This week, I had a unique chance to talk to Anja Schneider, Senior Vice President of SAP and Head of Customer Engagement & Adoption. Selected as Top 100 Women in Germany by Manager Magazin and Women in Tech 2023 by Forbes, Anja is an exceptional leader, member of supervisory and advisory boards, with more than 25 years of experience at SAP in the field of technology and customer innovation.
In the early 1970´s, five IBM engineers, Dietmar Hopp, Klaus Tschira, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, and Claus Wellenreuther established a small company called System Analysis and Program Development to work on a software-based enterprise-wide system. This company is today a DAX and STOXX Europe 50 company offering more than a thousand SAP products used across 180 countries. To quote a Financial Times article from 2025, SAP quietly steals a march on Silicon Valley´s A-list. How does it feel to have been part of this incredible development of the last 25 years?
I’m very proud to be part of half of the journey of the company and how it was growing. When I was studying at SAP more than 26 years ago, it was a company with around 35 thousand employees. It started very much in a startup mode. At SAP it also felt like this. We had traditional areas, but we also took a look at future topics, like how the Internet was influencing as a big new trend back then.
Now, professional applications and new technologies are coming in on top.
For the very first time, in 2001, we acquired our first company. Prior to that, it was all organic growth, and I must say even after 26 years, I feel in many situations that we still have that “start-up” spirit. On the other hand, there is a lot going on and there are a lot of company processes. A lot is happening, also with what is surrounding us these days.
More than 400,000 companies, from Small and Medium Enterprises to Fortune 500 companies, use SAP solutions in industries as varied as manufacturing, healthcare, finance, technology, logistics, and retail. As Senior Vice President and Head of Customer Engagement, what do you think makes SAP solutions so competitive and successful in so many industry segments?
I think you named it already in my title because it is customers. I think it is the customer which definitely makes the difference because we’re very much focused on customer outcomes. If you look at why SAP is so competitive and successful since many years, it really comes down to the fact that we don’t build something which is generic.
We have spent many decades to embed solutions into our industries. We have more than 25 industries we are covering since the beginning. So when a customer would like to adopt SAP, we are not starting from scratch. We have a proven industry-specific best practice about how others are doing it and a competitive match right out-of-the-box. We’re connecting the entire end-to-end processes from finance to supply chains and customer engagement. So we’re not dealing with the disconnected silo approach or data silos. We are running business and mission critical processes and we are reliable. This is absolutely non-negotiable. That’s also why 98 of the top 100 customers are running on SAP systems.
At the same time we’re not just running today’s business. We’re also helping customers to evolve. When I take a look at our new portfolio like the business AI platform, or customers also innovating, extending and building AI agents in this new world, it really motivates me. That is also what helps customers to scale on a global way while being on a standard software, but being different and being leaders in their industries. We are very passionate about, that we build on kind of an amazing experience; that we are founded in trust, but we are looking into the future.
Research and Development is without exaggeration is one of the most important pillars in SAP´s business strategy. The company has more than 100 development locations worldwide, and allocated 34.2 per cent of total headcount (37,947 employees) in Q1 2026 to R&D. In terms of embedding Joule agentic AI into S/4HANA Cloud, what has been the R&D team’s biggest accomplishment?
I would say that one of our biggest R&D accomplishments with Joule for example is that we didn’t just add AI on top of S/4HANA Cloud. We embedded it directly into the business processes. With all of the elements of AI, it’s a fundamental shift. Users don’t have to go through separate tools or prompt an external system. We are now reinventing the way how we interact with the system with Joule. Joule is right there to go into the flow of work understanding the context, thinking about how to pull enterprise data. It can actually execute tasks and it’s not just about the navigation of new capabilities. It’s becoming an active participant in processes like financial flows, procurement or whatever it takes.
I think we have a lot of agentic work in the making, driven by the R&D team. I think what I really like is the combination of answering and building agentic ways of thinking into the business processes right away. On the other hand, we also give the opportunity to build new capabilities in the same agentic way with the same set of technology such as the Business AI platform into the hands of our customers. I think that this is where our R&D teams across the lines of businesses and across the industries are coming together to trigger what makes a real difference in an end-to-end process for customers. This is what creates real business outcomes in the end when customers are implementing it.
Finally, we are doing it in a new way but also taking a look at what’s secure and trustworthy and fulfilling with all of the certifications that are needed in the background to comply with an enterprise grade software. That is in the end a breakthrough for me. I think, this is about turning an enterprise AI from something that’s more experimental into something that’s invented, reliable and truly transformative in the day-to-day operations. That is why we are very proud of our R&D teams getting it all together and getting it out, like we have seen at SAP Sapphire.
If we talk about SAP and Joule, we obviously have to talk about AI. Today, AI technologies are directly embedded into SAP core business applications to transform manual data-driven processes into intelligent, automated workflows. Do you see any potential risk or challenges in this transformation process and, if so, what do you think about the concept of algorithmic accountability?
You are absolutely right. What we’re doing now with AI as well as tools is fundamentally transforming how work gets done. We’re doing processes which are still very manual even in today’s age; which are data heavy and reactive. We are turning these processes into intelligent or agentic, proactive workflows embedded directly into the applications that people use every day.
There are also roles, regulations, restrictions and real-life enterprise data inside S/4HANA and that allows us to move from “analyse” and “propose” into “decide or “recommend and execute”. It comes from a proposal of a good action and we automate the steps we need while taking a look at where we need to keep the human in the loop.
For me, this responsibility is super important. It’s not optional, it’s foundational. This is why we take a look at extendability, approval boundaries keeping the human in the loop for sensitive and high-impact decisions. I don’t see it as a blocker, I see it as an enabler. If you get that right, we can turn AI from something experimental into something which is enterprise grade. If you take a look at the history of SAP we were always responsible, accountable and trustworthy. We are ready to be auditable in every moment and this is the same kind of high level standard.
Considering the current European regulatory framework on Corporate Sustainability Reporting, we can claim without exaggeration that sustainable development and Environmental, Social and Governance aspects of business operations are inseparable from successful company management today. How does SAP transform sustainability from a compliance requirement to a value-driving operational metric for businesses? What is your experience in this field as Head of Customer Engagement & Adoption?
I think the real shift we have enabled at SAP is to move sustainability out of the classical reporting silo and put it directly into the business operations. For a long time, sustainability was treated as a compliance exercise. Something that’s measured based on facts and made for the regulatory reporting. What we have done now, instead, is putting sustainability data and metrics into the same end-to-end processes that run finance, supply chain or manufacturing.
When a company is making decisions; be it sourcing, material planning, production or managing logistics, you can see the environmental impact in real time alongside with the costs and performance. This is also part of how the business is run and not just how it is reported. Seeing the impact in the moment when a decision is done rather than just after the reporting makes sustainability powerful. This is a true value driver for a company when you have transparency at a level where you can optimize not just for the cost but for carbon waste and also resource efficiency. That, in the end, leads to better decisions.
We’re supporting resilient supply chains, low energy consumption and more sustainability. It’s not just about marketing from my perspective. It’s a breakthrough. We have transformed something that was about compliance into an operational metric that drives efficiency, innovation and also a competitive edge.
If you let me ask one personal question: years ago, I had a unique chance to attend an SAP company day when I saw how you inspired and encouraged a team of engineers to solve a problem and reach a better result. What where the moments (or who) in your career path which was the source of inspiration for you?
First of all, I was always encouraged by good mentors who even believed that I could do things outside of my comfort zone; something I never thought that I could do. Having great mentors in your career is an important factor and it shaped me as well. I feel lucky that I can give it back to the system by being a mentor for young talented women and men in the industry.
I think, a source of inspiration for me is when there is something which seems to be unsolvable and then we solve it as a team bringing great minds together. This is where the biggest mountain can also be moved together. We have invented a lot of new things where people said that it is not possible, but we have a kind of “can do” attitude and a positive mindset. Working with these people alone is always very motivating for me. When everyone says it’s not possible, finding a solution with a team approach is very inspiring for me.
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