SAP announces restructuring and investments in AI: 8,000 jobs affected by cuts or reabsorption

SAP's restructuring program will include significant investments in artificial intelligence applications, both internally and externally, as well as extensive reskilling of its workforce. SAP will cut 8,000 jobs as part of a £1.7 billion restructuring effort, the company has announced. In a statement, the enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems provider said its “business transformation program” will aim to leverage “AI-driven efficiency” internally and to provide more AI services externally. Lmost of the 8,000 positions slated for elimination in SAP's restructuring program will be covered by a combination of internal retraining measures and voluntary exit programmes.

“We are confident about the company's prospects for 2024,” SAP CEO Christian Klein said in a separate statement.”With the planned transformation program, we are intensifying the shift of investments towards strategic growth areas, especially artificial intelligence for enterprise. Going forward, this will allow us to continue to drive innovation while increasing the scalability of the operating model.” At his annual results press conference, Klein confirmed that approximately two-thirds of employees whose roles were at risk of elimination would be redeployed within the company. Furthermore, he added, SAP will invest around 100 million euros in training to help people find new roles, although it was not made clear whether these would be within the company or elsewhere. The implementation of AI solutions both internally and externally would also be accelerated. “
We will invest almost a billion [di euro] in AI by the end of 2025,
” said Klein. Investors seem to react positively to the announcement, so much so that yesterday Sap recorded its strongest gain since 2020.

AI applications would be employed to assist in development, delivery, sales and finance functions across the company, Klein said in response to a question from Deutsche press-agentur. “When you look at some of our reports where we actually see the highest productivity levels, it's clearly in the go-to market,” added the CEO. “It's also in some of the support functions.”