In recent times, SAP has been woo’ing me down the governance, risk and compliance (GRC) path. To its credit, the company has done a lot of good work in this area, seeking to develop industry alliances and raise awareness of the issues at stake, especially in the area of corporate citizenship. Most recently, James Farrar, who is VP corporate citizenship at SAP and Steve Rochlin, head of Accountability US managed to get a good article on the topic as it relates to Web 2.0 placed at the FT. Among other things, they say:

A decade ago if you brought together a company, an activist non-governmental organisation (NGO), and a government agency, you were guaranteed to create tension. Today, these oddly matched partners generate innovation out of positive, creative tension. Web 2.0 platforms make it easier to build such diverse communities that use different experience and perspective to create innovative solutions.

A couple of days ago, I received an SAP email newletter with the tantalizing headline:
Achieving Corporate Accountability with a Unified Approach to Governance, Risk, and Compliance Webcast. On the webcast David Kasabian, analyst with AMR reckons the market is worth $32 billion per annum. That makes it a good sized market. Holly Roland, VP marketing for GRC solutions at SAP talked extensively about managing the risks in the supply chain - something I’ve talked about elsewhere.

Imagine then my surprise when a June 2008 report from Gartner entitled Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance landed on my digital doorstep that doesn’t list SAP. The company doesn’t appear anywhere although one of its partners, Protiviti does. Marketing ahead of reality, an unfortunate omission or something else? SAP has reached some 1,700 customers with GRC solutions and seen revenues double over the last year.

[Image credit: Gartner Inc.]

PS: I expect to hear a lot more about how the BusinessObjects acquisition is feeding into SAP’s GRC efforts at the forthcoming influencer’s meeting in Boston next month.