Platform revolution in the database management system industry: Evolution of SAP’s business model

Abstract

This case discusses how database management systems (DBMSs) have evolved and become more sophisticated, distributed, and specialized, focusing on SAP’s transition from a traditional pipeline to a platform company. When DBMS was first introduced to the market, firms expected DBMS to store a large set of data in an organized way and extract the stored data consistently and efficiently. With the advent of technologies in the software, hardware, and networking domains, the DBMS industry has seen dramatic changes in the notions of product, customer, market, competitor, value chain partners, business model, and the industry itself. While SAP has dominated the enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution market since 1972, Oracle is closing the gap from 2018 onwards. The loss of SAP’s leadership position in some of the recent customer perception surveys may eventually lead to the loss of its market leadership position. How can SAP retain its market leadership while simultaneously regaining its leadership position in customer perception surveys form the core of this case? The case ends with questions about strategic choices that can help SAP keep up its leadership position and chart out future growth trajectory.