But when it came to other personnel decisions, in which Plattner had a say, the company didn’t always have good luck with successive leadership and increases in maintenance fees, which battered customer relationship for years, so SAP had to revise its pricing policy.
Then CEO Bill McDermott surprisingly resigned at the end of 2019 to go to ServiceNow, and the dual leadership of Christian Klein and Jennifer Morgan only worked for a short time.
Throughout the many changes, however, Plattner and the entire supervisory board repeatedly backed management. “Without this support, we wouldn’t have been able to carry out the strategy changes three years ago, especially with the knowledge of the risk of the share price falling by 30%,” said Klein, who reiterated that changes at SAP will continue.
Best laid succession plans
Despite criticism of the sluggish succession process, Plattner was reconfirmed in his office for two more years in 2022. “Putting my position as chairman of the supervisory board in the right hands is a very important and emotional task for me, which I’ve been working on for some time,” Plattner said at the SAP Annual General Meeting in May 2022.
In 2023, there was movement in the succession plans among the supervisory board. With Punit Renjen, the former CEO of Deloitte, they believed they had found a suitable fit. “This will initiate a structured transition at the top of the supervisory board, which will ensure the necessary continuity for the further growth of our company,” Plattner said.
But how difficult it apparently was to find the right candidate to succeed Plattner was shown by a surprising about-face in February 2023. Three months before Renjen was supposed to be elected chairman of the supervisory board, he backed out, a mutual decision, SAP said in a statement.
