Following the change of CEO(s) at SAP earlier this week (Apotheker leaves SAP), the company announced more leadership changes yesterday, sending the share price down another a further 1% to add to the 6% it already fell this week. It announced a new COO, Gerhard Oswald, replacing Erwin Gunst who resigned for ill-health reasons and that Peter Lorenz, EVP for SMBs – including the Business By Design project – would become a corporate officer. Promoting the interests of SAP’s SMB business and raising the profile of the crucial BBD software-as-a-service looks like a good move. But as he and CTO Vishal Sikka (also promoted to the exec board earlier in the week) were surely responsible for the BBD project's troubled progress so far then we can only hope that their presence on the board gives clarity and focus rather further impetus to going in the wrong direction!
More worrying is the resignation of John Schwarz, exec board member for Business Objects and Corporate Development (aka M&A, we believe). Schwarz was CEO of Business Objects on its acquisition and is seen as a key reason for its success both before and after the SAP takeover. In recent months BO has been a relative shining star in SAP’s firmament. Furthermore, it seems that M&A activity is less likely with him gone, making SAP more reliant on organic growth at least for the near future. Schwarz commented he wanted to step back and think what he wants to do next.
SAP surprised the markets last night announcing that CEO Léo Apotheker had left the company with immediate effect after a ‘mutual agreement’ not to extend his contract beyond the end of 2010. He had been with the company for 20 years but (sole) CEO for just 8 months, taking over from Henning Kagermann. The company has appointed two co-CEOs: Bill McDermott, head of field organization and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development, both already members of the SAP Executive Board. SAP also said that Chairman and SAP co-founder, the charismatic Hasso Plattner, would “play a strong role in advising the new leaders on technology and product development.”
CA announced its Q3