The End of an Era: Hasso Plattner Steps Down
Posted by Eva-Maria Fahrer on 13/05/2024 21:31
Hasso Plattner will step down from the SAP Supervisory Board after 21 years as its chairman and 52 years in the company on May 15 2024.
Hasso Plattner was the innovator behind the SAP HANA (High-Performance ANalytic Appliance) In-Memory Database which generated the kind of demand not seen since the market launch of SAP R/3.
On this link you find a very nice story sharing the key milestones in Hasso Plattner’s 52 years at SAP.
I'm personally very fond of the last part of the article above.
It's very typical for Hasso Plattner, who I admire a lot. See copy paste below.
"2022: In an interview to mark SAP’s 50th anniversary,
Plattner shared some advice: “I recommend a return to the approach we used in the early days of SAP – of sending SAP teams out to the customer.
Instead of implementing our standard systems,
they should find out how people actually use the tools they get from SAP and other vendors. That will give us our starting point. There are so many interesting companies out there. We can learn from them and with them. We have to step outside SAP and do something with the customers.”
A comment directed to SAP employees, he said:
“Treat the customers well – once we have them, we have to keep them. That’s one of SAP’s strengths. And never think it’s done. You have to carry on. The job is never done!”