What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have been involved in over the past year?

SAP has been on a transformation journey and is progressing towards being a Cloud company. Now SAP is focusing on its business AI solutions, as you can see in press coverage. Along the way, with the number of acquisitions to add functions for SAP’s service portfolio, there has been a high increase in contract types, together with more complex procedures for deal closure. Workload and complexities of our day-to-day responsibilities increased – not only for legal but also for other functions, including customer facing roles. This requires a holistic approach whereby the legal team aims to level up our efficiency and quality of work.

I have been involved in tasks aimed at simplifying processes, including those regarding the further automation of contract drafting – simplifying the process to get deals done utilising SAP’s own system – and regarding how we communicate to customers to avoid unnecessary confusion or even a potential dispute. If we discuss the process, we can effectively relate it to the people implementing it, so that they can understand the heavy lifting required to put it in to practice. I am grateful for this, as it has been a fantastic opportunity to add value to the organisation as a manager of an in-house legal team by taking a holistic approach. This is a continuous journey and will be an ongoing task of the legal team beyond its daily support of business transactions.

Which political, economic, or regulatory changes have impacted your work the most in the past year?

Regarding regulatory changes, I would pick one of the IT-relevant local regulations which has come into force called the Information system Security Management and Assessment Program (ISMAP). This is a type of screening process for Government agencies when they procure cloud services. ISMAP provides a system for companies like SAP to register cloud services through an assessment process to evaluate whether a cloud service properly implements each criterion based on international standards. The cloud services of SAP need to be registered and listed in the ISMAP Cloud Service List to be sold to Japanese Government agencies, which is required for each service SAP would sell to these.

I would add that new regulations around secrecy are quite noteworthy. Given the current geopolitical situation, the Japanese Government has rather quickly moved to bring necessary regulations into effect. On top of the secrecy clearance system for areas such as defense and terrorism that has already been implemented in Japan, secrecy in the economic field has become an urgent topic in last 12 months. Now the Prime Minister has brought in a new law for this purpose, and we expect to see supplemental guidelines coming in greater numbers before the official date that the law will take effect in early 2025. I am closely working with the relevant people to catch up with what has been discussed, including internal teams overseas who have had experience with similar regulations in recent years.

Apart from legal matters, has the team worked on other company initiatives you would like to highlight?

The team consists of very willing people – they have the motivation to improve the world through their work in the company. Luckily, there are many chances in SAP Japan for them to contribute to non-legal fields, and some of the counsel here have been involved in strategic projects of the company, including those aimed at solving social issues in Japan.
And to add some information regarding myself, I am so grateful that SAP provided a chance to be hugely involved in the company’s strategic vision towards contributing to reducing carbon emission by tracking carbon emissions through SAP’s products. It has been an exciting opportunity to exchange ideas with colleagues across Europe and Asia for a half year period, closing the project by presenting to executives in Walldorf in Germany.