SAP doubles down on cloud-first innovation with executive reshuffle

In a statement announcing the two appointments, Plattner gave no indication he wanted Alam to change the cloud-first direction set by Saueressig.

“He’s well-suited to continue driving the success of our product engineering teams,” he said of Alam.

Alam has only been with SAP since January 2022, when he was hired as chief product officer for Intelligent Spend, the company’s procurement, travel, and expense management tools, and for Business Network, its portfolio of products for managing relationships with trading partners.

Prior to that, Alam spent 17 years at Microsoft, first as an enterprise strategy consultant and later as a product leader for its ERP and CRM suite, Dynamics, working on its transformation into the software-as-a-service offering, Dynamics 365.

Support for adoption

Ritu Bhargava, president and chief product officer for SAP Industries & CX, says developing new features that customers want is one thing, but ensuring they’re adopted is another, and Saueressig’s new role will help with that.

“His focus is going to help us take the products and be that bridge between customer success and customer service, to really expand on the footprint of what we already have, with not just our customer base, but also our adoption base.”