SAP CFO: AI will shrink headcount—but warns of ‘catastrophe’ if mishandled
The pressure on business leaders is escalating to harness artificial intelligence to make work faster, cheaper and more efficient. This investors may raise, but for employees, this may mean fewer jobs around the world.
In the SAP giant of the 320 billion dollar software, a fewer number of engineers are likely to be needed to connect the same thing – or the larger – out, according to the manager of the company’s financial manager Dominique Asam.
“There is more automation, simply,” tell Islam Business Insider. “There are some automatic tasks and the size of the same output, we can have less people.”
As C-Suite Exec in the most valuable software company in Europe, Asam warned that this fact will not be achieved unless the company of companies implemented technology properly. After all, a recent study of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that 95 % of the Truidic IQ pilots did not meet the mark.
“I will be brutal. I also say this internally. For SAP and any other software company, artificial intelligence is a great incentive. It can be either great or disaster.”
“It will be great to do it well, if you are able to implement it and do it faster than others. If you leave behind, you will definitely face a problem. We are working day and night so that you do not fail to knee.”
SAP workforce will not look the same
With 110,000 employees worldwide, artificial intelligence was at the top of the mind for years (the term now is part of describing its works). But as his financial manager, CEO, Christian Klein weighs how technology would allow him to reshape his workforce.
“It will be an illusion that artificial intelligence will help and push more productivity, but the workforce will remain the same.” time last month. “This will not be the case at all. But I also can’t imagine only a working power with digital workers.”
The estimated that about 60 to 70 % of the jobs can become digital.
He added: “Do I expect to need the same extent of developers, sales representatives and future advisors? Certainly not with job profiles they have today.”
At the same time, Klein indicated that other professions, like data scientists, will be more sought -after. But like Asam, he admitted that the reshaping of his working power overnight can be a recipe for disaster.
“To become the CEO and the belief that you are now making a decision, and you have strength, so everyone will follow him only, it is more likely the biggest mistake you can make,” Klein said.
“You can put a lot of policies in place, you can exercise more pressure, but people will not follow automatically. You need to excessive communication in times of change to persuade people.”
The company announced in July that it was investing in training programs and new appointments in critical growth areas at the same time at the same time planning for targeted measures that are expected to affect about 1-2 % of SAP global workforce in 2025.
“Since our industry is subject to a deep transformation driven by artificial intelligence techniques and cloud technologies, we focus on improving our operations and structures constantly, in addition to making strategic investments in future capabilities,” said a company spokesman. luck.
Corporate workforce reshaping
SAP is not alone in realizing that the capabilities of artificial intelligence means that they must rethink the size and shape of their workforce to stay in the foreground.
Andy Jaci, the CEO of Amazon, told his employees that although the last technological innovation means that less people will be in certain jobs and will turn more to others, in the end, the number of Amazon employees will shrink.
“It is difficult to know exactly where these nets come out over time, but in the next few years, we expect this to reduce this from the total workforce of companies, as we get efficiency gains from using artificial intelligence through the company,” Jassi wrote in a note in the month of June.
In Salesforce, this reality, which is already worked as Amnesty International, has not already been formed, as CEO Mark Beniof has admitted that he was able to reorganize the workforce to support customer-and reduce the number of employees from 9,000 to 5,000.
Since CEOs agree that tomorrow’s workforce will be smaller than today, leaders like goodwill CEO Steve Preston fears that changes will harm people at the bottom of the ladder more than others.
“I don’t know it will be catastrophic, but I think we will see a significant decrease in a number of jobs,” said Preston. luck. “I think it will reach workers with low wages in particular.”
Note: A previous version of this article mentioned inaccurately stated that salesforce has reduced the workforce in half thanks to artificial intelligence. A spokesman for the company explained that the changes were exclusive to support customers, and many workers were transferred to new departments or the roles were not filed.
2025-09-24 15:02:00
