The Best-Run Businesses Run SAP
Founded in 1972 as Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing, SAP is the recognized leader in providing collaborative business solutions for all types of industries and for every major market.
Serving more than 109,000 customers worldwide, SAP is the world's largest business software company and the world's third-largest independent software provider overall. SAP have a rich history of innovation and growth that has made them a true industry leader. Today, SAP employs more than 38,400 people in over 50 countries. SAP are dedicated to providing the highest level of customer service and support
In 1973, the SAP R/1 solution was launched. Six years later, in 1979, SAP launched SAP R/2. In 1981, SAP brought a completely re-designed solution to market. However, SAP didn't significantly improve until the period between 1985 and 1990. The most major improvements came not from the founders or employees, but from a partnership with an educational institution, "Chico State".
In 1985, four years after SAP R/2 emerged, SAP had big plans, but few resources to improve upon their ERP. At the same time, at California State University at Chico a graduate student in the precursor of the College of Business at Chico State informed a couple of senior professors about SAP, and wondered if they might ask SAP for an evaluation copy to use in the database management or production management classes. Chico State professors contacted SAP, and soon the conversation went from "evaluation" to "development". Both sides agreed to become partners.
Chico State remained SAP's only educational partner for the first few years, vastly improving and extending modules within R/2, which led to the development of R/3 with a few new modules. SAP and Chico State developed and released several versions of R/3 in 1992 through 1995. By the mid-1990s, SAP followed the trend from mainframe computing to client-server architectures. The development of SAP’s internet strategy with mySAP.com redesigned the concept of business processes (integration via Internet). SAP was awarded Industry Week’s Best Managed Companies in 1999. By 1997, SAP had partnered with over 25 educational institutes, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
