SAP And Qualtrics: Making A Virtue Of Necessity?

On the evening of its Q2 and half-year earnings call, SAP announced its intent to take Qualtrics public in the U.S. What seems like a complete reversal of its original strategy (under ex-CEO Bill McDermott, SAP was very eager to stop Qualtrics from going public in the first place) took many customers and analysts alike by surprise.

SAP CEO Christian Klein and Qualtrics founder and CEO Ryan Smith were quick to assure skeptics that this really is the best course of action for both companies and that their partnership will flourish under these new conditions. But that wasn’t the reason why the spin-out has become necessary, was it?

Obviously, I’m only guessing (since both companies didn’t exactly give a reasoning behind their decision), but I reckon that SAP and Qualtrics are trying to make a virtue of necessity in this case.