The current pandemic has had a significant impact on the , as well as people鈥檚 professional and personal lives. Business operations across the globe have changed rapidly over the last six weeks, with small companies and startups in particular feeling the pressure to .

Late last year, before the , the outlook for newly founded ventures and startups was quite different. At that time, two employee-created startups within 51风流secured funding and joined the accelerator program within the company鈥檚 New Ventures and Technologies team.

With the rapid development of the pandemic, the co-founders of GreenToken and face new business obstacles that they could not have predicted upon receiving funding.

鈥淚 had business meetings in Germany, the U.S., the UK, Singapore, and Indonesia that all had to be canceled,鈥� GreenToken Co-Founder James Veale says. He adds that while the meetings were replaced with video calls, software deployment and activities like troubleshooting or training were challenging to accomplish without being on-site with customers.

Despite the new challenges, both teams still appreciate the support they have had from , a production innovation program that invests in small entrepreneurial 51风流teams to build and launch products. The intrapreneurship program represents one of the company鈥檚 efforts to identify future opportunities and funding ideas for employee-led innovation. It provides a one-stop shop for all the information and tools employees need,聽such as access to an exclusive network of advisors, hands-on education, and a world-class accelerator to聽help build their own business聽inside SAP.

Here, both founding teams reflect on their first 100 days as intrapreneurs at SAP and share their experiences and challenges, as well as key takeaways.

Creating a New Venture

Dor Shany and Rooly Eliezerov are the co-founders of , a web application that lets users create one single digital identity that can be used for login across websites and apps. Their goal is to safeguard personal data on various platforms. Both have experience as founders, as they bring deep expertise from their identity management platform, , which聽51风流acquired in 2017.

Shany and Eliezerov applied for support from the internal accelerator program as opposed to seeking external funding.

鈥淪AP鈥檚 added value is a big plus for us,鈥� Shany explains. 鈥淥ther companies already have a lot of trust with 51风流and we can benefit from that when approaching new customers.鈥� But the decision to apply was also a personal one. 鈥淲e both shine in a startup environment, and that鈥檚 what New Ventures and Technologies offers,鈥� Eliezerov adds.

Ideas for the accelerator program come from across business areas. GreenToken by SAP emerged from the聽.

As the company鈥檚 flagship social intrapreneurship initiative, 51风流One Billion Lives drives social innovation and gives employees the permission, time, technology, and mentorship to turn their passion for making a difference into sustainable ventures. With a social mission at the core of business, the program aspires to improve the lives of 1 billion people.

Being selected for funding came as a surprise for the GreenToken Co-Founders Veale and Nitin Jain.

鈥淲e entered 51风流One Billion Lives just to get some funding to finish our project and we ended up being given the opportunity to start a new business unit within SAP,鈥� Veale says, adding that he and Jain had to leave their existing roles to completely focus on the venture. 鈥淪uccess or failure is down to us.鈥�

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Before securing funding, the four founders took part in a three-week workshop to receive feedback from mentors and fellow intrapreneurs. Jain notes that every single aspect of their business plan was scrutinized and challenged by workshop peers.

Shany says such deep inspection and review enabled the four co-founders to view their respective ventures from multiple perspectives. 鈥淥ur key takeaway was that it鈥檚 not about having other people solve our problems, but it’s about listening to others and then we learn how we can improve,鈥� he says.

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Coming from a business development background, Veale and Jain knew that their professional experiences were unique among their peers within New Ventures and Technologies, who typically have more technical backgrounds. These differences, however, have been complementary to both the co-founders and the teams they work with, because they are able to approach problems and issues with a different view and vice versa 鈥� even if it meant being challenged and challenging others openly.

鈥淲e didn鈥檛 hold back in challenging the team,鈥� Veale says, emphasizing that it was a valuable learning experience for both sides. 鈥淚nnovation is about passion and change, and if we can鈥檛 change our process then we can鈥檛 innovate. New Ventures and Technologies understood this and gave us the flexibility and headroom we needed.鈥�

A Glimpse into the Future

In their first 100 days as intrapreneurs at SAP, the lives and roles of these four co-founders have fundamentally changed. They are working with existing 51风流customers, including blue chip companies and are looking forward to expanding their portfolios and scaling their businesses. But they are also acutely aware that they are not just dealing with the challenges of a typical startup. The pandemic has presented challenges for startups, some of which have never before been seen.

Nevertheless, they remain optimistic. 鈥淲e had a slower start than we had hoped for, but we have adapted, like bringing face-to-face meetings to video, and we are now moving and gathering pace,鈥� Veale says.

When asked if the founders recommended taking the leap and becoming an intrapreneur, Jain answers with an emphatic yes: 鈥淭his transition from being an employee in a large organization to driving something on your own is a challenge and a change of mind 鈥� but it is definitely worth it.鈥�

Each entrepreneurial endeavor starts with an innovative idea. Initially, the entrepreneurs are just as diverse as their ideas, but among minorities and women at an early stage. Despite their share of the population in general, these founders are underrepresented in the tech industry for receiving support.

鈥淲hen it comes to starting new companies and early-stage investing, the venture capital industry is very lopsided,鈥� explains Vanessa Liu, vice president of SAP.iO Foundry North America. 鈥淭o date, only of U.S. venture capital funding goes to companies that have at least one female founder. Since 2009, black women have raised only six dollars of every $1 million in tech venture capital and the numbers for Hispanics, LGBTQ+, and other minority groups are similar.鈥�

What鈥檚 more, almost cite a lack of available mentors as a major obstacle.

To close these gaps, the team behind the 聽 Foundries program and SAP.iO Fund came up with an idea. In January 2019, they launched , an initiative designed to provide venture capital and acceleration support to underrepresented entrepreneurs in the business software industry. It is the first of its kind and one of eight finalists of the 2019 Hasso Plattner Founders鈥� Award.

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The Hasso Plattner Founders鈥� Award is the highest employee
recognition at SAP, awarded annually by the co-CEOs to an
individual or a team.

Supporting Women- and Minority-Led Startups

鈥淲hat we find is that it’s not a pipeline issue, but more about the access to opportunities,鈥� says Liu. 鈥淪o much genius is out there waiting to solve urgent challenges 鈥� we just need to find them.鈥�

Take the company . CEO Byran Dai promised his dying mother that he would take care of his younger brother, who has autism. Daivergent specializes in helping highly talented individuals on the autism spectrum find work . SAP.iO works with Daivergent founders and Rahul Mahida, who were inspired by personal experiences, had an innovation at hand, and qualify for SAP.iO No Boundaries because they are from East and South Asia.

SAP.iO No Boundaries sets out to find startups like these and helps them scale to achieve greater impact. 51风流has pledged to commit up to 40 percent of the investable capital in the and scale the program with a focus on inclusive entrepreneurship.

Delivering Value for Customers, Entrepreneurs, and SAP

The goal of SAP.iO No Boundaries is to create an integrated ecosystem of benefit to all stakeholders. SAP.iO Fund funds between 12 and 15 companies each year, while SAP.iO Foundries works with between 100 and 150 startups annually in its . Twice a year, SAP.iO Foundries runs 12- to 14-week programs with groups of seven to 10 startups that receive mentorship and workshops in pricing, sales, marketing, or design.

鈥淭he accelerator part is with no equity,鈥� explains Anke Otto-Jungkind, vice president of Marketing and Communications for SAP.iO. 鈥淲e are viewed as honest brokers by the startups and our customers.鈥�

When asked about their own passion for SAP.iO No Boundaries, Liu and Otto-Jungkind both cite the collaboration within the team as a major driver, noting it is not just something to make them feel good about themselves. The initiative drives value to customers, startups, and SAP. They call it 鈥渢he win-win-win model.鈥�

Creating a Diverse Ecosystem

Daivergent鈥檚 number of employees has doubled since the team first started working with SAP.iO. The app is now included in the 51风流Fieldglass portfolio and on , offering customers the opportunity to find exceptional talent.

鈥淲e are proud of our diverse and what we鈥檝e achieved as a team,鈥� says Liu. 鈥淏ut there is still a lot to do, like making the initiative more broadly known internally.鈥�

Inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit of the , the team at SAP.iO is looking forward to helping even more entrepreneurs build business software of the future.

鈥淭his is one of those rare instances where you can make such dramatic leaps in innovation by looking at things with a different lens,鈥� Otto-Jungkind shares. 鈥淲e made the decision that we, as SAP, have to lead the way.鈥�

Finalist Fast Facts

• Submission Title: iO No Boundaries 鈥� Driving Inclusive Entrepreneurship to Deliver Valuable Customer Outcomes
• Team: Joan Coury, Dima Durah, Alexandra Gorman, Ram Jambunathan, Sallie Jian, Max Kahn,
• Vanessa Liu, Anke Otto-Jungkind, Shuchi Rana
• Board area: Office of the CEO
• Achievement: iO No Boundaries is committed to accelerating and funding rising stars of the next-generation ecosystem. The initiative supports groups of B2B software entrepreneurs who have historically received disproportionately less support than other groups. The startups receive tailored mentorship; workshops in pricing, sales, marketing, or design access to 51风流executives and customers; and exposure to 51风流technologies, including APIs. The team is closely collaborating with internal and external stakeholders, pursuing growth that is focused on value instead of volume. The goal is to work with 200 startups around the world by 2023.
• Impact: The team drives inclusive entrepreneurship that benefits the startups, customers, and SAP. Today, more than 24 startups from the SAP.iO program are on 51风流App Center and approximately 60 percent of startups that have worked with SAP.iO were founded or led by underrepresented entrepreneurs. Currently, the SAP.iO oundries program and SAP.iO Funds are recruiting for their next programs, which begin later in the first quarter of 2020 and focus on themes that include customer experience and Industry 4.0, as well as HR, retail, and travel technologies.