Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased to declare this year's Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of SAP is open. Welcome. The Annual General Meeting of Shareholders is taking place under unusual conditions this year because the COVID-nineteen pandemic has made it impossible for us to hold the meeting in our customary manner. For this reason, we decided to make use of the legislation enacted by the coronavirus crisis and to the wide ranging restrictions on gatherings of all kinds and to hold today's Annual General Meeting of Shareholders virtually.
In contrast to previous years and to what we had planned for this year, we therefore welcome you not to the SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany, but to a purely virtual meeting taking place at SAP Group headquarters in Waldorf, Germany without the physical presence of our shareholders. This was not a decision we took lightly because we know that you, our shareholders, greatly appreciate the dialogue you have with us, the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board of SAP at our Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. The format of a virtual Annual General Meeting of Shareholders offers only limited opportunities for this dialogue to take place. Nevertheless, we will try to answer your questions and address your comments as effectively as the virtual format allows. On a positive note, the legislation permitting a virtual Annual General Meeting of shareholders with a shortened invitation period has allowed us to keep to the date we had originally scheduled for our meeting.
This in turn means that we can pay the dividend to our shareholders as announced provided of course that you approve management's proposed dividend as it appears on the agenda for today's meeting. We believe, therefore, that by taking this approach, we are acting in the interest of our shareholders. Another peculiarity of this Annual General Meeting of Shareholders is that it will not, as it is customary, be chaired by the SAP Supervisory Board Chairman, Professor Hassel Plattner. This is also due to the COVID-nineteen pandemic. Mr.
Plattner is currently abroad and hopes you will appreciate that he does not wish to expose himself to the health risks of traveling to Germany at this time. He has therefore asked me to chair this Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, and he would like to send his greetings with the following video message. Today.
And the first comment
I'd like to share with you. Since her sex was irrelevant when we decided to become CEO, it was irrelevant too when we decided that she has to leave. I'm convinced that we'll see more women in executive positions in the future at SAP and elsewhere. And I wish all the best to Jennifer for her future. Christian Klein has been known to me since he started as a trainee student at SAP.
I hope so how on his own, he gained the respect and recognition by his performance, both from employees and from customers. For a future proof SAP with his experience despite his relatively young age, he's the right person right now. Here's the Trust not on May 1, but of the entire Supervisory Board and also of the colleagues in the Executive Board. You will see him in a minute and can form your own picture. Let me seize this opportunity to express my thanks to Stefan Ries and Michael Klein and Meyer and bid farewell to them.
Michael was one of the most dedicated defenders of customer interest within SAP and the customer really appreciated his reliability. Stefan contributed greatly to the further profit and realization of HR. I'd like to thank both of them on behalf of the Supervisory Board, and I wish them all the best. Personally, I can look back to almost 50 years of SAP. Turbulent times and by the look of it, the turbulence will keep going for some time.
I think personally, Govellak, that with the HBI in Potsdam and my direct exchange with students, I still have the opportunity to bring in my experience I have with SAP and the customers and to combine those with the latest developments made in technology. As long as I'm able to manage to do this together with my colleagues in the Supervisory Board, I can continue to provide advice and support in the Supervisory Board. And as long as that is required, I'm happy to do so. But this will come to an end at some point in time. And last year, I've indicated that during this term of office, I'm going to look after a successor.
But the events of the past month, however, and the uncertainties linked to COVID-nineteen have made me more careful. Proper succession planning is more essential than ever before, but we'll take our time, the time that is required and we won't be rushed into anything. I'd like to thank you for your trust to be able to do my job to the best of SFP until we've reached safer grounds and found good successor. Thank you very much. Stay safe and be well.
And I hand back to Frederic Roch. Ladies and gentlemen, following these preliminary remarks, I now need to announce the formalities of this virtual Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, which are of course significantly different from those of a conventional Annual General Meeting taking place in the physical presence of shareholders for the record. The Executive Board members, Christian Klein, Adaire Fox Martin, Luka Mutic and Thomas Sauer Esic are physically present here in the room. Likewise, the Margaret Klein Marga is with us today. The Executive Board members, Jurgen Muller and Stephan Ries and the members of the Supervisory Board, with the exception of Asia Evans and Diane Greene, who send their apologies, are following the meeting live on the Internet.
As such, we are complying with the contact restrictions imposed on us as a result of COVID-nineteen. I would like to welcome Doctor. Stefan Feldmid, Note Republic, who is also physically present here in the room and will be taking the minutes. Today's meeting was called with due notice in accordance with legal requirements and the provisions of the articles of incorporation. Notice of the meeting was published in the Bundes Anseiger on by German Federal Gazette on April 21, 2020.
A copy of the notice will be annexed to the minutes. All notices that are required for convening the Annual General Meeting were properly issued. No motions or candidacies were submitted by shareholders to the company. Although there are no shareholders physically present in the room where this virtual meeting is taking place, we're keeping electronic attendance register of the proxies designated by the company. They represent shareholders who have already appointed and instructed them accordingly or who do so during the course of the meeting.
A printed copy of the attendance register is here in the meeting room. Shareholders who properly applied through their custodian bank to attend the meeting and were sent their voting right card were able to exercise their voting rights in advance of the meeting either by postal vote or by appointing and instructing the proxies designated by the company. But there's still time now for shareholders to use their voting right card to appoint and instruct the proxies designated by the company or to cast their votes electronically via the password protected shareholder portal right up until the Executive Board has finished answering the questions submitted by shareholders and then voting begins. At that point, I will issue a clear reminder to shareholders that this is their final opportunity to cast their votes or issue voting instructions. As I said at the start of the meeting, the virtual format of the Annual General Meeting, unlike a meeting at which the participants are physically present, does not allow a direct dialogue with the shareholders and shareholders' representatives.
Nevertheless, it does provide for shareholders to ask questions in accordance with the new rules issued. In line with the COVID-nineteen Act, the Executive Board and Supervisory Board offer shareholders who properly registered to attend the meeting the opportunity to submit their questions via the password protected shareholder portal no later than midnight Central European Summer Time on May 17, 2020. Questions received in advance of the Annual General Meeting will be answered after the speech given by SAP's CEO, Christian Kleid. I would like to stress here that we have not preselected questions. No, we will answer all the questions submitted to us.
We will also try to answer these questions in as much detail as we would at an annual general meeting of shareholders at which the participants are physically present. I would like to point out that this virtual annual general meeting of shareholders is not only accessible online to register shareholders, but is being publicly broadcast on the Internet. However, only what I'm saying now and the speech given by CEO, Christian Klein, will be recorded and posted on the Internet after the meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, now to the agenda. Let us first take item 1 of the agenda.
I can report that the following documents were available at the website, www.sap.com/ investors from the time the Annual General Meeting was called, the 2019 SAP SE Financial Statements, the consolidated financial statements, the combined management report for the SAP Group and SAP SE, including the compensation report and the Executive Board's explanatory notes relating to the information provided pursuant to the German Commercial Code, Sections 289A, 1 and 350A-one, a Supervisory Board report and the Executive Board's proposed resolutions on the appropriation of retained earnings. These documents are here in the meeting room, and they can also be accessed on our website for the duration of the meeting. The auditor, KPMG AG, Wirtschaft Prufungsgesellschaft, examined the SAP SE financial statements, the consolidated financial statements and combined SAP SE and SAP Group Management report for fiscal year 2019 and issued an unqualified auditor's opinion. The Supervisory Board reviewed the aforementioned documents and approved them on February 19, 2020. The SAP SE financial statements for 2019 were thus formally adopted.
The Supervisory Board compiled a written report, which is published on pages 15 to 23 of the integrated report. This report describes the focus of the Supervisory Board's work in 2019 in detail and the way in which we discharged our function of advising and supervising the SAP Executive Board. Our work is founded on a close and trusting partnership between the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board on efficient distribution of tasks between the Supervisory Board and its committees and not least, on the use of our own software, such as the SAP Digital Boardroom, which visualizes all financial HR and process related information across all company transactions for us in real time whenever we need it. Let me go into more detail about some of the key areas of our work. Last year, the Secretvisory Board devoted considerable time at several meetings to discussing personal changes on the Executive Board and the associated restructuring of the Executive Board and to discussing the changes in Executive Board compensation, which I will return to in a moment.
We also deliberated at length at both Finance and Investment Committee and full supervisory board meetings the company's strategy and its future capital allocation policy. Following a detailed review, the Supervisory Board approved the enhanced capital return proposed by the Executive Board, authorizing the Executive Board to buy back shares totaling €1,500,000,000 in 2020. We also consistently focused attention on compliance matters in 2019 and particularly on the ongoing investigations being conducted with the assistance of external counsel into potential violations of anti corruption laws and export controls. In response to these investigations, company management substantially expanded their teams working on compliance and significantly improved its anti corruption compliance program. The Supervisory Board also addressed the issue of the gaps the company recently reported on in the contractual cybersecurity infrastructure terms for certain SAP Cloud products.
The Supervisory Board was closely involved in SAP's response, advising the Executive Board on performing internal investigations and on analyzing the results hereof. Please be assured that SAP is taking the gaps that have been identified in compliance with IT security standards very seriously indeed. The Supervisory Board likewise pushed very hard for these gaps to be remediated as quickly as possible. And my view is that we are making good progress here. Christian Klein will address this issue later in the proceedings.
Ladies and gentlemen, in 2019, this Advisory Board Chairman, Hasso Plattner, once again held discussions with institutional investors on matters that are the responsibility of the Supervisory Board. The aim of these discussions was to continuously channel feedback from our investors into our work on the Supervisory board. In this period of always making these exchanges transparent for our shareholders, there is, as last year, a letter on the SAP website from Mr. Plutna to all shareholders summarizing the main content of his discussions. I would like now to turn to changes in the membership of the Executive Board.
The Supervisory Board appointed Thomas, our ESC, to the Executive Board with effect from November 1, 2019. Since then, Thomas has been leading the Board Area SAP Product Engineering. I'd like to welcome Thomas to the meeting and ask him briefly to introduce himself to our shareholders.
Thank you very much, Frederica. I should like to welcome you almost cordially, this year not from Mannheim, but from Waldorf. Many things have changed in the current situation and so too has the format of this Annual General Meeting. However, where there are challenges, there are always also solutions and this is one of my life mottos. First of all, I would like to thank the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board for the trust you have placed in me.
It is an honor for me to be a member of the Executive Board since November 2019, especially in this day and time being faced with new challenges, it is very important to pioneer new paths and walk them together. Together actually is the key word here. Together with our employees, customers and partners and together with you, dear shareholders. Now a few words about my background. I'm from Lobach in Krakow.
I'm 35 years old. I'm married. I have 2 children aged 2.5 year. In 2,004, I joined SAP. So I spent almost half of my life here.
I feel deeply rooted in the company and I also feel committed to our employees, customers and our investors because I'm aware which importance as a P and L products have for the region, for Germany and for the global business world. The pandemic shows us how interconnected the economy is and how important digitization is now. Now most children dream to become firefighters, policemen or space travelers. However, my primary school yearbook said that one day I wanted to work at SAP. What I imagine SAP to look like at the moment back then corresponds to what I'm seeing now even though we continue to develop constantly.
I think this was due to the culture we have here in the company, which is marked by fairness and openness. A strong focus on customers and employees such as the foundation or the groundwork of our companies laid by SAP founders and which still gives us stability. I started my career at SAP in 2004 with a dual degree course. I started out at CRM where I learned a lot about working together with customers. Then I got the chance to work at Palo Alto, California where I saw a great ecosystem of innovative companies.
Then I became Gerd Ostwald's Board Assistance. And between 2016 and 2018, I was CIO with global responsibility. This was a very formative time because our products are the best or SAP is the best reference customer for our own products because we use them ourselves and I'm very aware of the products our customers are facing. At the request of the Executive Board in 2019, I went to engineering. And now I need lead the product developing with global applications, including SAP S4HANA, Digital Supply Chain and LOB Cloud Applications.
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud as well as our Global Cloud Infrastructure also part of my area of responsibility. All development cross functions are under one roof at SAP Globalization Services, user experience and the quality of our products as well as our educational offers. Now the value of our business applications becomes even clearer in this crisis. Digitization is more important than ever. Digital learning, agile software controlled and globally interlinked supply chains, especially in these difficult times, it is all the more important to have a reliable partner at one side.
Software which is agile and supports agile business processes and proactively makes reliable decisions is all the more important. We give customers the ability to prepare for unforeseen situations. SAP assumes responsibility for its customers, investors and for society. This agility allows for resilient business models, which strengthen trust in the company. We want to help our customers and partners to advance digitization, strengthening of Industry 4.0, adjusting the cloud to specific industry needs, connecting companies to great company networks.
This is one topic which is especially close to my heart and the support of sustainability goals. Despite the current situation, we have a positive outlook on the future. I'm looking forward to many successful years for SAP, for our customers and for you. On this note, stay healthy and thank you for your trust.
Thank you, Thomas. Well, beyond these changes, there have also been a number of other changes recently, which Hassel Plattner already mentioned. Bill McDermott, who served as SAP's CEO for almost 10 years, mutually agreed with the Supervisory Board to step down as CEO effective October 10, 2019 and leave SAP altogether in November 2019. In his place, Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein were appointed Co CEOs effective October 10, 2019. In February of this year, the Executive Board members, Stefan Rees and Michael Kleinemeyer, each reached a mutual decision with the Supervisory Board to end their employment with SAP.
Michael left SAP on April 30 after more than 30 years of service to the company, And Stefan will be leaving SAP at the end of May. Christian Klein became SAP's sole CEO on April 20 after Jennifer Morgan mutually agreed with the Supervisory Board to leave the company on April 30, 2020. Though some of these changes came as a surprise, all of the departing executive board members gave long service to SAP in different areas of the company and were instrumental in shaping and leading many different areas. Bill, Jennifer, Michael and Stephan can each look back on a long career at SAP. Their experience, their in-depth expertise and the enormous respect they enjoyed among employees, partners and customers alike were pivotal to the company's success.
We thank them all for their commitment to SAP. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to turn now to the matter of Executive Board Compensation. We last presented our Executive Board compensation system to the 2018 Annual General Meeting for approval, and the response we see from our shareholders at that time was very positive. Nevertheless, it subsequently became clear based also on feedback from our investors that adjustments were needed to the existing compensation system. Moreover, the implementation of the EU Shareholders' Rights directive into German law and the revised German corporate governance code have led to significant regulatory changes with respect to executive compensation, which are reflected in the new compensation system being presented to you today.
The most important changes are as follows. We have limited the frequently criticized discretionary powers exercised in determining payouts in both short term performance based compensation, STI, and long term performance based compensation, LTI programs, to a range of plusminus20 percent for the STI and to a range of plusminus10% for the LTI. For the STI, we've also introduced 3 sustainability key performance indicators or KPIs that make up 20% of the STI. These KPIs are employee engagement index, customer and promoters core and carbon impact. Each of these indicators are clearly measurable and have been part of our annual reporting since 2012.
We've also overhauled the concept of our long term performance based compensation, the LTI. For example, we've eliminated the discretion element in determining the grant amount. In addition, the performance share units, which used to be coupled to peer group index have been replaced with 2 new components. These 2 new components are based on challenging financial and market related targets that better reflect our company performance. And last but not least, we capped the payout of LTI rights after the 4 year vesting period to 200% of the original grant price.
The details of our proposed compensation systems are explained in full in the invitation to the Annual General Meeting. We are confident that the changes we have made and are presenting for your approval here today align us even more closely with our long term strategy. The new compensation system places still greater emphasis on the concept of performance based pay, enabling SAP to attract the best people and remain competitive on the national and international stage. The Supervisory Board is convinced that this compensation system provides a solid basis for achieving SAP's long term goals with the current leadership team. Ladies and gentlemen, I now call on SAP's CEO, Christian Klein, to address you.
This address has been published as of 15th May on our website.
Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, I would like to welcome you to the AGM of SAP SE. These are unprecedented times and the format of this event reflects it. I would very much prefer to be with you in the SAP arena in Mannheim today, delivering my first AGM address as CEO in person. But of course, your safety and health have priority, and we want to make sure that there is no delay in the payout of dividends, which is why we decided to hold a virtual AGM this time. It's clear that the corona pandemic has impacted each of us and our thoughts go out to those who are affected personally.
On behalf of the whole of SAP, I want to extend our deepest thanks to all those who are on the front lines battling the crisis each and every day and doing everything they can to keep our society going. The same goes for our more than 100,000 colleagues worldwide. I'm so impressed by your commitment. Thank you so much for what you're doing for society, for SAP and for our customers because it is our more than 440,000 customers who make sure that our business does not come to a halt and they're driving the economy forward. I also want to assure our partners we will not leave any of you standing out there in the rain.
In this time of crisis, we will fully focus on your success, and we will continue to work for that. Let me stay with a round of thanks for a minute. Leading SAP as CEO is both a tremendous honor and huge responsibility. So I would like to thank the supervisory board, not just for their support and counsel, but also for the trust they have put in me in this regard. When I joined SAP as a student 20 years ago, I never ever imagined that I would one day follow in the footsteps of such visionaries as Hasso Plattner and Dietmar Hoepp.
Dear Dietmar, you just recently celebrated your 80th birthday. Congratulations. Your social engagement and your willingness to help and your commitment to others never fail to impress me. Hasso, my special thanks go to you too for your inspiration, your guidance and your never ending support. It means very much to me.
For the past 10 years, I want to thank also Bill McDermott and what he did for SAP. Let me say a few words about the changes to our Executive Board. Jennifer Morgan mutually agreed with the Supervisory Board to leave SAP on April 30 this year. An esteemed and excellent leader, she's always been and will continue to be a strong advocate of SAP. Thank you, Jennifer, for the close working relationship as well as your tremendous contributions and service to SAP over the past 16 years.
SAP also bids farewell to 2 other respected Executive Board members today, Michael Kleinermeier and Stefan Ries. Michael, you always put our customers first and fought tirelessly for the long term success. Stefan, you helped make SAP one of the best places to work in the world. I appreciate the spirit of partnership and cooperation on the Executive Board and wish you both all the best. I would further like to welcome Thomas Sauerasig to the Executive Board.
Thomas heads our product development and I'm convinced that thanks to his technical and business background, he will be crucial to driving the future of SAP and our customers. Congratulations, Thomas. We are aware that there have been a number of changes at the Executive Board level lately. Generational change is normal at all levels. Similarly, it's just as common for Executive Board members to decide to leave of their own accord to pursue a different path.
But rest assured that in addition to the Executive Board, which is experienced and well versed, SAP draws upon a strong team of top executives where the retention rate remains very stable at a high level. Let's take a look back at 2019. We raised and met our outlook. Another strong year for SAP. It was total revenue plus 12%, the highest growth rate since 2015.
Cloud revenue, plus 40%. With this, we outperformed our major competitors, operating profit, plus 15%. Our numbers, by the way, are non IFRS. We take great pride in this continued growth story, and this pleased the stock markets too. In 2019, SAP stock gained 38.4%, once again outperforming the benchmark indexes DAX 30 and NASDAQ 100.
And as dramatic as the recent development on the stock market have been, with a market cap of over €130,000,000,000 SAP continues to be the most valuable tax company by far. We want you, dear shareholders, to share in this success in good times and in times of crisis. Let me make one thing clear. We anticipate solid results this year as well. We do not foresee Kurzarbeit short time work or needing any state aid.
Our strong position enables us to pay out a dividend. It is our policy to pay a dividend totaling 40% or more of IFRS profit after tax. We propose to raise the dividend for fiscal 2019 by 5% to €1.58 per share. In February 2020, we resolved, together with the supervisory board to initiate a share buyback program to the amount of approximately €1,500,000,000 Under this program, which was carried out and completed in the Q1 this year, SAP purchased 40,070,538 shares for treasury at an average price of €106.04 Thus, SAP holds 3.98 percent of its own shares. We do not plan additional buybacks this year.
Now let's turn to 2020. No question about it. The year has been marked by the coronavirus pandemic. The entire world has been touched by it, and with that, our employees and customers worldwide. The safety of our employees, customers and partners is, of course, paramount for us.
This is why we've restricted travel and we transformed in person events into virtual events. And even with 95% of our employees currently working from home, we continue to run at nearly 100%. Productivity is not impaired. We run stably. We're doing everything we can to ensure the business continuity of our customers as well, and we're doing this successfully.
The feedback from countless conversations with customers shows that even in this crisis, SAP has proven to be the reliable partner. We too are feeling the impact of the pandemic. This applies especially to the traditional software license business where we had a decrease by 31% in Q1, but our business model is robust. Firstly, software licenses only accounted for about 15% of all revenues in 2019. And secondly, many customers have merely postponed their business decisions.
What's more, our own transformation into an intelligent enterprise has put SAP in a strong position. The share of more predictable revenue is now above 70%. All processes from sales to deal signing to employees, hiring can be done remotely. Our digital chain runs from all the way to the implementation and operation of software, starting with the signing of contracts. And our data centers are fully operational with appropriate backup plans.
And during the Q1, we have been able to gain more market share with our core product S4HANA. Our share in the ERP market is twice as high as one of our next closest competitor. SAP S4HANA now has more than 14,001 HANA now has more than 14,100 customers. Around 40 of those are net new customers, customers who used to have a different solution from at least one SAP competitor in use. I already said it, despite the extraordinary circumstances, we are confident that we will be stable that we will be able to call 2020 a successful year.
We believe that conditions will gradually improve in the second half of the year as economies reopen and lockdowns end. In April, we adjusted our outlook based on the expected impact of the coronavirus crisis. For 2020, we expect non IFRS at constant currency, cloud revenue to grow by 18% to 24%, cloud and software revenue to grow by 1% to 4% and total revenue by 1% to 3% and operating profit to be in the range of €8,100,000,000 to €8,700,000,000 again at constant currencies. As SAP's new CEO, however, I don't want to leave you with just facts and figures. Above all, I would like to share what I feel is important when it comes to SAP's future.
Four points. Number 1, our colleagues. More than 100,000 SAP employees give their best every day for our customers. The success of SAP stands and falls with its people. I want to be a CEO for everyone.
I want to listen, be accessible, challenge our employees, encourage them, invest in them, attract the best talents. Now that is important to me, give a clear sense of direction. That is what I want to stand for. At 83%, our current employee engagement index remains above industry benchmarks. With more than 130 locations worldwide, more than 5 generations are working, people from over 150 nationalities, more than 100,000 employees, each with our own unique perspective and individual history.
We embrace diversity in our corporate culture. However, building a healthy and inclusive culture requires dedication. This includes, for example, making our own software accessible to more user friendly and more user friendly for employees with disabilities. We have already come a long way in this regard, yet there is still much to do. We want to have 30% women in management by the end of 2022.
With nearly 27% of women, We are well on our way. But diversity is more than gender. It's personalities, experience, culture, mindsets, characteristics and backgrounds. What is important to us? How we deal with challenges?
What do we want to achieve? All that is what makes us who we are. For me, it's important that every single employee at this company is seen and heard. They feel empowered to bring new ideas to the table in an open and tolerant working environment because this is what fosters innovation for our customers. This is something we'll keep working on.
You have my word, we'll be working on this. Let's come to point number 2, customer focus. The so called Net Promoter Score tells us how satisfied our customers are with us and our offerings. A negative value basically indicates that there are more customers who would recommend not recommend SAP than those who would. As you might expect, our score of minus 6 is not where we want to be, but it challenges us to do things better in future.
We were always at our best when we listened to the customer, yet all that listening means nothing if you don't act on the feedback. We have to win the trust of our customers each and every day anew. Our customers expect a clear economic benefit and solutions that are intelligent and integrated for their critical business processes, not individual products. They need a reliable partner for their digital transformation. Together with our customers, we will drive innovation because you know best where technical innovation produces the highest benefit for you.
We will deliver new innovation in the cloud quickly and in an agile way every 4 weeks. We will measure bonuses and compensation more on customer satisfaction. We will introduce new licensing models, which are customer friendly. And of course, security is very important. As part of our huge security strategy, we keep monitoring our own IT security based on internal security audit, we noticed that not all SAP Cloud solutions fulfill the standards.
I would like to stress here that this was not done in response to an incident. We keep testing our software and monitoring its security. And if there is a problem, then we communicate this proactively. This is what creates the trust relationship between our customers and us. We will keep doing everything to make our solutions as secure as possible to earn the trust of our customers.
Point number 3, innovation. Innovation forms the core of our strategy. No innovation, no growth. It's one thing that the coronavirus pandemic has proven. Digital transformation and the move to the cloud is no longer an option.
It is an imperative. Using data for new digital business models and to optimize business decisions. This was already something that gave people a competitive edge before the crisis. But now in the crisis, these companies are much more resilient as a result of this strategy. And when in talks with other CEOs, I hear every day that our strategy of the intelligent enterprise is more relevant than ever in this crisis.
Let me give you a quick example here. Imagine you're a company with a number of brick and mortar shops. In times of coronavirus, you have to close all your stores, but you've still got the products in stock, and you have to keep paying rent and wages. So what to do in this difficult situation? First of all, you have to be familiar with the actual demand for the items you are offering so that you can adapt deliveries as needed.
With SAP HANA, you can analyze even the largest amounts of data in real time. And now, right now, in the crisis, you can adjust your planning quickly to the quickly changing markets. Since your stores are all closed, you need digital sales channels, so called e commerce solutions, which will be open around the clock for your customers and who will also know their preferences and wishes. With SAP's C4HANA, our customer relationship management solution, you can also offer your products via such an innovative e commerce solution. A crisis situation sometimes results in liquidity problems.
Thanks to S4HANA, our intelligent integrated ERP system, you can offer new flexible payment options and even new payment models such as subscriptions or pay per use service. Your customers will thank you for this, especially in times of crisis. But in intelligent companies, not just sales and financials, especially in times of crisis, there are often problems with procurement and deliveries. Our solution for electronic procurement, logistics, management use artificial intelligence to find if there are any problems with suppliers and predict problems before they occur. And when the economy restarts, it's important to know what your customers want and what your employees need.
What gives your colleagues the necessary questions. It is the emotional side of the intelligent enterprise to make the right decisions, especially in times of crisis. This is an incredible advantage. And this is how a traditional enterprise becomes an intelligent competitive enterprise. Such an enterprise does not work without a solid foundation.
The SAP Cloud Platform and SAP HANA offer important competitive advantage to our customers because they enable to combine and integrate SAP and non SAP applications to enhance existing applications and to develop new ones. Why is this so important? On average, every company uses more than 500 software solutions. Only if they're all intelligent and use one data model, new business models can be implemented. And only with new business models can companies stay competitive in the digital age.
Applications have to be flexible to adjust to the quickly changing markets and conditions. With our platforms, customers can simply add or remove functionalities for maximum flexibility. We want to build on these strengths and continue to invest in innovation. Our customers expect an unprecedented amount of innovation from us. This is why we will certainly not cut down on our R and D expenditure.
We will keep investing. This brings me to our point number 4, corporate responsibility. The coronavirus, the climate crisis, hunger and social injustice in many parts of the world are challenges facing modern humanity and they are omnipresent in the daily news. As a global company, SAP is very aware of the responsibilities we have for our environment In order to meet the challenges of the climate crisis, we need to be sustainable. Our goal is to become climate neutral by 2025.
We have already been able to decrease our CO2 emissions despite our strong growth, And we want to help our customers in this regard as well, which is why we are going one important step further, launching the Climate 21 program at SAP, with which our customers can reduce their CO2 footprint, measure it and reduce it. For example, by relocating production to more sustainable locations in the end of our customers, we not only have more intelligent operations, but also more sustainable companies. In this context, we are investing intensely into R and D because we all want to combat climate change. We, as SAP, have a responsibility for society. Our software is used to predict and prevent disasters, to promote equality and to educate people who have never had the chance to go to school.
Our SAP 1,000,000,000 lives program inspires a closer collaboration between social enterprises with the best we have to offer: people, technology, data, and a huge network of customers and partners. In the current crisis, during the coronavirus pandemic, we have made available a number of solutions free of charge. We have started a digital learning initiative for students, pupils and children. We also established the COVID-nineteen emergency fund to support the urgent needs of the non profits and social enterprises. We have worked together with the federal government to bring thousands of vacationers back to Germany.
We are working together with Deutsche Telekom to develop a COVID-nineteen contact tracking app that will help Germany get through the crisis. We have an application that was developed in Italy that shows the spread of the virus per region. 3 d printing in Spain produces face protection for hospitals. These are some examples of the impressive initiatives of our employees and that makes me so proud to be part of the team. Technology alone will not save companies or the world, but it can play a key role in this.
Ladies and gentlemen, since SAP's founding in 1972, our goal has been to improve business processes and people's lives. That goal has never been more important than today. It is as much our pledge as it is our incentive. Together with my over 100,000 colleagues, I will do everything in my power to follow through. What we stand for is what makes us who we are, the market leader in business software, the biggest European software company, a reliable partner for companies of all sizes in every country of the world, in every industry, one of the best employers on the planet.
I mentioned it at the start. Leading SAP as CEO is both a tremendous honor and huge responsibility. Together with my colleagues, I will create an SAP that stands for Agility, Innovation and Customer Focus. I give you my commitment to be a CEO who's there for everyone, a CEO who listens and builds bridges, a CEO who doesn't just promise, but delivers on the promises, a CEO who stands for the long term success of SAP. Ladies and gentlemen, the trust that you have placed in me and in SAP is something I'm extremely proud of.
Next year, I want to be able to look back at 2020 together with you and say, we did it. We beat the challenges. We've listened to our customers. We continue to improve. We delivered.
We have grown and shaped the future together, not just for our customers, but for you too, dear shareholders. Thank you very much. Stay safe and be well.
Thank you, Christian. I am now calling for speakers to Item 1 and all other agenda items. That is to say, items 228 in the invitation to the meeting that was sent to you and is available on our website and which also contains the management's proposals. Your screen is now showing an overview of the agenda items for today's Annual General Meeting. These include the resolution of the appropriation of the 2019 retained earnings, the resolution on the formal approval of the acts of the Executive Board in 2019, as well as the appointment of the auditor for 2020 and the authorization for 2 new authorized capital facilities.
Because the authorizations for the existing facilities are expiring, they are now to be renewed. Besides Executive Board compensation, there will also be a vote on compensation for the Supervisory Board members today. This vote is merely a matter of confirming the current compensation of the members of the Supervisory Board as stipulated in our articles of incorporation. No changes are being proposed today. The resolution thus follows the new legal requirements resulting from the 2nd EU shareholder rights directive.
Since we already follow these new requirements with respect to Executive Board compensation, we want to follow suit and do the same with Supervisory Board compensation. Ladies and gentlemen, before we move on to answering the questions we received in advance of the meeting, I should like to explain once more how you can exercise your voting right at this virtual AGM. As outlined earlier, you have the opportunity to cast your vote on each agenda item or change your vote during this AGM. To do so, you can use our password protected shareholder portal and either change or grant proxy authorization and voting instructions to the company proxies or alternatively exercise your voting rights by electronic postal vote. Please note that we will close these functions in the shareholder portal shortly after we have answered your questions.