SAP's quiet achiever makes a big noise
Henning Kagermann talks softly and talks well. He can deftly translate the forest of acronyms that makes SAP's business of making and selling business software such an impenetrable affair for those who can't tell their CRM from their ERP.
"We are the engine, if you like. You need a strong engine to power everything else," he says, describing new software - ESA (enterprise systems architecture) to those in the know - that allows accounts, inventory or customer management programs made by SAP or its rivals to communicate with each other.
Without fanfare Mr Kagermann has spent the past three years steering the world's biggest business software maker through the wreckage of the technology boom. He pumped money into research, making a push to come up with more user-friendly, web browser-based software.
"Organic growth" has been his clarion call. He believes it will allow him to put more distance between SAP and its arch-rival Oracle, whose market shareis still less than half thatof the German company.
With the launch of the new ESA, the software supplier to many of the world's biggest corporations hopes to win new customers in small and medium-sized companies. The target is for sales of �8.5bn (￡5.9bn)to double by 2010. This represents a genuine departure. Instead of striving to offer a computer program for every niche of business life, Mr Kagermann wants to make SAP the platform for other providers.
"There are some important companies that are strong in [sections of] the market - and we want to earn a bit of money with them," he says, pointing to deals with Microsoft (to hook "Office" into SAP software) or IBM (to do the same for databases).
This flow of clear and quiet logic is interrupted if he is asked anything personal. His crisp blue gaze lowers, as if to avoid the embarrassment of any trivial personal revelation.
Mr Kagermann does talk about the fact that he joined the company in 1982 as "something like the 86th employee" and that "everybody played some kind of ball game", in the spirit of the sports-mad founding trio, Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira and Dietmar Hopp. But he interrupts the reverie. "I organised a volleyball team, but it didn't last long," he says, before switching back to business: "In sporting terms, I'm not going to leave SAP a great legacy."
Is he looking ahead to life at Europe's largest software company after Henning Kagermann? For months he has refused to say whether he will renew his contract before it runs out next year.
"It's not a question that will affect our success or our strategy," he says. "A decision hasn't been made yet. The time isn't ripe."
Investors might disagree on both counts. Since taking over as sole chief executive of the world's number three software house in 2003, thecerebral Mr Kagermann has more than filled the mantle of his brilliant and sometimes rowdy predecessor, Mr Plattner.
Since Mr Plattner ceded control to his co-chief, Mr Kagermann has increased SAP's share of the market for enterprise resource planning (ERP) programs with more than one function from 35 per cent to 43 per cent, according to AMR Research.
Even though the US group spent about $19bn buying up rivals, Oracle has 19 per cent of the ERP market. In 2003, it and Peoplesoft, now part of Oracle, held 25 per cent.
Double-digit growth in annual sales and profits has become the hallmark of the Kagermann era - and hints of less-than-stellar performance rattle investors. Last week, SAP said sales of software licences grew only 8 per cent in the second quarter as big orders were held up, and its shares dropped 5 per cent. But even quarterly blips cannot hide Mr Kagermann's success. Operating profit margin rose from 22 per cent in 2002 to almost 28 per cent last year, raising group valuation by half to �70bn. In Germany, only Deutsche Telekom and Eon are worth more.
Of course, Mr Kagermann stresses this isn't only his doing. "We're a team," he says. "That means someone can always take over when someone else goes . . . It gets really dangerous when things . . . get attached too much to one individual."
The former Brunswick University professor of physics appears to place more trust in systems than in personalities. After all, he abandoned that career to become a developer for a company that was committed to banishing the unreliable, human aspect from business.
In SAP Mr Kagermann seems to have found a company in which good organisation is more important than the one leading light. Alluding to his own career, he says it is "statistically proven" that new bosses from within a company do better than those drafted in.
This suggests his choice of successor would, if one were needed, fall on one of his six board colleagues. The wily marketing head Léo Apotheker and the enthusiastic, young development boss Shai Agassi are seen as front-runners.
But Mr Kagermann's love of systems glosses over how important his personality has become to a company that is suffering as much as it is celebrating. German workers have become restive about the pace of jobs growth overseas; union influence has risen.
The majority of the 5,000 people SAP took on last year joined foreign operations. Only 40 per cent of the 34,000 employees are now based in Germany, a quotient that will drop further as more research and development goes to the US or India.
With swept-back grey hair and raked eyebrows, Mr Kagermann carries a hint of the mad professor. But to many German employees, he is a consoling figure - more so than Mr Apotheker, a German based in Paris, or Mr Agassi, an Israeli based in Palo Alto.
That is quite a feat. Mr Plattner had for decades been a gregarious and out-spoken ambassador for the company. He was famous for public spats about strategy with Oracle's founder Larry Ellison and for playing the guitar at SAP's big customer schmoozes.
His chosen successor, by contrast, was the quiet man nobody really knew. Many industry observers wondered whether Mr Kagermann, who started at SAP as a developer for cost-control software, was the right man for a big job in a sector full of big egos.
Mr Kagermann's refusal to join the dotcom personality parade was based on the conviction that actions speak louder than words. "You influence people less by talking to them," he says of running SAP, "than through what you do."
His approach had an effect. Andrew Nelson, founder of Tomorrow Now, a small support firm SAP bought last year, says of Mr Kagermann: "He keeps it simple. He keeps the client in mind. Way too often in this industry, egos and vanity get in the way."
Ironically, the resulting anti-persona has become Mr Kagermann's distinguishing feature. He has spread a quiet confidence that has even helped calm the worst fears of German staff. The public discussion about foreign influence on SAP has died down.
Clients like this assurance - though it can exasperate. Mr Kagermann tells of a visit to a sceptical Japanese executive, who listed his needs to explain why he was not running SAP. Mr Kagermann recalls interrupting: "But we can do that . . . and we can do that . . . and we can do that."
He smiles. "I've only once seen a Japanese person get angry. They're usually such a polite people," he adds with a glimmer of mischief.
No wonder he has been able to rile Oracle executives just as effectively as the more vociferous Mr Plattner once did.
低调的软件巨头
孔
翰宁(Henning Kagermann)言谈温和，善于表达。对于那些不能区分客户关系管理软件(CRM)和企业资源规划软件(ERP)的人来说，SAP制造和销售商用软件的业务难以理解，而孔翰宁能娴熟地解释这一大堆缩写词。
“这么说吧，我们就是一台发动机。你需要一台强大的发动机，为所有其它东西提供动力，”他在描述新软件时说道。这套新软件能够使客户、存货，以及SAP或其竞争对手的客户管理程序彼此进行交流。懂行的人称之为企业系统架构(ESA)。
过去3年间，孔翰宁低调地带领着世界最大的商用软件制造商，在科技股泡沫破裂后的废墟中前行。他将资金投入研究，推动开发用户界面更加友好、基于web浏览器的软件。
把“甲骨文”甩在后面
“有机增长”是他一直以来的信念。他认为，这有助于进一步拉大SAP与主要竞争对手甲骨文(Oracle)之间的差距。目前甲骨文的市场份额仍然不及这家德国公司的一半。
随着新款企业系统架构的推出，这家为许多全球最大企业提供软件的供应商，希望赢得新的中小型企业客户。公司的目标是，到2010年将85亿欧元（合108亿美元）的销售额翻倍。这是一个真正的起点。孔翰宁的目标不是竭力为商业生活中的所有市场领域提供电脑程序，而是要把SAP变成其它提供商的平台。
“有些公司在某些市场（领域）占据着重要地位，我们希望与它们合作，一起赚点钱，”他说道。孔翰宁指的是与微软(Microsoft)或IBM的交易。SAP计划分别将微软的Office软件和IBM数据库连接到SAP软件中。
一问到他的私事，这种连贯、清晰、从容的逻辑便戛然而止了。他纯蓝色的眼睛不再凝视着你，而是目光下移，似乎要避免透露个人琐事所带来的尴尬。
“好像是公司第86名员工”
尽管如此，孔翰宁还是谈到，他于1982年加入公司，“好像是公司第86名员工”，以及在三位创始人哈索?普莱特纳(Hasso Plattner)、克劳斯?奇拉（Klaus Tschira）和迪特马?霍普(Dietmar Hopp)的体育狂热精神带动下，“大家都会玩某种球类运动”。但他打断了对过去时光的追忆。“我曾组织一支排球队，但没过多久就解散了。”他说道，之后便回到了商业话题上。“在运动方面，我不会给SAP留下什么宝贵的遗产。”
孔翰宁是否在展望从这家欧洲最大的软件公司卸任后的生活呢？几个月来，他一直拒绝回答是否会在明年合同到期之前续约。
“这个问题不会影响我们的成功或者战略，”他表示。“我还没有做出决定。时机还不成熟。”
投资者可能对这两个观点都持反对意见。自2003年出任全球第三大软件公司的首席执行官一职以来，富有头脑的孔翰宁，不单单继承了才华横溢但有时暴躁的前任首席执行官普莱特纳的衣钵。
据AMR Research称，自普莱特纳向其联席CEO放权后，孔翰宁使SAP在多功能ERP程序上的市场份额从35%升至43%。
即便甲骨文花了约190亿美元收购竞争对手，该美国集团仅占有19%的ERP市场。2003年，它和仁科(Peoplesoft，目前已成为甲骨文的一部分)共占有25%的市场份额。
年销售额和利润呈两位数增长，已成为孔翰宁时代的特点――而业绩稍有欠佳的迹象就令投资者不安。SAP上周表示，由于大额订单受阻，软件许可的销售在第二季度仅增长8%，该公司股价随即下跌5%。但即使是季度偏差也不能掩盖孔翰宁的成功。营业利润率从2002年的22%上升到去年的近28%，从而将集团估价提升一半，达700亿欧元。在德国，只有德国电信(Deutsche Telekom)和意昂公司(Eon)位居其上。
“依赖某一个人会非常危险”
当然，孔翰宁强调这不是他一个人的功劳。“我们是一个团队，”他说。“这意味着，如果有人离开，总有另一些人可以代替他们……如果太多事情要依赖某一个人，情况会非常危险。”
孔翰宁曾是不伦瑞克大学(Brunswick University)的物理学教授，他似乎对系统比对人更信任。毕竟，他放弃了这份事业，成为一家公司的开发员，而这家公司致力于从商业中消除不可靠的人力因素。
在SAP，孔翰宁似乎发现了这样一家公司，良好的组织比某一个重要的领导者更为重要。他在提到自己的职业生涯时说，“统计数据证实”，来自公司内部的领导比那些“空降兵”表现更好。
这表明，如果需要选择一名继任者，他的选择将落在6位董事会同事身上。老谋深算的市场营销部负责人李艾科(Léo Apotheker)，以及年轻激情的开发部主管夏嘉曦(Shai Agassi)被认为在竞争中领先。
孔翰宁对系统的挚爱掩盖了这样一个事实，即其个性对于这个有喜有忧的企业十分重要。德国工人对公司增加海外岗位的速度已焦虑不安，工会的影响日益增强。
SAP去年招募的5000人大部分都加入了海外部门。在3.4万名雇员中，目前仅有40%在德国。随着更多的研发工作转移到美国或印度，这一比例将进一步下降。
教授气质
孔翰宁头发灰白，向后梳拢，长着两道凌厉的斜眉，带有一股疯狂教授的气质。但对许多德国员工来说，他是一个能给人以安慰的人物――比常驻巴黎的德国人李艾科和常驻美国帕洛阿图的以色列人夏嘉曦更会安慰人。
这真是一大本事。几十年来，普拉特纳一直是公司喜爱交际、坦率直言的大使。他因与甲骨文创始人拉里?埃利森(Larry Ellison)就策略公开争吵，以及在SAP的大客户交流活动上弹奏吉他而闻名。
相比之下，他选定的这位继任者是个沉默寡言的人，没人真正了解他。许多行业观察人士曾怀疑，在一个满是骄傲自负人物的行业里，在SAP从成本控制软件开发员做起的孔翰宁，是否是重大职务的合适人选。
孔翰宁拒绝跻身网络行业的名人行列，他相信，行动胜于言辞。“谈话对人的影响，”他在谈到运营SAP时说，“比不上你所做的事。”
他的做法收到了成效。安德鲁?尼尔森(Andrew Nelson)是SAP去年收购的一家小型支持公司的创始人，他谈及孔翰宁时说：“他行事简单明了。他把客户放在心里。妄自尊大会碍事，但在这个行业，这种情况太常见了。”
具有讽刺意味的是，由此形成的反对作秀的做法，成了孔翰宁与众不同的特色。他演绎着一种从容的自信，这种自信甚至帮助抚平了德国雇员最深切的忧虑。有关外国对SAP影响的公开议论逐渐消失。
客户喜欢这种自信――尽管它可能让人恼怒。孔翰宁讲述了他拜访一位心存疑虑的日本高管的经历。那名高管罗列了种种理由，解释他为何没有采用SAP的产品。孔翰宁回忆，他不断插嘴说：“但是我们能做到……我们能做到……我们能做到。”
他笑了。“这是我唯一一次看到一个日本人生气。他们通常是非常有礼貌的民族。”他带着一丝调皮的神情补充道。
难怪他一直能让甲骨文的高管们动怒，就像更喜欢吵闹的普拉特纳一样有效。
