Team size: Approximately 400

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Our Legal Strategy is an integral part of the Business Strategy. We focus on all legal aspects that come with moving SAP business to the cloud as well as AI, inter alia safeguarding that products and services comply with the evolving regulatory landscape. In parallel we focus on the classic legal risk management aspect, be it in IP, commercial or regulatory issues. In a crisis we align closely with the Executive Board and manage the issues according to the SAP crisis management playbook, also ensuring a proper project set-up.

Recently the SAP Legal was part of the overall Company Transformation, where the Legal Team had to work on the optimal set-up to support SAP’s overall strategy and business. This involved changes to the organisation as well stepping up the use of technology within Legal.

How have you integrated technology into your legal processes, and what impact has this had on efficiency and compliance?

We are working on specific AI use cases around either increasing individual productivity or to support some of SAP Legal’s core tasks, e.g. in contracting.

Coping with the ever-increasing regulatory landscape and the German phenomenon of “gold-plating” any regulatory implications coming from EU Law.