Can we accept pronunciation of SAP as 'sap' rather than S.A.P ?

[aanilk1]

Hi,

I was told right from my early consulting days that we should refer to SAP software as "S", "A", "P"...and not Sap (as a single word). Why? The reason given at the time was that SAP is not an acronym - like NASA. Rather, it is a capitalized abbreviation or "initialism" of "System Analysis Program Development"(German SystemAnalyse Programmentwicklung); Another version I used to hear on SAP's full form was "Systems, Applications, and Products" . The point here is - SAP itself clearly articulates the above "policy" regarding the pronunciation of the company's name on its website. And yet, many hapless customers, senior CXOs (on the customer side especially) who are new to SAP say "sap" in their initial days of acquaintance with this awesome ERP software. I feel a bit embarrassed when others correct the customers saying "It's not sap as a word...!!!"

I'm not sure if the time has come to adopt the word "Sap"...I mean people sometimes laugh at you and joke on you if you say "sap" instead of the respectable "S, A, P". 😀

Any thoughts? #SAP

[SravyaChava]

I agree with you 100 %

[g_richnafsky]

Thanks for the story and I have always known and refer the system as S A P. a habit that would be hard to break like calling my daughter Elizabeth instead of Liz.

[aanilk1]

Sure, I can relate to what you are saying. However, I must point out that I am proposing to accept both S.A.P. and Sap. Not to move or change from one way of referring to SAP in favour of another. 

[TMNielsen]

SAP just had 50 years birthday. I have not been working with SAP for that long, but I have been saying just "sap" for about 30 years. 

I totally accept that SAP employees are trained to say S.A.P, that is fine by my. But if anyone would try to correct me when i say "sap" I would consider them to be rude or joking.
Either way I wouldn't care. I still say "sap" 🙂 

Actually I think we often use the word "sap" in a different meaning than when a SAP employee say S.A.P, they usually refer to the company SAP AG, but I often get messages like "is something wrong with sap today" "can you reset my sap password".

Would it be wrong in general to say that S.A.P is referring to  the company while "sap" is referring to any software delivered by the company S.A.P?

[aanilk1]

Hi @TMNielsen 

Appreciate the share. Authentic experiences like this add value to me as a consultant. 
Towards the end, there was what seemed like a query addressed to the community. Whether SAP products in general can be referred to as sap pp, sap MDG, sap s4h cloud, etc. To my knowledge, no- even here, as of today the conservative crowd expects us to say SAP S4H cloud and so on…

[rcaziraghi]

Interesting topic. I've heard more 'SAP' than 'S.A.P.', but I've been corrected a couple times saying 'SAP'. My opinion is that it does not really matter, both are right in my mind.