SAP SE†(NYSE: SAP) announced that it has appointed Karl Fahrbach as the company’s first chief partner officer. In his role, Fahrbach will be responsible for driving next-generation partnering at SAP.
His responsibilities include evolving partner commercial models to intensify partner innovation, platform adoption and the sale of cloud solutions with partners across all customer segments and markets.
The SAP ecosystem is a major growth driver for SAP and contributes significantly to the success of SAP customers.†IDC†estimates†SAP’s partner economy to be about US$100 billion and projects that to double over the next five years. More than 60 percent of that is expected to be in the cloud. To help reach that potential, SAP is developing a next-generation ecosystem, which will refine the partner experience and allow partners to innovate and†develop their own IP†on SAP Cloud Platform.
This new strategy frees SAP partners from strict resale and implementation activities and offers them a broader role in helping customers become intelligent enterprises.
“SAP and our partners are absolutely focused on identifying new opportunities with customers by moving from SAP-led application value to partner-led customer innovation,” said Adaire Fox-Martin, member of the Executive Board, SAP SE. “We are setting the foundation that will enable SAP partners to contribute more value to the future of business through our technology.”
Fahrbach has been with SAP for 13 years, most recently serving as chief operating officer for the Global Partner Organization. Prior to that, Fahrbach led the Value-Added Reseller Channels for SAP.
