According to foreign media reports, the world's third-largest software company is undergoing large-scale layoffs. German software giant SAP, the world's third-largest software company, is cutting 9000 to 10000 positions instead of the original 8000 positions. Among them, in Germany, plans are underway to lay off approximately 3500 out of 25000 employees through early retirement and layoffs, accounting for 14%.

Insiders revealed that initially around 5300 people expressed interest in the plan. However, SAP rejected many applications to prevent the loss of critical technologies. Among the nearly 3500 approved volunteer employees, about 80% retired early, about 2800 people, and 20% received severance pay plans. Public information shows that SAP was founded in 1972 and was once ranked as the world's third largest software company by Forbes magazine. The company is dedicated to SAP, an enterprise management software business, and its potential market competitor is the American company Oracle.

In the field of healthcare, with the increasing demand for digital transformation in the medical industry, SAP, with its strong technological strength and rich industry experience, has made comprehensive efforts in the medical business field, bringing a series of innovative solutions to the medical industry and promoting its new journey towards intelligent and efficient development. So, will SAP's large-scale layoffs affect its layout in the healthcare industry?

01. SAP's major layoffs
SAP is headquartered in Waldorf, Germany. The company was founded in 1972 and has offices in 130 countries and regions worldwide. The company's main enterprise management software business is SAP, and its potential market competitor is the American company Oracle. As of the end of the second quarter of 2024, the total number of global employees at SAP was 105315.

As Germany's severance pay and early retirement plans expire on Tuesday, it is expected that many employees have signed termination agreements. Layoffs have raised concerns among remaining employees about the potential increase in workload, as work previously done by a certain number of employees will have to be undertaken by fewer employees in the future.
SAP states that it is currently conducting separate analysis and control of the workload in each board area to address specific challenges and requirements in a targeted manner. The goal is to adopt a coordinated approach to continuously reduce employee burden and ensure process efficiency.

SAP's market performance has always been outstanding, with its stock rising 75.7% year to date and a market value of nearly 300 billion euros. However, the mood at the company headquarters is low, and employees are not understanding the significant layoffs. Since the beginning of this year, the management under CEO Klein has strengthened this measure.

In January of this year, SAP confirmed that in order to expand its AI business and save personnel costs, it has decided to carry out business restructuring and lay off 8000 employees. The number of layoffs involved will mostly be through voluntary preferential retirement channels, and some employees will be transferred through internal re skill training. In July, due to many employees choosing to voluntarily resign, the company decided to expand the layoff scale to 9000 to 10000 personnel.

In April, a SAP employee in China previously revealed that they had received a layoff package and compensation of N+4. In addition, the statutory annual leave of 10 days is discounted at double, and the company leave of 15 days is discounted at 15 days. The employee stated that all stocks will be discounted, regardless of whether they have been unfrozen, and social security will be paid by the end of May.

In addition to China and Germany, SAP's layoff plan also includes other European countries, with approximately 4100 positions affected. The layoffs aim to complete the global restructuring process by the end of the first quarter of 2025.

02. SAP comprehensively expands its presence in the medical field to assist in the digital upgrading of the industry
With the increasing demand for digital transformation in the healthcare industry, globally renowned enterprise SAP, with its strong technical strength and rich industry experience, has made comprehensive efforts in the medical business field, bringing a series of innovative solutions to the healthcare industry and promoting its new journey towards intelligent and efficient development.

SAP has demonstrated strong integration capabilities in enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. The financial management module covers multiple aspects such as general ledger management, accounts receivable and payable management, cost accounting, and asset management, providing medical institutions with a comprehensive and refined financial management system. Through this system, medical institutions can achieve financial transparency, real-time monitoring and analysis of medical expenses, provide strong support for financial decision-making, and significantly improve their financial management level.

SAP helps medical enterprises achieve automation and transparency in their procurement and supply chain management processes. From supplier management, purchase order processing, to inventory control and logistics distribution, an efficient and accurate supply chain network has been formed. This not only improves procurement efficiency and accuracy, but also optimizes overall supply chain management, ensuring timely supply and quality safety of key materials such as drugs and medical equipment.

For medical device manufacturing enterprises, SAP's production planning and control functions play an important role. Providing comprehensive functions such as production planning, material requirement planning, production order management, and production process control, effectively supporting the lean production and intelligent manufacturing needs of enterprises, significantly improving production efficiency and product quality.

SAP has also achieved remarkable results in clinical management and patient services. The patient management system has achieved centralized management of patient information, greatly simplifying the medical process. Efficient collaboration has been achieved in all aspects of patient registration, appointment booking, consultation, payment, and complaint feedback, significantly improving patient management efficiency and satisfaction.

The clinical data management system assists medical institutions in scientifically collecting, securely storing, deeply analyzing, and effectively sharing clinical data. This not only provides strong support for doctors' diagnosis and treatment decisions, improves medical quality and safety, but also enables structured document recording of complex surgeries and treatments, facilitating subsequent queries and analysis.

At the same time, the medical resource management system can reasonably arrange doctor scheduling, equipment usage, and drug management, effectively improving resource utilization and reducing waste.

Data analysis and business intelligence are another highlight of SAP's healthcare business. The operation data analysis platform establishes a data warehouse to uniformly manage and deeply analyze the business data of medical institutions, providing accurate decision support for management, helping medical institutions optimize operational processes, improve management efficiency and service quality. By monitoring and predicting key indicators such as patient flow, medical expenses, and resource utilization in real-time, we provide strong support for the long-term development of medical institutions.

Clinical data analysis utilizes big data and artificial intelligence technology to deeply mine massive clinical data. By analyzing the medical records and examination results of a large number of patients, reliable diagnostic recommendations and treatment references are provided to doctors, assisting them in developing more scientific treatment plans and improving medical outcomes and patient satisfaction.

In terms of human resource management, SAP provides comprehensive employee management functions. Covering multiple aspects such as personnel management, recruitment process, employee training, performance evaluation, and employee career development planning, it helps medical institutions improve their human resource management system, attract and retain outstanding talents, and enhance employee satisfaction and loyalty.

The labor optimization system, based on the actual business needs of medical institutions, automatically generates reasonable scheduling plans through an intelligent scheduling system according to patient flow and medical needs, effectively improving labor efficiency and reducing labor costs.

In the field of compliance management, SAP integrates a professional quality management module tailored to the unique characteristics of medical devices. Support the quality control, quality inspection, quality audit, and compliance management needs of enterprises, ensure product quality and safety, and assist medical device enterprises in meeting strict regulatory standards such as GMP and ISO 13485.

At the same time, the regulatory compliance system helps medical institutions and enterprises strictly comply with relevant laws, regulations, and industry norms. Through the system's permission management and data encryption functions, the privacy information of patients is effectively protected, reducing compliance risks in medical data privacy protection, medical device supervision, and other aspects.

SAP's comprehensive layout in the medical business field provides strong technical support and innovation momentum for the digital transformation of the medical industry. With the in-depth application of these solutions, the healthcare industry is expected to make greater breakthroughs in improving service quality, optimizing operational efficiency, and ensuring compliance and safety, bringing patients a better medical experience.

03. Medical equipment welcomes digital development
With the continuous advancement of technology, the medical field is undergoing a revolutionary change. Digitization and technological innovation are increasingly penetrating into the medical system. The collaborative innovation of medical technology, especially the digitization of the medical system, is bringing unprecedented opportunities and changes to patients, doctors, and the entire medical industry.

In the early stages of medical AI development, AI companies, medical equipment manufacturers, information technology vendors, cloud service providers and other industry participants are fragmented from each other. Going it alone has resulted in AI companies having insufficient understanding of the industry, limited sources and quantities of data acquisition, and a single product sales channel. After several years of development, AI companies have been continuously financing and integrating, and the competition in the medical AI industry has entered a white hot stage with technological breakthroughs.

Currently, cooperation between medical equipment companies and AI technology companies is becoming an important trend in innovation in the medical field. This collaborative model combines the technological advantages of medical equipment with the data-driven capabilities of AI technology, aiming to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility of medical services.

With the continuous development and deepening application of AI technology, the AI healthcare industry will experience faster growth. AI will be widely applied in the medical field, promoting innovation and transformation of medical services, improving the quality and efficiency of medical services, and optimizing the allocation of medical resources.

The digitization of the healthcare system is gradually becoming a trend for future development. The application of digital healthcare systems not only solves various problems in traditional healthcare systems, but also brings new development opportunities to the healthcare industry.

It is worth mentioning that the current cross-border entry of technology giants into the healthcare field is no longer a new phenomenon. Internet giants who hold a large number of scientific and technological talents, sufficient funds, huge traffic, even strong channels and other resources do not hide their ambitions at the medical technology track. No matter Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, JD, ByteDance, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are all interested in the medical technology field.

Source: http://qixieke.com/Font/index/detailPage.html?id=3317-19