WALLDORF, GERMANY — Software giant SAP is in the process of integrating its global PR and marketing teams and is consolidating its agency relationships with WPP, the Holmes Report can reveal. 

Internally, SAP integrated its marketing and communications teams in 2013 and is now in the process of having this change reflected in its external agencies, James Dever, VP of corporate affairs at SAP, told the Holmes Report .

This year, SAP has begun streamlining most of its agencies with WPP, but Dever said the company will continue to use specialist firms when necessary.

“We believe there are synergies to be gained across marketing, branding and PR — as the lines become blurred and we see more overlap across owned, earned and paid,” Dever said.

Burson Marsteller’s US tech practice head Sabrina Guttman is leading the PR integration and Ogilvy & Mather’s global branding lead Spencer Osborn is leading the branding side.

Dever declined to say how many agencies were let go during the integration, but said SAP has been working with several agencies across regions, including those that worked with many of the companies SAP has acquired over the years.

In 2011, SAP decentralized its worldwide agencies away from Burson-Marsteller by hiring Edelman and Octopus in the UK.