Implementation not yet clear
Software giant SAP is giving up business in Russia
04/19/2022, 4:45 p.m
SAP stopped possible new business in Russia at the beginning of the war. Now the software group is withdrawing almost completely. In future, Russian companies will have to look for another provider in the cloud business.
The software giant SAP announces further steps to withdraw from its business in Russia because of the Ukraine war. SAP now also intends to discontinue support and maintenance for the software in the license business in Russia, said CFO Luka Mucic. SAP is currently examining options for exactly how this decision can be implemented. Because the group must meet its legal obligations to customers who are not subject to the international sanctions that were imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Cloud subscriptions for Russian companies are also not to be extended.
At the beginning of March, the group, which has been active in Russia for more than 30 years, already declared that it would join the sanctions and stop new business in Russia and Belarus. However, this did not include services for existing customers such as maintenance or cloud services, which were initially continued to be offered. The Dax group later decided to withdraw from the cloud business in Russia.
However, the data in the data centers belongs to the customers. SAP therefore gave Russian companies that are not subject to the sanctions the choice of having their data deleted, taking it on their own, or transferring it to a data center outside of Russia. Mucic has now announced that Russian companies that opted for the latter option should not have their contract renewed after the current subscription period has expired.
Remaining term of the products still unclear
In the license business, SAP wants to stop supporting and maintaining its software products in Russia. However, it was unclear how long these products would continue to run, said the chief financial officer. Cars bought before the Russian attack on Ukraine continued to run – until Russia ran out of crucial spare parts. Licensed software cannot simply be switched off by SAP: “We don’t have a magic red button for this.”
SAP recently employed more than 1,200 people in Russia, for whom the group still sees itself as responsible. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, among others, had called for a withdrawal from Russia. The Dax group recently brought in around 1.5 percent of its annual sales in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. SAP wants to comment on the economic effects of the decisions when presenting the quarterly figures on Friday.