Volker Hildebrand

Step up your marketing game, elevate your market presence & accelerate revenue growth. At Mavericks Wave Marketing, we strive for marketing excellence helping B2B tech companies ride the wave of success. Our focus is on working with pioneering firms in AI for CX, CRM, CPQ and digital commerce where we can craft your brand narrative, bring your product vision to life and tell compelling customer success stories focused on business outcomes. We are dedicated to helping businesses develop, launch and grow successful products from initial product idea to market success by providing expert guidance, strategic insights, flawless execution and hands-on support throughout the entire product lifecycle. Committed to delivering excellence, exceeding expectations, consistently, every time.

Advising Coveo on strategy, product direction, market expansion, value proposition & go-to-market in AI-powered E-commerce. Co-led a strategic growth initiative with the Chief Growth Officer for six months pre IPO providing ‘hands-on’ leadership in product marketing and building new alliances in order to scale the business and accelerate revenue growth. Joined the advisory board after successful completion of the project.

Led global product marketing to drive product success and revenue growth with an expanding product portfolio across CRM and BPM. Responsible for Sugar’s go-to-market strategy and cross-functional execution, including positioning & messaging, sales enablement and sales tools, pricing & packaging, product & release launch, campaigns & promotions as well as analyst engagement and market & sales insights. Developed new customer-centric messaging and positioning tailored to target audiences and focused on business challenges & outcomes; established a repeatable launch process at scale for all product releases; introduced new pricing, packaging and new sales tools; spearheaded Sugar’s Generative AI initiative (jointly with the CTO) and launched a new vertical strategy introducing Sugar's “Industrial Grade CRM” platform. Elevated product marketing to spearhead many cross-functional growth initiatives and established GTM processes to scale and accelerate business growth while improving Sugar’s position in key analyst reports.

As head of SAP Service Cloud Solutions I was responsible for the significant expansion of SAP's Service Cloud product portfolio driving key investments in AI-based products and accelerating user adoption & revenue growth -- making it the fastest growing line of business at SAP CX and winning the "Rising Star" award for top innovative company in CRM Service by CRM magazine. Responsibilities included product & portfolio strategy, solution management, product marketing and GTM for the entire Customer Service solution portfolio at SAP across self-service, contact center and field service management including multiple successful product launches. Led the acquisition of coresystems, a leader in AI-based field service management, from initial business case to post-merger integration with two successful launches of SAP FSM and SAP Crowd Service; served as the advisor of the CEO of coresystems before and after the acquisition. Spearheaded the rapid integration of Qualtrics XM into SAP CX with the launch of "SAP Qualtrics for Service Cloud XM" which significantly contributed to the dramatic revenue growth of Customer Experience solutions after the acquisition

Helping ultimate.ai as a start-up mentor of the SAP.io program "start up & scale" and expand beyond their native Finland into other European countries with new headquarters in Berlin to shake up the industry and become a leading customer service automation platform in Europe - recently acquired by Zendesk.

Member of the hybris leadership team, responsible for the strategic direction & solution marketing of the SAP hybris product portfolio with focus on advancing cloud strategy & integrated solutions for sales (“lead to quote” & “quote to cash”) and service (“end-to-end service management”). Co-led re-branding and updating value propositions & messaging around the entire SAP hybris portfolio for “Customer Engagement and Commerce" Accelerated transition from on-premise to SaaS solutions with Sales & Service Cloud as front runners, driving key innovations such as the micro services-based 'SAP Customer Engagement Center" accelerating customer and user adoption and significantly increasing cloud subscription revenue Drove key innovations including successful launch of micro services-based ‘Customer Engagement Center’ Expanded SAP hybris product portfolio with key acquisitions such as CallidusCloud, recast.ai (a chat bot platform) and strategic technology partnerships including amazon connect, Mindtouch, Celonis… Redefined CRM vision & strategy at SAP with “Customer Experience” white paper from the office of the CEO on digital transformation shifting the company’s mindset & strategy from traditional CRM to Customer Experience Key responsibilities included product strategies & product marketing for the sales and service portfolio; build - buy - partner decisions; business cases for key acquisitions; all product marketing, messaging & positioning, GTM strategy, AR/PR; expanding partner ecosystem (ISV and SI partners) Service Cloud: Spearheaded the “Intelligent Service” initiative driving investments in conversational AI & chat bots, AI-based case management, predictive service, connected service & IoT, new Engagement Center and “crowd” service Sales Cloud: Initiated “Beyond SFA” strategy expanding into CPQ, end-to-end order management and SPM: renewed focus on ISV partners (InsideView, InMind…); strengthened industry solutions for CP, High Tech, Ind. Manufacturing…

Managed the solution portfolio of SAP CRM (on-premise) -- mainly comprised of Sales, Service, Marketing, Customer Interaction Center -- and new SaaS products for Sales and Service (SAP Cloud for Customer) in a new business unit for all CRM products at SAP: LoB Customer. Defined solution strategy and aligned on-premise and cloud development teams and product roadmaps. Served as a key external spokesperson for SAP CRM/LoB Customer. Responsibilities included repositioning and re-branding of the portfolio (“SAP Customer 360”), a stronger focus on industries, balancing investments in cloud vs. on-premise, driving cloud adoption and subscription revenue growth while retaining license revenue growth and maintaining SAP’s overall leadership position in CRM (marketshare).
 Created new solution-focused messaging and value propositions, sales assets & sales plays (for each product across multiple industries) to drive awareness with business audiences and generate pipeline.

Expanded the product marketing team and later build the global go-to-market organization for SAP CRM across all regions to drive more awareness, improve market perception, accelerate demand generation and ultimately drive the SAP CRM business globally across all regions resulting in SAP's leadership in CRM based on marketshare -- making it #1 in CRM! Responsibilities included driving thought leadership and vision for CRM across sales, service, marketing and beyond the front office, future direction for products roadmaps, AR, messaging & positioning, outbound product management, rollout & field enablement, product launches, strategic alliances (SI's and ISVs), aligning global business plan with regional business development plans, marketing campaigns & regional sales teams Global spokesperson for CRM suite and responsible for suite-level analyst & media engagement. Spearheaded digital marketing initiative and social media engagement, founded SAP CRM online community.

Member of the CRM leadership team reporting directly to the executive board member for CRM. Extended product management role to a CPO & GM-type role responsible for future product direction as well as all outbound activities including product marketing, GTM strategy, alliances etc. to drive customer adoption and business success. Under my leadership, SAP was recognized as a leader in Gartner’s MQ for B2B Commerce - only a few years after launching the first release and at the time the only market-leading product from SAP in any CRM category. What started in 2000 with 2 customers has become a business with 1000+ customers.

As the first product manager for an eCommerce product at SAP, I build a global product management team, defined product requirements for an entirely new product category at SAP, created messaging & positioning, drove AR & PR, developed go-to-market plans, and went out to sell to pilot customers. Customer adoption accelerated quickly with a value prop based on SAP integration, close collaboration with customers and a UI-first approach. With the joint venture of SAP spin-off SAPMarkets and CommerceOne in 2001 my responsibilities expanded to include building B2B marketplaces, extending the PM team and close collaboration with CommerceOne.

First hire for CRM sales team. Responsibilities included creating SFA demo scenarios for different industries, delivering customized demos for prospect, supporting & enabling field sales teams across Europe. Awarded “Rookie of the year” in EMEA region.

PhD thesis: 1:1 Marketing ("Individualisierung als strategische Option der Marktbearbeitung")