sap’s worst of worst cases arise in our downside scenarios analysis -- trefis
DESCRIPTION
SAP’s Worst of Worst Cases Arise in Our Downside Scenarios Analysis -- TrefisTRANSCRIPT
9/2/2015 SAP’s Worst of Worst Cases Arise in Our Downside Scenarios Analysis Trefis
http://www.trefis.com/stock/sap/articles/288000/sap%E2%80%99sworstofworstcasesariseinourdownsidescenariosanalysis/20150407 1/4
SIGN UP LOG INHOME ALL COMPANIES MY TREFIS FAQ METHODOLOGY
1 of 12
SAP’s Profit Takes aBeating Even as CloudBusiness Continues toGrow
2 of 12
Currency TailwindsExpected to Lift SAP’s Q2Results, But Tough TimesLie Ahead?
SAP Kills Two Birds WithOne Stone, IntegratingPredictive Analytics withBig Data & IoT
Relevant Articles on TREFIS
SAP’s Worst of Worst Cases Arise in Our DownsideScenarios AnalysisApril 7th, 2015 by Trefis Team
22.13%+Upside
65.59Market
80.10Trefis
SAPSAP
Rate | votes | Share
SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) is one of the world’s leading software companies and provides enterprise resourceplanning, business intelligence, supply chain management and customer relationship managementapplications to business enterprises. SAP currently has a market capitalization of $87 billion, placing it behindOracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) but ahead of Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) in terms of market capitalization. In
2014, SAP had revenues of about $21 billion [1], led by its resource planning software, which accounted forover 30% of its total revenues.
The applications offered by SAP primarily run on its flagship HANA platform, which the company introduced afew years ago. Recently, SAP completely overhauled the HANA platform to release the updated SAPS/4HANA platform, which includes support for cloud computing and inmemory simplifications (Read: HasSAP Bet The House With The Biggest Update to its ERP in Two Decades?) SAP spent 2 years andconsiderable resources on the development of S/4HANA, and its success is crucial for the company’s future.This is because S/4HANA is SAP’s answer to rising competition from rivals Oracle and Salesforce. So far,even in the face of heavy competition from the two biggest cloud computing companies in the world, SAP hasmanaged to maintain largely stable revenues and margins. Whether it is able to hold its ground in the futurealso to protect its top and bottom lines, will determine the course of the company.
In light of the above, we believe that the two biggest factors that can significantly depress SAP’s valuation inthe medium term are:
» Failure of SAP S/4HANA to take off» Margin erosion due to heavy competition
We have a price estimate of $78 for SAP SE, which is about 10% higher than its current market price.
See our complete analysis of SAP SE here
Failure of SAP S/4HANA to Take Off (~25% Downside)
S/4HANA is touted as SAP’s biggest update to its ERP platform in two decades. SAP claims that its newplatform redefines the way ERP works and offers drastically improved speed and performance. Realizing themounting prominence of cloud computing, SAP is offering the S/4HANA in onpremise, softwareasaservice(i.e., Cloud), and hybrid variants. Most notably, the S/4HANA will run on SAP’s inmemory system, so namedHANA, rather than more commonly used databases offered by Oracle and Microsoft. With SAP’s HANAsystem, abundant random access memory is used to upload entire data sets to allow for real time dataanalytics.
It should be noted that each of the aspects noted above can be characterized as SAP’s response to itscompetitors’ products. Oracle’s ERP platform has long been criticized as cumbersome to set up, while SAP’sfocus has always been improving simplification with every new product. Salesforce is making huge strides incloud computing and Oracle is quickly catching up. This made it crucial for SAP to jump on the cloudcomputing bandwagon, which it has with the S/4HANA.
The huge amount of time and resources that were devoted to the development of S/4HANA make it crucial forthe new platform to succeed. The importance of S/4HANA for SAP is best demonstrated by SAP Hasso
Plattner’s statement, “If it doesn’t work, we’re dead. Flat out dead.” [2] Indeed, having pegged its fortunesstrongly first to HANA and the to S/4HANA, the company has a lot riding on its success.
However, there are a number of reasons why S/4HANA may not succeed to the necessary extent. The biggestfactor that may make or break S/4HANA is its reliance on SAP HANA, which is an innovative and somewhatspecialized alternative to conventional database computing. Database customers are notoriously sticky due tothe very high switching costs involved in the migration to a new database system. Given that S/4HANA’s ERP
Sign up for the complete Trefis experience.
Your Email Address:
Signup for Free
Community
I'm pretty sure were an Oracle did not buy Sun for thehardware. Read More
Thanks for sharing these information! but i usedOneCRM software.I would recommend... Read More
"Further, the company no longer expects to maintaina revenue growth rate of over 30%,... Read More
Most Popular Analysis
Schlumberger To BuyCameron, Gets A BetterPrice Than HalliburtonBaker Hughes Deal
9/2/2015 SAP’s Worst of Worst Cases Arise in Our Downside Scenarios Analysis Trefis
http://www.trefis.com/stock/sap/articles/288000/sap%E2%80%99sworstofworstcasesariseinourdownsidescenariosanalysis/20150407 2/4
applications based on the new platform will function on HANA alone and not an customer’sincumbent database, SAP may have an uphill battle in getting customers to switch from its installeddatabases. SAP itself seemingly realizes the risks involved and thus, it has partially hedged its bet on
S/4HANA by continuing support and updates for the original SAP HANA Business Suite through 2025. [3]
FAQ
Full SAP ModelSave Your Price |
Trefis Forecast for SAP
$53.35MYPRICE$80.10SAP:
TREFISPRICECompetition
SAP Market Share in Resource Planning Software
ShareSmoothing
'10 '12 '14 '16 '18 '20
0
10
20
30
%
If the above scenario plays out and the SAP S/4HANA does not take off, SAP could lose market share acrossall its application categories (ERP, BI, CRM and SCM). In such a case, we estimate that the company willlose cumulative revenues of almost $6 billion from 2015 to 2017. Further, its projected nonIFRS EPS in 2017will be 15% lower than our existing forecast. As a result, we believe that if SAP S/4HANA fails to take off,SAP’s valuation could be lower than our existing estimate by over 25%.
Margin Erosion Due to Heavy Competition (~15% Downside)
SAP has maintained gross margins of around 80% for its software products consistently since 2008. However,the software industry is in the midst of a transition to cloud computing and SAP has been relatively late to thegame. The SAP S/4HANA is the company’s attempt to level the playing field and ensure that it doesn’t losethe cloud opportunity to its competitors. However, that hasn’t stopped rivals like Salesforce and Oracle fromtaking potshots at the company. Oracle’s Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison recently stated that SAP’s
presence in cloud computing is negligible, [4] while Salesforce recently stated that it aims to overtake SAP in
the latter’s home market, Germany. [5] That said, in its yearend earnings release, SAP sized its SaaSbusiness in 2014 at 2.3 billion Euros.
This increasingly hostile competition is set to heat up as the global cloud computing market expands further.This may result in laggards like SAP having to resort to aggressive pricing strategies, which will put marginsunder pressure. The simultaneous presence of the original SAP HANA platform alongside the newer SAPS/4HANA may also result in much higher selling, general and administrative expenses than expected,resulting in lower operating margins. Our current projections are based on the assumption that SAP’s costsavings program can generate enough savings to largely offset the higher SG&A costs. However, it isprobable that the expenses associated with maintaining dual platforms may be higher than expected, whichcan add to the downward pressure on margins.
FAQ
Full SAP Model
Trefis Forecast for SAP
$80.10SAP:TREFISPRICECompetition
Resource Planning Software Gross Profit Margin
Share
'10 '12 '14 '16 '18 '20
80
70
90
%
Drag or click the trendline
If such a scenario plays out, SAP’s gross margins on its software products may decline from the current80.5% to 76.5% by 2017. This will depress the estimated 2017 nonIFRS EPS by approximately 10%,resulting in a decline of 15% in SAP’s valuation.
Indeed, we have suggested that consider the worst of worst cases. And so we will. In the event SAPS/4HANA platform fails to take off and the company’s margins contract simultaneously, we estimate thatSAP’s 2017 nonIFRS EPS may shrink by about 25%, resulting in a decline of nearly 40% in the company’svaluation.
Nokia Set To Ride The 4GWave In India
Oracle’s Cloud Strategy: IfYou Can’t Beat Them, BuyThem
9/2/2015 SAP’s Worst of Worst Cases Arise in Our Downside Scenarios Analysis Trefis
http://www.trefis.com/stock/sap/articles/288000/sap%E2%80%99sworstofworstcasesariseinourdownsidescenariosanalysis/20150407 3/4
tags: SAP MSFT ORCL CRMUmut Cikla commented 1 months ago
SAP has delivered constant double digit growth for the last 12 quarters. This shows that the market and itscustomers have strong belief in SAP's strategy. I can't understand the reasoning and meaning of this article. It isbiased and discussing only some failure scenarios. What about the scenarios that SAP is continuing to delivergrowth and strong quarters as it has been doing so far?
Save to My Collection Share
Comments
View Full SAP Model on
SAP Interactive Slideshow Slide 2 of 7
SAP > Resource Planning Software > FAQ
SAP Market Share in Resource Planning Software
'10 '12 '14 '16 '18 '20
25
20
22.5
27.5
30
%
Drag or click the trendline
80.10Trefis
With around 24% market share, SAP is a clear market leader in the ERP space. However, thecompany has recently experienced declines in its ERP Market share. SAP's market share hasdecreased... More
Global Large Cap | U.S. Mid & Small Cap | European Large & Mid Cap
More Trefis Research
Notes:1. Based on 2014 average exchange rate of $1.1766 per Euro [↩]2. SAP founder Hasso Plattner: ‘If this doesn’t work, we’re dead. Flatout dead.’, Business Insider,
February 5, 2015 [↩]3. SAP S/4Hana: Big Bet On ‘Simplified’ ERP, Information Week, February 4, 2015 [↩]4. Oracle Fiscal 2015 Third Quarter Earnings Call Transcript, Seeking Alpha, March 17, 2015 [↩]5. Salesforce aims to surpass SAP on German market, Reuters, March 28, 2015 [↩]
Rate | votes | Share
Name (Required)
Email (Required, but never displayed)
Add a comment...
SUBMIT
People Who Read This Also Read
Is Japan Situation AWarning Sign ForMcDonald’s?
China Seems KinderTo MercedesBenz
What Just CausedOutrage AmongSpotify Users?
9/2/2015 SAP’s Worst of Worst Cases Arise in Our Downside Scenarios Analysis Trefis
http://www.trefis.com/stock/sap/articles/288000/sap%E2%80%99sworstofworstcasesariseinourdownsidescenariosanalysis/20150407 4/4
COMPANY
AboutContact UsCareersFAQ
NAVIGATION
HomeCompany CoverageTrefis ProContributeClip ToolFind People on TrefisEmbed a Trefis WidgetExpertsBecome an Expert Contributor
CONNECT
Follow us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
DISCLAIMER
By using the Site, you agree to be bound byour Terms of Use. Financial market datapowered by Quotemedia.com. ConsensusEPS estimates are from QuoteMedia and areupdated every weekday. All rights reserved.
Terms of Use
NYSE/AMEX data delayed 20 minutes.NASDAQ and other data delayed 15 minutesunless indicated.
© Copyright 2015 Insight Guru Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Related Articles
SAP’s Profit Takes a Beating Even as Cloud BusinessContinues to Grow – Read More
Visualize Related Companies: SAP , Oracle , Salesforce.com ,Microsoft