TRANSFORMATIVE ACQUISITION AT SCALE
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19 2005 , he was invited by SAP ’ s then CFO Werner Brandt to build out an M & A practise for the company . Before then , though it had made a number of smaller acquisitions , SAP ’ s growth had been largely organic and by strategic partnerships with technology companies , notably IBM .
TRANSFORMATIVE ACQUISITION AT SCALE
Brandt however recognized that to meet the challenges of the market and the limitless potential presented by data it would be necessary to place M & A activity at the center of future development . “ Our objective was to do transformative acquisitions . We really started down that road in 2007 with the acquisition of BusinessObjects in the analytics space , and that expanded our addressable markets considerably .” The $ 6.78bn acquisition of BusinessObjects was a watershed moment for the company both on account of the major financial commitment and because it brought business intelligence tools to SAP ’ s back office transactional systems .
By 2010 , SAP was ready to make its next transformational jump with the
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