Christian Klein, the new co-CEO of SAP has focused his attention on two big areas for this year. Whilst both will be a challenge, it is possible to see progress in both goals. In a discussion with Yahoo Finance at the World Economic Forum, Klein raised the importance of up-skilling technology professionals.

The necessity to retrain technology professionals is believed by many industry experts as an essential move to unlock the full potential of technology over the next few years. Klein believes that training is essential and will have significant future sales and profits at SAP.

Klein refers to the technology at SAP, stating that if workers are unable to utilise SAP’s new productivity tools to their best ability, businesses may reduce their orders. In reality, businesses may receive a lower return on their technology investment.

A new report delivered by Intel states that just over 35% of businesses raised the challenge of ‘technical skill gaps’ and that this was preventing them from completely benefiting from investment in technology. A further 18% of businesses suggest data management and interpretation as top employee challenges.

Klein’s second goal for SAP is to focus on accelerating cloud computing subscriptions, with a target of reaching $35 billion in revenue by 2023. This target follows on from Bill McDermott, the previous CEO of SAP who stated back in 2018 that he planned to triple cloud computing subscriptions. If this is reached, SAP’s market cap could lie in the range of $280 to 340 billion. Klein informed Yahoo Finance that SAP is on target with predictions of over $32 billion in sales this year and a current market cap standing at just over $172 billion.