In their first public appearance since being named co-CEOs of SAP after a management shakeup, Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe said their priorities this year are to return the company to growth, innovate the company’s product line, and get customers “to love us again.”
McDermott and Snabe were named to run SAP in early February after the surprise resignation of Leo Apotheker, who was CEO for only nine months. At the time, SAP said the company’s Supervisory Board had decided not to renew Apotheker’s contract and that he had resigned immediately.
Apotheker’s resignation and indeed his tenure as SAP’s CEO, came during a time of financial pressure stemming from the worldwide recession, but also amid difficulties surrounding an unpopular decision by SAP to raise software maintenance prices last summer, a longer than expected rollout of a new software-as-a-service product for the mid-market, and, reportedly, dissatisfaction among employees.
Speaking today at a press conference at the annual CeBIT conference in Germany, the two executives repeatedly emphasized that they would work to restore trust among customers and employees.