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☆ Silicon Valley Bank became the go-to bank for startups with a network of top-tier VCs. Underrepresented founders say that created barriers to access for them.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( April Joyner | Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

But some early-stage founders told Insider they had trouble getting access to SVB's services. SVB's reliance on VC networks made it less accessible to some underrepresented founders, they said. With its focus on venture-backed startups, Silicon Valley Bank provided loans and lines of credit to businesses that often wouldn't qualify for such services at a larger bank. But the earliest-stage companies — those without significant venture funding or a notable VC backer — were still sometimes shut out, founders told Insider. Jean-Charles and Alvarez-Bailey said they didn't believe bias or discrimination was at play in SVB's decisions — they simply didn't meet the bank's VC funding threshold.

☆ Microsoft, Salesforce and SAP are still some of the best places to work in the world even after layoffs, according to Glassdoor
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Morgan Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Despite months of wide-sweeping job cuts across Silicon Valley, tech companies are still some of the best places to work in the world, according to recent research from Glassdoor. This year, only three companies appear in the top 25 for each of the five countries: Microsoft, SAP and Salesforce. Yet the employee reviews on Microsoft, SAP and Salesforce's Glassdoor pages remain overwhelmingly positive, even after the recent layoff announcements. Six months ago, pre-layoffs, Microsoft had an overall rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, while SAP and Salesforce had overall ratings of 4.4 each. Check out:The 10 best U.S. places to work in 2023, according to GlassdoorI was VP at Google for 10 years.

☆ SAP agrees to sell Qualtrics stake for $7.7 bln
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

BERLIN, March 13 (Reuters) - Software group SAP (SAPG.DE) said on Monday it had agreed to sell its stake in data analytics firm Qualtrics (XM.O) for $7.7 billion as part of the acquisition of Qualtrics by funds affiliated with financial investor Silver Lake. "At a purchase price of US$18.15 in cash per share, the transaction corresponds to a Qualtrics equity value of approximately US$12.5 billion on a fully diluted basis," SAP said in a statement. "SAP's stake will be acquired for approximately US$7.7 billion," it added. Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Christopher CushingOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Do not underestimate how important humans are, even as we automate, the chief technology officer of SAP says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Josée Rose | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Automation, generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT and Bard, and machine learning are pushing business leaders like never before. They deployed this app, built on SAP Business Technology Platform, and said it saves 400,000 hours per year. Maybe it's a bike company: You're interested more in road bikes or fun bikes. You talked about providing and embedding AI and machine learning and giving customers ways to solve problems in a scalable, ethical way. When machine learning arrived, first that automates a lot of capabilities, but now you have completely new jobs.

☆ SAP introduces SAP Datasphere and partnerships with Collibra, Confluent, DataRobot, and Databricks to simplify customers' data landscape
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Sponsor Post | Created Sap With Insider Studios | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

SAP announced SAP Datasphere, the next generation of its data management portfolio, which gives customers easy access to business-ready data across the data landscape. SAP DatasphereAvailable today, SAP Datasphere is the next generation of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud. With a unified experience for data integration, data cataloging, semantic modeling, data warehousing, data federation, and data virtualization, SAP Datasphere enables data professionals to easily distribute mission-critical business data — with business context and logic preserved — across their organization's data landscape. SAP Datasphere is built on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), which includes strong enterprise security capabilities such as database security, encryption, and governance. Databricks customers can integrate their Data Lakehouse with SAP so data can be shared with semantics preserved, helping customers simplify their data landscape.

"His deep understanding of our customers' needs, and the broader industry make him an ideal candidate for Chairman of the Supervisory Board from 2024 onwards," Plattner added. Plattner, who co-founded SAP in 1972 alongside four other former IBM employees, stepped down from active management in May 2003 to head the supervisory board after serving as SAP's CEO since 1997. He owns a 6.16% stake in SAP which is currently worth 8.23 billion euros ($8.73 billion), and said he would remain committed to the company as an "investor with an unchanged stake". SAP, in a separate statement, said it would propose a dividend of 2.05 euros per share for 2022. The company paid 2.45 euros a share for the previous year, which included a 0.50 euros apiece special dividend.

☆ SAP names ex Deloitte CEO as designated chairman to succeed co-founder Plattner
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

BERLIN/FRANKFURT, Feb 22 (Reuters) - SAP (SAPG.DE) on Wednesday named former Deloitte global CEO Punit Renjen as designated chairman to succeed co-founder Hasso Plattner, whose term will expire in May 2024. SAP's board nominated Renjen, global CEO of Deloitte from 2015 until the end of 2022, to stand for election as a new member of the supervisory the board, the statement said. Reporting by Victoria Waldersee in Berlin and Hakan Ersen in Frankfurt; Editing by Christoph SteitzOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

In Germany, where SAP is headquartered, the company will cut slightly more than 200 jobs. SAP has also started the process to sell its stake in Qualtrics (XM.O). REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo 1 2Currently, survey-software seller Qualtrics has a market value of $7 billion and SAP has a 71% stake. SAP forecast core operating profit of 8.8-8.9 billion euros at constant currencies for this year. It also expects cloud revenue at constant currencies for 2023 to rise to 15.3-15.7 billion euros, from 12.56 billion euros last year.

☆ SAP to cut 3,000 roles, explore sale of Qualtrics stake
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Sheila Chiang | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

German enterprise software firm SAP said Thursday that it will be cutting up to 3,000 jobs, or about 2.5% of its workforce, becoming the latest tech giant to announce significant layoffs. "We are further focusing our portfolio in areas where we are strongest to continue our accelerated growth," said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, during the company's fourth-quarter 2022 earnings call. SAP shares were trading over 2% lower at 8:05 a.m. London time following the announcement. It comes after the company reported positive fourth-quarter results during the call. "We in the tech sector, we at SAP, we are very confident about the year ahead," Klein said at the time.

☆ SAP to cut 3,000 jobs in efficiency move, explores Qualtrics stake sale
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BERLIN, Jan 26 (Reuters) - SAP (SAPG.DE) on Thursday said it plans to cut 3,000 jobs, or 2.5% of its global staff, and to explore a sale of its remaining stake in Qualtrics to focus on strategic growth areas and operate more efficiently. With the planned job cuts, SAP joins other big tech companies including Microsoft and Amazon in turning to layoffs to cut costs. SAP reported a 30% revenue increase in its cloud business in the fourth quarter, helped by strong demand for its HANA software. Analysts are worried that the lucrative cloud segment for big tech companies could be hit hard as customers look to cut spending. SAP's operating profit grew 17% in the three months through December to 1.71 billion euros ($1.87 billion) on group revenue of 8.44 billion euros, it said.

☆ Wall Street likes software stocks for the long term. Here are top picks from Goldman, Citi and more
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Zavier Ong | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Citi is also sounding a cautious tone on the sector, calling 2023 a "year of dichotomy in software." Stock picks CNBC Pro had a look at Wall Street research to find the banks' top stock picks to play the software sector. The bank said the company's already "healthy" operating margins could grow about 20%. Goldman also likes tax technology software firm Vertex for its potential to "drive higher cloud margins over time." German software firm SAP is one of Bank of America 's top picks in European software.

☆ Which Twitter alternatives have staying power — and which is the next Clubhouse?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Jordan Parker Erb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

For the rest of the week, in addition to the day's top stories, I'll be highlighting some of the year's biggest investigations, features, and more from Insider's tech reporters. Today, we're taking a look back on everything from employee angst at Amazon to Thomas Kurian's three-year reign at Google Cloud. Which Twitter alternatives have staying power — and which is the next Clubhouse? See which Twitter alternatives could make it out alive. We gave readers an inside look at Kurian's Google Cloud.

The company's cloud business has been growing at a rapid clip, rising 38% in the third quarter to 3.29 billion euros ($3.25 billion). Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterAt that time it envisaged total adjusted revenue of 36 billion euros in 2025, with 22 billion euros of that coming from the cloud business. Total revenue grew 5% in currency-adjusted terms to 7.84 billion euros, SAP said, beating analyst expectations of 7.62 billion euros. SAP stuck with its full-year operating profit forecast of between 7.6 billion and 7.9 billion euros. That forecast was made in July, when it cut its guidance from between 7.8 billion and 8.25 billion euros, citing charges related to the war in Ukraine.

☆ Software maker SAP's Q3 results beat expectations
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BERLIN, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Business software maker SAP (SAPG.DE) reported faster than expected revenue growth for the third quarter, though its profit declined due to lower contribution from software licenses revenue as well as investments in growth. Total revenue grew by 5% in currency-adjusted terms to 7.84 billion euros, SAP said on Tuesday, beating analyst consensus for a jump to 7.62 billion. Non-IFRS operating profit came to 2.09 billion euros ($2.07 billion) in the three months through September, an 8% drop at constant currencies. Earnings per share of 1.12 euros fell short of consensus for 1.25 euros. SAP stuck with a forecast for full-year operating profit to come to 7.6 billion to 7.9 billion euros, which it had cut from 7.8 billion-8.25 billion in July.

"SAP is fully committed to winding down our business in Russia as quickly as possible," a SAP spokesperson said. Russia's parliament has been discussing draft legislation that would allow Moscow to seize Western companies' assets and possibly prosecute executives involved in implementing sanctions against Russia. While Gazprom and Sberbank were hit by Western sanctions, Nornickel was not. The SAP case sheds light on the complications Western companies face leaving Russia. While some departing companies have fired local staff, SAP gave them the option to relocate from Russia.

☆ German tech giant SAP actually benefits from strong dollar and supply chain troubles, CEO says
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Frank Holland | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

- German software giant SAP reported a bottom line undermined by heavy restructuring costs, but lifted forecasts for the year ahead. A strengthening dollar, global inflation, and supply chain issues related to Covid lockdowns in China have been major headwinds for many tech companies. But SAP CEO Christian Klein says the European software giant is an exception. Other large tech companies, including Salesforce, Microsoft and IBM have said the strong dollar will hurt profits in the near term. But, SAP is on a path to success in ERP cloud and they control their own destiny."

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