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by Jeff Moad, MA Editorial Staff   Last December, a watershed event in Pleasanton, CA, caused a sea change in Walldorf, Germany. The impetus for the change, of course, was Oracle Corp.'s hard-fought and ultimately successful $10.3 billion bid to buy California-based competitor PeopleSoft. The resulting aftershock a continent and an ocean away was the realization at the headquarters of undisputed market leader SAP AG that a potent rival had been conceived. SAP managers leaped into action. For several months, while Oracle had aggressively pursued PeopleSoft, SAP managers had been hard at work developing a plan to counter the expanded Oracle. Now, they called a series of meetings with selected teams to communicate the strategy. "They had a very strong plan the day the deal closed," says Celestine Vettical, an SAP manager at the time who has since joined Microsoft. "They definitely knew the strengths and weaknesses of Oracle and PeopleSoft and of such a deal. The response was immediate, companywide and well coordinated." The message SAP wanted to deliver to the market: Let Oracle pursue a risky and time-consuming
growth through-acquisition-strategy. SAP would continue to gain market share through organic growth and by focusing on vertical industries such as manufacturing. [Click to continue] |