From 100 to 90

Qualtrics is a family business. SAP will pay cash and thus this takeover is through. Qualtrics was planning an IPO and financial experts expected a market value of up to five billion US dollars - SAP is therefore paying three billion more than the projected value of the company could have been.

Panic in Walldorf! Yes, it's a panic buy in the battle against Salesforce and other successful CRM vendors who are currently fighting for users with customer experience and experience management.

SAP's share price on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange reacted accordingly on the following Monday: It fell by more than five percent! In mid-October, the SAP share price was still over 100 euros, but on Monday evening in late trading it slipped below 90 euros.

Why? Because the vast majority of analysts don't see any added value: Qualtrics is a successful company. It collects data from e-commerce channels, social media, emails, etc.

This data is aggregated, anonymized, analyzed, cumulated, etc. And Qualtrics gives users a mood picture of their customers, employees, competitors, etc.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? SAP has promised something similar before with Hybris. Adobe can certainly do it with its Marketing Suite. And there are at least a dozen companies around the world that are doing something similar. Qualtrics is successful, growing fast, is predominantly a cloud company - but has no unique selling proposition, no market-leading technology, obviously nothing that would justify eight billion US dollars.

Qualtrics will prove to be a blunt weapon for SAP against Salesforce. "It's all downhill from here on out" is, of course, grossly exaggerated. But that C/4, SAP's CRM suite with Hybris, Callidus and Qualtrics, will still be a success story is doubtful.