The German technology company SAP will carry out a business restructuring that will affect around 8,000 employees worldwide, 7.4% of the workforce, as announced this Wednesday by the German software developer. The company wants to focus on artificial intelligence and that will involve new hiring and retraining of workers, without specifying how many jobs will be eliminated.
Investors celebrated the decision: its shares soared above 5% after opening this Wednesday. The plan has been revealed after earning 167% more in 2023, about 6.1 billion euros.
The company intends this year to further increase its focus on key strategic growth areas, particularly the AI ??business, as well as transform its operational setup to capture organizational synergies, AI-driven efficiencies and prepare for highly future revenue growth. scalable.
To this end, it plans to execute a company-wide restructuring program this current year that is expected to affect about 8,000 jobs, 7.4% of the workforce of 107,602 workers. The Walldorf-based multinational believes that the majority of positions affected by the restructuring will be filled through voluntary redundancies and internal retraining measures. Despite this, with reinvestments in strategic growth areas, SAP expects to close the year with a workforce similar to current levels.
The adjustment will cost about 2,000 million euros and will allow its operating profit to increase to 10,000 million next year. The company already carried out a cut of 3,000 jobs in 2023, 2.5% of its workforce at that time.
At the same time, SAP reported this Wednesday that in 2023 it obtained an attributable net profit of 6,103 million euros, 167% more, while its revenues totaled 31,207 million, 6% more. The cloud business increased 20% annually, to 13,664 million, but revenue from licenses and support fell 5%, to 13,264 million.
