Sap Labs India: Building An Inclusive Organization

This case describes how SAP Labs India, a research and development center of SAP SE introduced and pursued a wide range of diversity and inclusion (D&I) programs across the organization. Set in September 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it narrates the story of Sap Labs’ D&I journey of over a decade. Told from the perspective of Shraddhanjali Rao, VP, Human Resources, and other company executives, the case outlines and examines different diversity programs that were instituted around four pillars of D&I, namely, (i) gender, (ii) culture and identity (LGBTQ employees), (iii) cross-generational employees and (iv) differently abled people. The case discusses the company’s efforts to promote awareness and adoption of its diversity goals across these four pillars and the challenges it faced along the way through the perspectives of a cross-section of program leaders. The case raises the following questions: Did the programmatic efforts to implement diversity initiatives lead to inclusion at SAP Labs? What were the challenges in promoting these initiatives? Did they degenerate to tokenism? What could SAP Labs have done better to institutionalize its commitment to diversity in the workplace? Beyond diversity, what more could SAP Labs do in the future to embrace an inclusive culture?