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In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I reflect on the incredible legacy of Hasso Plattner at SAP.
Highlights
00:16 — After 52 years in various positions at the top of SAP, Plattner officially stepped down; his last position was chairman of the supervisory board. This has been planned for a while. There were multiple co-founders of the company, and various of them played big roles, throughout the years, Plattner was the one who really drove the company.
01:31 — With his co-founders, Plattner created the enterprise applications business and SAP was, for almost all of that time, the world’s largest enterprise applications company. The installation of Christian Klein as the CEO four years ago will be remembered as one of the great moves that Platner and SAP made because Klein has the company really firing with high rate of growth in the cloud; it’s going to be 25% cloud growth this year.
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02:53 — SAP’s got a lot of programs to move its 20,000-plus on-prem customers into the cloud. It’s got things going with GenAI; it’s got its market-leading RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP programs to help customers move at their own pace. And Klein has proved to be a brilliant leader; that was under a lot of questions in 2020, when Klein was named as the sole CEO of SAP, during the pandemic: He wasn’t able to offer guidance on what might happen next quarter or for the year.
03:36 — Plattner stuck by Klein in a very visible show of support. Klein convinced Plattner that SAP had to not only change its strategy but also its financial model, bringing financial guidance down to reflect the move from the license business where you get all the money upfront to the cloud where you get it over time.
04:09 — The stock was battered; as one of the largest shareholders, it was going to have a big impact on the company, and certainly on his own holdings. Within a day or two after SAP stock tumbled, Plattner purchased about $300 million worth of SAP’s shares to show he had full confidence in Klein; today, SAP’s market cap is higher than it’s ever been before.
4:57 — Just a little insight into the man and his personality: I recommend this video on YouTube. I don’t want to spoil the effect of it, I would pretty confidently say it will be unlike videos you’ve seen of any other technology executive, maybe any business executive anywhere. Plattner leaves an incredible legacy.
