SAP in another exec reshuffle

Computerworld UK - Three SAP vice presidents and a head of services are leaving the company as part of a major management reshuffle.

SAP has confirmed that Doug Merritt, executive vice president at SAP and general manager of sales at the company's Business Objects division, is leaving, alongside global field services head Bernd-Michael Rumpf.

Computerworld UK has also learned that SAP executive vice president Bob Stutz, who manages mobile applications, will leave, as will Singh Mecker, senior vice president and head of SAP's global sales partners. SAP has not yet confirmed these two changes.

An SAP spokesperson insisted the changes were part of an annual reshuffle before Christmas, but also suggested they were related to business goals.

"We usually have an adjustment of our organizations every year, to make sure we are on our strategy and hitting our targets," he said. "It happens mid-December every year."

The news comes in a year when SAP has been pushing a "four-element" strategy of offering clients a mixture of on-premise, on-demand and on-device applications, and better application orchestration capabilities. In-memory technology is a crucial part of the on-premise strategy.

In February, SAP took on two chief executives, Jim Snabe and Bill McDermott, to replace Leo Apotheker, now head of Hewlett-Packard.

As part of the new changes, Rob Enselin, the North America president at SAP, will head sales. Sanjay Poonen, senior vice president and general manager at Business Objects, has also been promoted, but his new title has not yet been confirmed.