Inno­va­tion has been an SAP cor­ner­stone since the com­pa­ny first began to devel­op and intro­duce soft­ware in 1972. It has defined its strat­e­gy and ini­tia­tives, and led to key partnerships.

The New Ven­tures and Tech­nolo­gies (NVT) orga­ni­za­tion at SAP works to address prob­lems that are just emerg­ing today and will cer­tain­ly affect a bulk of busi­ness­es in the future. Max Wes­sel is the chief inno­va­tion offi­cer for SAP, as well as the leader of NVT. He is charged with dri­ving con­tin­ued trans­for­ma­tion across the entire com­pa­ny while defin­ing and exe­cut­ing against its inno­va­tion strategy.

When he stepped into this role just over a year ago, he like­ly didn’t real­ize the prob­lems of the future would soon take cen­ter stage across the globe. ASUG dis­cussed inno­va­tion with Max and what that means dur­ing a pan­dem­ic, as well as how tech­nol­o­gy plays a role. 

Sharon: What does it mean to be a chief inno­va­tion offi­cer, espe­cial­ly dur­ing COVID-19?