Our Board has now found that there is more success in cutting than in growing and we now will get a steady diet of job cuts as the investment community demands more and increased returns.
I believe we can trace this new business plan of job cuts to: (i) a poor M&A process and (ii) misguided product portfolio. Over the past 20 years or so we have integrated about 30,000 employees from the acquisitions with no regard to consolidation, duplication or geographic location. At the same time we have invested heavily in products to where it is over saturation. Have a look at what we now have available for our customers https://help.sap.com/docs/all-products. This only represents what is currently available and does not include the hundreds of products shelved and closed. Think about the wasted development costs and even worse the lack of focus on products that our customers want vs taking a gamble on anything and everything.
This is what happens when we regularly shift L1 management in and out of key positions where everyone gets their turn at the roulette table and no one is really qualified for the position they hold and then somebody new appears with the next great idea.
So now, the job cuts will be the "new normal" here and those of us who have worked hard for SAP and made our careers here will live month to month not knowing if we will have a job next month.
This is the price we pay for the wrong paths this company has taken over many years.