Its Official, If You Work for SAP Its Ok to Lie About Having a PhD

Table of Contents: Select a Link to be Taken to That Section

Executive Summary

Hasso Plattner has been lying about his Ph.D. for decades.
However, according to one SAP resource, lying about one’s Ph.D. is not a bad thing.

Introduction

In our article, Does Hasso Plattner Have a Ph.D.?, we outlined the fact that Hasso’s PhDs are honorary but are presented as real.

Our References for This Article

If you want to see our references for this article and other related Brightwork articles, see this link.

Notice of Lack of Financial Bias: We have no financial ties to SAP or any other entity mentioned in this article.

This is published by a research entity, not some lowbrow entity that is part of the SAP ecosystem.
Second, no one paid for this article to be written, and it is not pretending to inform you while being rigged to sell you software or consulting services. Unlike nearly every other article you will find from Google on this topic, it has had no input from any company's marketing or sales department. As you are reading this article, consider how rare this is. The vast majority of information on the Internet on SAP is provided by SAP, which is filled with false claims and sleazy consulting companies and SAP consultants who will tell any lie for personal benefit. Furthermore, SAP pays off all IT analysts -- who have the same concern for accuracy as SAP. Not one of these entities will disclose their pro-SAP financial bias to their readers.

SAP Consultants That Support Hasso Plattner Faking His Qualifications

Curiously, we received pushback on this from an SAP consultant.

“You really must have run out of real arguments against SAP in what feels what a personal vendetta? It’s quite simple: If you earn a Doctorate (incl h.c.) from an accredited university, then, in Germany, you can chose to add it to your ID/passport. Many people do and use it as if part of the name -some say not to do so would be uncourteous to the organisation you received an hc from. It is as outdated as are the Sirs in Britain or the bowing angle corresponding to social hierarchy in Japan and if you ask me, whether it adds value: certainly not. There are much higher achievements than Dr. hc or PhD that don’t get the same attention. But it is legal, not fishy at all and in line with normal custom. But really, it’s all a non-issue: someone uses an old fashioned pre-fix to his name. He never claimed to be something he isn’t. If some people thought he has a real PhD, they didn’t buy his software for this reason and he was long past the point, where his academic achievement mattered for career progression. So, what’s the fuzz? On his hon Professorship: he was a visiting professor at my Uni – we learned more from him than from any of the ivory tower products with PhD. Nothing fake about this – he really did it.” – Sven Ringling

Ding Ding Ding!

Sven Ringling gets our Golden Pinocchio Award.

Go to top

Conclusion

What Sven leaves out of the analysis is why Hasso did it. If it made no difference, why did Hasso present a fictitious Ph.D. as real? No one would do that as honorary doctorates aren’t relevant. He did it for one reason, to borrow from the authority of academia. Sven Ringling does not want us to publish that Hasso lied about his fake doctorate because he wants to have Hasso’s reputation intact. Many people I spoke with thought that Hasso had a real P.h.D, as did I. This is the entire point in calling yourself a P.h.D., as posing as a professor, when you are not one.