Here’s why Rob Enslin left SAP
SAP set off a tidal wave of speculation last Friday when it announced that Rob Enslin, executive board member and president of its cloud business group, was leaving the company. Some automatically assumed that this was SAP’s latest high profile ousting as the software maker shifts resources to its “experience economy” initiative, an effort that includes laying off 4400 employees.
What speculators failed to see is that Enslin’s exit is different. After all, until last Friday he was in charge of SAP’s cloud businesses, including SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, SAP Fieldglass, SAP Customer Experience (the former SAP hybris), SAP C/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors and Qualtrics, which Enslin helped bring into the company. These businesses are central to SAP’s current strategy and to its future. Until last Friday, they belonged to Enslin.
But Enslin never intended to keep them for long. Here’s how SAP CEO Bill McDermott explained it last Friday via an e-mail to employees:
Back in 2017, when Rob succeeded Steve Singh and first formed CBG, he was very honest with the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board about his outlook for the next few years. While he agreed to take on the assignment, he also said that after a couple more years, he’d likely be curious to try something outside SAP. It’s important to remember that Rob first joined SAP in 1992. In the nearly…
