#1 — SAP Social Sabbatical — Phnom Penh

This is my first every blog and very am thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the SAP Social Sabbatical Program. So, here is my b(log) of program too.

SAP’s vision statement is — “to help the world run better and improve people’s lives”. As an SAP employee, I always paused to understand the second part of the statement. I could relate to any item that has gone thru’ an SAP ERP but could not relate how it improved people’s lives ! I would wonder how implementing such an expensive software would improve people lives !! Untill, I was selected to be a part of this flagship program of SAP.

In this unique or once a lifetime opportunity for any SAP employee, SAP sends a team of 12 top talented employees as pro bono consultants to work with a NGO/Non Profit Organization in a developing country on a short term (4 week) assignment. The task for the employees is to understand pressing issue(s) or challenges of the organization and provide a feasible solution. So as to help such organization to operate more efficiently and obtain higher level(s) of sustainability. The organizations are chosen by a partner organization — Pyxera Global.

And this program runs in 10 countries through out the year, since 2014. This effort shows the commitment of the organization in its efforts to bridge the digital divide amongst such NGO/Non profit organization and help them to run better, thus improve people’s lives !! So, being a part of the such a team did clarify my questions about the vision statement.

More about this program can be found : https://medium.com/sap-social-sabbatical/about

Early this week, a team of 12 SAP colleagues from 9 countries of 4 different continents flew into Phnom Penh.

And my travel was for almost 2.5 days to cover almost half way of the globe!