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SAP UK and Ireland shuffles management cards

Cloud, data, analytics, database and sales changes

The ever-exciting SAP, Europe’s largest software maker, has kicked off 2016 with a management reshuffle.

The firm’s UK and Ireland group has hired or moved nine executives around the corporate org chart in the cloud, data, analytics, database and sales business areas.

The changes were announced by SAP UKI managing director Cormac Watters in an internal email to employees, seen by The Register, on January 15. They come ahead of an annual SAP conference in Barcelona this week.

Head of analytics Simon Niesler has been named head of core industry sales, taking over from David Phull, who we reported last week has left SAP, after just a year in the industry sales post, to become general manager of VMware UK and Ireland.

Niesler’s analytics post has been filled by Stephen Jamieson.

The new head of compliance sales is Lee Edwards, who served as database and technology sales director for two years and who joined SAP with the 2010 purchase of Sybase where he'd worked.

Mark Rhoden has been hired from Software AG to become UKI head of database and technology sales.

Taking over as head of financial services and insurance sales is Leanne Taylor, replacing Mark Dunleavy, who has left SAP.

Human capital management’s new head is Joel Farrow, following success in SAP cloud, according to Watters, with a focus on customer satisfaction and revenue.

SAP’s cloud team has a new head of customer engagement and commerce: Simon Pearson, who was DI/SI sales director. Steve Wainwright has been named SAP customer digital officer, while SAP UKI also has a new chief financial officer, Christian Jehle.

Watters said in his email to SAP employees that the changes were designed to create a leadership structure that “matches customers' needs”.

“We have made great progress in driving digital transformation in the UKI market but we are only at the start of this journey,” he said.

In a statement to The Register, Watters said SAP has made the management changes to “set the business up for success in 2016”.

Number crunching

The changes came after SAP announced preliminary fourth-quarter and full-year results that saw total revenue for the firm growing 16 per cent for the three months to December 31, although operating profits fell.

Revealing preliminary results, the firm raked in €6.35bn ($6.89bn), but operating profit fell three per cent to €1.70bn ($1.84bn), despite growth in cloud subscriptions and support, software and maintenance.

The biggest growth was in cloud subscriptions and support, up 81 per cent, but this still accounted for a fraction of the giant’s income, which was €0.63bn ($0.68bn).

Cloud software was the next biggest, up 18 per cent to €5.38bn ($5.84bn), while the bread-and-butter software licence and support business was up 13 per cent to €4.75bn ($5.15bn).

For the year, SAP reported preliminary revenue growth of 18 per cent to €20.80bn ($22.58bn) but a fall in operating profit of two per cent to €4.25bn ($4.61bn).

Again, cloud subscriptions and support grew fastest, 110 per cent, to €2.29bn ($2.48bn).

However, it was software licences and support, and cloud and software, that pulled in what mattered. Cloud and software was up 20 per cent to €17.22bn (£18.69bn) while software licence and support increased 13 per cent to €14.93bn ($16.21bn).

Chief executive Bill McDermott claimed the numbers meant SAP had “decisively beaten” its full-year guidance for cloud and software revenue.

The firm also claimed a quarter-on-quarter doubling of SAP S/4HANA adoption with 2,700 customers. ®

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