SAP News

Composable payment options enhance the customer experience at
checkout and accelerate retailers’ business growth

WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced a new composable payment solution to help retailers stay ahead of changing customer expectations. The new solution, SAP Commerce Cloud, open payment framework, helps retailers become more agile as new payment options – such as buy now, pay later – gain popularity.

Unlock business agility and transform customer experiences with SAP Commerce Cloud Learn more

The framework integrates SAP Commerce Cloud with numerous third-party payment service providers (PSPs), including Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay and Airwallex, based on their specific use case. Additionally, SAP’s composable architecture allows retailers to cherry-pick payment partners tailored to their unique needs and international markets, enabling them to build at their own pace, scale their business faster and avoid being confined to a single provider.

“Retailers want to extend more payments options to shoppers and quickly, and SAP is leveraging its vast partner ecosystem to fulfill this need,” said Leslie Hand, group vice president, Retail & Financial Insights, IDC. “With SAP’s deep understanding of retail and commerce and new offering to have a quick connection to the PSPs, retailers can adopt the plug and play framework they need that greatly reduces the complexity of a traditional integration. It’s great to see SAP delivering on its promise to offer composable solutions, so customers can adjust to new market requirements when and where it works best for them.”

SAP Commerce Cloud’s seamless and native integration capabilities ensure PSPs can be rapidly adopted, and it reduces complexity by eliminating the need to integrate and deploy extensions to the commerce codebase. The framework is extensible and headless, helping ensure the front end and back end are decoupled and operate independently, creating an opportunity to cater to a wide range of channel requirements and add on new solutions, including prebuilt payment experiences available on SAP Commerce Cloud, composable storefront. It also ensures customers have the freedom to pick their preferred payment method, which enhances the checkout experience.

“SAP’s unmatched industry expertise is the foundation of our strategy, as it enables us to deeply understand the complexities of delivering seamless and positive customer experiences that reinforce the brand promise with every interaction,” said Sven Denecken, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Product Marketing for SAP Industries & CX. “SAP’s unique, industry-led approach to composability places the retailer’s digital commerce needs front and center while we work with them to manage their digital transformation, navigate pathways to sustainable growth, and deliver on industry expectations.”

This no-code, low-code framework gives retailers a low-cost, adaptive, and agile payments system that can best fit their business and customer needs. It covers common payment needs and end-to-end payment processes across authorization, capture, refunds, and re-authorization as well as automatic updates with security and compliance standards.

• Example use case: A jewelry retailer that leverages a leading PSP wants to expand its payment options to offer a buy-now, pay-later payment option. They can add the new offering with a few clicks, immediately make the option available while meeting security requirements, and help guarantee an end-to-end payment experience for the customer.

SAP Commerce Cloud helps deliver profitable digital commerce growth, from discovery to delivery and beyond, and can be implemented with agility across industries such as retail, automotive, consumer products, utilities, and many others globally through its headless and composable offering. The open payment framework for SAP Commerce Cloud is in beta and SAP customers can join now. It is planned to be generally available in H2 2024.

Read comments from SAP partners here.

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Media Contact:
Jillian Baker, +1 (212) 653-9600, jillian.baker@sap.com, ET
SAP Press Room; press@sap.com

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Partner Quotes: SAP Announces New Commerce Cloud Payment Solution with Partners

WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced a new composable payment solution to help retailers stay ahead of changing customer expectations.

The new solution, SAP Commerce Cloud, open payment framework, helps retailers become more agile as new payment options – such as buy now, pay later – gain popularity. The framework also integrates with any third-party Payment Service Provider (PSP), including Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay and Airwallex, based on their specific use case.

SAP partners are an extension of our business, bringing experience and domain expertise that help retailers innovate, transform, and simplify. SAP’s payment partner ecosystem is made up of many providers who are solving some of the most critical industry or region-specific business needs to empower shoppers to buy and pay on their own terms.

SAP partners are important to this initiative. Read the following comments from SAP partners, many of which have apps available on the SAP Store online marketplace, about their involvement.

Adyen

“Adyen has a strong foundation of servicing customers through our existing SAP Commerce Cloud integration, and the open payment framework is the first step of a larger strategic partnership with the goal of enabling digital payments for customers across a larger range of SAP solutions. Adyen and SAP support some of the world’s largest enterprise organizations, and this partnership provides a gateway for those companies to easily migrate to a single global payments platform with the flexibility and support that Adyen is known for. Working closely with SAP, we intend to scale our already considerable payments processing volumes to the next level.”

– Kyle Jenke, VP, Global Head of Partnerships, Adyen

Worldpay

“Worldpay’s collaboration with SAP using the new open payment framework for SAP Commerce Cloud aims to revolutionize the way businesses manage their payment processing, offering seamless and secure solutions for our customers around the globe. By combining SAP’s industry-leading software with Worldpay’s innovative payment technology, we can provide businesses with a comprehensive payment ecosystem that optimizes efficiency, enhances security, and drives growth. We look forward to the exciting opportunities this collaboration around SAP Commerce Cloud will bring, and we are committed to continuing to innovate and provide cutting-edge solutions in the payment industry.”

– Maria Prados, SVP, Global Enterprise Go to Market, Worldpay

Airwallex

“This is an important first partnership between Airwallex and SAP, as we mutually look to support merchants with their international expansion plans. As one of four official payment service providers added to the SAP Commerce Cloud solution, Airwallex’s global payments and proprietary financial infrastructure will provide merchants with even more choices and payment options that suit their growing customer base. This is the start of a long-term relationship in which we look forward to strengthening our enterprise playbook and further scaling into the Americas and EMEA while supporting SAP’s business in APAC.”

– Ravi Adusumilli, EGM, Americas, Airwallex

Media Contact:
Jillian Baker, +1 (212) 653-9600, jillian.baker@sap.com, ET
SAP Press Room; press@sap.com

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The connection between net-zero emissions and the circular economy is backed by research. When it comes to cutting greenhouse gases, the main focus is on improving energy efficiency and transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewables, but that only accounts for 55% of greenhouse gas emissions. The remaining 45% is tied up in products, materials, and food.

Key administrations are aware of this and are starting to act accordingly. Accelerating innovation in industrial products and fuels for a net-zero, circular economy is one of five priorities in U.S. President Joe Biden’s Net-Zero Game Changers Initiative. Meanwhile, the new Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) is a main element of the European Green Deal.

In parallel, the UN is collaborating multilaterally to create policy to regulate plastics. The UN Plastics Treaty is a consensus by 175 nations to deliver a legally binding agreement to tackle plastic pollution by the end of 2024. This is significant because plastic has become fundamental to the products we create and the packaging we use to contain and ship them. Plastic has an enormous impact on the environment due to the emissions involved in its creation and mismanaged plastic waste polluting the air, the oceans, our food, and even our blood.

Currently, the linear economy dominates, as only 7.2% of the world’s resources are reused or recycled. In the case of plastic, we take oil from the ground, turn it into products and packaging, use them, and throw them out when we’re finished. Continuing like this isn’t an option because we will run out of resources, worsen global warming, and cause further damage to our ecosystem. The circular economy is about running the resources around in loops, so materials retain their value and can be reused.

It sounds logical, so why aren’t we doing it already? The first reason is financial. In the long term, the circular economy will create jobs, cut costs, improve profitability, and secure supply lines. Achieving this, however, requires massive capital investment in the short term. Additionally, more data is required to help us understand the impact of our decisions. And we need a new, more collaborative way of working.

Capital investment-wise, we must invest in designing and manufacturing products with circularity in mind. We need to adapt and build machinery and systems to rescue resources from existing products and turn them into new items. The labor market must evolve to train people in the skills required and to make circular economy jobs attractive, with good remuneration and benefits packages. More wealth must also flow back up the supply chain to ensure the sustainability of raw materials and to enable growth and sustainable manufacturing. To help companies and financial institutions understand the benefits and necessity of the circular economy, more education is required.

Record, report, and act on your sustainability goals with SAP solutions Learn more

Data systems need to evolve to give companies insights on material flow and traceability, help them avoid waste, extend periods of use, recover and regenerate materials, and make informed decisions about products and packaging. This is where SAP comes in, with 80% of the world’s businesses using our software.

Take plastic again: the SAP Green Token solution can help businesses trace plastics back to their source polymer to understand what type of material is used in every plastic element in a product. This can help companies prove the environmental credentials of a given plastic. SAP Responsible Design and Production can be used to understand how recycled and recyclable a component is and can help a company understand the true end-to-end cost of a material. This can be useful in regulating certain materials for comparison and decision-making purposes as well as in helping businesses anticipate taxes and fees associated with their products.

We can interrogate upstream supply chain data, which relates to what a product is made from, but we don’t yet have a complete downstream picture of what happens to a product at its end of life. Recyclability varies wildly between countries, so to understand how recyclable materials are in certain countries or jurisdictions, a partnership approach with national governments, local authorities, NGOs, and others is required to build a database that can inform companies which types of plastic to use or avoid for certain markets to achieve circularity. SAP can add value by collecting this data and pulling it into solutions.

At the same time, to embrace the circular economy, our way of working must evolve. Instead of working in silos within our individual businesses and in vertical supply chains, we need to work collaboratively to share the data and bring the skill sets and processes together. For example, SAP works with groups of companies, such as with the WBCSD, to establish frameworks for exchanging data. SAP Sustainability Data Exchange started with embedded carbon in products, but the application can be extended to track other important material information for the circular economy like recycled content or water content.

Collaborations between businesses and non-corporate bodies accelerate progress. A clear example of this is how, by working with the WBCSD and the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network, SAP works towards updating solutions to help customers respond to new requirements that arise from the negotiations.

The ambition is to replicate this approach to plastic for other products, such as steel, batteries, electronics, textiles, and even food. With a circular economy across these industries, I’m convinced we can get halfway to net zero and if, in parallel, the energy experts continue to move the needle on energy efficiency and renewable power generation, we’ll get the rest of the way.

Learn more about SAP Sustainability solutions at sap.com/sustainability.

Darren West is a product expert in Circular Economy at SAP.

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SAP was recently named a Strategic Challenger in the 2024 Fosway 9-GridTM for Learning Systems, a multidimensional learning market analysis model. As a Strategic Challenger, SAP is recognized as demonstrating solid performance with solutions that have a rich and broad suite of capability compared to the market.  

With the widened availability of AI, the race for skills is impacting both people and organizations. While people are learning how to use AI to drive more efficiency within their individual roles, organizations are also under pressure to adopt AI technology that can deliver more personalized development opportunities and greater talent intelligence.  

Over the last year, SAP has made significant investments across SAP SuccessFactors solutions, specifically in SAP SuccessFactors Learning, to deliver these capabilities. 

Boost employee skills while helping ensure compliance with SAP SuccessFactors Learning Learn more

These investments are part of a broader strategy to help our customers focus on accelerated skills growth and build a future-ready workforce. Recently, we released a redesigned integrated learning experience that can deliver an entirely new way for people to experience learning at work. The highly personalized experience can guide the learner to not only accomplish compliance trainings – what they “have to learn” – and organizational goals – what they “need to learn” – but also helps to drive an intrinsic culture of learning around what they “want to learn,” tapping into each individual’s needs, aspirations, interests, or preferences based on their growth profile.  

Furthermore, the AI-powered talent intelligence hub is now available across all SAP SuccessFactors solutions. It is a framework that helps organizations understand the skills their employees have today, the gaps that exist, and how to close those gaps. With this intelligence, SAP SuccessFactors Learning can continue to deliver even more personalized learning and development recommendations. 

“The level of innovation within the learning systems market continues to accelerate rapidly – specifically around AI and skills,” said David Wilson, founder and CEO of Fosway Group. “As a major vendor in this space, SAP continues to invest significantly in innovating its learning and talent capabilities, reflecting its focus on enhancing the value it delivers to learning buyers as well as its wider HCM audience.” 

Source: 2024 Fosway 9-GridTM for Learning Systems. Click to enlarge.

Both multinational and midsize companies leverage SAP SuccessFactors Learning, along with our partner ecosystem, to help drive upskilling and reskilling and create a culture of continuous learning. 

San Pablo Farmacia, a Mexico-based pharmacy retail chain, created an intuitive and engaging training experience that employees can consume at their convenience. By integrating the learning solution with other talent management applications, it can design personal training and development plans in line with its growth strategies and the individual needs of the entire workforce. The company delivered certified training to 1,800 employees without the need to transport its people to a training location and take them away from their pharmacy stores. 

Delta is also embracing AI to drive upskilling and personalized development opportunities. “We are incorporating disruptive technologies like our AI-driven skills ontology that automatically incorporates industry trends with embedded intelligence,” said Tim Gregory, managing director of HR Innovation and Workforce Technology at Delta. “We can say which skills are most important to Delta Air Lines and the employee can easily combine those with their current capabilities, strengths and styles, and aspirations to create a personal career path. All of the content is based on Delta-specific skills and personalized to each employee’s career goals.”  

Looking ahead, we will continue to deliver more learning-specific enhancements and new AI capabilities throughout 2024 across all SAP SuccessFactors solutions so leaders can hire the best talent and grow their personal skills with individualized plans while building up the compliance and strategic skills needed by the organization.  

Learn more about SAP SuccessFactors Learning.

Vinita Venkatesh is vice president of Product Management for SAP SuccessFactors Learning. 

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Quantum computing reports are still working up steam, but error correction remains elusive. Research into quantum computing has yielded many positive results, in quantum computing and also improvements in classical algorithms. In addition, it has inspired new hardware that potentially improves how businesses will optimize. Last year, SAP and Fujitsu collaborated to test out Fujitsu’s new quantum-inspired Digital Annealer Unit (DAU).

If you ask a quantum researcher what keeps them awake at night, error correction might be their likely answer. And so, while quantum computing still makes great strides, the quantum advantage can sometimes be overstated in the press. To mitigate this, however, a new type of quantum-inspired computing is coming of age. What started as simulated annealing has given rise to dedicated simulated annealing machines. These typically work on optimization problems, finding the best way to do something.

Harnessing Fujitsu’s Digital Annealer Unit for Efficient Optimization

Fujitsu’s Digital Annealer Unit (DAU) is a quantum-inspired machine. It works by finding the optimal combination when presented with a list of possible combinations, and it works fast. Last year, SAP ran a proof of concept with Fujitsu to test and benchmark its DAU – with some promising results.

SAP is continuously exploring new ideas, business models, and pioneering technologies Learn more

As mentioned in a recent blog, the DAU was tested against some rather abstract but standardized research problems from the Library of Quadratic Programming Instances (QPLIB). We also tested the possibility to seamlessly integrate SAP solutions with the DAU, proving a simple execution to start. As a result, SAP was able to demonstrate that the DAU has real potential and marks an important milestone in the progress of quantum-inspired computing towards practical, real-world, standard business solutions. We are currently working with Fujitsu to extend this potential to other optimization problems, like creating more efficient schedules for manufacturing, vehicle space optimization, and ultimately an even broader use case application.

While still a proof of concept, these connections and benchmarking results demonstrate the potential for simulated annealing to deliver on real-world problems, such as balancing the load across all manufacturing tool sets, by using the DAU as a machine dedicated to the task of optimization, rather than a universally reprogrammable computer.

As a world-leading enterprise application provider, SAP continues to help innovate and bring the benefits of quantum-inspired computing to customers through our solutions.

Benchmarking Against Current Optimization Methods

Before committing more resources, SAP wanted to test the DAU against problems that serve as industry or academic standards for optimization. This is where the QPLIB comes in. It is essentially a huge repository of math problems, none of which are mapped to potential use cases but all of which can determine what kind of problems the DAU might excel at. The advantage of this approach is that it allows us to benchmark against current optimization methods, although the use case context has been removed. Take the example of a drug trial, where scientists test the new drug in test tubes against drugs already on the market. It may not show side effects, but it will show whether it’s worth risking trials on living subjects.

The DAU takes a Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) problem as its input, which sets up the cost-benefit matrix. It then outputs a string of 1’s and 0’s, telling the user whether it is optimal to include, for example, a unit of stock, where the variance is to be minimized. The key is that it must either be faster or output a more optimal solution.

Most quantum computers run their quantum circuits at gate-level. Fujitsu’s approach was inspired by quantum annealing, a technique that specializes entirely in optimization. Although quantum annealing makes great progress in the number of qubits (quantum bits), it is subject to similar limitations of error. The advantage of Fujitsu’s quantum-inspired approach is that it relies on existing hardware, eliminating the need for expensive cryogenic cooling.

It is SAP’s sincere hope that this quantum-inspired optimization can help our customers bridge the optimization gaps until quantum hardware becomes more reliable. The incorporation of Fujitsu’s DAU into SAP technology helps establish a platform designed to tackle the impending gaps in the years ahead. This remarkable advancement is a key achievement in SAP’s journey towards the next era of enterprise software, aiming to enhance business operations and foster value creation.

Together, SAP and Fujitsu are pushing the boundaries and redefining what is possible, as the industry looks to a future transformed by the advancements in quantum-inspired computing.

Paul McElligott is a fellow in the Quantum eXplorers Group at SAP.

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Last week, to a virtual audience of nearly 50,000 employees, the Executive Board of SAP SE announced the 2023 winners of the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award, the company’s most prestigious employee recognition.

Three teams were selected for outstanding and innovative projects in the categories Go-to-Market, Operational Excellence, and Products and Technology.

In 2023, 115 nominations involved more than 750 employees from 35 countries. Eight teams consisting of 81 employees from around the world made it to the final round.

In honor of the three winning teams, SAP will make donations to three charities selected by the team members. The €30,000 total donation – €10,000 per team – will be split between Better Shelter, World Central Kitchen, and Embrace Global.

Meet the 2023 Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award Winners

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Always allow YouTube Always load all embeds--> Go-to-Market Winner Reimagined RISE with SAP Business Case with SAP Signavio and SAP Value Lifecycle Manager Integration

When shifting to a cloud-first approach, it can be a challenge to pitch the cloud to customers due to the comprehensiveness of the solution spanning across the entire value chain of an enterprise.

To apply a more streamlined and dependable method for crafting compelling value propositions, the Value Advisory team at SAP implemented the SAP Signavio portfolio of cloud-based business process management solutions within their practice to demonstrate value to customers through data-driven insights.

The team created a system where business metrics from SAP Value Lifecycle Manager and process performance data from SAP Signavio solutions were merged and applied to business KPIs to identify cases of suboptimal performance. This allows customers to more easily see the connection between business outcomes and the process capabilities, supported by data.

The approach offers a robust and repeatable performance diagnostic that can be used to identify, clarify, verify, and amplify value throughout the customer value journey, helping customers better understand the value of the cloud and RISE with SAP. The innovation helps build customer trust and intimacy while also helping our business operate at scale. To date, this process-driven value management has impacted more than 190 customers.

“Our future focus involves enhancing usability and capabilities to comprehensively cover the customer value journey,” Nitin Singh, team leader and Value Advisory principal, says. “We extend our sincere gratitude to our leaders for fostering a culture of innovation, our colleagues for experimenting and navigating challenges with us, and prior colleagues whose work paved the way for this journey. We genuinely stand on the shoulders of giants.” 

Operational Excellence Winner Plutus: Rate Optimization and Management

Cloud services are a critical part of SAP’s recent evolution, with the company dedicating extensive time and resources to seamlessly integrate all essential services into the cloud. This effort aims to enhance customer experiences – and Plutus serves as the cornerstone of these endeavors.

Plutus, which leverages SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), is a one-stop solution for major hyperscalers. It’s crafted to empower lines of business by providing smarter and more efficient advice for optimizing cloud services. Plutus can centralize the management of cost optimization and intelligently navigate users through cloud expenses, providing top-notch recommendations and comprehensive end-to-end management. It caters to users’ needs from guidance to execution, helping to ensure cost savings every step of the way.

The Plutus team used cutting-edge technologies to create a 24/7, fully integrated, user-centric cloud service hub and a smooth user interface platform that can operate across various channels. Plutus provides simplified financial operations processes by offering an intuitive interface across all platforms, working to eliminate pricing disparities and provide reliable cost-saving solutions. These efforts strongly emphasize SAP’s commitment to advancing global digital sustainability through innovative enterprise solutions.

The solution uses machine learning to provide smart recommendations. The team also plans to integrate a versatile digital chatbot based on generative AI to help ensure seamless and comprehensive user support in the future.

Plutus allows for a new approach to SAP’s cloud cost optimization strategy, unlocking new avenues for significant cost savings and margin improvements. To date, Plutus has generated over US$920 million in net savings for SAP, with projections reaching $1 billion in Q1 2024. It has also achieved and maintained remarkable, best-in-industry cloud utilization and coverage rates – exceeding 97% and 90%, respectively.

“Winning the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award reflects our dedication to teamwork and innovation,” Donghua Chen, Plutus team lead, says. “Our journey to this point has required a lot of hard work. But as we celebrate this achievement, we remain committed to continually analyzing cloud usage to maximize savings for SAP through rate optimization.”

Products & Technology Winner CAP and capGPT – SAP Cloud Application Programming Model and Generative AI

The SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) was started in 2018 as a project to address the lack of guidance for developers building apps on what is now SAP BTP. At first, developers could choose from a huge number of technologies, which made integration with the platform services a relatively high effort.

As a development framework, CAP automatically solves about 80% of the problems backend developers face – such as multitenancy, expandability, or business features such as localization and translatability. But thanks to CAP’s domain-driven approach, it is no longer necessary to always change the coding in each of those cases. And for special use cases that CAP doesn’t cover, the coding can be easily added to build in this functionality. To help safeguard customers’ investments, CAP offers the possibility to interchange components, such as runtime or the database, without changing the actual implementation.

CAP, as a centerpiece of Golden Path and SAP Build Code, is now an integral part of the consumption experience of SAP BTP. Today, thousands of internal and external developers use CAP to build business applications on SAP BTP, driving higher developer productivity and easier SAP BTP service adoption.

“This award is a great testament to the hard work and dedication of the whole CAP unit and a recognition of the impact we have both internally as well as for our customers and partners,” Ole Lilienthal, team lead, says.

To make prototyping even easier, in spring 2023, SAP software architect David Kunz applied ChatGPT’s large language model to writing code for business apps.

capGPT, as the new functionality is called, allows users to write in natural language what they want their app prototype to be able to do. In as little as 30 seconds, they can receive all the code – which previously had to be written by hand – and access the prototype to test it. This can not only save experienced developers an amazing amount of time, but can also enable non-developers to create prototypes of the apps they need. capGPT can also generate user interfaces in addition to backend applications. It will soon be available to customers through integration into SAP Build Code as part of AI-development assistant Joule.

“Seeing capGPT go from an idea to a Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award winner within a year is a true testament that everything is possible at SAP,” Kunz says. “I feel very proud and I’m energized to continue to push the limits of what generative AI can enable.”

Photo courtesy of SAP employee Fateh Kassab

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As a longtime executive sponsor of the SAP Innovation Awards, I always look forward to the day we announce our winners to the world. And the countdown is now on. But before we get to the big reveal, we are proud to share some incredible stories from this year’s finalists.

These organizations exemplify resilience and innovation. Despite macro challenges and an unpredictable business climate, they harness technology, culture, and sometimes pure grit to address some of the world’s biggest challenges. We at SAP are honored to be part of their journey. With our help, they develop business processes, solutions, and services to better serve their customers, operations, and communities around the world.

SAP Innovation Awards celebrate inspirational customer and partner stories Learn more Real-World Problems, Real-Life Solutions

For the past 11 years, SAP has run the prestigious SAP Innovation Awards, proudly recognizing top global innovators that use SAP solutions to make the world a better place. Our distinguished judges of industry thought leaders, influencers, community members, and SAP experts have carefully reviewed 160 entries to determine the 2024 SAP Innovation Award finalists.

These organizations are setting the standards in improving operations across the value chain, boosting employee and customer experiences, shaping a sustainable future, and much more. A huge congratulations to all of our finalists! I know I speak for everyone involved when I say I can’t wait to find out this year’s winners.

Click to enlarge. 30 Winners Across Seven Categories

Judging for the SAP Innovation Awards is based on a few big elements: the creativity of an organization’s use case, the tangible outcomes, and their innovation in employing AI technologies and cloud solutions from SAP. We highlight winners in the following seven categories:

• Business Innovator: This category focuses on how customers are transforming their supply chain, processes, or business networks using cloud solutions from SAP.
• Industry Leader: Customers are recognized for employing our solutions to address big challenges in their industries and disrupting the way their industries have traditionally conducted business.
• Experience Wizard: This one focuses on customers achieving tangible business transformation using our cloud solutions to delight their employees and customers.
• Sustainability Hero: To be honored here, customers must be actively committed to sustainability with leading-edge solutions.
• Services Supernova: Customers are recognized for outstanding achievements in transforming businesses into sustainable enterprises. They’ve exceeded their business goals, optimized IT resources, increased user enablement, and improved productivity or learning using RISE with SAP or Cloud Success Services.
• Transformation Titan: How do you become a titan? Demonstrate exceptional innovation and transformational leadership in using SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). Selected customers are employing the full portfolio of SAP products.
• Partner Paragon: This category highlights how partners accelerate the adoption of SAP BTP by developing a monetized application that has been deployed by customers.

Continuing the Celebration

SAP Innovation Awards represent an amazing opportunity to learn, be inspired by, and celebrate the unique and innovative ways our customers and partners are making a difference and we look forward to celebrating the winners on April 10!

Do you know of a customer or partner that would be a good candidate for next year’s SAP Innovation Awards? Or do you just want to learn more about the awards, the finalists, and the winners when they’re announced? Join us and showcase your innovation story! Get started here.

Dorit Shackleton is senior vice president and head of Global Customer Adoption and Events Marketing at SAP.

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Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced new rules requiring many large U.S.-listed public companies to disclose climate-related risks that have a material impact on their financials, operations, or business strategy. 

Specifically, companies registered with the SEC now must disclose their Scope 1 and 2 emissions, as in those resulting from both their direct emissions and purchases of electricity and fuel.

Calculate your carbon footprint from cradle to gate with SAP technology Learn more

Critics of the ruling say it adds to the burden of reporting to multiple government agencies. Others believe the SEC is not going far enough, as its decision does not require the disclosure of Scope 3 emissions, which are generated by a company’s suppliers and customers.

Among the reasons the SEC decided against mandating the disclosure of Scope 3 emissions was the potential difficulty in collecting and measuring this data as well as potential high costs.

At SAP,  we embrace the SEC’s ruling not just as a regulatory measure, but as a promising avenue for companies to thrive by leveraging technology to harness the power of business data.

We are not merely observing from the sidelines; we are actively partnering with our customers to empower them in accurately monitoring emission, reducing energy costs, and streamlining their business processes.

Our commitment goes beyond compliance — we are dedicated to enabling companies to stay agile in both voluntary and mandatory reporting, recognizing the ever-evolving landscape of emissions disclosure regulations. This sentiment is underscored not only by the recent SEC rule but also by the stringent laws such as the one passed last year in California and the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

SAP has the technology to make Scope 3 emissions accurate, granular, and stable. We are seeing customers adopt digital technologies that will enable them to comply with all existing and anticipated regulatory requirements around the world up and down their value chains to track emissions accurately, including Scope 3, where applicable.

From our experience, sustainability management solutions from SAP can benefit businesses while helping them stay compliant with local and global regulations. SAP makes end-to-end carbon management seamless by embedding it into business processes through a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This offers companies the ability to create a green ledger by connecting their financial data with accurate and verifiable emissions data. When this data is connected, they can innovate their operations and supply chains to be more sustainable and competitive.

The essence of the SEC’s impact lies in our unwavering belief in collaboration. Our business-to-business network enables our customers to meet the challenge of disclosing emissions data under various reporting requirements. This ability to accurately track emissions allows companies’ stakeholders, including their supply chain partners, to access that information on public websites or mobile apps so they can meet and even exceed the most stringent reporting requirements.

With SAP’s enterprise solutions, companies can operate today while increasing the overall availability and transparency of carbon data. These same solutions also allow for the proactive identification of supply chain partners so companies can further decrease their carbon emissions. Concurrently, government agencies can easily access companies’ emissions data using already available enterprise software to improve their emissions reduction goals.

SAP’s Holistic Approach to Cloud-Based Sustainability and Business Transformation

The reality of our future economy is that it is cloud-based and sustainable. That’s why we see our customers transitioning to more agile business models that drive sustainable outcomes.

SAP guides them through this new reality by providing the technology that allows for their business process shifts across their value chains. Whether they are new local or regional emissions rules, plastic taxes or extended producer responsibility requirements, SAP is ready to work with customers to minimize any disruptions with these new reporting requirements.

With a comprehensive and integrated approach to sustainability, SAP solutions move beyond compliance and operationalize sustainability across companies’ operations. Customers can build on their ERP solutions over time, transforming business processes for maximum sustainable impact. Companies can also deploy SAP Business AI to inform, predict, and optimize sustainable outcomes. These same tools can leverage sustainability regulations and help companies achieve business process transformation.

We are hopeful that governments will advance carbon accounting globally. Taking that step will harmonize regional and global reporting frameworks and ensure optimal reuse of companies’ existing data flows and business processes.

This SEC decision makes it more important than ever for companies to use digital technologies to track their emissions accurately and not rely on estimated data that often undercounts carbon emissions.

Regulations can actually drive innovation. We are in a world where businesses must pivot quickly due to externalities like economic shocks, political shifts, and climate-related disasters. SAP has the technology to help companies rapidly adapt to these changes and new regulations.

Sophia Mendelsohn is chief sustainability and commercial officer and co-general manager for SAP Sustainability. 

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Achieving strategic sourcing excellence takes more than simply locating the right suppliers that can fulfill your requirements at the right price. It also involves obtaining crucial insights to make informed decisions. 

In today’s highly volatile business environment, having a strong sourcing strategy in place is key when it comes to overcoming challenges such as supply chain disruptions and delays. However, many organizations have inefficient operations and limited supplier options, which means they may also lack a contingency plan or alternative suppliers they can call on to overcome such challenges. 

With a strategic sourcing plan, companies have the ability to get the best quality, price, and fit for their business needs, helping them stay competitive.  

To help organizations achieve their strategic sourcing goals, SAP has the guided sourcing capability for SAP Ariba Sourcing to help streamline and automate sourcing processes. It can enable users to identify and qualify suppliers, create and manage sourcing events, and evaluate bids and proposals. It can provide a structured and guided approach to sourcing, helping organizations to efficiently identify the best suppliers and negotiate the best possible terms for their procurement needs, allowing them to complete more projects with less effort. 

Want to cut costs, limit risk, and maximize supply chain savings? Learn more about SAP Ariba Sourcing

The four key benefits of guided sourcing are: 

1. Improved user interface: The intuitive interface can make it easier for users to navigate the platform, resulting in faster adoption and increased user satisfaction. The revamp of the user experience has led to improved usability, rapid event creation, enhanced search capabilities, and contextual help with tools like SAP Enable Now. This can ultimately lead to a more efficient and productive sourcing process for businesses. The platform also offers intuitive management of the strategic sourcing and request for x (RFx) event process, making it easier for businesses to manage their sourcing events. This streamlined approach to event management can help businesses save time and resources while also improving the overall effectiveness of their sourcing strategy. 
2. Embedded analytics: The guided sourcing capability is at the forefront of innovation with features like no-touch procurement efficiency enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Such features include recommendation of suppliers and content within strategic sourcing and smart upload in Microsoft Excel to easily import unstructured data as line items within a sourcing event in a matter of seconds. In addition to this, we plan to release a mechanism we refer to as “insights to action,” which can bring analytics back into the applications. This can enable business users to use insights and recommendations to help make decisions fast and effectively.   
3. Cross-product integrations: Through integration with SAP Ariba Supplier Risk and SAP Ariba Category Management, guided sourcing can provide enhanced search capabilities with Supplier Lifecycle and Performance (SLP) criteria. It helps make risk information readily available so it can be accessed during the negotiation phase, while spend management data is made available via embedded analytics and SAP Ariba Category Management. This level of integration helps businesses make more informed sourcing decisions by understanding and managing the level of risk at an early stage of supplier engagement and having the ability to view and analyze spend by category, which can help in making the right sourcing decisions.  
4. Enhanced capabilities via integration with partner applications: The capabilities of guided sourcing can be further extended through integration with partner apps endorsed by SAP, making it a comprehensive solution for companies looking to streamline their sourcing processes. For example, integration with Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) for SAP Ariba can allow for seamless collaboration between sourcing persona and legal personnel. Integration with Scoutbee Discovery for SAP Ariba Sourcing can allow customers to access new suppliers across the globe based on supplier and product characteristics.  

Click to enlarge.

The guided sourcing capability offers a wide range of benefits that can optimize and streamline the procurement process for businesses. From improved supplier management and enhanced visibility to cost savings and increased efficiency, the guided sourcing capability can provide a comprehensive solution for organizations to effectively manage their sourcing activities. By leveraging the power of guided sourcing, businesses can experience greater control and transparency in their procurement operations, ultimately leading to increased profitability and better business outcomes. With its innovative features, advanced capabilities, and integration with partner apps endorsed by SAP, the guided sourcing capability can be key to helping organizations that want to achieve strategic sourcing excellence.  

The capability is available at no additional cost for all licensed SAP Ariba Sourcing customers. For more information, check out this FAQ document. 

Salvatore Lombardo is senior vice president and chief product officer for SAP Ariba.

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There is no doubt that generative AI for business will transform every aspect of how business is done. But the reality is that generative AI is only as good as the data that it’s trained on.

While data may be the fuel powering the engine of AI, it’s good data that’s the real game changer. With good data, a company can automate processes — freeing up their people to do the most impactful work — and analyze the most important variables facing their business to create intelligent insights.

That’s where a datasphere comes in. It makes data more complete and logical by understanding the different relationships within a company’s data. And that’s what can truly bring out the best in any business today.

Deliver seamless and scalable access to mission-critical business data Explore SAP Datasphere

Having a central hub for data is more critical than ever. It allows our customers to better model their business across all SAP business applications. That’s exactly why we introduced SAP Datasphere last year to empower businesses with insights they need – based on the right data – in the context of their business. Since then, generative AI has disrupted and simplified even more business processes, and data capture is no different. This week we announced new generative-AI features in SAP Datasphere that will transform enterprise planning through simplified data landscapes and more-intuitive data interaction.

Why is this important? Because having a unified data view that simplifies the data landscapes while retaining context and logic is what enables businesses to adapt faster to market changes and make better decisions. It’s also a more efficient way of working. Because while you’re busy pulling data together, competitors are circling your customers.

I am constantly speaking with our customers about the value of SAP Datasphere. It’s a data architecture that harmonizes mission-critical data across an organization. I hear amazing outcomes they’re able to achieve: from PwC breaking down silos in the different countries where it stores sensitive data so its workforce can access it more efficiently and securely for customers, to the Lufthansa Group taking data from different parts of its operations like aircraft, HR, and procurement, to see how decisions from one could impact the other. 
 
With our additional news this week, such as making our generative AI copilot Joule available in SAP Analytics Cloud and expanding our partnership with Collibra to help our customers meet compliance, privacy, and regulatory requirements related to AI as they evolve, we’re making it easier to find the right data and use it to drive deeper insights, more efficiencies, faster growth, and more trust in their business.

While PwC and Lufthansa show what’s possible today with a simplified data fabric, imagine what is about to become possible when you infuse it with the power of generative AI that understands your business – and then learns from that data. This has the potential to deliver exponential value from your data.

Or think of it this way: years ago, the biggest differentiators for businesses were price, location, products, and services. Today, and especially in the years ahead, it could very well be how effectively a business is training their AI models. That’s why building the right data fabric is one of the most important investments any business can make today.

It’s been said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. And in an era where data is being created exponentially, I believe that those businesses that can separate the signal from the noise when it comes to their data will be the ones that invent the future in an AI-first world.

Scott Russell is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE.

Take a guided tour and experience firsthand the power of business data with SAP Datasphere Start now

People over age 65 made up 16% of the Australian population in 2020, and they’re on track to represent more than 22% by 2026. This growing cohort is increasingly forgoing traditional facility care models to remain at home. The Australian government offers financial support to qualifying citizens, who can use those funds to support in-home care.

These government funds are typically managed by a traditional provider who establishes a plan within the customer’s budget and assigns caregivers. They offer limited to no choice regarding providers and little transparency on how the funds are being spent. This inefficient and costly approach reduces available funds for actual care with limited and often unfamiliar providers.

Enter HomeMade, a startup looking to disrupt the home care sector with a transformative solution that would empower customers to not only stay in their own homes but also to oversee their spending and self-select their providers. With an initial staff of only six, HomeMade set out to create a technology platform that would deliver efficiency, flexibility, transparency, and ease of use for customers and a scalable model that would grow and evolve with the company.

A Rock-Solid Technology Foundation for a Digitally Native Startup

Technology is at the heart of HomeMade’s business model, so choosing the right technology partner and the right digital platform was essential. “We wanted a solution that would give us that ability to scale rapidly and with confidence knowing that the rails weren’t going to fall off, because to be digitally enabled is what makes us different,” Laura Westhorpe, HomeMade general manager, said.

HomeMade found the perfect partner in Bourne Digital, part of Accenture, which steered the startup to SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). In choosing the platform, HomeMade benefits from a locally hosted, high-performance cloud architecture that can scale across its network. As a React Native open-source Cloud Foundry runtime service, the HomeMade application is intuitive, user-friendly, and easy for the company to maintain and support long term. Add SAP Integration Suite and SAP HANA data storage into the mix and HomeMade emerged with a secure, integrated, and scalable technology foundation to offer efficient care and support to Australia’s at-home care population.

Bring out your best with data and AI from SAP BTP Learn more Young Company Makes an Outsize Impact

In just two years, HomeMade has grown its business to 2,500 customers and reduced new user onboarding time from 14 days to 48 hours. The company has empowered qualifying citizens to manage their budgets and choose their care while saving 14 million Australian dollars and counting.

Customers and families rave about the solution’s functionality and ease of use. HomeMade’s team members, who have grown to over 100, can happily focus on the customer instead of the endless paperwork they might find in traditional care management. Service providers appreciate timely payment, and another critical stakeholder – the Australian government – conducted a regulatory compliance audit and found that HomeMade scored 100% across 42 requirements for the Age Care Quality Safety Standards.

And this is only the beginning for a new company already making an appreciable impact. “As the needs of HomeMade grow and evolve, the platform will grow and evolve with HomeMade,” Selim Ahmed, managing director of Bourne Digital, part of Accenture, explained. For example, Ahmed continued, “We leverage AI business services to read documents…and we’re feeling really confident that those AI services will continue to play a part in the future evolution of HomeMade as the company moves more and more towards automation and self-service.”

Adding Value Through Innovation

An SAP Innovation Award winner in 2023, HomeMade continues to grow and think creatively about how its foundational SAP BTP-based technology can enable it to continue to innovate and add value for customers. “There are endless opportunities,” Westhorpe said, from increasing efficiency to leveraging data to identify falls or other incidents to using large language models to recognize clinical deterioration in users and launch preventative interventions.

For other startups looking to build technology solutions that will make a dramatic impact, Westhorpe offered to consider, “You want to build everything and you’ve got all these grand ideas, but what are the biggest things that will add value for customers?” Ahmed adds that resilience, a strong partnership, and hard work are critical: “Adapt, learn, grow together, and accept feedback…To build something innovative, you must be prepared to roll up your sleeves.”

The Full Episode

Special thanks to SAP AppHaus, a hub for fostering human-centered innovation, for collaborating on this Better Together: Customer Conversations on SAP Business Technology Platform episode. Learn more about how HomeMade built a better solution for qualifying citizens:

• Thought leadership podcast: Thulium’s CEO Tamara McCleary sat down with Westhorpe and Ahmed to discuss the change in caring for older adults, home-based care, and how technology can deliver on a promise dedicated to purpose.
• Practitioners’ video: Westhorpe, Ahmed, and I discussed the challenges and opportunities in creating a world-class digital solution for a small but rapidly scaling startup.

Explore more success stories of customers leveraging SAP BTP to help optimize processes for the sake of people and purpose:

• Colsubsidio: This nonprofit provider of wide-ranging social services chose SAP BTP and SAP HANA Cloud to enable extensive solution integrations, helping deliver better data connectivity and operational efficiency.
• Heartland Dental: Administratively supporting over 1,700 dental practices, Heartland Dental leverages SAP BTP to help improve the business assistant’s user experience, increase productivity, and reduce turnover.

For the full episode and the on-demand Better Together: Customer Conversations series, visit sap.com/btp.

Timo Elliott is vice president and a global innovation advocate for SAP BTP.

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SAP plans to establish additional partner-driven locations for the SAP AppHaus Network in North America and is seeking SAP partners interested in applying to join the network and open a new location.

SAP AppHaus locations are customer-facing sites that represent the next step in SAP’s evolution of innovating with customers by putting the human experience first. The first SAP AppHaus was established in 2013. Today, the network is 23-strong across the globe, including three SAP-driven and 19 partner-driven locations.  

At the heart of SAP AppHaus Network is the belief that innovation requires a multidisciplinary team, a creative environment, and a human-centered approach to ensure innovation meets real-world needs. This human-centered approach combines design thinking and architecture thinking to make sure solutions are experientially desirable, technologically feasible, and financially viable. In short, the three success ingredients are people, process, and place.

SAP is continuously innovating for customers – and the future See how

“The award-winning human-centric approach to innovation that we and selected SAP partners apply in customer engagements creates significantly higher business outcomes,” states Birgit Fien-Schmalzbauer, global head of the SAP AppHaus Partner Network. “Involving end users, IT, and the business of the customer in a systematic way, for example, leads to higher user satisfaction and less training effort for newly introduced solutions. It supports customers in leveraging the opportunities brought about by the newest technologies, such as SAP Business AI, even in the short term.”

The next growth region for extending SAP AppHaus Network will be North America. The high demand for human-centric customer engagements led to the decision to further expand the reach of the current network representation in North America consisting of three locations:

• SAP AppHaus Palo Alto, currently under renovation
• ConvergentIS AppHaus Calgary, Canada, partner-run
• Mindset AppHaus Minneapolis, U.S., partner-run

“Customers in North America, like our customers in other regions, are looking for support to keep up with changing market environments and state-of-the-art technologies along their business transformation journey,” states Thorsten Leiduck, global head of SAP Business Technology Platform Ecosystem at SAP. “The services offered by partner members of SAP AppHaus Network provide our clients with the benefits of a human-centered innovation approach that leverages the power of SAP Business Technology Platform. Customers gain a significant competitive advantage by embracing a culture of innovation and improving their business processes through SAP technologies.”

“Our partners are qualified and trained in our innovation approach and can therefore enable customers to leverage SAP Business Technology Platform for their best benefit,” adds Carlos Estala Velasco, regional lead of SAP AppHaus Partner Network Americas, SAP. “I am looking forward to continuing to drive the Americas chapter of SAP AppHaus Network and expanding innovation opportunities for our regional customers.”

Interested partners are invited to apply. To do so, visit apphaus.sap.com/network and choose “Get in Contact” to request the submission template or more information. Submissions are open until April 30, 2024.

Svenja Mueller is program manager for SAP AppHaus Network.

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WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced transformative data innovations that will help customers harness the full power of their data to drive deeper insights, faster growth and more efficiency in the era of AI. New capabilities in the SAP Datasphere solution, including new generative-AI features, transform enterprise planning through simplified data landscapes and more-intuitive data interaction.

“Capturing data to make better decisions is an enterprise technology imperative that’s become increasingly critical as AI – which relies on quality data – revolutionizes every aspect of business,” said Juergen Mueller, SAP Chief Technology Officer and member of the Executive Board. “Our newest SAP Datasphere innovations, as well as an expanded partnership with Collibra, represent a quantum leap in our ability to help customers drive intelligent business transformations through data.”

Deliver seamless and scalable access to mission-critical business data Explore SAP Datasphere

At the heart of these announcements is the business data fabric, an architecture that helps ensure data is not just an asset but also the core underpinning of strategic initiatives. The innovations and partnership announced today equip organizations to deliver meaningful data to data consumers – with business context and logic intact.

“We have decided to leverage SAP Datasphere for a modern business data fabric architecture in conjunction with our SAP S/4HANA landscape. It allows us to effectively establish a modern data analytics platform that enables a business self service capability on the basis of trusted data and data models,” said Achim Welter, Senior Director ERP, Digital & IT Strategy, Hershey’s.

Today’s SAP Datasphere innovations help customers achieve a unified data view that simplifies their data landscapes while retaining context and logic – enabling them to adapt faster to market changes and make more-efficient decisions. From new copilot and vector database capabilities that help ensure business context remains constant in generative AI outputs to a new knowledge graph that helps uncover insights and patterns in complex data, SAP’s data innovations help ensure customers have the full power of their data at their fingertips.

Today’s key innovations include:

Generative-AI Copilot and AI Governance

SAP’s generative-AI assistant, the Joule copilot, is now coming to the SAP Analytics Cloud solution to automate the creation and development of reports, dashboards, plans and more. This automation is enabled by the SAP HANA Cloud vector engine capabilities, which combine the power of large language models with the relevant data of your organization – helping ensure business context is a constant for generative-AI outputs.

Incorporating generative AI across the business isn’t possible without trusted and governed data. To provide organizations with a solution to govern the policies, processes and practices of AI, SAP is announcing an expansion of our partnership with Collibra to integrate Collibra’s AI Governance with SAP data assets. This can help provide transparency and accountability for organizations and help ensure regulatory, compliance and privacy policies are met.

Discover Hidden Insights and Patterns with Knowledge Graph

With the new SAP Datasphere knowledge graph, organizations can discover hidden insights and patterns across their applications and systems. This enables both technical and business users to deeply understand the relationships between data, metadata and business processes, as well as boost the effectiveness of machine learning and large language models.

Unified and Advanced Planning and Analytics

The new SAP Datasphere integration with SAP Analytics Cloud offers a single data management system and advanced analytics to power cross-organizational planning. Planners can leverage a single flexible model to break down silos between planning using one tool for data preparation, modeling and planning.

Additionally, business users can use the new compass capability in SAP Analytics Cloud to realize better outcomes in planning and analytics through data-driven simulation. It enables organizations to run complex simulations using a chat interface to evaluate predictive outcomes and continually adjust controllable variables to find the optimal plan.

This supports customers to transform their planning by unifying financial, operational, supply chain and workforce planning with native connection to SAP applications and third-party data.

To learn more, please read: Unleashing the Latest SAP Data and Analytics Innovations.

Visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP at @SAPNews.

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About SAP

SAP’s strategy is to help every business run as an intelligent, sustainable enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software, we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: SAP customers generate 87% of total global commerce. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 26 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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Today at SAP Data Unleashed, SAP proudly announced the latest innovations in data and analytics.

Read on to learn more about these transformative announcements, which will enable businesses to unlock new potential in the areas of data management, AI-driven planning, and analytics.

Access Insights Wherever Your Data Resides

SAP Datasphere Knowledge Graph

SAP Datasphere knowledge graph will enable organizations to better represent their real-world use of data, leading to more effectively leveraging it for generative AI and better reasoning.

As data is onboarded, transformed, and integrated in SAP Datasphere, SAP Datasphere knowledge graph automatically creates an ontology representing the relationships in the data, including the inherent business context from SAP application sources like SAP S/4HANA. This is then available to be extended and augmented via an ontology editor to reflect specific attributes within an organization. Finally, the data in SAP Datasphere is automatically applied to this ontology to create a knowledge graph that allows the data to be processed as a semantic web of relationships, drawing new insights from connections that are otherwise difficult to follow.

These knowledge graphs are better suited for answering complex, often open-ended questions. For example, a marketing manager might ask a question like: “What type of campaign for mountain bikes works best for my highest performing cities with a population over 1 million?”

Knowledge graphs can provide better context to large language models (LLMs) and prevent AI-generated “hallucinations.” SAP Datasphere knowledge graph will enable organizations to unleash the power of AI for even the most complex queries.

The effort and cost of manually creating knowledge graphs is typically very high. SAP Datasphere knowledge graph overcomes this by pre-populating the knowledge graphs using all the valuable content already available in SAP Datasphere. The knowledge graph can then be used with Joule, SAP’s generative AI co-pilot, allowing business users to ask both open-ended and specific questions and get instant and well-documented answers. Sign up for a preview of SAP Datasphere knowledge graph via the link below.

Auto-generated knowledge graphs enable AI to answer complex, open-ended questions

SAP HANA Cloud Vector Engine

With the next release of SAP HANA Cloud, a vector capability will be added to existing multi-model capabilities, allowing customers to gain value from all relevant types of business data using a single database. The inclusion of a vector engine further enables customers to build intelligent data applications that combine the natural intuition of human interaction with powerful machine learning and multi-model processing capabilities.

The vector engine in SAP HANA Cloud provides the ability to store and compare vectors using SQL. Determining similarity between vectors enables use cases such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), recommendations, classifications, clustering, and more. Key benefits of SAP HANA Cloud vector engine include:

• Simplify data architecture and security with a single multi-model database with SQL interaction
• Gain new insights by combining spatial, graph, JSON, and relational data with vector queries
• Easily incorporate vector use cases in solutions based on the HANA Cloud ecosystem (clients, Python libraries, CAP, etc.)
• Integrate with open-source community tools such as LangChain via plug-ins

SAP HANA Cloud vector engine is currently in public preview and is planned for general availability in late Q1 2024.

Simplified Consumption of Data Products in SAP Datasphere

Data products facilitate self-service access to data as a product and enable data sharing across application boundaries. Data consumers need an easy way to explore, understand, and activate the data needed to perform their tasks — and data providers need an easy way to publish their assets and make them available to data consumers.

SAP is innovating in this space with an improved user experience that drives data sharing at scale. This starts with published data products, whether produced by SAP line-of-business applications, industry solutions, or third parties, and follows with simple consumption in SAP Datasphere.

In SAP Datasphere, customers will find ready access to SAP and non-SAP data products and easily install them into their SAP Datasphere instance. The procedure establishes relevant connections and creates the necessary artifacts in SAP Datasphere without the user having to enter those details. Key to this is making data provisioning easier via metadata, which are described via the Open Resource Directory (ORD) protocol. The experience will be harmonized within SAP Datasphere by bringing catalog and the data product installation closely together. Visit SAP Road Map Explorer for the latest updates.

Data products available in catalog enhances the experience and productivity of data users

SAP Datasphere Semantic Onboarding Enhancements

Semantic onboarding provides a seamless import of semantically rich objects from SAP S/4HANA and SAP BW/4HANA into SAP Datasphere. Now, we are taking the next step by adding support for SAP HANA Cloud and SAP data products through the same unified onboarding experience.

Customers will be able to combine their SAP HANA Cloud modeling approach with SAP Datasphere by importing calculation views into the data layer of SAP Datasphere. This preserves the semantic information such as measures, attributes, hierarchies, aggregations, and currencies/units, while keeping SAP HANA Cloud and SAP Datasphere objects in sync — allowing customers to leverage their prior investments in SAP HANA modeling.

Likewise, semantic onboarding of SAP data products will enable inheritance of business context from SAP line-of-business applications and industry solutions. By providing the semantics of the source systems and transferring that into the business data fabric as a foundation, SAP Datasphere drastically improves the analytic workflow and accelerates and simplifies data-driven insights.

Collibra AI Governance Integration with SAP Solutions

The SAP and Collibra partnership enables end-to-end data governance and delivers trusted data to all users across the business data fabric. As more tasks and decisions are automated by AI within critical business processes, the need to extend governance to AI has also become apparent.

The partnership with Collibra is being expanded to address the data and AI governance needs of joint customers via Collibra AI Governance. We will build tailored integrations between Collibra AI Governance and SAP solutions to connect the data used for AI with the models themselves in a single platform, allowing enterprises to track and manage their AI development efforts.

• Customers will better understand data lineage and metadata of SAP data that is utilized in AI modeling. With that, users can see what data their AI models were trained on to ensure that the data is accurate and from a trusted source.
• Customers will benefit from a single view to understand what AI models exist in their organization, and what data is being used to power them. AI/machine learning models created with SAP technology will be registered with the Collibra AI Governance platform.

This extension of the SAP partnership with Collibra will increase transparency and accountability for organizations, and help ensure that regulatory, compliance, and privacy policies are being met. More importantly, it will build user trust by preventing biased decision-making, inaccurate recommendations, and other risks arising from AI.

Together, SAP and Collibra will help joint customers address the data and AI governance needs across their organizations. Collibra AI Governance was launched last week and is available to interested customers.

SAP Datasphere Confluent Integration

Core to the SAP data strategy is providing customers with the ability to interoperate with the world’s leading data and AI vendors through an open data ecosystem. To this end, the newly enhanced Confluent integration enables real-time streaming of data to and from SAP Datasphere.

First, the outbound capabilities were extended by taking advantage of Confluent’s proprietary schema registry capabilities. Second, the Confluent schema registry will be used to enable seamless consumption of Confluent data within SAP Datasphere.

The integration is specifically tailored to Confluent and provides a superior user experience for joint customers. It allows connections on the application level without additional custom application development. The integration is a pre-established replication flow in SAP Datasphere, which already includes delta and real-time processing natively. This makes the process very efficient as it does not force customers to load all the data at every step, but only when data has changed.

The first integration for data ingestion into Kafka and Confluent is generally available. Additional capabilities for Confluent specific outbound and inbound integration will be generally available at the end of Q1 and Q3, respectively.

Transform Planning with a Business Data Fabric

SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning Deep Integration to SAP Datasphere

SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud for planning will be more closely integrated to expand the business data fabric to planning use cases. SAP Analytics Cloud planning models can be deployed into SAP Datasphere, bringing plan and actuals data together for real-time steering.

Through a reduction in both data footprint and modeling efforts, SAP Analytics Cloud extends planning functionality via SAP Datasphere and its native capabilities for transformation and integration. This reduces the complexity and risk inherent in storing multiple copies of data which is prevalent today.

SAP Analytics Cloud for planning will have live access to actual and plan data for extended planning and analysis scenarios, including the live usage of master data. With this, SAP Datasphere will become the platform on which planning processes and tools can integrate.

In this example, third-party inflation data from the World Bank (blue box) is provisioned through Datasphere to help planners do scenario planning with SAP Analytics Cloud compass

SAP is the only vendor to offer a business data fabric that seamlessly integrates planning and therefore covers the entire technology stack required to transform data into insights and future actions. Visit SAP Road Map Explorer for the latest updates.

Foster Trusted AI Across Your Business

SAP Analytics Cloud Generative AI Co-Pilot

SAP customers will embrace the power of generative AI to create and simulate business plans in SAP Analytics Cloud. With the power of Joule, planning and analytics professionals can leverage generative AI capabilities in a wide range of business processes. Activities such as data discovery, dashboard creation, planning model maintenance, and more are benefitting from a boost in core capabilities and an unmatched user experience.

With the power of natural language processing, end users can easily run analytical queries, simulate driver impacts, plan resource allocations, and auto-generate dashboards and calculations. For example, a business user seeking to understand why gross margins declined in the latest version of a plan could query Joule, which could automatically look through previous plan iterations and attached comments, and uncover the fact that planners were estimating higher commodity costs.

SAP’s investment in AI and its understanding of the context of business data provides truly limitless potential in unleashing the world of planning and analytics.

A preview of Joule co-pilot functionality in SAP Analytics Cloud is planned to be available in Q2 2024. Sign up for the preview via the link below.

With Joule co-pilot, planning and analytics professionals can prompt Joule to analyze all aspects of extended planning and create new analytical views on the fly, provisioned specially for individual user types

SAP Analytics Cloud Compass

In an increasingly volatile business climate, it is essential to create operational and financial plans and provision BI insights with risk mitigation in mind. This requires the ability to simulate uncertainties and the probability of their impact. Knowing how uncertainties in commodity prices, labor costs, or production volumes will hit your operational expenses or revenue means that companies can quickly prepare and plan counter measures for any scenario.

SAP Analytics Cloud compass provides Monte Carlo simulation capabilities with a business user-friendly interface. This enables non-technical users to perform real-time multi-variate analysis without prior IT setup or advanced statistical skills.

Users can perform business simulations directly in SAP Analytics Cloud at a fraction of the time and effort required to perform similar analysis manually. Scenario modeling capabilities will allow comparisons between assumptions, and the reporting of impact variances provides real-time insight, concept validation, and reveals the sensitivity of the drivers chosen. Now customers can identify their major drivers and combinations over time, enabling a better understanding of the dynamics between the data, and how to continuously simulate better and faster. With compass, customers can face the future with confidence.

A preview of SAP Analytics Cloud compass is planned to be available at the end of Q3 2024. Sign up for the preview via the link below.

SAP Analytics Cloud compass showing distribution of impact probability on the operating income based on a simulation of uncertainty in inputs such as inflation or other relevant drivers. Get Started Today

Begin your path toward unlocking the full potential of your business data with SAP Datasphere. Embrace the opportunity to seamlessly integrate and activate your data landscape, propelling your business into a new era of insights and efficiency. Start now and transform how your organization leverages data with SAP Datasphere.

Start your journey today to bring out your best with SAP data and AI:

• Take a complete tour and try the latest features of SAP Datasphere with the 30-day guided experience.
• Begin your SAP Business Warehouse cloud modernization journey with a free assessment and special offers.
• Save on costs and learn how to implement a business data fabric architecture with the Total Cost of Ownership study and getting started package
• Sign up today for an early preview of the upcoming SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud features

Irfan Khan is chief product officer and president for SAP HANA Database & Analytics.

Deliver seamless and scalable access to mission-critical business data Explore SAP Datasphere

At SAP, we strive every day to help organizations unleash the power of their business data. Last March, we announced SAP Datasphere along with our open data ecosystem to radically simplify data landscapes with a business data fabric.

It’s never been easier to connect, unify, and manage SAP and third-party data. That’s why industry leaders such as Porsche, Hanes, and Bosch are using SAP Datasphere to enable self-service access to trusted business data across any cloud infrastructure.

Today, our mission continues at our SAP Data Unleashed virtual event. We’re taking another step forward to enable organizations to bring out their best with data and AI. 

For more details, read Unleashing the Latest SAP Data and Analytics Innovations
by Irfan Khan, chief product officer and president for
SAP HANA Database & Analytics

Access Insights Wherever Your Data Resides

With many data landscapes distributed across different siloes in the cloud and on premises, organizations require an integrated approach that unifies their underlying data landscapes. This is made possible with SAP Datasphere, which enables a business data fabric architecture. By providing seamless and scalable access to all data without duplication, data and planning professionals can securely access all their data no matter where it resides.

In fact, organizations seeking to implement a business data fabric architecture can save up to 138% using SAP Datasphere compared to third-party implementations.

GigaOm Performance & TCO Analysis, Data Fabric Field Test: SAP Datasphere vs. DIY, March 2024

At SAP, we understand that a critical capability in the era of AI is to understand the real-world use of business data. With decades of experience helping organizations run mission-critical business processes, we see firsthand the power business data has in determining optimal business performance.  

To make this possible, we’re excited to announce the SAP Datasphere knowledge graph. This capability enables organizations to discover hidden insights and patterns across their applications and systems. And it empowers both technical and business users to deeply understand the relationships between data, metadata, and business processes, as well as boost the effectiveness of machine learning and large language models (LLMs).  

Transform Planning with a Business Data Fabric

SAP connects people and enterprise planning more powerfully than ever before. Now any organization can transform planning by unifying financial, operational, supply chain, and workforce planning through a business data fabric architecture.  

The new SAP Datasphere integration with SAP Analytics Cloud offers a single data management system and advanced analytics to power cross-organizational planning. Planners can leverage a single flexible model to break down silos between planning with one tool for data preparation, modeling, planning, and analytics and to conduct thorough analysis, understand the broader context, and make more informed decisions. 

Additionally, business users can use the new SAP Analytics Cloud compass to realize better outcomes in planning and analytics using Monte Carlo simulation. This enables organizations to run complex simulations via a chat interface to predict possible outcomes and find the optimal plan. 

Foster Trusted AI Across Your Business

We’re bringing the power of generative AI to planning and analytics with SAP Analytics Cloud, which provides AI-generated data exploration, automation of planning and data management tasks, and deep analysis with Joule copilot. This is enabled by vector capabilities in SAP HANA Cloud that combine the powerful capabilities of LLMs with all the relevant data of your organization — ensuring business context is a constant for generative AI outputs.

Incorporating generative AI across an organization is not possible without trusted and governed data. To provide customers with a solution to effectively manage data and AI policies, processes, and life cycles, we are excited to announce the expansion of our partnership with Collibra. Beyond the integration between SAP Datasphere and Collibra announced last year, we will now work together to integrate Collibra’s AI Governance platform with SAP data and analytics solutions. 

Get Started Today 

Start your journey today to bring out your best with SAP data and AI:

• Take a complete tour and try the latest features of SAP Datasphere with the 30-day guided experience 
• Begin your SAP Business Warehouse cloud modernization journey with a free assessment and special offers 
• Save on costs and learn how to implement a business data fabric architecture with the Total Cost of Ownership study and getting started package

JG Chirapurath is chief marketing and solutions officer for SAP BTP.

Deliver seamless and scalable access to mission-critical business data Explore SAP Datasphere

To capture value, leaders are no longer talking about reporting alignment alone but about the opportunity to transform business processes for sustainable impact. By leveraging SAP Sustainability solutions, organizations can move beyond compliance and operationalize sustainability across their business.

Across industries, accurate data is the foundation for both auditable disclosures and reliable insights to steer sustainable transformation. But environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data aggregation and validation can be a daunting challenge given that most companies have not fully integrated their ESG data recording and control into their core financial, procurement, supply chain management, and human resources systems.

For over 50 years, SAP has helped businesses master complexity. With today’s evolving ESG regulatory landscape, including the arrival of the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), SAP is again rising to the complex challenges of enabling customers to record, report, and act on their sustainability obligations. This includes the difficulties in collecting accurate emissions data across internal operations and global supply chains.

Achieving Competitive Advantage with SAP Sustainability Solutions Powered by SAP Business AI

By integrating sustainability data with cloud ERP, SAP can uniquely enable businesses with the agility to keep pace with rapidly evolving ESG standards; link disparate data sources to share trusted, real-time insights with sustainability decision-makers; and achieve their net-zero ambitions.

Build an ESG data foundation that accelerates sustainable business outcomes with SAP Find out how

Companies can start today by adopting SAP Sustainability Control Tower – integrated with SAP S/4HANA Cloud – for ESG data management and reporting. They can extend sustainability management with SAP Sustainability Footprint Management and SAP Sustainability Data Exchange to help accelerate their journey to the green ledger, managing the carbon entering and leaving their systems and balancing their “carbon books” the same way they balance their financial books.

SAP Business AI can take the value of our sustainability solutions to the next level by helping our customers set data-driven ESG and net-zero strategies, increase the transparency of supply chain emissions, automate sustainability reporting, achieve regulatory compliance, find and mitigate ESG-related risks, and better communicate the value of sustainability to their customers – all powered by the world’s largest and most comprehensive pool of foundational business data.

Combined with partner services for customer-specific data and reporting requirements, SAP Sustainability solutions can offer new levels of business insight for executive-level decision-making to help businesses reach their sustainability goals and comply with CSRD and other regulatory frameworks.

CSRD Toolbox

Companies operating in the EU face pressure from the expanding ESG regulations under CSRD to disclose their sustainability performance with a data granularity and auditability that – over time – will bring sustainability reporting on par with financial reporting. CSRD requirements will first impact large public-interest companies with over 500 employees that need to report in 2025 on 2024 ESG performance. Requirements cascade to small and midsize enterprises in coming years.

Under CSRD, companies will need to report based on the requirements of both the EU Taxonomy, which classifies sustainability disclosures for investors, and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), the disclosure rules set by the European Financial Reporting Financial Group (EFRAG), a standard-setting body of the EU. With SAP Sustainability Control Tower, companies can comply with both the EU Taxonomy and ESRS, gaining agility through the convergence of ESG data management and cloud ERP – and soon AI-driven business process optimization.

SAP Sustainability Control Tower: A Trusted ESG Data Foundation for EU Taxonomy and ESRS

With SAP Sustainability Control Tower, you can assess activities in line with the EU Taxonomy, reporting on KPIs for eligibility and alignment.

• Enable a holistic view of EU Taxonomy reporting through shared use of data  
• Kick-start EU Taxonomy data management and reporting with pre-built and adaptable templates  
• Simplify the EU Taxonomy process with integration with SAP S/4HANA Cloud 
• Integrate customer or partner extensions via APIs 

Click to enlarge.

You can also streamline ESRS disclosures, integrating ESG data across systems and extending content and functionality.

• Gather ESG data and determine KPIs 
• Meet evolving ESG and financial disclosure requirements including ESRS 
• Set, track, and achieve targets to support sustainable business 
• Obtain a limited external assurance and prepare for reasonable assurance 

Click to enlarge. Act Now

Businesses need to start now to be prepared not only for CSRD compliance, but for gaining the insights to steer sustainability investments and future-proof long-term value. 

For over 50 years, SAP has been enabling the world’s leading businesses to master complexity, delivering the integration and innovation needed for industry-leading performance. With SAP Sustainability Control Tower and other cloud-driven innovations, SAP and its partners can help companies master CSRD as well and build the foundation for the evolution of their long-term sustainability strategies.  

To learn more, visit www.sap.com/sustainability/csrd-guide.html.

Sophia Mendelsohn is chief sustainability and commercial officer and co-GM for SAP Sustainability. 

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Petrobras, a leading energy company based in Brazil, recognized the critical importance of intelligent asset management and maintenance in achieving its vision of being the best diversified and integrated energy company.

To address the challenges of manual processes, lack of accurate information, and decentralization of maintenance processes, Petrobras sought help from SAP to implement an innovative new solution.

The Need for Transparency of Asset Management Processes and Value Chain

The company’s use of manual spreadsheets and the lack of real-time insights and transparency into the asset management process hindered its ability to make informed decisions. Additionally, regular failures and disruptions, as well as synchronization issues with supplier assets and third-party products, impacted worker morale and overall efficiency.

“We lacked real-time insights and transparency into the asset management process and value chain to make informed decisions based on real-time data,” explained Bruno Vidal, business applications consultant at Petrobras. “We were looking for a best-in-class platform that could provide a central view of our mission-critical assets, allowing our assets and data to work in harmony.”

Manage the entire lifecycle of your physical assets with EAM software systems from SAP Learn more

Petrobras needed a solution that could provide real-time insights, reduce downtime, and align with its wider ERP and digital transformation strategy.

Building on Petrobras’ Ongoing SAP Journey

Petrobras looked to SAP Intelligent Asset Management due to its rich SAP ecosystem and legacy. Building on its ongoing SAP journey, the company saw an opportunity to enhance its SAP footprint across the organization and implement other SAP innovations.

“We had an SAP legacy, a technological program to implement SAP S/4HANA, and we had a strong operational demand for an asset management solution,” Vidal shared. “Together, this created a powerful business case for SAP-powered intelligent asset management solutions and tied in with our SAP–first approach.”

From Proof of Concept to Successful Pilot Implementation and Beyond

In 2020, Petrobras conducted a proof of concept to evaluate the feasibility and potential of SAP Intelligent Asset Management. The successful execution of the solution led to the selection of the BUZIOS oilfield for a pilot implementation project. The BUZIOS field is the world’s largest ultra-deepwater reservoir, representing almost 16 percent of oil and gas production for Petrobras.

“Given the size of the BUZIOS field, even a small return of value has the potential to generate a huge return for the company with reduced downtime and increased efficiency,” said Vidal.

Thus, the project initially focused on a limited scope, including SAP Asset Strategy and Performance Management for reliability assessments and SAP Predictive Asset Insights for equipment monitoring and failure predictions. The pilot implementation project started with one unit and expanded to include all units and critical systems. such as gas compression, oil and gas production gathering, fire and gas detection, firefighting, and energy generation. These systems involved a significant amount of maintenance and reliability data.

Leveraging Machine Learning to Detect Errors and Predict Failure

In addition to the pilot implementation, Petrobras activated the machine learning engine in the SAP solutions as a pilot project for anomaly detection and failure prediction.

Deliver the perfect customer experience with zero down time and and optimal asset performance See how

“We had great results from the machine learning features, which allowed us to uncover further insight and make performance improvements,” Vidal recounted.

Thanks to the success, the solutions were later launched to five more critical systems of the oilfield, including offloading, oil, water and gas treatment, and water pumping for injection. By the end of 2023, Petrobras had moved from proof of concept through going live with 10 critical systems in all units from BUZIOS field, including uncovering machine learning benefits, as well as concluding the proof of concept for the same solutions in Petrobras’ downstream operations.

Business Benefits that Create High Value to Petrobras

As the company achieved significant operational benefits at the BUZIOS oilfield, it plans to roll out SAP Intelligent Asset Management solutions to other upstream locations, introducing solutions beyond reliability engineering. With a significant return on investment, Petrobras plans to evaluate the value returned by the new technological solution and expand its usage across its teams and other locations in the future.

“The implementation of SAP Intelligent Asset Management has led to an improvement of our operational efficiency and increased availability of our machines,” Vidal concluded. “When we reduce failures, accurately monitor our equipment, get real-time performance data, reduce production losses, and implement a reliability culture, we reduce oil losses, inspire greater confidence in our people, and return huge value to our organization.”

Karin Fent is senior director of global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain.

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Top image courtesy of Petrobras

Reflecting on the past year, one event stands out vividly in my memory: the Social Enterprises World Forum (SEWF) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. For those unfamiliar, imagine a global assembly where more than 1,500 entrepreneurs from 82 countries dedicated to societal and environmental missions come together. These enterprises prioritize people and the planet, reinvesting their profits to advance their respective causes. Witnessing the energy and innovation in Amsterdam was a powerful reminder of why SAP has emphasized social entrepreneurship for the second consecutive year.

It makes me proud to think about the 676 SAP colleagues who, in 2023, participated in our pro bono consulting programs, offering their expertise to these visionary social entrepreneurs. As in previous years, this collaboration has proven mutually beneficial, with 74% of our employees reporting a positive, lasting impact on their careers. Furthermore, 96% of the supported organizations and 77% of their beneficiaries have seen significant improvements. These numbers speak volumes about the shared value of our engagement.

But the 2023 SEWF wasn’t just a personal highlight; it marked the beginning of another significant milestone. We announced our investment in the Social Enterprise People and Planet First Verification with Good Market and SEWF. This initiative aims to set a global standard for recognizing organizations prioritizing social and environmental impacts. Social enterprises can now also identify themselves on SAP Business Network, the world’s largest B2B commerce platform. This breakthrough can make it easier for these businesses to explore new business-to-business opportunities while also helping SAP customers achieve their goals of being more environmentally and socially responsible. Saying it’s a win-win situation is a bit cliché, but in this case it’s actually true.

SAP is powering equitable access to economic opportunity, education and employment, and the circular economy Learn more

Working with SEWF shows how much we believe in working together and driving towards collective impact. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we can’t do this by ourselves. Working with others is the key to driving the kind of systemic change our world needs. This idea is a big part of what we stand for at SAP, and is at the heart of our corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy.

This idea of working together really comes to life in our collaboration with UNICEF and Generation Unlimited. In 2023 – the fourth year of our partnership – we set out to make a real difference by not just developing the skills of young people but also finding jobs in the SAP ecosystem. Launching the SAP Educate to Employ program is a big step in that direction. Helping 25 young people get jobs with SAP in each of our pilot countries – Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and the Philippines – might not sound like a lot, but it’s a huge deal for each of those young people. For them, it’s a gateway to a sustainable livelihood, offering them not just gainful employment but a chance to build a career, achieve financial stability, and make meaningful contributions to their communities and the broader world. It’s about unlocking their potential and enabling them to participate in the digital and green economy. By the end of the year, we saw amazing results. While more than 2,500 had already passed the aptitude test, over 1,000 young people in Africa finished our “Boost Your Career with SAP Skills” course and more than 500 got through the first big part of their training.

But, what’s a year recap without some high-level numbers? Let’s dive into some impressive numbers from 2023. More than 20,000 of our SAP colleagues volunteered over 140,000 hours. Our initiatives reached over 2.8 million young people – almost half girls – and supported over 41,000 teachers. Our partner network reached 1 billion people in over 140 countries. These stats are just the tip of the iceberg, showing our big reach and impact together with our partners.

Building on this, our signature partnerships with Africa Code Week, Meet and Code, and Latin Code Week have always been at the heart of our achievements. As we handed over these initiatives in 2023, we took a moment to reflect and evaluate Africa Code Week and Latin Code Week outcomes more deeply. For instance, by empowering 14.6 million participants with the education, knowledge, and ICT skills needed to participate in the digital future, Africa Code Week has increased the likelihood that beneficiaries will realize higher earnings during their working lives. Common Good Marketplace estimates that Africa Code Week catalyzed up to US$1 billion in social value for program participants between 2015 and 2022 based on future increased income.

As we close the chapter on 2023 and look ahead, the journey we’ve embarked upon at SAP CSR is a testament to the power of collective action and shared vision. The stories, numbers, and outcomes shared in our eBook reflect our commitment to making a meaningful difference. Read the full eBook.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey. Your passion, dedication, and commitment are what drive us forward.

Alexandra van der Ploeg is global head of Corporate Social Responsibility at SAP.

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Relevant, reliable, and responsible – those are SAP’s guidelines for the artificial intelligence embedded in its solutions and products. The “responsible” part is being monitored by the software company’s AI Ethics department, led by Dr. Sebastian Wieczorek.

“At SAP, ethics has been part of our research and development of artificial intelligence from the very beginning,” Wieczorek, head of AI Ethics at SAP, says. “Every development in the area of AI is deeply aligned with SAP’s values.”

The Beginnings of Artificial Intelligence at SAP

Wieczorek was part of SAP’s first AI unit, founded in 2014. “In addition to the technical and product tasks, we have always considered the ethical aspect of our work from the beginning,” he says.

SAP was the first European company to define guidelines for dealing with AI and set up a corresponding advisory panel. Wieczorek’s work has always had a technical focus, but he has also been a member of the SAP AI Global Ethics steering committee, a member of the Enquiry Commission on AI in the German Bundestag, and has reported on the uses of artificial intelligence at the EU Parliament.

SAP focuses on embedding AI that is relevant, reliable and responsible by design Learn more

SAP initiated internal processes early on to formulate an approach to ethically unobjectionable AI, which ultimately led to the SAP AI Global Ethics policy.

To address ethical questions, experts must possess deep knowledge about AI technology and also be willing and able to engage in philosophical and moral questions as well as the legal side of technology.

“Our work in AI ethics is somewhat similar to that of a translator,” Wieczorek says. “Technological realities and possibilities have to be ‘translated’ into the language of philosophy, sociology, and law. The results must then be ‘translated’ back into technological requirements, so that a constant exchange between the two areas is achieved.”

The Role of Humans

Currently, AI systems cannot develop a motivation of their own or a concept of themselves or the world – never mind considering, on their own initiative, how to best optimize this world.

“Their purpose and tasks are determined by humans,” Wieczorek emphasizes. “What humans no longer do is define the exact implementation of the task.”

As always, when tasks are delegated – whether to machines or other people – it must be ensured that certain rules regarding fairness, transparency, and human participation rights are adhered to in their execution.

“We know less about how decisions are ultimately made when it comes to AI than we do when it comes to conventional software,” Wieczorek says. “Therefore, we must keep the possibility open to intervene if this automation does not work in certain cases as we want it to.”

What such an intervention looks like in individual cases can be quite varied, as the software as a whole and not just individual components must be considered.

The most well-known example of discrimination by intelligent software is the exclusion of historically underrepresented groups in job application processes. The historical data with which the AI is trained may reflect the biased selection criteria of the past. Therefore, it is theoretically possible that the AI may adopt and reproduce these biases for its own selection process.

“Side effects of this kind can occur relatively quickly on a large scale due to the high automation potential of AI software,” Wieczorek says. “Therefore, we must set high standards for the type and manner of automation and have the ability to limit side effects and efficiently reverse them.”

Guidelines for training data sets are neither the only leverage nor a guarantee of maximum fairness.

“There is a chain of things to consider,” Wieczorek says. “The system as a whole must be able to provide guarantees that the evaluation is fair – its behavior must be impeccable in the overall view.”

A Dedicated Ethics Review for Every AI Use Case

“In the SAP AI Global Ethics policy, it is stipulated that all of our products and solutions that use AI must be monitored from an ethical perspective – both during the development phase and later, when they are already on the market,” Wieczorek says.

Each AI use case is therefore subject to a separate review, which includes declarations from the product teams on how the use case complies with the guidelines of the SAP AI Global Ethics policy.

After their definition, all use cases undergo a classification process. However, if use cases, for example, make automated decisions that affect people or process personal data, they are automatically considered sensitive and are classified high risk.

“Such use cases then undergo a mandatory review process, which is continuously accompanied by experts, for example from my team,” Wieczorek says. “This way, each individual case is systematically checked for risks, in order to then decide, if necessary, what measures need to be taken to implement the ethical standards prescribed by SAP.”

Does the Use of AI Limit Human Responsibility?

Routine tasks taken over by AI are most often already automated to a degree and do not have to be formulated anew every time. But as increasingly personalized tasks are also being taken over by AI, such as through chat interactions, the individual user’s responsibility grows.

Wieczorek sees a shared responsibility between the AI developer and the user. “Especially with tasks that affect people and have human consequences, we will not shift the responsibility to the products,” he emphasizes.

Those providing an AI application are obligated to provide transparency about its behavior and to clarify what it was designed for – and what it was not designed for.

This in turn allows users to take on their own responsibility: tasks assigned must adhere to ethical principles and the results must be verified, rather than simply accepted.

It is particularly important for people to still be able to intervene in the functioning of the systems in case an undesired side effect, such as unfair behavior of the system, becomes apparent over time.

“It must always be ensured that humans can review, question, and possibly reverse the decisions made by the AI,” Wieczorek says. “This is the responsibility of the manufacturers of AI systems, as laid out in the SAP AI Global Ethics policy.”

Learn more about SAP’s approach to ethical AI:

• SAP AI ethics overview
• SAP’s Guiding Principles for AI
• SAP AI Global Ethics policy
• SAP AI Ethics Handbook
• openSAP training “AI Ethics at SAP
• openSAP training “Generative AI at SAP”

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WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that it has filed the SAP Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2023, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and it is accessible online at www.sap.com/investors/sap-2023-annual-report-form-20f. SAP also announced that the SAP Integrated Report 2023 is now available and accessible online at www.sapintegratedreport.com. The SAP Integrated Report 2023, which discusses the company’s social, environmental, and financial performance, is the 12th integrated report the company has issued. 

You can access PDF versions of the SAP Integrated Report 2023 and the SAP Annual Report 2023 on Form 20-F at our Investor Relations website www.sap.com/investor. A hard copy of the audited consolidated financial statements can also be requested free of charge by sending an email to investor@sap.com or via phone +49 6227 7-67336. 

Visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP at @SAPNews. 

About SAP

SAP’s strategy is to help every business run as an intelligent, sustainable enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software, we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: SAP customers generate 87% of total global commerce. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 26 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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We are proud to announce SAP has been recognized as a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) with SAP Integration Suite for the fourth consecutive time.

We believe this prestigious recognition is a testament to our current capabilities, ongoing innovation, and commitment to providing world-class integration solutions for customers.

Unparalleled Recognition in iPaaS

The Gartner Magic Quadrant provides an overview of the technology vendors in the iPaaS market and positions them according to their Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. According to Gartner, “Leaders have a deep understanding of the iPaaS market. They have a record of strong execution and an ability to influence the market’s direction. Leaders have a clear product road map to solidify the product’s position and to help buyers protect their investments. In the latest report, SAP is positioned as a Leader again.”

Unleash the power of connectivity and innovation with SAP Integration Suite Learn more

The ability for an organization to connect and automate its business applications faster and in new ways is critical in today’s digital world. SAP customers are seeking a robust integration solution to support their innovation and modernization initiatives. We believe this recognition serves as validation of our commitment to delivering industry-leading solutions that can empower businesses to seamlessly connect their applications, data, and processes.

A Winning Combination of Technology and Expertise

SAP’s vision for SAP Integration Suite is to connect and automate business processes. As the key integration technology of SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), SAP Integration Suite can empower customers to achieve seamless, scalable business processes without disruption. Its user-friendly interface, extensive library of proven prebuilt content for SAP and non-SAP applications, and robust security features help make it easy for customers to jump-start their integrations.

Organizations across the globe have embraced SAP Integration Suite to help support automation of business processes, streamline operations, and strengthen their collaboration with partners and customers. Take Pitney Bowes for example. It wanted a solution to support its transformation from selling stand-alone products to offering holistic solutions that orchestrate physical delivery, installation, and support while minimizing the need for customization and providing growth for the company.

“Using SAP Integration Suite, part of SAP BTP, to integrate SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition with SAP Sales Cloud and third-party providers, we’re simplifying and standardizing business processes, increasing agility, and supporting our growth ambitions in select countries.”

Stuart Beadle, Senior Director, Global Order Management, Supply Chain Applications and SAP Service, Pitney Bowes Inc.

Customer experience is one of the criteria evaluated by Gartner in the report for the ability to execute. According to the report, “Relationships, products, and services/programs that enable clients to be successful with the products are evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups, service-level agreements, and so on.”

See Gartner Peer Insights to read the reviews.

Learn More

SAP Integration Suite can accelerate innovation, speed connectivity, and connect everyone to automated processes. We remain steadfast in providing powerful and reliable integration solutions. To learn more:

• Read the full report
• Explore exclusive iPaaS content on SAP’s integration space
• Get started for free with SAP Integration Suite
• Learn more about SAP Integration Suite

JG Chirapurath is chief marketing and solutions officer for SAP BTP.

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Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Integration Platform as a Service 19 February 2024, Keith Guttridge Et Al.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.