The annual general meeting of shareholders of SAP SE open. As required by the company's articles, as chairperson of the supervisory board, I'll be presiding over today's meeting. On behalf of the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board, I'd like to bid you, our shareholders and shareholders' proxies, a warm welcome. We are delighted that, once again, so many of you were able to attend. We also welcome our guests and especially the members of the press, whom we would like to thank for their detailed, objective, and informed reporting on our company over the past 12 months. The members of the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board are present, except for Jim Hagemann Snabe, who sends his excuses for his absence today. I'd also like to welcome Mr. Ulrich Hofmann with me, a notary public from the notary office in Heidelberg, who will be taking the minutes.
Today's meeting has been called in due course. On the 31st of March 2017, an announcement was published in the Federal Gazette. A copy can be seen at the table where the minutes are deposited. All conditions that are required for convening the annual general meeting of shareholders were properly issued. No motions or candidacies were submitted by the shareholders of the company. The official meeting zone includes this main hall. That is this interior hall of the SAP Arena. Sorry? Oh, thank you. The official meeting zone includes this main hall of the SAP Arena, plus all the other rooms and areas in the SAP Arena that are accessible to shareholders after passing through security at the entrance. These include the training hall opposite the entrance area. We lost, throughout the official meeting zone, the loudspeakers.
There's also a big screen in the training hall on which you can follow the meeting. The attendance register is computerized and updated constantly. There is a terminal at the speaker's table at which you can inspect the register any time during the meeting. If you wish to leave the shareholders' meeting early, you can appoint the employees of the company present for that purpose as your proxies. They will follow your instructions. To do so, please use the proxy and instruction card in the back section of your ballot card book. You are allowed to instruct the proxies provided by the company exclusively with respect to voting on the management proposals published in the invitation. You can, entrust your vote to another participant. To do so, detach the attendance card and proxy form from your ballot card book.
On your way out, hand your completed proxy form to the staff at the door. Keep your attendance card and give your proxy your ballot card book. If you wish to leave the meeting temporarily or early and do not wish to appoint a proxy to vote on your behalf, please hand in your attendance card and your voting cards at the exit. In the previous year, online participation is also possible. Shareholders participating online can follow a live webcast of the entire meeting, cast their votes in real time, and inspect the attendance register. Shareholders participating via the internet proxy appointment and instruction system have until the beginning of voting on management's announced proposals to send or amend their appointments and instructions regarding these proposals.
All shareholders and proxies who wish to speak or ask questions are kindly asked to report to the speakers table as soon as possible. Please complete the speaker's request form clearly and legibly in the request form. I must insist that every shareholder or proxy wishing to speak, without exception, first hand in a request form at the speakers table, and then wait until called to speak. When it's your turn to speak, please go to one of the microphones in the main hall. The entire annual general meeting of shareholders is being publicly broadcast on the internet. Only what I'm saying now and the speech of CEO Bill McDermott will be recorded and posted on the internet after the meeting. As in the previous year, with your approval, we are allowing some television companies to broadcast highlights from the speech of Mr. McDermott.
We are allowing the TV companies to show sections of his speech only. The entire meeting is also being documented in sound and video for the record in full length. If a shareholder proxy objects to the recording of his or her speech, we will not record that speech. I'd like to remind all of you here, and those shareholders participating online, that you are not permitted to make any sound or video recordings of the meeting yourselves. Now to the agenda. Ladies and gentlemen, I can report that the 2016 SAP SE financial statements and the consolidated financial statements, the combined management report for SAP group and SAP SE, including the Executive Board's explanatory notes relating to the information provided pursuant to the German Commercial Code Section 289 (4) and 315 (4).
The Supervisory Board report and the Executive Board's proposed resolution on the appropriation of retained earnings were available at the website www.sap.com/agm from the time the general meeting of shareholders was called. These documents are also available for inspection in the meeting room. You'll find them at the speakers table in the main hall and at the booth in front of the entrance to the main hall. The auditor, KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft, examined the SAP SE financial statements, consolidated financial statements, and combined SAP SE and SAP group management report for fiscal 2016 and issued an unqualified audit opinion. The Supervisory Board reviewed and approved the aforementioned documents on the 22nd of February 2017. The SAP SE financial statements for 2016 were thus formally adopted. The Supervisory Board compiled a written report, which is published on pages 16 to 22 of the annual report. I'm afraid I got lost.
Thank you. I'm on page six now. I'm synchronized again. I wish to make the following comments on the report of the Supervisory Board. As in previous years, the Supervisory Board relied on the close and constructive dialogue with the Executive Board to effectively perform its duties. The Supervisory Board regularly received full and timely reports from the Executive Board, both in person and in writing, on fundamental corporate policy issues, the economic situation, and performance of the SAP group, and on significant transactions and business measures. Part of the Supervisory Board's work is to look beyond the financial results of the company's strategy. At numerous meetings in 2016, we discussed the various initiatives and projects for implementing the 2020 strategy, whose goal it is to make SAP the world's leading cloud company in terms of market share, market capitalization, and revenue.
Likewise, in our line of focus was the Run Simple initiative, SAP's project for simplifying its internal processes and reducing complexity. At this point, I would particularly like to emphasize that since 2016, the Supervisory Board has been using the SAP Digital Boardroom in its meetings. The SAP Digital Boardroom is an information and decision-making cockpit developed by SAP. Our Chief Financial Officer uses this tool to present all financial personnel and process-related information across all company transactions to us in real time, and is able to call up and display any variety of details ad hoc in response to specific questions from us. The Digital Boardroom gives us full transparency and comprehensive insight into our business at all times, even outside of our meetings. As such, traditional presentations with static data like PowerPoint are a thing of the past for the Supervisory Board.
There were four ordinary meetings and one extraordinary meeting of the Supervisory Board in 2016. Our database called HANA is so flexible that the system can work like this. The Executive Board kept me, as the Chairperson of the Supervisory Board, fully informed between meetings of the Supervisory Board, notably through regular conversation with Bill McDermott in his capacity as SAP CEO, which discussed topics in depth with the Executive Board and prepare important Supervisory Board decisions that are within the committee's terms of reference. The Chairpersons of the various committees regularly report their committee's work to the full Supervisory Board meetings, allowing close cooperation and sufficient exchange of information. At this juncture, I would like to mention a few changes in the membership of the Executive Board, which we announced back in April.
Steve Singh has decided to pursue other entrepreneurial goals outside of SAP, and therefore left the company at the end of April. Working closely with Rob Enslin, Steve was instrumental in integrating his enterprise, Concur, to SAP, helping lay the foundation for business networks to become a key part of SAP's business. We thank Steve for his support and commitment to SAP. He will remain a friend of the company in future. The Supervisory Board appointed, effective May 1st, Adaire Fox-Martin and Jennifer Morgan to the Executive Board effective May 1st, 2017. With the extended responsibilities of Rob Enslin in the cloud business, mainly development, Ms. Fox-Martin and Morgan will assume global responsibility of SAP's sales organization. They bring many years of experience and success in the Asia-Pacific, Japan, and Americas regions. Going forward, Adaire will lead SAP's business in the EMEA region and Greater China.
Jennifer will be responsible for the North America, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific Japan regions. I'd like to welcome our two new Board members and would now like to ask them to introduce themselves to our shareholders.
Ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning to you. My name is Adaire Fox-Martin, and I lead SAP's business in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Greater China. Together with my colleague and partner, Jennifer Morgan, we oversee SAP's industry go-to-market efforts and field execution to drive customer success across all geographies. I am deeply honored and humbled to be appointed to the SAP Executive Board as co-president of global customer operations. Thank you to our co-founder and chairman, Dr. Plattner, and the Supervisory Board for the trust and confidence they have placed in me to serve our valued customers and shareholders. Originally from Ireland, I moved to Asia in 1996. For the past three years, I've been leading SAP's business in the Asia-Pacific Japan region, building strong relationships with our customers and our partners, driving innovation and value for our customers through a very diverse and engaged workforce.
SAP has recently been recognized as the sixth best multinational workplace in Asia, cementing our position as employer of choice in the region. My role also extends to me the privilege to have the opportunity to make a difference in Asia-Pacific Japan through programs like One Billion Lives. One Billion Lives is an employee initiative that leverages the power of SAP technology with the objective of improving one billion lives in Asia-Pacific Japan. This initiative represents our continued and unwavering commitment to driving SAP's vision of helping the world run better and improving people's lives. Prior to being president of SAP in Asia-Pacific Japan, I was the chief operating officer of SAP in the region. I joined SAP in 2008 as the head of the public sector for Asia-Pacific, and subsequently assumed the role of senior vice president for industry business solutions across the region.
In this role, I was responsible for defining SAP's strategy for long-term industry investment and go-to-market in the Asia-Pacific region. In total, my career in IT sector spans more than a quarter of a century, including several leadership positions across Asia and Europe, and roles in almost every line of business in a software company, from sales, business development, consulting, development, education, and support.
Today, I have the distinct honor of leading the global customer operations organization with Jennifer Morgan and representing the voice of the customer at the SAP Executive Board. The next chapter of growth will be a very exciting one for our customers, our partners, and for SAP. I look forward to working closely with the other members of the Executive Board to drive even greater customer success, innovation, and growth at SAP. Once again, thank you for the opportunity to serve on the SAP Executive Board.
Good morning. I'd like to thank our co-founder and chairman, Hasso Plattner, for that introduction, our CEO, Bill McDermott, and my colleague and good friend, Adaire Fox-Martin, as well. It's my distinct honor to be here with all of you today and a privilege to introduce myself to our SAP shareholders, along with Adaire, as one of SAP's newest Executive Board Members. My journey at SAP began nearly a decade and a half ago, when I began my career here as an account executive in my native Washington, D.C.
Since that time, I've served in a variety of leadership roles, including as president of our public services business in the U.S., as president of regulated industries, and for the last 3 years, as president of SAP in North America, where I've been immensely proud to lead our nearly 25,000 employees across the U.S. and Canada and serve our more than 150,000 customers in the region. Leading SAP for the last 3 years has been an incredible privilege in North America. I'm immensely proud of the culture we've created in the region and the work we've done to continue our growth in that incredibly important strategic market for SAP.
I'm also very proud that Fortune magazine recently recognized SAP North America for the first time ever as one of the region's best places to work, an incredibly important recognition and reflection of our employees and the work they do each and every day. I could not be more energized and excited by the task ahead, as Adaire and I take over the mantle of leadership for global customer operations, and as I expand my regional responsibilities to also include Asia-Pacific, Japan, Latin America, in addition to North America. As Adaire and I have spent a period of time since the announcement meeting, and with employees and teams around the world, we've been very clear in our message to our teams. Our short, medium, and long-term focus is, as always, on delivering results for all of you, our shareholders.
We've also been clear that our leadership will be animated and driven by the spirit of service to our customers and service to our people. For as much as we have to be thankful for at SAP, an incredible portfolio, a winning strategy, and strong momentum, it is our people that set us apart and have written our story for more than 4 decades. The success we've achieved together is a reflection of the more than 85,000 men and women around the world who go to work every day proud to serve this amazing company. Along with Adaire and the rest of my Executive Board colleagues, I'm so excited to write the next chapter of success alongside each of them. I'm deeply honored by the trust that the Executive Board, the Supervisory Board, and all of you and Hasso have placed in me.
I'm honored by the trust as you, as shareholders, continue to place in SAP and all of us as leaders, and I thank you for the opportunity to be here and introduce myself to you here today.
Thank you very much, Adaire and Jennifer. Including Adaire and Jennifer, you now see four German and four foreign executive board members on stage, three of whom live and work in the United States. This strong internationalization is key to SAP's success as a global company whose main competitors, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Workday, and so on, are all headquartered in the U.S.A. The strong presence of American board members with good contacts in the private and public sectors in the United States is proving to be a crucial competitive advantage, especially now
To survive in our industry, it is vital that we stay on top of the latest trends, which predominantly come from the U.S.A. and Silicon Valley. There will also be some changes in the membership of the supervisory board. As you have already seen in the press, Jim Hagemann Snabe has decided to take up the post of Siemens's supervisory board chairperson starting 2018. As part of this move, he has also chosen to step down from the SAP supervisory board to avoid any conflict of interest between the two companies from the outset. Although we fully respect his decision and wish him all the best in his new role, we deeply regret losing such a talented and competent individual from our supervisory board. There's hardly anyone who knows our company and industry better.
Jim has been with the company in outstanding positions between 2008 and 2014 as an executive board member, after 2010 as a co-CEO together with Bill McDermott. During this time, he and Bill set the course for SAP's all-important transformation to a leading cloud company. Then in 2014, he joined the supervisory board, where he played a key role in advising and supporting the management team while the company was in midyear. I'm positive our friendly relations will remain. Unfortunately, as I mentioned at the outset, Jim is unable to attend today's meeting in person. He is a chairman in a Danish company, which has an important meeting today, which he must attend.
I'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you on behalf of everyone on the Supervisory Board, and I think I speak for the Executive Board, entire SAP staff as well, for his outstanding work and remarkable contribution to this company. Maybe he watches on the internet. Ladies and gentlemen, after Jim informed us of his decision, the Supervisory Board immediately got down to work looking for a suitable successor. Since the Supervisory Board does not yet fulfill the statutory quota requiring at least 30% of its seats to be held by women, only women may be considered for this position. In addition, it's important to us that we find a person with proven technical expertise, strong management skills, and a high degree of international loyalty to succeed Jim. That was quite a catalog of requirements, and we added, also possibly with knowledge in artificial intelligence.
We believe we've now found the ideal candidate, Aicha Evans. The most suitable candidate, I'm sure, who meets all these requirements. We are now supposed to see a picture on the screen. There she is. This is Aicha Evans. Aicha Evans is from the U.S. and works in Silicon Valley, California, as Chief Strategy Officer of Intel, the U.S. American semiconductor manufacturer, known as the world's leading producer of PC processors and server processors. Ms. Evans has a degree in computer engineering and is currently responsible for driving Intel's new strategy to transform from a PC-centric company to a data-centric one. Previous to this role, Ms. Evans was in charge of Intel's mobile communications business. In her career, she has held a number of management positions at Intel and other companies in the semiconductor industry, including a stint in Israel.
Given this background and expertise, we think she would make a great addition to the Supervisory Board. We would have liked to prepare Ms. Evans for election here today at this meeting, unfortunately, this was no longer possible. This search, which took a lot of time, plus the periods of time required in the German Stock Corporation Act, made this impossible. We'll propose to the competent court that after Jim Hagemann Snabe leaving the Supervisory Board, Ms. Evans will be appointed new Supervisory Board member, and at next year's shareholders' meeting, the appointment will be formalized with your vote. I hope Ms. Evans will have your backing at that time. Jim offered to stay on until we found a successor, the handover promises to be seamless. We are supposed to applaud. Ladies and gentlemen, let me now comment on another important matter.
Following the disappointing result of last year's vote regarding the Executive Board's compensation and new SAP long-term incentive programs, we took an in-depth look at the possible reasons for the poor acceptance of our compensation package. There was also general criticism of our corporate governance in this regard, we analyzed these aspects as well. Let me go into more details about these points. Shareholders had criticized, for example, that SAP didn't have any women on its Executive Board, and that the Supervisory Board hadn't yet fulfilled the statutory quota. As you now can see, we've caught up on both fronts with Adaire and Jennifer's appointments to the Executive Board, and Aicha Evans's appointment to the Supervisory Board, which would fulfill the quota. Another criticism was that we do not disclose Supervisory Board and committee meeting attendance records.
In response, the General Compensation Committee has decided to publish relevant information in our next Supervisory Board report. Starting immediately, we'll also make relevant information available on our website. If and when you need information, you could have written a letter to me. I'd passed it on to Luka Mucic, and he would have made the appropriate preparations. This is not a problem, really, and it doesn't have to be shifted to the next shareholders' meeting. Another criticism concerned the composition of the Supervisory Board, specifically the long terms of service of certain members and the insufficient international orientation of the Supervisory Board. We'll also expand the information in our Supervisory Board member profiles on our website. I want to stress clearly that the composition of SAP as a European company, unlike in our previous legal form as AG, is of outstandingly international design, specifically at Supervisory Board level.
As you can see from the individuals up here on stage, we have three employee representatives coming from countries other than Germany, and the same holds true among our shareholder representatives. The Supervisory Board will, of course, continue to focus on internationalization and independence of candidates when it comes to future changes. Some investors and shareholder proxies had not considered Jim to be independent when he transitioned directly from the Executive Board to the Supervisory Board. As for the Executive Board compensation package you voted on last year, lack of transparency and insufficient explanation was the main criticism raised against it. We therefore used the narrow approval rate as an opportunity to redesign our compensation report and present our compensation in a more transparent and understandable way. Some first feedback suggests that we've succeeded.
You also complained about some of the details of our Executive Board compensation. A major source of contention was the lack of clarity on individual compensation components, such as the discretionary element for the Supervisory Board members in the short-term incentive plan and the target achievement level for the individual elements. We'll aim for more transparency in this regard going forward as much as we can do without creating an advantage to our competitors. Looking at the long-term incentive plan, LTI, investors complained about the fact that payouts could occur even if the SAP share price underperformed the peer group index, the group we compare ourselves with. I'd like to point out here that our peer group index is a very demanding comparator index.
In addition to Microsoft and Oracle, to name just a few, it includes established software companies as well as fast-moving cloud vendors such as Salesforce.com, Workday, and ServiceNow. Beating this index in price development is a major challenge. We'll try to present the composition of this index more clearly in the future. There's nothing to hide. Also criticized was the fact that we do not generally set a cap on severance payments in all cases of premature termination of Executive Board contracts as recommended in the German Corporate Governance Code. As you are aware, SAP has for years now declared a deviation from this code recommendation. Our declaration of implementation explains this in detail, this does not mean that there's generally none, but do in fact foresee a cap on severance payments in the event of a change of control.
If a member of the Executive Board leaves voluntarily, SAP, of course, no longer severance payments in the event of a change of control. If a member of grants them any new rights, such as under the LTI program. However, we do not believe it is practicable in Executive Board member contracts to cap severance pay in cases of premature termination by agreement. In such cases, a cap on severance pay stipulated in the appointment contract would be difficult for the company to enforce unilaterally. It will always boil down to court proceedings. As I said, it is not possible for the company to make this unilateral regulation work. Our deviation from the code in this regard is meant to ensure the necessary flexibility to find a fair and equitable solution.
I can assure you that the Supervisory Board will only make use of this possibility when appropriate, and always with the best interests of shareholders in mind. Despite the narrow approval rate, shareholders did not question the general structure of our Executive Board compensation system in last year's meeting. We retained it because it comprises a relatively moderate base salary and a high proportion of long-term variable compensation that is based on sustained company growth. We see our compensation package as well-placed, in line with common practice of DAX companies and other international competitors. With respect to the amount of Executive Board member pay, which is currently in the focus of public interest, again, the Supervisory Board thinks that it is appropriate.
When reviewing Executive Board compensation, the Supervisory Board primarily considers whether the compensation is commensurate with SAP size and global reach, operational and financial performance, and directors' compensation at comparable international companies in the technology industry. The level of compensation has to be internationally competitive to reward committed, successful work in a dynamic environment. As Europe's largest software company in an industry dominated by U.S. American competitors, we face a particular challenge. That is why the Supervisory Board last year commissioned an external comparative analysis of Executive Board compensation at other DAX 30 companies and our global peers. Based on that analysis, we increased the long-term element to better ensure that our compensation is competitive with that of our international peers. Let me give you a few figures at this point. CEO IBM, EUR 30 million. CEO HPE, EUR 30 million. CEO Salesforce.com, EUR 34 million. CEO, Co-CEO Oracle one, EUR 41 million. Co-CEO Oracle two, EUR 41 million.
Chairman Oracle, EUR 41 million. 100 times the amount I am paid, but this is not for the record. Maybe you recall the figures because in four minutes, I will address our figures. Bill McDermott is now represented in the press as the CEO who leads the salary ranking of DAX-listed companies. Sometimes it is EUR 13 million, EUR 14 million, or EUR 15 million as his annual income, which seems to be much more important than the success and the performance of Bill McDermott for our company. Let me emphasize that in this industry, quite different salaries are being paid, which I just alluded. Let me also point out that the remuneration of Bill McDermott depends considerably on the development of the stock price of SAP, and there is a four-year vesting period.
Instead of being paid money at the end of the year, he has EUR 1.5 million fixed salary, EUR 2.5 million of a bonus based on performance criteria, which determine performance throughout the year, and he is paid an LTI package, long-term incentive package, which is not paid out, but on request of corporate governance rules or as a result of practice in U.S. startup companies, his LTI bonus is converted into shares, SAP shares, which are put in a safe. Four years later, he may take them out and look at Yahoo or Google what they are worth now. When issued, they were worth EUR 7.6 million for 2016. What they'll be worth in four years' time, we don't know.
They may be worth much less if SAP doesn't do a good job or there will be a worldwide crisis, or they may have risen clearly if SAP will be doing a super job. Bill should, after all, be reminded of letting SAP grow in terms of shareholder value. He's receiving EUR 12 million. How this is going to develop depends on the stock market. If there's a positive development, your shares will develop positively, too. In a positive development case, the institutionalized investors will also benefit. Those in Berlin sat down thinking again, saying, "If it grows very strongly, if stock prices soar, then please, when we pick the shares out of the safe, we'll have to have another look at their growth.
If it's more than 300%, why don't you cut off a bit here and there?" I fail to understand the idea, but we followed that and said, "Fine, if the increase is above 200%, triple share price, we'll apply a cap." This cap needs to be listed in the annual report. It's the EUR 41 million. Should it ever happen that the pay of 2016, in four years' time, because of explosion of the stock price, Bill would have EUR 41 million. You would have more than doubled the value of your stocks twice. The shareholder who complained or drew attention to this would have made a bit more than EUR 2 billion. Not bad at all. That we did the right thing, so that Bill won't think of letting the stocks soar briefly, giving him a good bonus.
It should be high up, still continue rising in four years' time, because it will go on next year. I think that is a very good system. To explain the cause of the EUR 14. This year performed so well that if we were to take the stock out of the safe now, it would have risen 18%. We can say for 2016, Bill would have received EUR 14 million, which he didn't, only EUR 12. The balance is the long-term development of SAP's stock price, for which I assume responsibility on behalf of you, the shareholders, to make sure that the shareholder value is at least maintained or increased and that a decent dividend will be paid. The development of these LTI shares in your safe is only a matter of the development of the stock price. The executive board can help.
The supervisory board will make sure that the proper members of the executive board perform. We'll hear from Bill McDermott how things develop. The value presented in the compensation report is merely the relevant fair value of the virtual stocks on the grant date and can therefore deviate from the amount that is ultimately paid out. I explained the 4-year period. I explained the numbers. Should there be such a sensational development, I think Bill earned it. Of course, our staff as well. Within the framework of the stock savings program, Luka, the present figure is about EUR 1 billion. Luka Mucic, after the first quarter, we announced this year that it's between EUR 950 million and EUR 1 billion of stock-orientated remuneration reserved for the staff members. That also needs some applause. It was criticized in Europe, strangely enough, with the criticism that it would reduce profit.
In the U.S., the attitude was quite different. Work is being performed by the 85,000 staff members. The executive board only steers the right course, the supervisory board offers their advice. The staff members must not be forgotten. Then? If we come back to this very hypothetical case, you shouldn't hope that it would ever occur. Apple succeeded. I don't think that in 4 years' time, we will triple our share price. Should it ever happen, staff members will also have a triplication of the shares allotted to them. I hope that I've explained things so that everybody understood. Luka Mucic said, "This is the way it's expressed in the annual report." I, as a professor, took the liberty of trying to explain it in my words. I hope I've been able to clear almost all these issues.
What variable remuneration looks like, why it's capped in this funny way. Well, we owe this to those who think about controlling a joint stock corporation. We of the supervisory board feel that this remuneration of the executive board is an adequate basis for achieving our goal of making SAP the world leader in the cloud with the current leadership team. Bill is going to talk about this in a minute. We believe the compensation package offers the right incentives, reflects SAP's global orientation, and secures the competitiveness of our company. An opinion had also been obtained from an external compensation consultant to confirm the appropriateness of the compensation. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll now ask Bill McDermott to address you. [Foreign language]
Ich nenne es das Internet aller Dinge, aber eigentlich ist es das Internet des täglichen Lebens. Gemeinsam möchten wir, Dell und SAP, dass die Möglichkeiten, die das Internet der Dinge bietet, für unsere Kunden Realität werden. Bei Dell arbeiten wir überall mit SAP-Lösungen, von Finanzen über Einkauf bis zur Reisekostenabrechnung. Live Business spielt dabei eine wichtige Rolle. Und diese Art von Live-Information wollen wir für alle unsere Kunden. Denn je mehr Live-Informationen, umso besser die Live Insights und umso größer der Nutzen für nahezu jeden Aspekt unserer Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Das ist die Riesenchance für unsere Generation, die nächste industrielle Revolution. Dell Technologies ist live mit SAP.
[Foreign language] Welcome. The video message you just watched tells a powerful story. Michael Dell built one of the most significant companies in the world, and now he is reinventing his company for the 21st century economy with SAP. For more than 350,000 customers in 193 countries, SAP is the trusted innovator. As you will hear in my remarks today, SAP has never been a stronger company than it is right now. We have never been more dedicated to serving our customers or creating value for you, our shareholders. From this position of immense strength, we will discuss the very bright future of SAP. This is especially important when you consider our unique past. SAP's distinguished chairman, Hasso Plattner, is a once-in-a-generation innovator.
Together with his co-founders, he gave us a legacy of excellence that we work to honor each and every day. Thank you, Hasso Plattner. To help carry that legacy forward, I proudly welcome Adaire Fox-Martin and Jennifer Morgan to the Executive Board of SAP. Congratulations, Adaire and Jen. Dear Chairman, dear Supervisory Board members, thank you for your continued support and confidence. Nothing that we achieve would be possible without the 85,571 women and men of SAP. Please join me in thanking them for their outstanding work for our company. Let's discuss our past, present, and future. I'll begin by looking back. In 2010, we set out to make SAP the world's most innovative company. In 2010, we set out to make SAP the world's most innovative company. Coming out of the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, we asked hard questions.
How do we remain relevant to our customers? How do we increase our value to the world economy? We wanted to build upon the 76% of transactions that touched an SAP system. I mean, after all, the biggest commercial enterprises use SAP software to serve their customers. Public sector agencies use our technology for healthcare, education, and safety. On that basis, we made the bold decision that have guided us ever since. We did two important things to put this company, your company, on a strong, sustainable path. First, we set a vision to help the world run better and improve people's lives. This has become the highest purpose for our company, motivating our employees in everything they do. Second, we set a strategy to accelerate SAP as a profitable growth company.
We strengthened SAP's existing products in business application to a new database to handle the world's big data, SAP HANA. Thank you, Hasso. We acquired the best cloud companies so SAP would lead the new era of cloud computing in the 21st century. Overall, at a time when the technology industry was changing fast, SAP was the most decisive company to declare an ambition for growth. That's why we more than tripled the addressable market from EUR 110 billion to over EUR 440 billion. Big market. Today, the facts are clear. Our growth strategy is on the right course. Please consider the following metrics since 2009. SAP's total revenue has more than doubled. Our operating profit has more than doubled. Our employee engagement has never been higher. SAP is now the 22nd most valuable brand in the world.
We are recognized by Dow Jones as the most sustainable company in the software industry. We are also the first global IT company to be EDGE certified for our commitment to gender diversity. As a result of all this progress, SAP's market value has nearly tripled. We are now Germany's most valuable company. Congratulations, dear shareholders, and congratulations, SAP. Thank you. Last year, we continued our strong momentum. 2016 was one of the best years in SAP history. The figures I will share with you are all non-IFRS at constant currencies, unless I state otherwise. Cloud and software revenue grew by 8%. This came in above the midpoint of the full-year outlook that we actually raised earlier in the year.
SAP is a geographically diverse company, our results on a global basis are more insulated from macroeconomic distractions, and that yields a simple result, strong growth in every region of the world. Cloud subscriptions and support revenue was 3 billion EUR, and this achieved the raised full-year outlook. New cloud bookings, the key measure for SAP's sales success in the cloud, increased 31% to 1.15 billion EUR. Now, listen to this. When you think about contracts that were signed but not yet recognized fully, our cloud backlog increased 47%, reaching 5.4 billion EUR by year-end. For the full year. Thank you. That's that cloud company powered by HANA. For the full year, operating profit was 6.6 billion EUR, and we once again, in this case, achieved the raised full-year outlook. Our IFRS earnings per share increased 19% to EUR 3.04.
SAP's rapidly expanding cloud business, together with solid growth in support revenue continue to drive the share of more predictable revenue to new heights. Overall, we were the only business software company to grow our cloud business, grow our core business, and expand our operating income at the same time. We call this the SAP Trifecta. We are also intensely focused on the profitability targets, especially between 2018 and 2020. In particular, we made continued progress towards these goals for our various cloud businesses. When we think about profitability in the cloud, scale is the key. As the businesses grow, the share of renewals increases. Thus, the overall cost of sales goes down while margins go up. We decided in 2015 to accelerate our investments to plan for strong cloud growth. These infrastructure and cloud delivery investments do weigh on the margin in the short term.
As you can see in this graphic, with investments phasing out this year, we will improve profitability through 2020. Our clear priority is profitable growth, and we are on the right track. As ever, the full story of SAP success in 2016 was not only in financial results. By achieving progress in SAP social and environmental performance, we are further strengthening the company for the future. For example, we have calculated that every 1% change in employee engagement has a 50 million EUR impact on our profit. We are especially happy and proud that we have hit an all-time high with employee engagement scores exceeding 85% in 2016. Thank you. This engagement stems from the high trust that exists between our people and our leaders. How do we know? We keep a leadership trust score to measure this, and it increased five percentage points last year alone.
We also found that every one percentage point decrease in carbon emissions has a positive EUR 5 million effect on operating profit. We are proud that SAP's data centers are 100% powered by renewable energy. Thank you. We're going even further as we recently announced that SAP will be carbon neutral by 2025. Whether in our financial, social or environmental performance, 2016 was the latest year of validation for SAP's vision and strategy. Dear shareholders, I humbly suggest to you that these results should make all of us proud to be associated with SAP. We are a strong, profitable, sustainable growth company. Thank you. Now please allow me to give you an update on our plans to secure SAP's bright future. Last year, we began to discuss the concept of digital business. You probably have heard this described as Industry 4.0 here in Germany.
In simple terms, digital innovation involves the use of data from many sources to help businesses run better. Think about this. Every two days, the world creates as much data as existed in the world from the beginning of time until 2003. Every two days. Wow. For a business owner, the challenge to make intelligent use of this information can be overwhelming. This is why SAP must help our customers become data-driven digital businesses. When you consider how SAP products do this, I would offer you the following framework. First, SAP is one of the fastest-growing database companies in the world. Too many businesses are still unable to use big data. You know why? It's trapped in these old database systems that were designed by legacy companies in the 20th century. That's why SAP HANA was the most successful and significant invention in the IT history. Amazing.
Only with this groundbreaking in-memory database platform can SAP give our customers the tools that they need to compete in this digital economy. Instead of waiting days or weeks to analyze information, businesses can now do this instantaneously, thanks to SAP HANA. I still think we should declare it a holiday. Happy HANA. SAP HANA. I still think we should declare it a holiday. Happy HANA. Thousands of customers have adopted SAP HANA, making it the fastest-growing product in our industry. We will continue to accelerate the mass adoption of this transformational product in the years ahead. Can't thank Hasso enough. Second, SAP is a leader in cloud business applications and analytics. The SAP HANA architecture enabled us to build a new state-of-the-art portfolio of business applications. The flagship of which is SAP S/4HANA, which we have described as the core system for a digital business.
We all remember the early days of enterprise resource planning or ERP. The R/3 ERP system standardized business processes and captured the imagination of the world. From R/3, we have evolved to the future, which is now S/4. You'll be happy to know that we even protected shareholder value by avoiding the need for expensive marketing consultants. You see, R became S, and 3 became 4, thus SAP S/4HANA. Simple. Rather than describe how businesses are benefiting from SAP S/4HANA, let's hear it from one of SAP's dynamic customers. Roll them.
The starting situation was the so-called warnings, in which there were always problems between the actual order situation, sales forecasts, which in the old system simply had to run via batch jobs, so that the figures in this warning were then two days old. Therefore, the homework was to make the information available faster and of higher quality.
Controlling has to be fast, it has to be flexible, which is crucial. Nobody is willing to wait. I need one week to prepare the data. The information is out of date and the management needs the information no longer. We are growing. We are in a very demanding market environment. We have to make decisions relatively quickly.
S/4HANA simply offers the possibility to do calculations in real time in main memory. We see such great potential through this, it's almost a feeling of happiness.
The data quality is significantly better. I have all the information in one system.
I can present directly out of the system and go to the management rounds.
The controller is no longer the one who just sits in his office, but we should actually be on site as business partners, where the operational management is also.
We have moved to HANA in one step as technology, as a platform, and in the related next step, immediately made S/4HANA available. I'm really proud that it worked out in time, in quality and in budget. We actually never thought that we would manage this with the small, powerful group.
[Foreign language] Baue ich eine Brücke und hoffe, dass das jetzt schön einführend ist. Das ist SAP Fiori. Das sind völlig neue Dimensionen in der Art und Weise, die wir da zur Verfügung stellen können in Zukunft. Eben nicht nur in Papierform oder irgendwo am Bildschirm oder per E-Mail, sondern jeder im Unternehmen hat die Information auf seinem Gerät. Ich habe sie auf meinem Gerät, kann damit fraglich schnell antworten, ganz egal, wo ich auf der Welt gerade bin.
[Foreign language] Wir produzieren Geräte im optischen Bereich, die wirklich am Rande des physikalisch Möglichen arbeiten. Das spiegelt sich auch in der IT bei uns wider. Wir haben jetzt mit S/4HANA einen Monatsabschluss gemacht, der circa anderthalb Tage nur benötigt hat. Im vorherigen System war das ungefähr eine Woche. Ein erstmaliger Jahresabschluss wurde in wenigen Tagen durchgeführt, was früher mehrere Wochen benötigt hat. Alle Informationen, Key Informationen fürs Unternehmen, Umsatzprognosen sind heute auf Knopfdruck abrufbar. Das geht nur mit S/4HANA.[/Foreign language] SAP helps Airbus Defence and Space Run Simple.
As you saw in the video, SAP S/4HANA is already changing the way our customers run. What's important, dear shareholders, is that we are still in the very early days of the SAP S/4HANA opportunity. To date, we have more than 5,800 customers running the SAP S/4HANA system. This means that more than 80% of SAP's ERP customers and many thousands of net new customers can adopt the solution in the years ahead. This is a major growth opportunity for SAP. Our portfolio of business applications does not end with our core ERP system either. We have many best-in-class applications to help our customers run their businesses. One such example is how businesses engage with their consumers. Many of us here today have purchased products from our smart devices. Sometimes we visit retail stores. Other times, we may buy through a third-party website.
Think of how difficult it is for businesses to know who we are or where we are. With SAP Hybris, we have leading applications to give businesses a single view of their consumer. With SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Fieldglass, we are engaging the total workforce, and only SAP can do this. Let's hear from another customer who is succeeding with SAP.
[Foreign language] Es sind die Menschen, die ein Unternehmen ausmachen. Das ist uns und unserem CEO sehr wichtig. Wir wollen unseren Mitarbeitern Erfahrungen fürs Leben bieten. Wir wollen das erreichen, indem wir auf allen Positionen großartige Menschen verpflichten, die außerordentlich gut zusammenarbeiten und alle ihr Bestes geben. Jaguar Land Rover will wachsen. Wir wollen innovativ sein und wettbewerbsfähig bleiben. Eine Grundvoraussetzung dafür ist, dass unsere Dienstleistungen sich ebenfalls verändern, damit wir die strategischen Ziele des Unternehmens unterstützen können. Unser Ziel war es, ein Standardpaket von Best-in-Class-Prozessen einzuführen, damit die Personalabteilung die beste Technologie hat, um ihren Job zu machen. Entscheidend war, dass wir eine Software installieren, die so wenig wie möglich angepasst werden muss. SuccessFactors unterstützt unsere Unternehmensziele, weil es den Mitarbeitern im Unternehmen eine tolle Erfahrung liefert, wir aber auch neue Talente gewinnen und uns auf dieser Plattform weiterentwickeln können.[/Foreign language]
[Foreign language] Mitarbeiter werden jetzt als Kunden gesehen, so wie sie es sich auch wünschen. IBM hat uns dabei geholfen, die Prozesse unserer Organisationsstruktur und die Stellen zu definieren, die wir benötigen, um die Personalabteilung neu aufzustellen. Das Schöne war, dass sie dabei in der gesamten Umsetzung als strategischer Partner agiert haben und nicht einfach nur Zulieferer waren. Wir haben schnell festgestellt, dass das Unternehmen am stärksten durch die Umstellung des Rekrutierungsprozesses unterstützt würde. Besonders die Fachgebietsleiter, weil deren Job immer anspruchsvoller wird, je mehr wir das Unternehmen transformieren. Wir können schon jetzt viel schneller neue Mitarbeiter einstellen, was sich äußerst positiv auf das Geschäft insgesamt auswirkt. Das beste Feedback, das wir bisher von unserem Management-Team bekommen haben, ist, dass während einer Vorstandssitzung der neue Einstellungsprozess als wunderbar bezeichnet wurde. Wir hoffen, dass dies ein neuer Standard ist, den die Menschen auch anerkennen.[/Foreign language]
[Foreign language] Dass wir genauso Jaguar Land Rover führen wollen und dass dieser neue Standard für uns eine Plattform ist, die uns hilft, uns weiterzuentwickeln und uns gegen die Konkurrenz zu behaupten. Wir wollen globales Wachstum und Innovation vorantreiben.[/Foreign language]
These customer testimonials give us a powerful view of why SAP's businesses are growing so much. The momentum applies to many additional areas, including procurement with SAP Ariba and business travel with SAP Concur. All of these applications come together for our customers in their SAP Digital Boardroom. This brings SAP systems to life, enabling our customers to predict futures, simulate new business ideas in real time, and reinvent business models altogether. Finally, we have the SAP Cloud Platform. Our platform-as-a-service offering is a solution for developers to build new business applications. We want everyone to know in clear terms that SAP is a platform company. With our platform, we can help SAP customers adopt the latest breakthroughs. The Internet of Everything, machine learning, and blockchain are three categories of modern innovation where we see fast-growing interest. SAP has the best-in-class developers fully activated on these new innovations.
The SAP Cloud Platform makes it possible to quickly strengthen our existing applications, keeping our install base very happy. You have already seen many large technology companies partnering with us on our platform. These brands include Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Siemens. These are just prominent examples. There's hundreds of others. We will continue to scale our platform to drive new innovation and future growth. In summary, you can see that SAP has a comprehensive strategy, a state-of-the-art modern in-memory database, best-of-breed business applications in the cloud, and a cloud platform that is building next-generation solutions, all with an intuitive, beautiful experience for our users, delivered with industry domain expertise that our customers have grown to expect from SAP. They are protected by the industry's most trusted service and support program, SAP MaxAttention. Customers can choose to run our software however best fits their unique business needs.
We are a company that's easy to do business with. Once again, this breadth and depth is unique to SAP. The work of SAP always begins looking around corners for the next frontiers of innovation. In our SAP innovation centers here in Germany and around the world, we have teams working to invent the next big breakthroughs. They are conducting design thinking workshops to ensure our customers are always in the center of everything we do. With a current market capitalization of over EUR 110 billion, the market recognizes our innovation strategy. The SAP stock increased nearly 30% since beginning of 2016. As we have continued to hit new highs in our share price in 2017, SAP remains a rock-solid investment. We firmly believe our shareholders should benefit from SAP success.
Therefore, for 2016, the executive board and the supervisory board proposed to raise the dividend by another 9% to EUR 1.25 per share. This represents a dividend payout of approximately EUR 1.5 billion and a payout ratio of 41%. You will be asked to vote on this dividend payout later in today's meeting. As I move to my closing remarks, I'd like to discuss our vision and purpose. To help the world run better and improve people's lives. This is the unifying vision that we declared back in 2010, as I know you remember. SAP has never been a company with small aspirations. We have bold plans. You see, we believe that the world's greatest challenges are also the world's greatest opportunities. That's why we have invested to make SAP a responsible corporate citizen and a leader.
We are focused on three areas: the economy, the environment, and society. For the economy, we are dedicated to training workers for the jobs of tomorrow. Our website, open.sap.com, offers education programs so that anyone can learn about digital technologies and improve. To date, more than 1 million people have participated in these online courses. Our University Alliances program is working with 2,000 universities to train future graduates with the digital skills that they need to compete. We are teaching young people in Germany, Africa, and Latin America to code and sell software. Now more than ever, this global economy needs leading companies like SAP to help all people see the new opportunities on the horizon. For the environment, we want our company to help protect our precious planet. We have actually seen customers using SAP HANA to preserve the Amazon rainforest.
Industry 4.0 breakthroughs are strengthening the agricultural industry everywhere. Finally, society as a whole. SAP technology will strengthen the healthcare system. As you know, at NCT in Heidelberg, SAP HANA is changing the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, helping to save lives. The same platform is extending now globally to the American Society of Clinical Oncology and a universe of startup companies globally. We are breaking down the barriers for all people to access innovation and live better lives. Our Autism at Work program is bringing amazing new talent to SAP. Our inclusion programs are strengthening our uniquely diverse culture. Here's a video that'll help you understand SAP's overall passionate commitment to the world.
[Foreign language] Die Teilnahme am SAP Social Sabbatical ist eine einmalige Gelegenheit, die dein Leben verändert. Das hört sich nach einer Floskel an, aber wir bekommen das regelmäßig von unseren Teilnehmern bestätigt. Das SAP Social Sabbatical ist ein einzigartiger, befristeter Einsatz unserer talentierten Mitarbeiter. In aufstrebenden Wachstumsregionen helfen wir sozialen Unternehmen und Non-Profit-Organisationen, konkrete Herausforderungen ihrer Institutionen zu lösen. Wir schauen, wo die Unternehmen heute stehen und wo sie in Zukunft hinwollen.[/Foreign language]
[Foreign language] Ich bin hier gerade in Indonesien. Wir arbeiten mit der örtlichen Universität an einem Projekt, das den sanften, nachhaltigen Tourismus auf einer Insel fördern soll.[/Foreign language]
[Foreign language] Wir sind hier, um unser Wissen weiterzugeben und bestehende Initiativen auf ein neues Niveau zu bringen, um so bei der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung der Region zu helfen.[/Foreign language]
[Foreign language] Die Menschen hier verwenden nicht unbedingt SAP. Vielleicht werden sie es auch zukünftig nicht nutzen, aber wir hoffen, dass bei ihnen ankommt, dass wir uns ihrer Probleme annehmen und ihren Projekten zum Erfolg verhelfen wollen.[/Foreign language]
[Foreign language] Das SAP Social Sabbatical ist ein Programm, das wir im Jahr 2012 gestartet haben. Wir haben sehr klein mit 30 Teilnehmern in nur three Städten begonnen. Es ist seitdem sehr schnell gewachsen. Heute schicken wir 120 Teilnehmer an 10 verschiedene Orte. Allein in diesem Jahr reisen unsere Teilnehmer nach Kolumbien, Südafrika, auf die Philippinen, China, Ruanda und Myanmar. Es ist großartig, wie viel Unterstützung wir in unseren Unternehmen für das Programm erhalten haben. Man kann wirklich sehen, welchen positiven Einfluss diese Projekte haben. Ich hatte die Möglichkeit, nach Surabaya, Indonesien zu gehen und das zu tun, was meiner Meinung nach wirklich einen großen Einfluss haben wird: Die Jugendlichen dort auf ihr Berufsleben vorzubereiten.
[Foreign language] Das Social Sabbatical ermöglicht es mir, mich intensiv mit anderen Kulturen, der Sprache und den Menschen dort zu beschäftigen. Alles aus ihrer Perspektive zu sehen, hilft mir bei der Entwicklung von neuen Produkten.
[Foreign language] Wenn unsere Mitarbeiter zurückkommen, sind sie hochmotiviert, enorm engagiert und sehr stolz darauf, für ein Unternehmen zu arbeiten, das sich seiner sozialen Verantwortung ernsthaft stellt. Damit verbessern wir unser Firmenimage und gewinnen außerdem wichtige Einblicke in aufstrebende Märkte. SAP's Wunsch, „Help the world run better", ist wirklich ein großartiger Slogan. Über das Social Sabbatical Program wird es auch aktiv gelebt. In meinen Augen sind Unternehmen auch dazu verpflichtet, Gutes in der Gesellschaft zu tun. Das Social Sabbatical Program bringt einen großen Mehrwert für das Unternehmen. Es setzt gezielt unsere beruflichen Fähigkeiten ein, um etwas zurückzugeben. Es verbessert nicht nur das Leben der Menschen dort, wo wir Geschäftsbeziehungen pflegen, sondern auch die Welt im Allgemeinen. Das Social Sabbatical ist enorm wichtig für SAP. Es hat einen Nerv innerhalb des Unternehmens getroffen. Die Reaktionen auf das Programm sind überwältigend und es wurde zu einer wichtigen Säule in unserem weltweiten CSR program.
This is a heartwarming example of SAP's legacy and potential. By sharing our amazing colleagues with the world, we have made a profound investment in its future. Please note the agenda items on the screen you will be asked to vote on in today's meeting. I'll give you a few moments to review them. Please take a look. Okay, you look good. Dear shareholders, in closing, I would emphasize that trust is the ultimate human currency. Because of your trust, SAP is a successful company. We have assembled the best solutions in the information technology industry. We have grown our company. We have created thousands of new jobs and thousands more customers than any time in our history. In return for your trust, we will continue to work very, very hard for SAP. Already we are off to a fast start in 2017.
Our first quarter revenue growth exceeded market expectations. This and our people power give us total confidence in our 2017 guidance and our 2020 ambition. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my personal honor to serve as the CEO of SAP, and I personally take enormous pride in representing Germany's most valuable company on the global stage. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of my executive board colleagues, I thank you for your trust, your confidence, and your support of SAP. [Foreign language]