Experience Management (XM) company Qualtrics’ outstanding financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2022 reflected the firm’s unequivocal presence in the XM space. The leader in the experience management category delivered the full year 2022 total revenue of $1,458.6M (up 36% year over year) and a Q4 total revenue of $389.1M (up 23% year over year). 

Commenting on the SAP-owned company’s stellar performance, Qualtrics CEO Zig Serafin said:

“Qualtrics delivered solid results in Q4, capping off a very strong year of growth and significant operating margin expansion. Qualtrics continues to be critical to helping companies build deeper relationships with their employees and customers to increase revenue and operate more efficiently in a challenging market.” 

Amidst SAP’s latest announcement that it is exploring a sale of its stake in Qualtrics, the XM software continues to grow its market footprint in the Asia Pacific Region with hundreds of organizations adopting the XM platform by end of last year.

“At a time when leaders are facing increasing pressure to protect their revenues, increase efficiencies, and improve operations, they are choosing Qualtrics to help them make mission-critical customer and employee decisions with empathy, speed, and scale,” stated Qualtrics’ Managing Director for Asia Pacific and Japan Brigid Archibald.

“Experience management is a fundamental component of the operating rhythm at thousands of organizations across the Asia Pacific and Japan. In today’s challenging markets, we are more committed than ever to help our customers realize even greater value from their investments with our purpose-built solutions, expert team, and growing ecosystem of partners equipping them with the capabilities, insights, expertise, and support they need,” Archibald added.

Asian Enterprises Embracing Qualtrics XM

Qualtrics launched several initiatives to support its APJ customers, including making Qualtrics XMOS (XM Operating System) available through local AWS Cloud Infrastructures in Australia, Singapore, and Japan and opening of new headquarters in Tokyo, Greater China, and a second office in Japan located in Osaka. In addition, aside from strengthening the Qualtrics Partner Network, SAP and the Singapore Economic Development Board co-launched the Center for Experience Management in alliance with the Institute of Human Resource Professionals.

In 2022, Qualtrics scaled its operations as well as the experience management ecosystem in Asia Pacific and Japan to support its customers’ experience transformation journey, including intersecting digital and human pain points. 

Here are some of the Asian enterprises that have chosen Qualtrics to be their transformation partner in the second half of 2022:

• Qantas, Australia’s flag carrier, has partnered with Qualtrics in a bid to meet its ongoing commitment to providing a safe and inclusive corporate culture to its 22,000 employees. As part of the expanded multi-year, multi-product EX program, Qualtrics will provide the country’s largest airline with a bespoke 360-degree feedback tool focused on enhancing its leadership programs.

• Wipro, a global strategic SAP partner, has chosen Qualtrics EmployeeXM for the solution’s expert-designed EX methodologies and pre-built workflows and templates to enable the consulting firm to have a comprehensive view of employee experiences and sentiments. Leveraging EX data, Wipro’s leaders will be in a better position to make data-informed decisions and actions in line with the company’s goal of achieving a culture of connectedness and belonging among its workforce in a hybrid environment.

• Endeavor Group, Australia’s largest retail drinks network and portfolio of licensed hotels, is expanding the capabilities of its existing EmployeeXM platform. The new functionalities added to the solution are intended to enhance managers’ effectiveness and new employees’ onboarding as well as drive a more inclusive and safe workplace.

• Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Ltd (DPE) selected Qualtrics’ BrandXM to delve into the Australian market’s take on the company as well as to help DPE track brand health, monitor awareness against competitors, and review marketing and campaign effectiveness. Harnessing in-depth insights from the platform, the enterprise will be able to take targeted actions to help increase market share in the country as well as assess its plans such as doubling its store footprint over the next ten years and becoming a sustainable food company.

• Freedom Furniture, an Australian lifestyle retailer, is scaling its XM program leveraging Qualtrics CustomerXM to enhance profitability, increase product inventories, and deliver integrated digital customer experiences. 

• Telkomsel, another Asian enterprise in the telco space from Indonesia, selected Qualtrics DesignXM for regular consumer research critical for identifying products, support, and subscription plans that customers need. The company understands that implementing customer-centric innovations is essential to creating a sustainable and inclusive digital ecosystem.

The post Asian Enterprises Embark on Experience Transformation Journey with Qualtrics appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

“I am pleased that our operational excellence measures are already showing effect. Our non-IFRS operating profit and margin performance is remarkable considering the margin headwinds from our latest acquisition and the recent short-term trade-related uncertainty in Asia that impacted our software revenue performance in the region. With continued strong customer demand and our tight focus on profitability, we remain as confident in our 2019 outlook as we are in our mid-term ambition.”

Simply Wall Street, a new platform for tracking stocks and visualizing stock data, took a look at the potential of SAP SE Stock holistically in its recent article on Yahoo Finance. SAP is a sound investment case having excellent fundamentals in more than one area and remains to be a financially sound company with an impressive track record of dividend payments and an excellent future outlook.

Here are some key takeaways from the analysis:

SAP has high growth potential with an adequate balance sheet

SAP’s expected earnings growth is at 28{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}, underlying the notable 20{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} return on equity over the next few years leading up to 2022. This is a sweet spot for investors. The German software giant’s debt-to-equity ratio stands at 5.3{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}. SAP’s acceptable debt level indicates a good balance between taking advantage of low-cost funding through debt financing but having enough financial flexibility and headroom to grow debt in the future. Also, SAP has produced operating cash levels of 2.75x total debt over the past year. This means that the management was able to generate enough cash to cover a sufficient portion of borrowings.

SAP is a dividend company

SAP, as a dividend company, has a substantial net income to cover its dividend payout. Over the past decade, it has been consistently growing, giving much favor to the income investors.

Simply Wall Street also identified three fundamental aspects to examine with SAP SE stock investment.

1.    Historical Performance. Make an in-depth analysis of SAP’s past track record.

2.    Valuation: Know SAP’s worth today and assess if the stock is undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value.

3.   Other Attractive Alternatives: Are there other well-rounded stocks you could be holding instead of SAP?

In SAP’s Quarterly Statement Q2 2019, double-digit growth was seen across the board. The Cloud revenue was up by 40{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} while both the Cloud & Software revenue and total revenue was up by 11{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}. All of these were achieved despite the recent short-term trade-related uncertainty in Asia that impacted its software revenue performance in the region. Earlier this year, SAP CEO Bill McDermott has announced that SAP’s value will double by 2023 and China was identified as the fastest-growing market. 

The post A Quick Review of the SAP SE Stock Outlook appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

Early 2019 Acquisition

Qualtrics was founded in 2002. To this day, Qualtrics is a privately held experience management company, with co-headquarters in Provo, Utah and Seattle, Washington, in the United States. Qualtrics’ subscription based survey software is used by businesses to track customer and employee experiences and obtain feedback on products and brands. The company has over 9,000 customers globally.

The news of the acquisition comes two days after Qualtrics, filed S-1 documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public with an IPO carrying an estimated valuation of $4.8 billion. The acquisition should be complete in the first half of 2019.  

The acquisition is an opportunity to combine Qualtrics’ customer experience data with operational data generated by SAP’s ERP and CRM applications to provide managers and executives with deeper insights about their businesses.  This union will help organisations better manage supply chains, networks, employees and core processes.

Possible Product Integration

SAP is expected to integrate Qualtrics software with some of its software products, including C/4HANA suite of CRM applications. That product set is itself made up of several SAP acquisitions including Callidus Software.

SAP SuccessFactors, the employee talent management application, is another potential application primed for integration with Qualtrics’ applications.

When the acquisition is complete in the beginning of 2019, Qualtrics will operate as an entity within SAP’s Cloud Business Group. Qualtrics will maintain its leadership and personnel: Ryan Smith, one of Qualtrics’ founders and current CEO, will continue to lead the company. It will also maintain its dual headquarters in Provo, Utah and Seattle, Washington.

The post SAP to Acquire Qualtrics International appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

The opening furthers SAP’s growth objectives in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc to support more intelligent enterprises who can three in the fourth industrial revolution.

“Opening SAP’s office in Yangon shows our confidence in the country’s rapid growth and its rising technology capability in the region,” said Claus Andresen, president and managing director, SAP Southeast Asia. “SAP is really the enterprise application software of choice among more than 120 customers in Myanmar. With this kind of trust given to us, we believe that we can do more to help both conglomerates and SMEs to become intelligent enterprises, as well as continuing our support in harnessing technology to create positive social impact.”

Since entering the Myanmar market at the end of 2017, SAP has been selected by companies in wholesale distribution, consumer products and professional services, including Myanmar Posts and Telecom and City Mart Holdings.

“We at SAP really look forward to helping Myanmar’s private sector businesses, whether they are large enterprises or SMEs, to run better. We launch in Myanmar still armed with SAP’s 45-year-old purpose where we will look at ways at how technology can improve the lives of citizens,” said Verena Siow, managing director, SAP Indochina.

SAP has already made investments in Myanmar in social impact projects such as the inclusion of university students in the ASEAN Data Science Explorers competition, and support of nonprofit organisations through its Social Sabbatical program.

The post SAP opens Myanmar office appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

For the first time in a quarter, cloud revenue exceeded €1 billion, up 18 per cent (IFRS), with new bookings up 14 per cent. The number of S/4HANA customers is also up 43 per cent year-over-year.

“SAP’s momentum continues with our latest trifecta, including fast-growing cloud, strong software sales, and operating income expansion. Even against the steepest comparisons, S/4HANA led us again to major market share gains for the company. With an increasing share of predictable revenues, our beyond expectations profitability is cause for even greater shareholder confidence. From this position of immense strength, look for SAP to be bolder than ever in markets like CRM,” said Bill McDermott, SAP CEO.

Software revenue was down 10 per cent year over year to €625 million, and together, cloud and software revenue grew only 1 per cent year over year to €4.35
billion.

In the first quarter, on a product basis, S/4HANA adoption grew to more than 8300 customers, with 400 signing on in the first quarter, of which approximately 40 per cent were net new customers. In the customer experience space, SAP closed the acquisition of Callidus Software, with Jaguar Land Rover, Coca-Cola and Unilever among the companies purchasing SAP’s customer experience solutions this quarter.

While in the APJ region, overall cloud and software revenue was flat on the back of a strong previous year. Cloud subscription and support revenue grew by 38 per cent (IFRS), with China and Japan providing highlights, and software revenue in Australia, China and India grew by double digits during the quarter.

SAP’s raised 2018 full year outlook for cloud subscriptions and support revenue is now expected to be €4.95 billion − €5.15 billion at constant currencies, with cloud and software revenue expected to be €20.85 – €21.25 billion.

The post Cloud, S/4HANA gain further momentum in SAP Q1 results appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

For the full year, new cloud bookings reached €1.45 billion, with cloud and software revenue up 8 per cent to €19.55 billion (non-IFRS at constant currencies). Cloud subscriptions and support revenue was €3.83 billion (non-IFRS at constant currencies), while software revenue was up 2 per cent to €4.87 billion (non-IFRS at constant currencies). Total revenue was €23.77 billion (non-IFRS at constant currencies).

“We promised fast cloud growth – we delivered!” said Bill McDermott, CEO, SAP.

S/4HANA adoption grew to more than 7900 customers, up about 46 per cent year over year. In Q4 alone, about 1000 additional customers signed up for S/4HANA, more than 40 per cent net new.

“The record-setting adoption of S/4HANA has ignited the entire SAP cloud,” said McDermott.

In the APJ region, cloud and software revenue was up 11 per cent (non-IFRS at constant currencies) in Q4, comparing very favourably to the Americas at 6 per cent and EMEA at 4 per cent. Cloud subscriptions and support revenue in APJ increased by 49 per cent (non-IFRS at constant currencies), highlighted by strong performance in both China and Japan, surpassing the Americas at 16 per cent but trailing EMEA at 56 per cent. Australia and Singapore both experienced double-digit growth in software revenue during the quarter.

For 2018, SAP is expecting cloud subscriptions and support revenue to increase 27 – 33 per cent to €4.8 – €5.0 billion (non-IFRS at constant currencies). For non-IFRS cloud and software revenue, the company is expecting to achieve 6 – 8 per cent growth to €20.7- €21.1 billion at constant currencies.

Total non-IFRS revenue for 2018 is projected to be €24.6 – €25.1 billion at constant currencies, representing growth of 5 – 7 per cent at constant currencies. On the profit side, the company expects its non-IFRS operating profit to reach €7.3 – €7.5 billion at constant currencies — a growth rate of 8 – 11 per cent at constant currencies.

“As promised, we initiated the margin turnaround with a Q4 non-IFRS operating margin of 35.2 per cent at constant currencies. This paves the way for the strong growth and margin expansion we expect in 2018 and beyond,” said Luka Mucic, CFO, SAP.

The post S/4HANA drives fast cloud growth in 2017 results: SAP appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

In his new role, Diantoro will be responsible for leading the company and driving business growth and operations for Indonesia, building on SAP’s 20 year track record of success in the country. He will report directly to Claus Andresen, president and managing director, SAP Southeast Asia and replaces Megawaty Khie, now vice president, SAP SuccessFactors, Southeast Asia.

Prior to joining Microsoft Indonesia in 2012, Diantoro held several managing director roles at Dell, where he led the enterprise, SMB and public sectors businesses for the South Asia and Developing Markets as well as the consumer segment for ASEAN. Previous to Dell, he held multiple positions including managing director during his 11 years at HP Indonesia.

Commenting on the appointment, Andresen said: “As we kick off our business in 2018, I am optimistic of our growth prospect and am confident that Andreas will be able to deliver accelerated growth for our business, and drive value for our customers in Indonesia.”

Diantoro applauds the Indonesian government’s commitment to boosting the country’s digital economy with its specific focus on SMEs as the backbone of the nation’s digital future.

“SAP has the strength and market credibility to help organisations of any size and segment, from the local SMEs to regional conglomerates, to realise the success of their digital vision,” he said, adding: “I am excited to be part of the company that will help write the next chapter of Indonesia’s digital future.”

The post On the Move: SAP appoints new MD for Indonesia appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

In this role, Williamson will be responsible for driving business growth and operations for Malaysia, reporting to Claus Andresen, president and managing director, SAP Southeast Asia.

Williamson has held leadership roles within SAP over the last 18 years, prior to which he was managing partner for the Nestle business, one of the biggest global accounts at SAP.

“Malaysia holds plenty of growth opportunities for the IT industry in the next few years as the government clearly outlined its plans as part of Budget 2018 to focus on boosting the Malaysia’s digital economy. With the Malaysian government forecasting that the digital economy is set to contribute 20 per cent of the country’s GDP by 2020, there needs to be concerted efforts and collaborations between the private and public sectors to help both local organisations and multi-national corporations in Malaysia to embrace digitisation,” said Andresen.

“SAP has been proudly supporting many of our Malaysian customers’ digital transformation over the past 25 years, and I am confident that under Duncan’s leadership, we will be able to support the country leapfrog into the next stage of digitisation.”

Williamson said as the Malaysian government’s Transformasi Nasional 2050 initiative takes shape, there are greater opportunities for technology vendors like SAP.

“2017 had been a landmark year for Malaysia, with the government launching a number of key initiatives and announcing several major plans to transform the country’s digital economy. I applaud the government’s vision to enhance Malaysia’s reputation as a regional digital hub,” said Williamson.

“The next few years promise to be exciting for Malaysia, and I am looking forward to collaborating with the government, our customers and partners in the country as we write the next chapter for Malaysia’s digital transformation.”

The post On the Move: New SAP Malaysia MD appointed appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

At IBM, Teerlink was chief business strategist for IBM Watson, driving and overseeing the new offerings portfolio for the Watson Platform. In his new role at SAP, he will assist with strategy and vision for the SAP Leonardo digital innovation system, reporting to Mike Flanagan, SVP of SAP Leonardo and SAP Analytics and based in Washington DC.

“[Marc] is an innovative business strategist whose experience and vision will help create more value for our customers from SAP Leonardo. I am confident that we will meld broad thinking and passion in his approach to help our customers transform their businesses with the SAP Leonardo technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said Flannagan.

Elsewhere at SAP, the company has announced that the division formerly known as SAP Custom Development will now operate as SAP Innovative Business Solutions, in tandem with an expanded business model.

With 2000 development professionals and 38,000 R&D and services experts on the books, the organisation will work with clients in an end-to-end innovation process, covering exploration workshops, innovation sprints and projects and continuous support, to discover, design, develop and run tailored solutions in the cloud, on premise or in hybrid scenarios.

In its previous iteration, SAP Custom Development delivered 4000 individualised solutions to 1500 clients.

“How they innovate and who they partner with is a very personal decision for modern companies as they navigate the digital economy, and it is fuelling the need for high-value application development services,” said Klaus Weber, executive vice president and general manager, SAP Innovative Business Services, SAP.

“Organisations are being forced to transform much more rapidly and more often, knowing that their customers, partners and employees are demanding simpler and faster interactions delivered with a personalised experience, accessible anywhere and on any device.”

The post SAP makes new Leonardo appointment, rebadges division appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

SAP also reports that it is on track to execute a €500 million share buyback by year end, with €288 million bought back in Q3.

Although the outlook increases are cautious, SAP CEO Bill McDermott is confident about how the company will finish the year.

“Led by S/4HANA, we are delivering intelligent business applications built on the most data-rich architecture ever created. We see growth in every corner of the business, which is why we are again raising our guidance for the full year,” said McDermott.

The company reported that its digital core business has experienced 70 per cent growth year-over-year to more than 6,900 SAP S/4 HANA customers. In the third quarter, the company added more than 600 SAP S/4 HANA customers, 40 per cent of which were net new.

For the third quarter, cloud and software revenue increased 8 per cent to €4.66 billion while cloud subscriptions and support revenue grew 27 per cent to €938 million. In APJ, cloud and software revenue rose 9 per cent while cloud subscriptions and support revenue increased by 37 per cent.

Japan and Australia were very strong in cloud subscriptions and support revenue. In software revenue, Australia experienced triple-digit growth while China experienced strong double-digit growth. At the same time, EMEA cloud and software revenue also rose 9 per cent while cloud subscriptions and support revenue increased by 46 per cent and in the Americas cloud and software revenue rose 7 per cent while cloud subscriptions and support revenue increased 19 per cent.

“I am very pleased that we continue to have excellent software revenue and that non-IFRS earnings per share are up again double-digit,” said Luca Mucic, CFO, SAP.

At the end of Q3, SAP reported 87,874 employees, an increase of more than 5000 from a year earlier.

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