In his keynote, Bill McDermott, the American CEO of the German company, outlined the progress he said his company has made in that arena. "We are the first company to be Edge-certified for gender diversity," he said during the keynote last month. Edge is an independent consortium that establishes rating criteria. Later, a panel of SAP HR professionals said that SAP uses software to ensure diversity. SAP views its social responsibility efforts as much more than views on social issues. SAP says it can measure the impact of those practices on financial results. "This is not a philanthropic topic. It is a business imperative," said Patricia Fletcher, who is in charge of solution management for SuccessFactors, SAP's HCM software arm. The process must be planned because without defined goals and measurements managers can find that "I am hiring people that look like me and think like me," she said.