SAP has announced that Hermann Erlach will serve as the new managing director for its Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region. The appointment is effective October 1; Erlach will be responsible for business across 24 countries, including Hungary, and will be based in Vienna.
His remit includes helping customers accelerate digital and business transformation and turning investments in cloud technologies and business artificial intelligence into tangible business outcomes.
Professional background
Hermann Erlach returns to SAP: he previously held multiple senior roles at SAP between 2008 and 2015, covering sales, services, customer relationships and business transformation in both country and regional capacities. Most recently he was CEO of Microsoft Austria.
Hungary's role and SAP's local presence
The company statement notes that Hungary is an important, consistently performing market within SAP’s CEE region. SAP Labs Hungary is one of the company’s largest European research and development centres: it is the second‑largest SAP hub in Europe after Germany and employs more than 2,000 specialists working on business applications, cloud technologies and solutions related to artificial intelligence.
SAP Hungary says it will focus on three main areas in the coming period:
- modernising the public sector,
- supporting complex business transformations and AI projects at large enterprises,
- accelerating digitalisation among small and medium‑sized enterprises, supported by an expanded partner ecosystem.
"In addition to modernising the public sector, we want to continue supporting complex business transformations and AI projects of large corporations, while also seeing strong growth potential in digitising the SME segment — for this we will further expand our partner ecosystem," said Hidvégi Péter, managing director of SAP Hungary.
According to the company, leveraging SAP's international experience, the Hungarian subsidiary can offer up‑to‑date digital solutions in sectors such as energy, education and the defence industry. It also has significant expertise in horizontal public‑sector processes, from budget planning and revenue management to benefit disbursement, public procurement, payroll and performance management.
Why this matters
The appointment signals SAP's intent to strengthen its regional capabilities in digital transformation, cloud and AI‑based solutions. Hungary’s substantial R&D capacity and the local strategic focus areas are expected to support the company’s growth plans across the CEE region.
