SAP SE said today it will lay off 3,000 people, or about 2.5% of its global workforce, following a steep fall in profits in the fourth quarter of 2022.

The company expects to incur restructuring costs of between $272 million and $327 million in the first quarter of 2023 as a result but said the moves will yield savings of about $382 million in 2024.

SAP also said it is looking to sell its 84% stake in survey software specialist Qualtrics International Inc., which it acquired for $8 billion in 2019 and took public in 2021. Qualtrics’ share price has suffered along with those of many technology firms recently. It’s down 40% from a year ago and 67% below its peak shortly after the IPO. The company’s market capitalization was $8.5 billion this morning after jumping nearly 30% following SAP’s announcement and fourth-quarter results yesterday that beat expectations.

Fourth-quarter revenue of $9.28 billion was slightly below analysts’ estimates of $9.32 billion. Cloud revenue grew 22% in constant-currency terms, to $3.7 billion. Software license sales continue to plunge, falling 39% in constant-currency terms, to $989 million. SAP has been on an aggressive campaign to shift its customers away from on-premises licensing to its S/4HANA cloud-based enterprise resource planning suite, which grew 79% in the quarter.

Companies that have sophisticated cloud security seem to be more productive, and seem to be earning more money at the end of the day.

A new report by Netskope, called ‘The Maturity of Cloud Application Security Strategies’ found that a fifth of companies (21 per cent) are in the mature ‘enabler’ cloud security category. These companies have 4.9 per cent higher revenues than anticipated. Those organisations that are in the less mature categories, ‘discoverer’ and ‘controller’, earn 3.6 per cent more revenue than anticipated.

But it’s not just financial gain that these companies are enjoying. The report argues that they also enjoy significantly improved productivity, while 17 per cent, and 23 per cent of the ‘discoverers’ and ‘controllers’ have the same benefits, respectively.

“The data in this report shows that many organizations, including ‘enablers,’ still have work to do to fully realize the advantages of the cloud,” said Sanjay Beri, founder and CEO, Netskope.

“To help the industry move closer to the final stage of maturity, we have developed a self-assessment tool for enterprises to gauge their process on the cloud security journey, and we look forward to working with enterprises around the world to accelerate their adoption of cloud services.”

Netskope claims that ‘discoverers’ and ‘controllers’ can improve their posture significantly by employing a cloud security architect. It argues that most ‘enablers’ have this category filled.

New research shows that most businesses are not aware of the costs associated with software, nor do they have a handle on how much or how little their software is being used. The upshot of this is that organisations, especially those with a workforce of over 250, are exposed to unforeseen risks running into the millions.

Digitalisation is impacting on all aspects of business. Digital technologies are being deployed to accelerate or enhance business processes or, indeed, simply to make them possible in the first place. Software plays a crucial role: a new report, based on a survey of 500 finance and IT decision-makers, confirms this unrelenting rise in the importance of software to organisations. Software is increasingly often an integral part of the business model and is indeed deemed to be the most important asset after staff and knowledge.

Thanks to this growing importance, organisations have seen software budgets grow for years. According to recent numbers of Statistics Netherlands CBS, the software spend of companies has risen with 80 per cent since 2001. On top of that, Gartner calculates that, in 2017, the worldwide business spend on software will be 357 billion euros. But software does not just help companies achieve greater profits. It also comes with risks that they need to take seriously. Risks that are caused by the fact that software asset management is not yet commonplace in business.