Under the new SAP CFO, there will probably be no successor to the software company's current five-year plan.

Dominik Asam said in a press conference published on Thursday that he does not like to go further out on a limb than necessary. "I am a great friend of saying what you do and doing what you say. But then you can only say things that you have in your hand. So I wouldn't feel the need to make bold statements beyond 2025."

In 2020, SAP set itself targets for 2025. Among other things, these include a Group turnover of 36 billion euros, 85% of which should be easier to plan. Operating profit should increase to more than 11.5 billion euros and cash inflow to around eight billion euros. In an interview with Reuters last October, CEO Christian Klein held out the prospect of exceeding these figures.

The 54-year-old Asam, whom SAP had poached from aircraft manufacturer Airbus, said that he could understand the decision at the time to make a long-term forecast. After all, the company wanted to show how the transformation to cloud business was developing. But there are numerous factors, such as inflation, that have a major impact on a balance sheet.

These include the sale of the data analysis subsidiary Qualtrics, added outgoing SAP CFO Luka Mucic, who is stepping down after almost 30 years. "As we have made much faster progress than we had expected, we will already report Qualtrics as a discontinued operation in the figures for the first quarter. This is very important as a starting point for the revised version of our medium-term ambitions, which we intend to present during the first half of the year."

Asam, a passionate runner and skier, kept a low profile on the use of the 7.7 billion euros that SAP will receive from the sale. SAP has set itself organic growth as its primary goal. "But we are also looking at acquisitions." At the same time, there are always discussions about higher dividends or share buybacks. "But we're not there yet."

Asam, a fan of classical music who also worked at chip manufacturer Infineon in addition to Airbus, is taking over SAP's finance department in troubled times. Following a drop in profits, Europe's largest software company is hitting the cost brakes and cutting jobs for the first time in four years. 3000 employees have to go.

Nevertheless, some analysts are skeptical as to whether CEO Klein can keep his promise of accelerated growth and double-digit percentage increases in operating profit due to the weakening cash flow. Asam, who earned his first money as a 16-year-old by selling a computer program, explained that there are numerous levers for improving the inflow of funds. "One of them is investments. It is also important to me that customers pay on time."

(Report by Hakan Ersen. Edited by Christian Götz. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)