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Bitcoin bulls will need to navigate a fresh sell-off around the halving, DecenTrader warns, arguing that BTC price action this time around will be no different than usual.

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust sold off a significant portion of its Bitcoin in January, Celsius to return over $3B to creditors, and $900M in tokens to be unlocked in February.

FTX submitted a motion to sell its entire stake in AI startup Anthropic, worth about $1.4 billion.

Companies such as LPL Financial Holdings are currently conducting due diligence on the newly approved Bitcoin ETFs.

The bankrupt firms whittled the sum down from a much larger debt to avoid the delay and uncertainty of litigation.

Axiom, Portal, HashKey, Kiln, Digital Infrastructure, Pontem and p0 are among the startups securing venture capital in January 2024.

Bitcoin reacts instantly to data that supports the Federal Reserve’s ability to keep interest rates higher for longer as BTC’s price dips to $42,550.

Source to pay is a critical process for every organization. In a constantly evolving business environment, how does SAP continue to support this process with its portfolio of SAP Ariba Procurement solutions? Simple. We listen to our customers, track market signals, and deliver innovative technology designed to help businesses achieve the best possible outcomes.

This is our long-standing strategy, and we have no plans to change something that clearly benefits our customers. No one knows this space better than SAP. The introduction of SAP Ariba solutions more than 25 years ago revolutionized procurement processes for businesses. We’ve taken the investment, innovation, and integration across our product line to deliver a complete portfolio of solutions. SAP Ariba is the future of procurement, and everything procurement at SAP is now SAP Ariba.

SAP also understands that what works for one business, one industry, or one geography, may not play in another. Businesses need to choose the right source-to-pay solution partner – with a platform and ecosystem poised to ensure their procurement teams have the tools and actionable data they need to succeed in their increasingly essential and strategic roles.

As we’ve listened to our customers and the market, here is what they have told us are their critical requirements:

• The ability to see and analyze spend across all categories
• Intelligence-driven category management that leverages analytics, spend data, and market intelligence
• Robust contract management functionality
• Automated management of external labor and services
• Practical AI use cases that drive efficiency across the procurement process

Within the source-to-pay landscape, SAP delivers integrated solutions to help manage all forms of spend. Our solutions comprise a full suite of enterprise-level functionality spanning sourcing, category management, buying and invoicing, services procurement, supplier relationship management, contract management, and spend analytics. Additionally, we enable businesses to connect with suppliers across 190 countries via SAP Business Network.

As you evaluate source-to-pay solution partners, consider the following:

• The source-to-pay landscape is changing quickly. Stay current. Today, everyone’s perspective on the source-to-pay technology landscape is vastly different than it was even half a year ago. Be mindful of how your business is evolving, and assess providers based on how their vision and road map align with your future needs.
• “Best of breed” doesn’t always mean “best for your business.” SAP has demonstrated that in addition to the breadth of our solutions for source to pay, we can enable businesses to address their global requirements, handle high transaction volumes, and integrate into many back-end ERP systems.
• SAP’s ecosystem of partners enables us to deliver advanced functionality to our customers. We remain committed to ongoing development of core, native capabilities across our source-to-pay portfolio. At the same, our strategy is to augment this development in some areas with innovation and advanced functionality through partners. This allows us to add significant value rapidly for our customers.
• Having access to a global network of suppliers is a game changer. SAP Business Network, which can extend the source-to-pay process beyond the walls of any business, can give our customers unmatched access to a global marketplace of trading partners. In 2023, annual commerce on the network reached US$5.3T, with 746M B2B transactions.

Five Ways SAP Is Addressing Customers’ Strategic Needs

SAP has demonstrated its ability to balance product modernization, innovation, and our larger vision to enhance procurement capabilities in SAP S/4HANA with delivery of cutting-edge innovations that benefit our customers. Here’s how we’re addressing the critical requirements mentioned earlier.

The Ability to See and Analyze Spend Across All Categories

In our conversations with customers all over the world, this is one of their top asks. They are also asking for greater visibility into spend that impacts their sustainability goals.

Last fall we unveiled SAP Spend Control Tower, which offers advanced AI features and the ability to see across all spend in SAP cloud ERP solutions, SAP Ariba solutions, and SAP Fieldglass solutions. Visibility into data from SAP Concur solutions, SAP Business Network, and non-SAP solutions is also on our road map. This can enable businesses to uncover cost-saving opportunities and process improvements. SAP Spend Control Tower is expected to be available in the second half of 2024. See a demo to learn more.

Intelligence-Driven Category Management Improve business outcomes with intelligent category management Learn more

In our 2022 and 2023 research with Economist Impact, category management was ranked as a top driver of digital transformation in procurement. Driven by this and our extensive market analysis, SAP released the SAP Ariba Category Management solution last summer, empowering businesses to realize better results in this critical area.

The solution can streamline category strategy development, execution, and monitoring at scale. Additionally, it can enable organizations to optimize source-to-settle processes with embedded analytics enriched with spend data and market intelligence. Watch this demo.

Robust Contract Management Functionality

SAP understands the importance of balancing risk and profitability within source to pay. To provide the additional advanced contract management capabilities our customers need, we entered into an expanded partnership with Icertis in 2022. This partnership helps ensure a joint product road map and deeper technological integration between SAP and Icertis solutions.

For SAP customers, integration with Icertis Contract Intelligence can allow them access to best-in-class innovations such as smart authoring, AI-assisted risk identification, obligation management, contract-driven insights for decision support, and the ability to have one contracting system for both sales and procurement – a capability no other source-to-pay solution offers.

Based on user evaluations, SAP Ariba solutions received these leader badges from G2.

Automated Management of External Labor and Services

Sometimes overlooked within the source-to-pay discussion is services procurement. That’s changing. A 2023 Future of Work Exchange report said 72% of enterprises plan to focus more extensively on ROI in their services procurement and statement-of-work management activities. The goal is to manage external labor and services strategically, applying the same process rigor there as with any other procurement category.

SAP Fieldglass solutions can enable you to transform how you find, engage, and manage contingent workers and services providers to maximize business value.

Practical AI Use Cases

SAP is embedding AI throughout the spend management process to help eliminate the mundane and elevate the strategic. Current use cases range from auto-complete and recommendation engines leveraging traditional AI and machine learning, to generative AI functions that can automate complex procurement processes. In 2024, we will continue to develop SAP Business AI use cases that help drive efficiency across spend management processes. Find out more about new generative AI scenarios.

In the Words of Our Customers…

More confirmation that SAP’s source-to-pay strategy is sound can be seen in the results we’re delivering for our customers. Here’s what they’re saying:

“[SAP Ariba] has no comparison in the market. No other software is even close. Best part is, once our supply chain executives get using it, they simply fall in love with it…Savings are immense.”

Verified SAP Ariba user, via TrustRadius

“[SAP Ariba] stacks up by being a great, user-friendly platform that is easy to use.”

Verified SAP Ariba user, via TrustRadius SAP Ariba Sweeps the 2023 TrustRadius “Best Of” Awards

Each year, TrustRadius issues awards to vendors who provide the best offerings in their category. In 2023, SAP Ariba solutions won all four awards based on customer satisfaction ratings.

Leaning In to Our Source-to-Pay Strategy

As we’ve seen in the input from our customers, as well as assessments from analyst organizations like IDC, SAP’s source-to-pay strategy is producing solutions that help businesses run better. And that is SAP’s mission, plain and simple. In 2024, we’ll lean in to deliver solutions and innovations that continue to outpace the competition across the source-to-pay technology landscape.

Baber Farooq is senior vice president and head of Market Strategy for SAP Procurement Solutions.
Salvatore Lombardo is senior vice president, chief product officer, and head of Engineering for SAP Procurement.

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The hacker behind the exploit didn’t use any mixer services or decentralized exchanges.

Bitcoin Virtual Machine, SatoshiVM, Spiderchain and BitVM are among those that recently emerged with the aim of expanding the functionality of Bitcoin.

NFT Collector Suzanne has an incredible collection of Pudgy Penguins, CryptoPunks and Fidenza’s — but she advises noobs not to get too eager.

As quantum computers evolve, SAP is among the leading companies exploring how this technology can disrupt business norms for unparalleled innovation and opportunities.

While it might be early days given hardware limitations, SAP experts are in full-on discovery mode, working with customers and partners at quantum-related industry associations.

How Quantum Computers Can Solve Real-World Problems

SAP experts are spearheading several working groups as members of the Quantum Technology and Application Consortium (QUTAC). QUTAC is a German-based group focused on applying quantum technology for business value in various industries. In one group, the team is modeling potential use cases using quantum computing for optimization and machine learning in production and logistics. In another, they are researching various quantum computing systems to compare strengths and weaknesses for use case consideration.

“We’re trying to understand how quantum computers can solve real-world business problems,” said Andrey Hoursanov, head of Quantum Exploration at SAP. “In collaboration with other QUTAC members, we’re identifying which next new quantum computing use cases will be most valuable for organizations, sourcing information from external research and our own expertise.”

Working Groups Take On the Quantum Challenge

Quantum computers can speed up computationally intensive tasks, promising the delivery of better and faster solutions for specific classes of problems. Much of this exploratory phase consists of benchmarking available quantum technologies, such as available machine capabilities by qubit size to handle industry-specific problems. Questions include what special properties each kind of quantum system offers, as well as their suitability and scalability to address business relevant challenges. For example, some teams are focused on applying the unique advantages of quantum computers to speed up and improve anomaly and fraud detection, cost optimization for cloud providers, image recognition, and data synthesis.

“Through open discussions with different companies that are participating in these working groups, we’re discussing potential road maps for innovation,” said Peter Limacher, leading researcher of the Quantum Exploration team at SAP. “People are very interested in quantum computing, and we want to make sure that we prioritize use cases that have the greatest potential to deliver business value.” 

Limacher was involved in a working group that recently published a peer-reviewed paper based on a study of quantum computing approaches for multi-knapsack optimization, meaning one recurrent task that several industries face. In addition to the high demand for better quantum hardware, the paper concluded that the industry needed more and improved quantum optimization algorithms for multi-knapsack and other problems.

SAP Is Committed to Meet Enterprise-Grade Expectations

To be clear, there’s a significant gap between the performance of current quantum computer hardware and the many variables that require scaling quantum-driven solutions in actual industry settings. Forward-thinking innovators are moving ahead despite the chicken and egg conundrum.

“To meet our customers’ expectations, we cannot wait until full-fledged quantum computers are completely operational,” said Hoursanov. “Through collaborative use case discovery and testing, we’ll be prepared to provide customers and partners with access to the latest technology as soon as it makes sense for them.”

Just as standardized frameworks for classical computers evolved, so will quantum computers. There are no standards yet, and every quantum computer design has advantages and disadvantages. For example, superconducting quantum computers require low temperatures and protection from electromagnetic waves to prevent qubit degradation. Eventually, researchers will be able to match targeted use cases to the best-suited quantum systems and software application developers will apply quantum programming to any machine.

Collaboration Unlocks the Quantum Advantage

SAP is also a member of the European Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC), a non-profit organization focused on developing the quantum industry and ecosystem for the region and others including North America, Japan, and ANZ. In addition to her role as research project director at SAP, Laure Le Bars is president of QuIC.

“Our members consist of companies of all sizes that create and use quantum technologies, including hardware manufacturers and software developers. They’re working together with members in government policymaking, academia, standardization bodies, and others to help spark market growth from quantum advantage,” said Le Bars. “In the future, we’ll have hybrid architectures with a combination of classical and quantum computers using their respective strengths to achieve business objectives.”

Susan Galer is a communications director at SAP. Follow her @smgaler.

Photo courtesy of SAP employee Renan d’Avila

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The world faces increasing climate and social crises. Comprehensive assessments have given us a deeper understanding of the science and the role of industry. As a global technology company supporting the vast majority of the world’s business, SAP needs to lead from the front with our ambitions and actions. That is why SAP has committed to achieve net-zero emissions across our value chain by 2030.  

Since 2009, SAP has been on a sustainability journey with the objective to create positive economic, environmental, and social impact within planetary boundaries. Along the way, we have learned a great deal about measuring economic, social, and environmental performance and integrating sustainability into our business strategy. Central to this effort has been a continuous effort to decarbonize our business. Setting ambitious targets and leveraging digital solutions have proven crucial. 

Raising our ambition to achieve net-zero emissions is a key element of our approach to sustainability, which looks across the interconnected areas of holistic steering and reporting, climate action, the circular economy, and social responsibility. 

What Does Net Zero Mean? 

Net zero is a state where the greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere are balanced by removal out of the atmosphere. Corporate net-zero pledges have gained significant traction as half of the world’s largest companies, representing an annual aggregate revenue of US$27 trillion, are committed to net zero.  

Together, we can enable a future with zero emissions, zero waste, and zero inequality Learn more

There are a number of definitions of net zero and how companies can achieve it. SAP follows the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) Net-Zero Standard , which provides a credible and independent assessment of corporate net-zero target setting in line with climate science. The continually improving standard enables companies to align their climate actions with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. SAP became a member of SBTi in 2017 and was the first German company with a science-based carbon reduction target for 2050. In 2019, SAP raised its commitment and adopted a 1.5°C science-based emissions reduction target. We announced our net zero by 2030 ambition in early 2022, bringing this commitment forward by 20 years. 

Achieving net-zero emissions across our entire value chain means that all our emissions across all emission sources need to be either eliminated or, up to certain limits, compensated for. These emission areas, known as scopes, include those from our own operations, those generated by the energy we purchase to run operations, and finally, the largest area, external emissions such as those incurred by employee travel, items procured, and customer data center use. 

Targeting Our Entire Value Chain 

SAP’s net-zero plan is implemented through a comprehensive and integrated approach that involves all functions in the company, customers, suppliers, partners, and other stakeholders. We have established a cross-company program team involving experts from different lines of business to plan and implement our net-zero transformation. Reducing emissions from the use of SAP software will be the primary area for reductions, followed by purchased goods and services. The SAP net zero by 2030 approach includes: 

• Accelerating the transformation of on-premise customers to the cloud through our market-leading RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP offerings
• Enhancing direct investments in renewable energy sources and operating our internal and external data centers on 100% renewable electricity
• Reducing emissions by improving the energy efficiency of best-in-class data centers – our own, our co-locations, and hyperscalers – with sustainable programming and a cloud carbon footprint calculator for all SAP cloud solutions
• Strengthening engagement with key suppliers to commit to net zero and deliver carbon-neutral products and services
• Electrifying the vehicle fleet, promoting green mobility, and enabling hybrid work situations
• Compensating for emissions by investing in high-quality, nature-based solutions, such as reforestation, renewable energy, and community development, that have verified environmental and social benefits
• Enabling our customers and partners by adding sustainability features and functions into our core offerings, such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP Ariba solutions, and SAP SuccessFactors solutions, and by giving them tools, guidance, and best practices to measure, manage, and reduce their emissions through our portfolio of dedicated sustainability solutions including SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, SAP Sustainability Data Exchange, SAP Sustainability Control Tower, and SAP Responsible Design and Production
• Accurately measuring and reporting emissions using the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the Science Based Targets initiative and showing progress and performance through platforms such as CDP, EcoVadis, and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index

Capturing the Opportunities of Net Zero 

We have many achievements to build on, but we also are charting new territory. 2030 is not far away. The challenges increase the farther we move upstream and downstream into our value chain. Despite the complexities, there are enormous opportunities ahead as we establish further success with our net-zero efforts. 

From a business perspective, focusing on net zero means reducing risk, improving SAP’s operational efficiency, and delivering cost savings by reducing our energy consumption and waste and optimizing our processes and resources. Net-zero action helps increase our market competitiveness by creating new products and services that meet the growing expectations of customers, partners, and regulators for low-carbon and sustainable solutions. We’ll also be better at attracting and retaining top talent who are increasingly discerning about their employer’s sustainability actions. We’ll offer a compelling case to investors who used focused criteria to inform their holdings. Finally, we’ll continue to enhance our reputation with industry media and analysts as a leader and innovator in sustainability. And most importantly, we’ll reduce our overall carbon emissions to provide much-needed relief for the over-accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  

With an increased sense of urgency, we recognize the responsibility, as well as the opportunity, to step up and drive a faster transformation toward a sustainable future. Not only must we accelerate our own net-zero transformation, but we must help other businesses and industries reinvent themselves as well. Only a fundamental transformation of our global economy will allow us to limit global warming to 1.5°C. It’s vital that we build sustainability into the very nature of how we do business.

Daniel Schmid is chief sustainability officer at SAP.

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Bitcoin may see rapid 50% gains if MVRV behavior repeats the 2016 and 2020 runs to BTC price all-time highs.

SAP is expanding the SAP Sports One solution with artificial intelligence (AI). In collaboration with German professional soccer clubs FC Bayern and Hertha BSC, AI-based automation of summaries and evaluations of scouting reports has been developed.

Being a talent scout sounds like a dream job for many: travelling across the country to watch competitions in your favourite sport and being paid to do so. However, being a scout on the road means hard work. In addition to analyzing increasingly detailed statistical data — such as the number of overplayed players or the likelihood of increasing the goal count — players are scouted live at the stadium or from watching back videos.

Both the current performance and the potential of the player are portrayed as accurately as possible. The aim is to develop a comprehensive picture of the player incorporating team ability, mentality, and other important factors.

SAP Sports One: Get insights about your players and your team with real-time analytics Learn more

“At a professional club, a four-figure number of scouting reports can be generated during a season,” Fadi Naoum, head of Sports and Entertainment at SAP, said at SPOBIS, the largest European sports business event, taking place in Hamburg on January 31 and February 1.

Naoum presented the new AI component for scouting at the conference.

“Squad planners and chief scouts must summarize these reports in such a way that club management can make decisions based on them regarding who should be signed,” he shared. “This was previously a manual process, but now we have been able to extensively automate it, thanks to AI.”

With the help of AI in SAP Sports One, decision-makers in the sports sector now have aggregated performance reports at the touch of a button, as well as comparisons between players. Transfer decisions can be now much faster and more informed.

Large Language Model for Automation

AI is used for the consolidation and targeted processing of unstructured data, which is mostly in natural language. It is capable of considering and processing not only different languages, but also different types of note-taking and writing styles. Behind the AI component for scouting is a large language model (LLM). This deep learning algorithm can perform tasks in the field of natural language processing (NLP).

“We currently use GPT from OpenAI, but we are also evaluating language models from other providers,” Naoum said. “The decisive advantage of the LLM is that commands can be given in natural language and can be varied according to language, text length, or target audience, as needed.“

In Brazil, for example, if a scout prepares manual reports for a specific player in Brazilian Portuguese, he can have the summary generated in German for the management of his German club.

“A typical command could be: ‘Compare the players x and y with regard to their strengths and weaknesses, write a summary and give a transfer recommendation, volume 100 words, answer in German’,” Naoum explained. “Depending on your preference, you can have the result presented as a flowing text or as a management summary.”

Co-Innovation Demonstrates Strength of Generative AI

In collaboration with FC Bayern and Hertha BSC, a prototype was first created for the AI-based automated summary and evaluation of scouting reports in SAP Sports One.

“We were impressed by the high quality of the results achieved automatically in SAP Sports One using generative AI,” commented Markus Pilawa, head of Scouting at FC Bayern. “We expect huge time saving for us and, especially in the hectic transfer period, this can be another advantage for us.”

Timon Pauls, head of Squad Planning & Scouting at Hertha BSC, added: “This co-innovation project has very clearly demonstrated the actual strengths of generative artificial intelligence. The player comparisons and summaries of scouting reports that can now be created ad-hoc will be very valuable for our squad planning. “

In the near future, SAP plans to also use AI technology to enrich the results of scouting reports with information from other sources, including data about matches from external data providers. Integrating AI capabilities into other components of SAP Sports One, including performance diagnostics, training management, and match analysis, is also planned.

SAP Sports One with AI-powered scouting reporting is planned to be made available to customers worldwide in the second quarter of 2024.

SAP Sports One

SAP launched SAP Sports One as a cloud solution in 2015. The athlete management solution and team performance platform covers all sporting processes. Various components support communication, team management, training and performance control, fitness and health management tracking, scouting, squad planning, performance diagnostics, match analysis, and preparing players for their next match.

In conjunction with SAP Analytics Cloud, clubs can also evaluate a wide range of sports-related data delivered by specialized SAP partners. SAP Sports One is currently being used by 12 out of 18 German Bundesliga football clubs. SAP also offers the solution for ice hockey, basketball, and handball.

Worldwide, SAP Sports One supports more than 80 customers in 19 countries, including clubs such as FC Bayern and Hertha BSC, as well as TSG Hoffenheim and FC Sankt Pauli (Germany), BSC Young Boys Bern (Switzerland), Genoa CFC 1893 (Italy), Slavia Prague (Czech Republic), Leicester City (England), Vissel Kobe (Japan), SC Rasta Vechta (Germany, basketball), and the German Football Association.

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Top image via FC Bayern Munich

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