SAP seeks to fulfill its vision of helping the world run better and improving people’s lives across a wide range of economies, societies, and ecosystems. All in service to this purpose, the German enterprise software giant has committed SAP employees to addressing the world’s most pressing concerns through various Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
Last month, Ashoka ChangemakerXChange released The Possibilists Study, which surveyed 1,000 social entrepreneurs from 16 of the world’s leading youth social innovation networks, representing 137 countries. Supported by the SAP Foundation and Google.org, the research examined the needs and challenges that young changemakers face in today’s digital world, as well as how organisations can support these Possibilists to succeed. Alexandra van der Ploeg, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at SAP, commented:
“SAP is proud to support this research, connecting people and information to accelerate solutions for the world’s most complex challenges.”
Ryan Gersava, Founder and President at Virtualahan, participated in The Possibilists Study. Based in the Philippines, his organisation aims to break down employment barriers for disadvantaged groups of people who are often discriminated against in the workplace due to their conditions. Gersava, who mirrors SAP’s purpose of improving people’s lives, partnered with the tech giant last year through the SAP Social Sabbatical program.
Last year alone, SAP’s CSR activities reached over 4.5 million youth and 117,000 teachers across 113 countries. This is in addition to collaborating with almost 1,600 social impact organisations. In particular, the SAP Social Sabbatical program is a short-term assignment located in an emerging market in which SAP employees collaborate in small, cross-functional teams with young social enterprises or not-for-profit groups.
The Role of SAP Employees in Turning the Company’s Vision Into Action
As a portfolio of pro bono volunteering initiatives, the SAP Social Sabbatical program is designed to achieve two main goals:
- Helping nonprofit groups globally to run at their best and maximise their social impact by solving concrete business challenges and focusing on digital inclusion in various industries.
- Challenge and educate SAP leaders and talents to understand the global implications of today’s digital world, embrace the concept of lifelong learning, and serve as role models for SAP’s vision and purpose.
Since 2016, the SAP Social Sabbatical program has been helping social enterprises in the Philippines overcome pressing challenges and growth barriers. With the support of volunteer SAP employees, Teach for the Philippines (TFP) was able to conduct a brand audit focused on further enriching the branding and marketing aspects of the organisation.
The initiative improved TFP’s knowledge of what needs to be done to further promote its advocacy of recruiting young professionals to mentor students in public schools, particularly in rural areas in the country. In April this year, SAP Philippines has once again strengthened its commitment to supporting TFP by providing a US$25,000 grant for the group’s Batang Bayani Life Skills Program. The tech giant’s donation aims to boost training programs for around 100 educators, including parents, guardians, and co-teachers.
Furthermore, other Filipino social enterprises that have benefitted from SAP’s CSR projects are Messy Bessy, a producer and seller of natural cleaning and personal care products, and Cropital, a crowd-funding platform that brings people together to support farmers in raising money. Volunteers from SAP Concur in the Philippines helped streamline Messy Bessy’s accounting framework as it previously lacked cohesiveness in various functions. Meanwhile, Cropital went through a series of on-site research with SAP employees to identify and address the factors that hinder them from increasing their beneficiaries.
“We are thankful to be a part of the SAP Social Sabbatical program. It helped us gain meaningful and actionable insights to tackle our problem,” Cropital CEO Ruel Amparo stated.
Edler Panlilio, Managing Director of SAP Philippines, concluded:
“As a company, we set our goal to develop SAP leaders and talents to understand the global consequences of today’s digital shift. But more than that, we believe that this actively fulfills our purpose of helping the world run better and improve people’s lives.”
