July 2, 2009 – According to a recent study conducted by the Germany-based research firm RAAD Research, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) has the highest brand recognition of all enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors among midsize companies in Germany – not only with IT experts but also with line of business managers. More than half of the respondents, 52 percent, indicated that they consider SAP solutions when choosing ERP software.

Although there is still the misperception that SAP software is too expensive or complex, none of the respondents doubted that SAP offers valuable solutions, citing quality and functionality as strengths. In fact, 44 percent of the heads of financial departments, 50 percent of sales departments, and 32 percent of production believe that SAP solutions would meet their specific business needs better than the software they currently deploy. Here, SAP received higher ratings than all its competitors. RAAD Research believes that, in close collaboration with partners, SAP can further increase its presence in the German small and midsize enterprise market.

The study was conducted among 500 heads of IT in German midsize companies that do not currently run SAP software, as well as among line of business managers.