BENGALURU: There is nervousness among employees in SAP and IBM in India. Both companies have announced layoffs globally. It’s not clear how many in India will be affected, but some sources say it could be several hundreds. For both companies, India is the largest employee base outside their global headquarters. IBM is estimated to have over 1 lakh employees in India. SAP has about 15,000 engineers here.
SAP, in an email to employees, said they will pivot to be more focused on the industries where it leads, complemented by a strong ecosystem. SAP plans to consolidate the CX (consumer experience) and industries teams for SAP product engineering, and marketing and solutions respectively. It plans to cut 3,000 jobs and is exploring the sale of Qualtrics, the experience management company it acquired for $8 billion five years ago.
SAP Labs India is working on a second R&D campus in Bengaluru that is expected to begin operations by 2025, and would enable it to double its capacity here. In an email to employees after the restructuring announcement, SAP executive board member Thomas Saueressig said, “We are amid the most complex transformation SAP has ever gone through.”