SAP: Developing Integrated Thinking Through Reporting
Software provider SAP’s purpose is to ‘help the world run better and improve people’s lives’, and it combines this with a promise to ‘innovate to help our customers run at their best’.
The challenge was to make this purpose relevant and ‘tangible’ to an organisation of 100 000 people and with 450 000 customers, and to translate social and environmental performance into a language that the company would understand. ‘I know that if I talk to the finance director he will not listen to non-financial measures. However, social and environmental impacts also have financial impacts.’
The SAP Integrated Report shows how sustainability is integrated into the core business, presenting financial and non-financial performance in one report for greater insight into overall performance. It highlights six capitals (financial, manufactured, intellectual, human, social and relationship, and natural capital) and shows how they can be used for value creation. Understanding the interdependencies between these capitals can guide corporate strategy.
This case study was prepared for the 2019 Oxford Economics of Mutuality Forum
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