The 2008 CRM Market Awards: Influential Leaders -- Bill McDermott

The Rock:
Bill McDermott
president and chief executive officer
SAP Americas & Asia Pacific Japan

Influential leaders, to borrow a phrase, aren’t born, they’re made—and this is the case with Bill McDermott, president and chief executive officer of SAP Americas & Asia Pacific Japan. While some leaders start change, others have to maintain the new direction when key executives abandon ship.

Looking to throw its hat into the CRM 2.0 ring, SAP went back to the basics and reached out to its customers. Its SAP CRM 2007 answers the longstanding usability criticisms with an intuitive, clean user interface—patterned on the likes of iGoogle but powered by the functionality of SAP. According to Paul Greenberg, president of The 56 Group and cofounder of CRM consultancy BPT Partners—and fellow Influential Leader—while McDermott may not have launched the metamorphosis at SAP, he has certainly helped keep the ship steaming ahead after the departure of Shai Agassi, former president of SAP’s product and technology group, in 2007.

While Greenberg calls Agassi “the trigger for the changes at SAP,” he says that McDermott—an industry veteran who was executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations at Siebel Systems, and later a president at Gartner—“recognizes the winds of change smell different than stale winds.”

Take SAP’s extended partnership with Research in Motion to natively integrate SAP CRM software with the BlackBerry mobile device. That move, as McDermott is fond of saying, “changes the game” for mobile CRM—and for SAP itself. Also, SAP continues to forge ahead in its plans to refocus its relationship with its clientele via its customer-focused ecosystem. The platform already boasts 14 Industry Value Networks, more than 350,000 members (in its business process expert facet), and upwards of 3,500 service partners. Showing that leadership does not mean blindly forging ahead, the decision to delay its midmarket-oriented Business ByDesign for at least another year to work out any issues shows restraint and a commitment to deliver quality solutions.

Picking up where others left off—and then blazing a trail of leadership to call his own—that’s why McDermott is joining the ranks of our Influential Leaders.  

For the rest of our 2008 Influential Leaders, click here.

To view the rest of the 2008 CRM Market Awards, click here.

Every month, CRM magazine covers the customer relationship management industry and beyond. To subscribe, please visit http://www.destinationcrm.com/subscribe/.

Related Articles

After CEO Ouster, Plattner's Plea: "Please Trust SAP. We Have Not Forgotten You."

Announcing the exit of Chief Executive Officer Léo Apotheker, SAP returns to a "Co-CEO" format, appointing Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe to split leadership duties.

SAP + RIM = CRM2Go

Introducing a rebuilt version of its CRM application to run natively on Research In Motion's BlackBerry mobile devices, SAP aims to give companies universal access.

SAP Starts 2003 With Layoffs

The layoffs account for approximately three percent of SAP's total U.S. workforce; no additional layoffs are on tap for SAP.

SAP's Year-End Model Sports a Facelift

SAP Influencer Summit: The German giant's SAP CRM 2007 -- with a new user interface -- sneaks in under the calendar-year wire.

SAP's Midmarket Design

SAP Business ByDesign is the company's new on-demand midmarket product; much of its success hinges on SAP's channel strategy.

Customers' Changing CRM Expectations

SAP Americas CEO lays out what customers should expect from CRM vendors.

SAP to Acquire Business Objects

The friendly takeover folds new business intelligence capabilities into one of the leading enterprise software platforms; amidst differing opinions, rumors loom of a counteroffer from Oracle or IBM.

Taking Charge

Let us introduce you to the dynamic new top executives in the CRM industry.

SAP's On-Demand Vision

What can customers gain from the software giant's hosted offering?

SAP Loses Visionary Agassi Over CEO Rift

One analyst says that Agassi was "a charismatic and highly visible driving force for change."

The 2007 Market Awards: Enterprise Suite CRM

The enterprise suite CRM market is at a critical point in its evolution.

The 2008 CRM Market Awards: Influential Leaders -- Introduction

The visionaries shaping the CRM industry.

SAP Retains Market-Share Lead in CRM

Market intelligence from Gartner shows the Wonder of Walldorf still on top in CRM, ERP, and supply chain.

SAP Refocuses on "Fun"

SAP CRM 2008: SAP's overarching theme of "customer co-innovation" goes beyond its newly launched CRM offering, according to company executives.

SAP Susses Out 2008

With financial results in hand and Business ByDesign humming along, the vendor offers some thoughts on what's coming next.

SAP Targets Enterprise SOA

SAPPHIRE '06: Amid "the industrialization of software," the German juggernaut continues its service-based strategy.