Thread regarding SAP layoffs

My 2 cents, Punit seems to come across as a seasoned executive. The clip ( thx for sending out the link) makes clear what country he believes will be the concentration of future SAP expansion. His experience has been how to help other companies optimize their operations ( which often means outsourcing, moving to lower cost locations and unfortunately layoffs).

To be successful in his new role, he has probably already well known what his plan of action for SAP would be a month after he was selected for the Chairman role. The last 7 months have been more about putting the details behind the high level strategy..

We will hear tomorrow whatever will be announced about the next round of layoffs, however I am sure that we will not hear from him tomorrow. We will probably also get some information about what the raises and bonus payouts will be - I don't expect anything worthwhile and I am not holding my breath. WFH has already been eliminated.

Clear that he wants to get all of the bad news out of the way before he takes over in May and use CK and the other Executive Board to implement these unpopular directives while he stays in the shadows. But back to the appearance of presenting himself like a seasoned executive, I have a funny feeling that once he gets the current Board members to drive all of this bad news throughout the organization, that come the fall he will then replace these people with his own team to run the next phase of his overall strategy for SAP.. He is the highest paid person we have on our payroll and I think it is elementary for him to have figured out that to be successful, he will need his own team. Nothing unusual about this corporate shuffle and I would also think the current Board Members already suspect this will be coming. The King gets to pick his own court and so shall it be for SAP.

Somebody on one of these posts, said something like his incoming chairmanship was like a new day coming for SAP - this will prove to be the understatement of the century!!

I think we should come face to face with why Punit Renjen was hired by SAP.

No doubt the video shows him to be a polished guy who presents himself well.   However, when you hear how adamant  he is about the future growth of India and how convincing he is that this will be where SAP will expand and knowing that while he was at Deloitte they transitioned the customer support from "in country" to outsourcing all global customer support to India.   This combined with the 36 years of experience he has in working for a consulting company who provides the guidance to other companies on how to restructure, outsource, etc their operations, then we  should no doubts about why he was selected, what the core principles of his strategy will be and what all of us should be expecting.

For SAP employees in so called high cost countries, now would be a good time to get your resume updated. . 

Thanks for posting this video, wouldn't not have otherwise come across it. I did a quick search on the basis of this video and found several others where Punit has pushed forward the same view that this is now India's time - ( whatever that means)?

I agree with other comments, if Punit Renjen is using his position as "incoming chairman" of SAP to get airtime on these broadcast and gain publicity for himself. Then I am a bit disturbed that he doesn't know enough then that he should have first addressed the SAP employee base. We should not have to go and search out videos he is doing in his capacity as incoming chairman to get some understanding of what he is about.

He's been here for many months now and would have expected that if not at least corporate etiquette would have guided him on speaking 1;1 with the employees, then given his past position of leading a company the size of Deloitte this would have provided the knowledge and experience to have enough self awareness to give a proper intro of yourself to the company employees - this comes before using SAP to run your own publicity venues. So for example when you go out publicly and speak about expanding SAP into India beyond where we are today, ( which is already significant) than absent direct communication to explain his views to the employees then all this accomplishes is just more and more speculation raising anxiety, which we really do not need at this time.

I have come across accurate observations regarding jobs relocating to India and other developing countries. Just recently, I learned that there won't be any hiring budgets available in my product area in 2024, except for replacements, working students, and interns. However, there are no plans to expand teams in the EU/DE. On the contrary, budgets have already been allocated to hire 3-4 development teams in India for 2024.

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Danke! Had no clue this video existed - thanks for sharing. Was interesting to hear his comments .... most revealing was his comments about the need for "reskilling" and what this could mean to SAP. Clear that he sees India as the location for all future growth.

Totally miss why during all the time he has had to do these outside interviews as incoming SAP Chairman but has not done at least one AHC to introduce himself and his vision to the employee?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyNkO76kjdo

Our team came across this video last summer regarding Punit Renjen future goals for SAP. Keep in mind, that at the time of this interview he had already been Deputy Chairman of SAP for 3+ months.

I am surprised that so many SAP'ers are unaware of this interview, especially as it was done last August. Keep in mind that he was already SAP's deputy Chairman when he gave this interview and as such he was very clear about his intent to expand SAP into India.

As he has said in multiple interviews - this is India's century. This is all well and good, and no negativity is imparted towards our colleagues in India. If this is his plan, then so be it, however it would be good to hear it directly from him with a bit more content behind. We all have careers and family depending on our livelihood and deserve to know what is coming our way. Without accurate information coming directly from our Leadership, a lot of rumors can be started on social media which then makes it easier for rumors to spread, and more difficult for rumor control and fake news to be managed. Is this what we want?

The point is well made that if it was OK for him to get on a public ET broadcast some 6 months ago and speak about what he sees for SAP as incoming Chairman then he should out of respect for the 110,000 employees directly address them before giving public interviews, which apparently not too many are even aware about. If you haven't already seen this video, it's worth the 30 minutes to listen to it, especially as it might be the only opportunity the employee base gets to hear from their incoming chairman as to what his visions are.

He seems like a nice enough person who speaks well, but I fear he is making a big mistake given the growing tensions among the employees not to speak directly to them. Yes, indeed it is about time.

There is no question that the policies which CK has been pushing out have come from Punit. The handover from Hasso was for all intent and purposes completed by end of last summer and from then on it has been Punit's show, even if he has done a good job at staying in the background.

BTW, with respect to hearing nothing from Hasso during his term - not true.
we had a much more engaged CEO during latter years than CK has been and also Hasso was keynote speaker at every Sapphire event during his term and also was on many tech forums and appeared with Bill M on many appearances. There was more than ample opportunity for employees to hear directly from him.

We should not be expected to know to follow Renjen on social media to get information about our company. I am not sure it is proper that we have to get on FB ir some other platform to know what our strategy will be. Rather it's about time Puni begins to speak directly to the employees about his agenda especially as the employee turmoil now taking hold gets deeper and deeper.

We should realize from where Punit Renjen is coming. If the major shareholders wanted a Chairman from the SW industry, they would have looked at individuals from Oracle, Salesforce, Microsoft... but this was not their focus. Punit expertise comes from running a company whose business is to provide consulting services to other companies on, restructuring, optimization, efficiencies, outsourcing, etc. For better or worse, this is what we should be expecting to be part of his vision going forward,

If Punit wants to take over a company in a couple of months where the morale is sinking on a daily basis to ever new lows, then he should continue to make himself unavailable to the workforce.

He's been visiting Labs around the world . I think you need to start following him on social media. The guys has been meeting Who's Who in government , as well as SAP labs locations.

Yes - Many jobs are going to India. That i can confirm 100%

How many times have you heard anything directly from Plattner in your SAP Life? I haven’t a single time and I am in the company as long as he was chairman. The supervisory board is also not meant to talk to simple employees, that’s the executive boards responsibility. The supervisory board only addresses the executive board, not peons like you and me.