SAP has announced plans to abandon its joint chief executive structure from May 2014. Co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe will move to the supervisory board leaving American Bill McDermott as the sole CEO. The pair has shared the CE role at the German software player since the departure of Léo Apotheker in 2010, with McDermott based in the US and Snabe in Europe (see Apotheker leaves SAP). In a statement, Snabe, a Dane, said he’d decided to ‘begin the next phase of [his] career, closer to [his] family’.
Although we are somewhat sceptical of the idea of co-CEOs, the pair seems to have made it work for a couple of years. However, we can’t help thinking that a sole CEO structure will be more straightforward to operate. The change in management structure is also likely to reinforce the view that SAP, which has expanded is activities in California, is becoming more US-focused. The move comes at a time when SAP is generally performing well, despite a mild shock in Q2 as software licence revenue fell for the first time in around three years and it was forced to trim its forecasts (see SAP sees software sales drop).