SAP reported better-than-expected Q4 2024 financial results and raised its full-year operating profit forecast as demand for artificial intelligence systems continues. On top of beating expectations, SAP said that it now expects 2025 operating profit to be between €10.3 billion and €10.6 billion, above previous estimates of approximately €10 billion. Its current cloud backlog of €18.08 billion is up 32%. Cloud revenue is up 27% to €4.71 billion, and Cloud ERP suite revenue is up 35% to €3.95 billion. Additionally, on December 16, SAP announced the general availability of the SAP Green Ledger solution, the most comprehensive carbon accounting system globally that integrates directly with customers’ financial data. While the results are great, we are yet to see an accelerated rate of adoption of customers moving from ECC to S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.

SAP also used the earnings call to announce several leadership changes. 2024 saw three key executive departures, namely Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer Julia White, Chief Revenue Officer Scott Russell, and Chief Technology Officer Juergen Mueller. White is now the chief marketing officer and vice president at AWS, while Russell has joined NICE as its chief executive officer. In light of this, the market has been expecting some changes.

  • Sebastian Steinhaeuser will become SAP’s chief operating officer on February 1 and is the only new member of SAP’s executive board. Steinhaeuser joined the company in 2020 as the chief of staff to CEO Christian Klein and became chief strategy officer in 2021. He previously worked at Boston Consulting Group.
  • Philipp Herzig is now the global CTO in addition to his existing role as chief AI officer.
  • Jan Gilg and Emmanuel (Manos) Raptopoulos, both veteran SAP employees for close to 20 years, are to jointly lead SAP’s customer success organization as co-chief revenue officers. Raptopoulos, who is currently the regional president of SAP EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), is to manage the SAP EMEA, MEE (Middle and Eastern Europe), and APAC (Asia Pacific) regions. Gilg, who is currently president and chief product officer for Cloud ERP, is to oversee SAP Americas and the global SAP Business Suite.
  • After White’s departure, Ada Agrait joined as chief marketing officer on an interim basis. Agrait is to continue in that role.
  • SAP is expanding its executive board to include the Strategy & Operations division and is appointing an expanded executive board consisting of eight additional managers.
  • During the earnings call, it was emphasized that the goal of the extended board is to create a diverse comprehensive team to scale the reach of the executive board, discuss a broad range of portfolio topics, and act as a strategic advisory body that will assist in driving the company’s AI-first, suite-first strategy.
  • Gilg, Raptopoulos, and Herzig will all report to Klein and will serve on the extended board along with Agrait.

All changes are effective February 1, 2025.

The members of the extended board: Ada Agrait (chief marketing officer), Michael Ameling (general manager, Business Technology Platform), Sebastian Behrendt (head of global finance), Jan Gilg (chief revenue officer, Americas, and SAP Business Suite), Philipp Herzig (chief technology officer), Thomas Pfiester (head of global customer engagement), Emmanuel Raptopoulos (chief revenue officer, APAC/EMEA/MEE), Monika Schaller (chief communications officer), and a to-be-announced general manager for Business Suite.

Interestingly, after last year’s departures and new leadership changes heading into 2025 and onwards, there is not much representation from the Americas. There is greater German representation on SAP’s executive board and now also the extended board. Customers in the Americas will look to Jan Gilg to build strong relationships. This might actually be quite beneficial, as Gilg brings a very strong product background and experience to the role that should uniquely help him engage more deeply with Americas customers, who always tend to welcome engineering, product, and architecture experience with open arms.

Additionally, there are some product innovations to look forward to. We will soon get more details on Joule agents’ orchestration of end-to-end business processes with agents across finance, spend, supply chain, HR, and customer experience. There might be some commercial flexibility with both RISE and GROW to land and adopt the latest innovations without additional negotiations. Lastly, SAP’s focus on AI remains front and center, with AI embedded in 50% of deals, reflecting its commitment to leveraging agnostic AI solutions and different models used based on customer needs.

For more insights on SAP, S/4HANA cloud transformations, on-premises enterprise resource planning support, RISE, GROW, or this specific announcement, clients can book time with me (via an inquiry or guidance session).