Making big data more accessible to all

Plattner's personal wealth has quickly expanded over the past decades as SAP's enterprise resource planning business grew. He has put the gains into a range of interests including hockey, IT research and efforts to fight AIDS.

According to Forbes magazine, Plattner controlled nearly $9 billion of personal wealth as of 2013. He is chairman of SAP's supervisory board, an in-house think tank of the German company.

SAP's most valuable markets are those with the largest amounts of data that need to be stored. That led Plattner's company to China, a data gold mine.

In mid 2013, SAP identified China as one of its strategic markets worldwide.

Chief Executive Bill McDermott said he expects China to become one of SAP's top five markets globally by revenue by around 2015.

The company has about 4,000 employees in China and offices in Beijing, Chengdu, Xi'an and Nanjing. "We have to be able to handle the biggest big data in the world, because China is the largest country in the world" by population, McDermott said.

For SAP's China team the paramount challenge is to find ways to handle the world's largest amount of data. Mark Gibbs, president of SAP Greater China, said the company sees massive business opportunities in the country, where manufacturing, oil, logistics and transportation sectors are far more vibrant than in other economies.

China's State-owned enterprises will continue to be SAP's major clients and it is also seeking new deals with some leading private firms, Gibbs said.

Experiences in local projects such as building smart cities will become basic ideas for the rest of the world, he said.

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