Jennifer Morgan, the Newtown Square-based co-CEO of SAP, is leaving the giant business software company, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Christian Kiein, 39 years old and based in Germany, moves from co-CEO to sole CEO.
“More than ever, the current environment requires companies to take swift, determined action which is best supported by a very clear leadership structure. Therefore, the decision to transfer from Co-CEO to sole CEO model was taken earlier than planned to ensure strong, unambiguous steering in times of an unprecedented crisis,” the company said in a statement.
Ms. Morgan, 48, joined SAP in 20o4. She followed former SAP CEO Bill McDermott, now CEO of ServiceNow, to SAP, and was percieved as his protoge.
The true point of contention that led to this sudden decision is not yet known. Morgan became co-CEO along-side Klein in October of last year.
Updates added as received. (Tweet to @phillytechnews)
New story: Apple Tests Its Secrecy Somewhere New: Employee Homes — Apple lets employees take home early prototypes, clamps down on future software testing, is still working on several new products for 2020, and many more details: https://t.co/JLN3ba8pbm
The Franklin Institute laid off all of its part-time staff and 36 percent of its full-time staff across all departments. https://t.co/hPED5xWNkP
— The Philadelphia Inquirer (@PhillyInquirer) March 27, 2020
Due to #COVID19, the format of Philly Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise moves online. We won't be able to sit next to each other, but we can still learn about creating great software. 2 days of content from leaders and creators for $99. https://t.co/6XjELXvW2Lpic.twitter.com/CRzx3CDQta
After further assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have decided to close our Localhost facilities until 5pm Friday, March 20th, and will continue to closely monitor the situation.
Coronavirus and colleges: Rutgers University closing all campuses early for spring break. That includes Camden, Newark and New Brunswick. https://t.co/pGa1chakiT
Has anybody else been forced to become a Coronavirus expert overnight? We had two international conferences planned (HIMSS and SXSW), so I’ve found myself needing to make difficult decisions, sort through conflicting information, and then distribute information to our employees.
Updates added as received. (Tweet to @phillytechnews)
A snippet of the email from HIMSS to vendors: "This will be the first time in 58 years the event has been cancelled, but it is now clear that cancellation is unavoidable in order to meet HIMSS’ obligation to protect the health and safety of the global HIMSS community."#COVID19
The health and well-being of our employees, customers, partners, and communities are the top priority for SAP. Due to concerns surrounding COVID-19, we have made the decision to cancel all SAP in-person events for the month of March 2020. Read more here: https://t.co/KgvZIY3VHipic.twitter.com/hEnVkm290I
American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI), Philadelphia, 3/13/20 – 3/16/20: Monitoring developments but no plans to cancel or postpone at this time.
Salesforce is suspending non-essential travel for its nearly 50,000 employees and 'enhancing' its 'office protocols' to fight the coronavirus spread https://t.co/MjwZo73Zdn via @businessinsider
.@Walmart spox says "we’ve built Vudu into an incredibly strong business, with an installed base of more than 100 million devices across America. We’re constantly having conversations with partners but we don’t share details of those discussions." https://t.co/sb9P0VZqj7
Take a look at the poster for TCF2020! This includes some of our speakers, topics, and workshops for the day. Be sure to share this with any colleagues or friends who would be interested in this. Hope to see you there! pic.twitter.com/5o94BsJk9w
#Wawa card breach may rank as one of the biggest of all times https://t.co/byIrPEZnFF via @ZDNet & @campuscodi Article suggests more data items might have been stolen than WaWa had indicated
Mayor’s Office asked if we could so something to honor Kobe Bryant’s life and legacy. I said absolutely. Boathouse Row will be purple (w/ gold lights) for the remainder of the week for Kobe, Gianna and the other passengers.. #MambaMentality#MambaForeverpic.twitter.com/ZQLW98rbVH
In 2019 we celebrated our 20th Anniversary and we couldn’t be more thankful for the success of our first two decades. From portfolio accolades to curated advice from our CEOs, 2019 was a big year and we’re continuing that momentum into 2020 https://t.co/ynyu5PqYMVpic.twitter.com/CoxrU1WsM0
Comcast's stock price hit a record high on Friday morning, bolstered by the media giant's release of more details about its Peacock streaming service. https://t.co/Rd44YxCCSf
Delco Today, a local web magazine in Delaware County, PA where SAP’s North American headquarters is located, interviewed Jennifer Morgan, SAP’s new co-CEO, and her husband Michael in 2017. It provides a lot more insight into who Jennifer is and where she came from than I’ve seen anywhere else.
One thing I did not know: Morgan came to SAP from Oracle’s Siebel Systems, and that’s where she met Bill McDermott and later followed him to SAP. She’s from Northern Virginia and attended James Madison University. Morgan is 48 and her fellow co-CEO, Christian Klein, is only 39. She is from the client side while Klein is from the tech side.
Morgan joins Safra Catz (Oracle) and Julie Sweet (Accenture) as women leading major enterprise technology companies.
I’ve been wondering for some time whether Salesforce’s (NYSE: CRM) growth would falter, but it really hasn’t yet in a big way. Though a string of acquisitions have had a dilutive effect, investors have rewarded it with a growth premium in terms of a higher Price to Earnings (PE) ratio. Its somewhat akin to what happened last year when Netflix briefly surpassed Comcast in market value. Such a PE advantage, though tenuous, gives Salesforce a strong currency for acquiring others.
Salesforce may be on the verge of becoming a more powerful enterprise player than the possibly capital-constrained SAP, under pressure from an activist investor, in spite of its considerably smaller revenue & profit base.
Comparative share prices: Salesforce (light blue) vs SAP (dark blue) Past 5 years
CRM Mkt cap
$146.8B
SAP SE Mkt cap
$162.4B
In 2018, SAP redesigned & retargeted its CRM, but its way too early to measure how effective that relaunch has been.
SAP CRX ( Qualtrics): The acquisition of Qualtrics opens up an adjacent market to CRM that Salesforce isn’t much of a player in today.
Salesforce could move more into SAP’s space:
Salesforce Options
Buying WorkDay would appear financially feasible, though WDAY founders control voting stock (they won’t allow another Peoplesoft). WDAY brings Financial ERP as well as HCM.
Continue partnerships or consolidate RootStock & Financial Force (manufacturing & financial ERP)
Buy Zoho if available. Threat to cannibalize Salesforce’s own core business, but could be like Microsoft’s Great Plains acquisition
Salesforce acquisition target list leaked in 2016 – What’s happened since
Adobe Mkt cap 134.91B, essentially the same as CRM
LinkedIn . Acquired by MSFT for $26.2 billion
Workday . Mkt Cap $39.9 billion
ServiceNow . Mkt Cap $50.8 billion
Netsuite . Acquired by Oracle for ~$9.3 billion
Tableau Acquired by Salesforce for $15.7 billion
Pegasystems . Mkt Cap $5.7 billion
Qlik Acquired by Thoma Bravo for $3 billion
Veeva . Mkt Cap $21.7 billion
Box . Mkt Cap $2.6 billion; Recent activist stake
Demandware . Acquired by Salesforce for $2.8 billion
Zendesk Mkt Cap $8.6 billion
Marketo Acquired by Adobe for $4.8 billion
Hubspot . Mkt Cap $6.8 billion
Salesforce’s Mulesoft acquisition last year was totally off the chart. SAP owns no equivalent.
Salesforce needs to decide whether to build a strategy around smaller customers, or double down on larger customers.
Salesforce is also likely looking at ways to accelerate its CRX ambitions.
Another possibility is a dead stop to Salesforce’s organic growth, but that seems unlikely given the size and projected growth of the market
Not discounting Oracle at all, but see it more as a hard engineering company, inconsistent in end user applications.
