Last week, SAP disclosed a number of major changes among its management ranks. This week, the restructuring is moving into the company's broader work force.

Published reports say the company is planning widespread employee cutbacks as the Waldorf, Germany-based vendor accelerates its shift to selling cloud-based software based on the HANA platform.

An SAP spokesperson confirmed that a companywide work force reorganization is under way in order to make the company more agile and more effective as it evolves into a cloud software company. But he declined to offer more details or speculate about the number of employees involved. "This initiative is about simplifying SAP for the customer, not about job cuts," the spokesperson said.