AI 技術、營運模式調整、市場策略轉型及人事異動，需同時處理多項關鍵事務。

I'm always curious, as your time as CEO, where do you have concerns? Where do you think you need to do more to move faster or to prioritize? And where are you finding yourself waking up in the morning and saying, this is the biggest problem I need to fix. And I'm always curious, and maybe that could be our closing question.
擔任執行長期間，您最關注哪些領域？哪些事項需加速或優先處理？晨間最常思考哪些待解決的核心問題？

Christian Klein

Yeah. I mean, I sleep well overnight when I look at our strategy. And because I'm a big believer, it's the right strategy and we get it back from many customers, from many stakeholders that we are on the right track. So that is good.
我對公司策略深具信心，這份信念讓我能安心入睡。此策略不僅獲得客戶與利害關係人的多方認可，更證明我們走在正確的道路上，令人安心。

Now, execution. And, of course, every year we set the bar higher. And so, my question is then also more and more around leadership. When we set the bar higher, is the leadership up for that? And do we have the risk-taking culture? Do we have the general managers who can think through a business end-to-end and not just laugh their own code and don't care about the adoption at the end or vice versa, just selling something without having a clue what the customer wants to do with the software?
現在，說到執行力。當然，我們每年都會把標準提高。因此，我的問題也越來越多地圍繞著領導力。當我們設定更高的標準時，領導力是否能夠承受？我們是否有敢於冒險的文化？我們是否有能夠從頭到尾思考業務的總經理，而不是僅僅嘲笑自己的程式碼，而不關心最終的採用情況，或者反之亦然，只是推銷產品，卻不知道客戶想要用軟體做什麼？

So, it's all about leadership, because you need the best team in order to win full stop. And I would say the two team, especially now on the board level with Muhammad first, then with Thomas, who knows how to implement and adopt software. It's great. I would say in the level underneath is good, but we definitely want to make a huge focus on performance management when it comes to also the lower levels of the organization.
領導力至關重要，需頂尖團隊獲勝。董事會層有 Muhammad 和 Thomas，精通軟體實施。下層水平良好，但需重點加強低層組織的績效管理。

And then the other piece is, of course -- but you always have to watch out is, with Philip and Muhammad. And so, what is happening now in three to five years around Quantum, what is happening -- I mean, AI, we are for sure not at the end. So, what is happening there? We are still, of course, also looking at being agnostic on with the hyperscalers, what is happening in the hardware space on Kubernetes. Abstraction technology is super important for us. I don't want to create any log in into any kind of hyperscalers, because that would not be good. So, these are the topics, what is in the minds of people and then what is going to happen in three to five years out there, because you're asking for accelerated growth. Obviously, you have to make sure now that there is enough in the pipe, innovation-wise, what can make this work.
需關注 Philip 和 Muhammad。未來 3-5 年 Quantum 和 AI 發展仍在進行。保持與超大規模雲服務提供商的不可知論，關注 Kubernetes 硬體空間。抽象技術至關重要，避免鎖定於任何超大規模雲服務提供商。這些主題涉及加速增長，需確保創新管道充足。

End of Q&A

Unidentified Analyst

Perfect. That brings us nicely out of time. Christian, thank you very much for joining us. It's been a pleasure. For the investors, so in this hall, you next have Zalando. And if you want to join me in the software space in Hall C, I'll be hosting Dassault Systemes.
感謝 Christian 的參與，接下來本大廳將由 Zalando 接續，C 廳則由我主持 Dassault Systemes，歡迎各位投資人移步參與。

Christian, thanks again.

Christian Klein

Thanks for having me. Thank you.
感謝您的邀請。