SAP AG on Monday announced new appointments in its Global Field Organization (GFO) and ensuing changes at the helms of its North American and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions. The global field realignment is aimed at further simplifying the company structure, increasing the speed of innovation, delivering customer value and strengthening its commitment to an open ecosystem.

GFO has aligned into four key areas with the following leaders, each reporting directly to SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott:

• Jose Duarte has been appointed president of Global Services, which includes SAP Consulting, SAP Education, SAP Custom Development and SAP Maintenance Go-to-Market. The Global Services team, in tight cooperation with the other GFO areas, has the fundamental role of helping customers reap the maximum value of their SAP investments through all stages of their lifecycle, supporting and transferring critical knowledge to the SAP ecosystem and launching new products to market by being the "market maker" force behind the first implementations. Assuming Duarte's prior role, Franck Cohen has been appointed president of SAP EMEA.
• Eric Duffaut has been named president of Global Ecosystem & Channels, responsible for SAP's broader partner categories (system integrators, software and technology companies, resellers, distributors, and original equipment and outsourcing partners) along with inside sales, SAP® EcoHub, web-store and the go-to-market team for the SAP® Business ByDesign(TM) solution, which will further leverage a partner-driven model. The Global Ecosystem & Channels organization will focus on developing rapid co-innovation with the world's leading technology and services partners and will expand SAP's multi-channel approach across all segments, from small and midsize companies to large-enterprises, to optimize market coverage and customer touch points.
• Robert Enslin has been named president of Global Sales, charged with empowering the regions to best serve customers and promote the broad spectrum of existing and new solutions. Assuming Enslin's former role, Robert Courteau has been appointed new president of SAP North America.
• Sanjay Poonen has been appointed president of Global Solutions Go-To-Market, with dual reporting lines to SAP Co-CEOs McDermott and Jim Hagemann-Snabe. Aligned with SAP's strategy to bring high-demand products to customers more quickly, this organization for the first time combines the company's Industry, Line-of-Business, and Business Analytics & Technology Solution Management teams with specialist sales teams.

"With the momentum of our customer-driven strategy for growth," said McDermott, "we are aligning our Global Field Organization behind trusted leaders to focus our energy on delivering innovation and business value for our customers with our ever-expanding ecosystem as a force multiplier."