SAP Social Sabbatical reaches out to social enterprises for the 2nd year in PH

TAGUIG CITY, Philippines–SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today, March 17, announced that 12 SAP employees have completed a month-long assignment with the aim of helping four social enterprises  and non-profit organisations achieve best practices and attain operational efficiency.

This unique program is part of the SAP Social Sabbatical, a short term assignment for top talents who work in international, cross functional teams to solve business challenges for the social entrepreneurial or education sector in emerging markets, while strengthening their leadership competencies, cross industry sector know-how and intercultural sensitivity.

The 12 SAP employees from Europe, US, Latin America and India leveraged their expertise in areas such as strategy, marketing and IT, to guide the four social enterprises and non-profit organisations in the Philippines on issues pertaining to marketing development, strategy expansion, infrastructure design, and expansion planning.

Philippine social enterprises benefiting from SAP Social Sabbatical

Messy Bessy Cleaners Inc.,Teach For The Philippines, Silid Aralan, Inc., and GKonomics, were four of the local social enterprises and non-profit organizations that benefitted from the SAP Social Sabbatical.

“This is the second time we are working with SAP and we are grateful for their generosity and expertise. In the past, Messy Bessy has had many inquiries on export, but we found ourselves unable to meet the demand for the market.  With the SAP team’s support, we were able to design a framework that enabled us to create and jumpstart a sustainable export channel.  Their intervention allowed us to properly analyze our capabilities to make sound data-driven decisions for the near future”,” said Krie Lopez, Founder of Messy Bessy.

Messy Bessy Cleaners, Inc. is a manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of natural household and personal care products. It was established to provide work training, capacity building and education for disadvantaged young adults. The income generated from the business of Messy Bessy is funneled back into these development programs.

Said Angel Ramos, Events Manager of Teach for the Philippines, “Teach for the Philippines is deeply grateful to the SAP Social Sabbatical Program, and most especially the participants who joined us every day for the past four weeks. Together, we have been working towards solidifying the long-term communications plan for the organization. We greatly appreciate their time with us, wherein they joined us at our events, conducted interviews, as well as workshops with the team, to learn more about what we do and how we do it. Through the SAP team’s development of our Brand Book, we now have a concrete synthesis of how the TFP brand is perceived and should be expressed to our different stakeholder groups. This is crucial because we want to be able to increase our effect on the various sectors we are working with in the next five years.”

Teach for the Philippines is an award – winning social enterprise that recruits, selects, and trains the most promising young Filipino leaders to teach for two years inside public schools as Teacher Fellows.  Today, the organization is in its third year of operations and have spread to 23 schools across eight cities, of which two are in Mindanao.

“Before our partnership with the SAP Social Sabbatical, we lacked the technical know-how to develop a sound and feasible operation manual, marketing toolkit, and recommended online infrastructure.  With SAP’s help, we successfully developed a work plan that is aligned with Silid Aralan’s annual targets and objectives. The team also developed a marketing tool that shows the Social Return on Investment or SROI when we receive donations, as well as a roadmap for an  online infrastructure design for Silid Aralan, Inc database system.” said Arcie Mallari, Founder of Silid Aralan, Inc.

Silid Aralan Inc. (SAI) is a non-profit organization that aims to give low performing students’ confidence in their own capabilities as a means of affecting their academic performance for the better.

Despite not actually providing academic tutorials during their sessions with students, SAI has a proven track record of being able to boost their students’ academic performance by focusing on practical applications of values and customizing daily learning to the student’s passions and hobbies.

The Social Sabbatical also selects projects on the basis of their strategic fit with SAP’s Corporate Social Responsibility focus on honing innovative social enterprises and the future workforce.

Said Aimee Gloria, Executive Director of GKonomics,“What prevents GKonomics, from realizing our full potential is limited markets for the products and services from our social enterprises and communities. Currently, the organization works with volunteers, interns, and full-time staff in initiating efforts that will help expand markets for our social enterprises’ products and services. The SAP Social Sabbatical team helped us develop a roadmap for establishing online stores, consolidating distribution channels and creating guidelines on how to implement a new strategy and solution for expanding our international distribution. In addition, the team helped us grow the various social enterprises in our GKonomics Accelerator Program by providing a strategy to improve efficiency in our internal processes. This ensures that the gains of GKonomics from working with the SAP Social Sabbatical team ripples to the various enterprises and supported communities in our platform.”

GKonomics, is a social enterprise platform where social entrepreneurs, skilled volunteers, corporations, academics, and members of disadvantaged communities come together to build global Filipino brands that do not leave the poor behind.  Incorporated in 2009, it has grown from one community livelihood initiative to 50 enterprises that currently operates in 75 communities.

Said Frank Heine, one of the SAP Social Sabbatical participants, “As part of the SAP social sabbatical program, I have learned how a social enterprise like Messy Bessy Cleaners Inc can on one hand flourish like a true corporation and on the other, with noble motivation, pave the way for young adults into a future without poverty and fear. I’m amazed by the passion I’ve seen in this organisation – from the young adults up to the management. I now have a firm belief, that we not only have a responsibility for other less well-off people, but that even little contributions can really make a difference. This is an experience I will remember for the rest of my life.”

Another participant, Rebecca Hamilton commented, “Extraordinary. This is how I would describe it. My social sabbatical experience impacted me significantly professionally and personally, it gave me the opportunity of a lifetime. It enabled me to adopt new skills in go-to-market strategies, develop my cross cultural interpersonal skills and improve my working environment adaptability. Personally I explored a part of the world unlike my own, gained great new friends and most importantly did my part to impact the empowerment of Silid Aralan, Inc. learners.”

Rui Sousa, another participant confirmed the positive impact on them, ““It is difficult to express in words all that the SAP Social Sabbatical program has done for me. This experience has been life-changing in so many ways – from learning more about one of the most exciting emerging countries in the world, to the knowledge gained while collaborating with GKonomics. I believe we had a great experience, and that we made a difference to GKonomics’ future, just as they have also impacted ours.”

Lloyd Andrews echoed this, “I have personally grown and gained a lot from this life-changing experience. I have greater confidence in my ability to apply my knowledge and skills in other cultures and situations, and have a better understanding of how experience influences perception and action. I have been inspired by the work of Teach for the Philippines and will to continue to contribute back to society through similar initiatives in future.”

Since its inception in 2012, the Social Sabbatical program has seen tremendous success and incremental response from both SAP employees and organizations in the social entrepreneurship and education sectors in emerging markets and today is already sending out teams to 10 different countries each year. The SAP Social Sabbatical also benefit the SAP participants, helping to hone their leadership skills, deepen cultural knowledge and connect with other emerging leaders from around the world.

“Our objective is to empower these four social enterprises and non-profit organizations by helping them develop best practices so that they will run better.  By matching our best talents in skills-based volunteering through this Social Sabbatical program, these organizations can address a critical challenge they have and will now be better equipped to fulfill their social mission. For our employees, this program provides a unique and often life-changing setting to strengthen their leadership qualities as well as an opportunity to hone their skills in diverse teams and markets.” explains Ryan Poggi, Managing Director of SAP Philippines. “The success of the SAP Social Sabbatical has proven our commitment to helping the world run better and improve peoples’ lives by making strategic social investments that have a lasting and sustainable impact on society,” continued Ryan.

Besides the Philippines, the SAP Social Sabbatical program was also taking place in Myanmar and Gabarone, Botswana, with plans to extend to Kigali, Rwanda, in July 2016.

 About SAP

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 300,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.