What's New

Navigating the Future: Your Guided Cloud Journey with SAP

SAP News - Mon, 01/15/2024 - 09:15

Over the past decades, SAP has been continuously evolving and advancing in the ERP market with remarkable releases of flagship products. We are truly grateful that our valued customers and partners have been on this transformative journey with us.

We’ve Come a Long Way Together

As we deeply value your continuous success, it’s crucial to acknowledge that those currently operating on SAP ERP 6.0 will soon face the imminent end of mainstream maintenance provided by SAP. This is scheduled to take place in 2025, 2027, and 2030, depending on your SAP enhancement package. Without proactive measures following the end of mainstream maintenance, your ERP solution will not receive any further legal updates or support packages. Additionally, mission-critical support and service-level agreements for your ERP solution will be impacted. 

This is a pivotal moment, and you must start thinking about the trajectory of your ERP system. However, you do not need to worry about getting lost in the various options that lie upfront – SAP is here to empower you with adequate information and tailor-made business cases. We can help you make the decision and choose the path that suits you the best to support your future innovation and success.

We have the right cloud ERP for you Explore SAP solutions Explore the Future Path of Your ERP with SAP

As your trusted advisor on this evolution journey, we are pleased to present several paths for you to explore further:

  • If you currently have no SAP enhancement package or SAP enhancement packages 1-5, you could extend your mainstream maintenance to 2027 by upgrading to SAP enhancement packages 6-8, which typically takes several months to complete. Please note that this path would still require a shift to SAP S/4HANA by 2027 or 2030.
  • You might continue with your current system, venturing into customer-specific maintenance. However, this path will lead to limited support and potential costs associated with addressing new issues.
  • You could initiate a migration to SAP S/4HANA with various transitioning paths available for you to choose, empowering you to:
    • Streamline your system by discarding unnecessary custom code, extensions, and workarounds.
    • Boost productivity through more straightforward processes and a more intuitive user interface.
    • Enhance user acceptance with easy-to-access help and content solutions exactly when they are needed.
  • Our top recommendation for you is to adopt RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition to be able to enjoy multiple benefits of the latest innovation of SAP. This option can encompass all the advantages mentioned in the third option and also allows you to innovate using your data to solve business challenges with the use of generative AI.

Embracing RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition can offer a multitude of benefits. Join the ranks of numerous companies across diverse sizes and industries by initiating your cloud transition today to help enhance the agility and resilience of your business.

Take inspiration from B-ON’s success story, backed by SAP support. In just four months, it seamlessly migrated to its new ERP and CRM platform, resulting in an impressive 200% increase in production capacity and 100% financial visibility across subsidiary operations.

As another example, after using SAP ERP Central Component 6.0 system for nearly two decades, Shanghai Clyde Bergemann Machinery encountered challenges such as operation complexity and high maintenance costs. Opting for RISE with SAP allowed SCB to improve its financial operations, with an 85% reduction in financial closing time and a 50% decrease in IT expenses.

Discover the transformative power of RISE with SAP through our customers’ success stories, showcasing enhanced efficiency and innovation and paving the way for your own seamless transition.

Navigate to the Future

Learn more about adopting the latest cloud offering, RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition.

The SAP Customer Evolution team is here to support you in your future transformation, helping you define and realize the next steps of your business and IT evolution so you can be well prepared for the upcoming opportunities. Enhance your digital transformation journey with the SAP Customer Evolution kit – a cost-free, quick, and efficient engagement model. Elevate your transition to the cloud through personalized, one-on-one sessions with dedicated SAP experts, leveraging powerful tools like SAP Readiness Check and Process Discovery.

Register today, and we look forward to unlocking the potential together with you!

Thomas Bamberger is president of SAP Customer Evolution.

Connect with us on LinkedIn Follow SAP News
Categories: What's New

AI: Act, Don’t Hesitate

SAP News - Mon, 01/15/2024 - 03:00

Artificial intelligence (AI) is here, whether we like it or not. In my opinion, the rapid rise of generative AI can be attributed to three factors:

  • Firstly, technological progress, as improved AI architectures and available data have enabled models to perform impressively.
  • Secondly, an economic effect as successful platforms of the past, such as the Internet and the cloud, experienced breakthroughs when marginal costs approached zero. That was the birth of platform innovation. In the case of the Internet, for example, the cost of distributing increasing amounts of content approached zero. When it comes to content creation, we are also seeing the same thing now with generative AI. Therefore, AI is not just hype, but an innovation platform.
  • Thirdly, we are witnessing a growing social acceptance. Generative AI was brought into the consciousness of the general public as millions of users suddenly gained access, seemingly overnight, to language models like ChatGPT and tried them out for themselves.

AI is powerful, but not all-powerful. Artificial intelligence are big words. Smart neural networks and models excite us because they are designed to mimic human patterns as closely as possible. They can offer solutions for certain types of problems. What they can’t do is find a solution to a previously unsolved problem and compete with the inexhaustible creativity and empathy of humans.

Recently, I was asked to name an example when AI really ‘wowed’ me. For me, it was the moment I read that ChatGPT had passed the medical exam in the U.S. My wife is a doctor, so I’m somewhat familiar with medicine and everyday hospital life. Will AI replace humans here? No. Will technology like AI improve the lives of healthcare workers and thus patients? I believe so. AI creates space for professionals where they are most needed.

AI is changing everything. Are we just going along with this change or are we boldly leading the way? We are at a crucial point where generative AI will also significantly change business processes in companies. McKinsey considers AI to be a productivity booster and predicts worldwide increases in the trillions. This is urgently needed if we look at demographic trends and the growing shortage of skilled workers. Provided that companies use AI consistently, this much is certain: AI will revolutionize the way we work and live.

AI will shape our country. The question is whether we see it as a threatening competitor or a helpful companion. It is up to us to decide whether these significant changes will provide a boost to innovation in Germany and Europe. Germany, and indeed each of us, must adapt to change in order to remain globally competitive. It is important to recognize and minimize the risks, but also to see the opportunities as chances.

See how you can benefit from SAP Business AI built into your core business processes Learn more

So, what do we need to do in order to seize this opportunity for Germany? 

Use Strengths and Competitive Advantages

According to an IW study, systems with generative AI capabilities can contribute to approximately €330 billion of future value creation in the German economy. We would be able to gain a competitive advantage if AI is value-oriented, transparent, and explainable. A suitable legal framework with high ethical standards promotes the ability to innovate; over-regulation would have the opposite effect. We should not categorically classify generative AI as high-risk, but rather leave room for innovation.

We are moving in the right direction with the EU AI Act’s risk-based approach. And when the various regulations on AI and data protection interact, we are on the right track. Because there can be no compromises in the use of AI when it comes to business-critical processes and decisions.

Therefore, at SAP, we see it as our duty to deliver responsible, reliable, and business-relevant AI results. That is why we are looking at how to best utilize the various models to provide value to customers. The models behave very differently. We see ourselves as a driving force in terms of enterprise AI. However, we do not rely solely on our own expertise, but collaborate with research institutions and leading providers of generative AI.

Our credo is: AI is a natural part of our software and intuitively integrated into processes and applications. Why? Because for us, it’s not about writing a poem with AI, but about using AI in a specific business context based on real-time data — and, when necessary, to support business-critical decisions.

To make this possible, we are working on our own foundation model, which is trained on the data of thousands of customers that have consented to the use of their data. AI models trained on publicly available data do not have this valuable context. Therefore, while they may pass a medical exam because the knowledge is available on the Internet, they will not be able to answer complex questions in the context of a company. Because AI is only as good as the data it relies on. This includes filtering out biased data or queries.

Promote a Climate of Innovation and Openness to Technology

Currently, 73% of major AI models are developed in the U.S. and 15% in China. This is also due to the willingness to invest. The fact that the German government will invest around €3.5 billion in AI by 2025 is a positive signal, but it is not enough. The private sector also needs to invest significantly more across all industries. Additionally, the “can do” mentality is more pronounced elsewhere. Of the 1,300 startup unicorns worldwide, only 36 are in Germany. Our AI research is among the best; however, the insights rarely lead to companies being created.

We do not lack knowledge in Germany, we lack the will to implement it. And according to the LEAM: AI feasibility study, there is also a lack of computing power and a supercomputing infrastructure for AI.

We should also strengthen small and midsize enterprises (SMEs). As the backbone of the German economy, SMEs must receive the necessary support — including from the public sector — to drive AI forward. According to a bitkom study, 15% of all companies are already using AI. But this is not yet the urgently needed boost to AI innovation. At least 68% understand the importance of AI and consider AI to be the most important future technology, but too few are taking action.

This clearly shows that most people are looking into AI. But for many companies, AI is not yet an issue. This gap needs to be closed so that in the future not just a minority but a majority of companies use AI. We must act instead of hesitating!

Culturally Embedding a Readiness for Change and Lifelong Learning

 Innovation starts in the mind. Every company wants employees who think like entrepreneurs. Those who don’t want to wait for something coming from other corners of the world. But for that, we need to overcome our reservations towards new technologies. Fears are blocking our view of opportunities and companies have a duty to act now. Transparency is the most important means to alleviate employees’ concerns about automation and AI.

AI will not make humans redundant, but it will change our existing professions. Well-trained professionals are and will remain indispensable, and AI can help to counteract the shortage of skilled workers to some extent. Not only the technologies themselves, but above all the responsible handling of data must be an integral part of school education. Similarly, companies should integrate AI into their company’s further education.

But what is particularly important is that for most professionals, it is not about understanding AI in every detail. There are experts for that, just as there are experts who design complex manufacturing machines. It is about developing the skills of the future: critical thinking and the ability to assess information and above all, empathy. Putting oneself in other people’s position is the core competency of the future! These are skills that make humans unique.

Therefore, I do not see AI as an apocalypse, but rather as one of our best chances for renewal and progress. Because the interaction between humans and machines is not a duel, but a duet.

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE.

Sign up to get the latest SAP news and stories delivered to your inbox each week Subscribe now
Categories: What's New

SAP Celebrates Its Retail Industry Heroes at NRF 2024

SAP News - Fri, 01/12/2024 - 10:15

In the rapidly evolving landscape of retail, a new breed of heroes has emerged – visionaries that are revolutionizing the industry through their innovative application of technology.

These pioneers, armed with a potent blend of innovation and determination, are reshaping the shopping experience, driving operational efficiency, and connecting with consumers in unprecedented ways. From leveraging AI and machine learning to implementing augmented reality and blockchain, these retail trailblazers are at the forefront of change, seamlessly integrating cutting-edge technologies to redefine what it means to engage customers and deliver exceptional service.

We launched the SAP Industry Heroes program in 2023 to celebrate companies that leverage technology to transform their business in innovative ways. Let’s explore the stories of our NRF retail heroes that harnessed the power of technology to transform the traditional retail paradigm into an innovative, customer-centric frontier.

Birkenstock worked with SAP on its ongoing objectives to expand retail and wholesale presence while fostering customer growth in line with its renowned legacy of function, quality, and tradition.

Brand Alley delved into the rising trend of utilizing advocacy data in marketing strategies, which led to the transformation of brand perspectives on VIP customers and the strategic utilization of advocacy data within paid search and social media campaigns.

FC Bayern, equipped with over 8 million fan data records, crafted a detailed profile of its worldwide fan community, encompassing specific preferences and interests. SAP technology played a pivotal role in enabling FC Bayern, one of the most accomplished football clubs globally, to curate what it terms as the “golden fan record.”

Execute faster in the world of omnichannel commerce with SAP Learn more

Grupo Axo effectively transitioned to leveraging internal customer data due to the potential extinction of third-party data. Its journey offers insights into standing out from competitors, increasing revenue, fostering stronger customer relationships, and cultivating a more robust, data-driven culture through the utilization of internal customer data.

Hornbach achieved real-time retail success, processed over 100,000 orders, and effectively addressed omnichannel challenges with SAP Order Management foundation. Working together with SAP, Hornbach built a composable enterprise.

Neiman Marcus harnessed innovative methods and valuable insights to optimize its compensation management. These strategies are reshaping the retail landscape and revolutionizing team incentives within the industry.

PetSmart, a prominent pet retailer, encountered obstacles in omnichannel order fulfillment, leading to challenges in financial reconciliation and inventory transparency. By adopting SAP Customer Activity Repository, PetSmart established a robust foundation for omnichannel retail. This implementation significantly enhanced the omnichannel process and elevated overall customer satisfaction levels.

PVH, a global apparel company with a brand portfolio that includes Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Warner’s, Olga, and True&Co, is working with SAP to build an IT platform foundation for innovation, modernization, digitalization, and scalability.

Qurate Retail Group, known for its innovative strides in the retail sector, leveraged technology to elevate customer experiences, optimize operations, and propel growth together with SAP.

RD, Brazil’s top drugstore chain boasting nearly 3,000 stores across the nation, achieved a transformative implementation of SAP technology, which led to streamlined processes and customer-centric advancements, marking a new era of operational excellence.

Wella Company, a pioneering force in the beauty industry with 15 distinctive brands, utilizes technology to inspire both consumers and beauty professionals to embrace their authentic selves. Wella Company’s approach of leveraging actionable data to craft tailored solutions strengthens its lifelong relationships across B2C (business-to-consumer), B2B (business-to-business), and D2C (direct-to-consumer) realms.

SAP celebrates these retailers for their outstanding efforts, collaboration, and dedication in driving successful business outcomes with technology. Join us at NRF 2024 to celebrate these SAP Industry Heroes that will be sharing their stories and learnings at the SAP booth. Schedule an in-person meeting or booth tour with us today

Read more about our retail and CPG customer stories and wins from 2023.

Matt Laukaitis is EVP and Global GM for SAP Consumer Industries.

Read more SAP news and coverage from NRF 2024 Get the news
Categories: What's New

How SAP’s Retail Partners Became Innovation Multipliers in 2023 and Created the Ultimate Consumer Experience

SAP News - Fri, 01/12/2024 - 09:15

Retail businesses can’t do everything on their own, especially in a time of massive technological change and rapidly evolving customer demands. That’s why SAP’s retail industry partners play an integral role in the sector’s success, whether they are bringing their knowledge and expertise to bear in order to drive innovation or using their intellectual property and leading solutions to move products through the development pipeline faster than otherwise possible.

2023 proved time and again that retailers and their software partners know how to rise to the occasion in the face of increasing pressures – and that they can quickly implement new processes and operations when necessary.

SAP has worked in the retail space for decades, helping every business across the ecosystem run at its best. Across this shared history, with our industry partners and end customers, our ecosystem has shown repeatedly the organic growth that is possible because of strong relationships.

Retailers can leverage technologies to provide the shopping experiences that delight customers Learn how

Here are some prime examples of retail partners serving as innovation and growth multipliers last year:

Coveo
Coveo’s innovative artificial intelligence (AI) platform helps deliver real value to customers, solving business challenges as only AI can. For retailers, Coveo for SAP Commerce Cloud can assist in finding and recommending products faster to help drive more revenue, optimize campaigns, and power generative experiences. The enterprise-class AI platform can be deployed on top of SAP in a secure and highly scalable fashion. The result: intelligent site search, tailored recommendations, generative experiences, and personalized, memorable shopping experiences for all customers.

Mention Me
Mention Me makes it possible to harness word of mouth’s true power, thanks to the world’s first Customer Advocacy Intelligence Platform. Powered by advanced AI, the platform enables businesses to identify, nurture, and activate their loyal advocates, building a virtuous cycle of customer love and superior economics so that fans keep coming back for more.

Contentful
Enterprises can launch digital experiences faster with Contentful, which connects with SAP Commerce Cloud to enable commerce projects of any size, both for the Web and for multichannel experiences. Simply put, Contentful can make it easier for retailers to create and manage digital experiences via structured content built for speed, change, and scale. Using one hub – that integrates with hundreds of tools to help personalize and optimize – for easy collaboration, businesses can make their content work harder, so they can work smarter.

OneRail
The Last Mile Delivery Fulfillment Solution from OneRail provides retailers with the ability to instantaneously scale delivery demand. By integrating with SAP Commerce Cloud, OneRail’s offering connects businesses’ e-commerce capabilities with nationwide delivery coverage, meaning retailers can have the ability to ship nationwide with complete visibility, all while providing unique, branded customer experiences. In short: efficiency, from dispatch to doorstep.

Obsess
With Obsess’ mobile-optimized enterprise platform, retailers can easily build immersive, 3D, virtual stores proven to increase engagement, conversion, and average order value. By integrating with SAP Commerce Cloud, the market-leading experiential shopping platform offering can enable enterprises to approach their customers in a branded, personalized fashion – and make retail shopping fun and memorable again.

GK
Retailers can drive top-notch in-store customer experiences – and build customer loyalty – with the SAP Omnichannel Point-of-Sale application by GK. The configurable application helps enterprises deploy the right business processes efficiently at the point-of-sale, working to reduce their total cost of ownership in the process. Flexible, rules-based configuration also means merchandisers can quickly react to changing business needs, ensuring a more memorable and impactful customer journey from end to end.

DataXstream
The OMS+ Cross-Channel Order Management Solution from DataXstream is an integrated offering built for counter, call center, and mobile sales. OMS+ reimagines the user interface to reflect real-life customer engagements and can provide the platform for making SAP ERP the foundation of a truly unified commerce strategy. It can also automate time-consuming activities to help ensure your team gets more done in less time, meaning increased sales, reduced costs, and an improved customer experience overall.

Annex Cloud
The Loyalty Experience Platform from Annex Cloud is built around the idea of organically driving retention and loyalty through every stage of the customer journey. The app offers engaging experiences via incentives at first touch, then as the consumer becomes a prospect, a customer, a repeat customer, and eventually an advocate. Moreover, it guides customer behavior by offering loyalty points for a variety of actions, including purchasing, referring friends, writing reviews, sharing pictures, signing up for newsletters, and more. And it all integrates with SAP Commerce Cloud.

Forter
Retailers looking to maximize revenue and minimize risk should look no further than the Forter Trust Platform for Digital Commerce. The real-time, automated decision platform helps reduce false declines and chargebacks by up to 90%, increasing approval rates so merchants can expand their business. It underlines fraud prevention strategies, enabling safety and security for your commerce processes so you can focus on the business decisions that truly impact growth and retention.

Aisera
With Aisera, retailers can truly unleash the power of generative AI and automation by reimagining and revolutionizing their services experience. Aisera AI Customer Service provides instant self-service and autonomous resolutions to customer requests across any channel, offering a virtually unlimited supply of “agents” to leading enterprises. Seamless integration with SAP can also simplify efforts to help improve customer satisfaction, agent productivity, and support costs, so that retailers can exceed expectations and focus on building their business.

Paradox
Paradox’s leading conversational AI recruiting software is helping clients like Nestle and Unilever automate candidate screening processes, text campaigns, 1:1 texting, interview scheduling, mobile-first assessments, onboarding, and more – all in a mobile experience fully integrated into SAP SuccessFactors solutions. In other words, it can help enterprises hire faster and better than ever, building a foundation for consistent and repeatable future success.

Craig Schertler is vice president of Consumer Industries Global Partner Ecosystem at SAP.

Follow SAP News and stay connected Join us on LinkedIn
Categories: What's New

Top Retailers Using Tech to Build Lifelong Customer Relationships

SAP News - Fri, 01/12/2024 - 08:15

As 2024 begins, today’s retail leaders face a number of industry headwinds, including continued supply chain challenges, persistent staffing issues, ongoing inflation, increased competitive pressures, and more. These difficulties are expected to persist going forward and, in some cases, accelerate. The fact of the matter is disruption is no longer a temporal state of being in retail. It’s the norm.

That’s why innovation in technology, business processes, and how these come together will be key to better business results in 2024 and a sustainable future going forward. Retailers must learn how artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual and augmented reality, and other tools can assist in strengthening customer loyalty and trust. Because, after all, the primary goal of retailers is to create memorable, repeatable shopping experiences that will satisfy and even delight consumers.

At SAP, we’re seeing enterprises pursue that goal every day, using the power of AI-driven business solutions to create strong, lifelong relationships with customers. Whether you’re designing personalized shopping experiences, improving demand planning, minimizing the cost of returns, or addressing other challenges, SAP solutions can help you transform your approach.

Transform shopping experiences on every channel with our cloud retail solutions Learn more

Throughout 2023, SAP enabled retail and consumer-packaged goods (CPG) leaders to overcome today’s biggest obstacles – and position them for a brighter tomorrow. This includes partnerships and success stories with leading brands like Leanin’ Tree, Benjamin Moore, Cangshan Cutlery, HP, HanesBrands, Pandora, Levis, Coop Norge, PUMA, and Maui Jim.

More specifically, SAP has worked with global leaders to help them drive meaningful customer experiences, adopt more sustainable practices, and set their organizations up for great efficiency and innovation.

  • ALDO: As one of the world’s leading fashion retailers, the ALDO Group is using SAP to help improve customer loyalty and better deliver on consumer expectations. Specifically, the ALDO Group is using SAP Commerce Cloud to help improve the customer experience – from personalizing product selection to building a seamless checkout experience – and SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement, which is helping to increase customer loyalty and retention.
  • Kaufland/Schwartz IT: Schwarz IT is the technology partner and central service provider for the Schwarz Group, one of the leading retail groups around the world. Kaufland, a company of Schwarz Group, operates grocery stores in Europe, offering a wide selection of high-quality foods and everyday items at the best price. Customer satisfaction, sustainable action, and the reduction of food waste play important roles for Kaufland. To further improve demand and replenishment planning, Schwarz IT and Kaufland decided together to implement an innovative, self-learning solution with artificial intelligence capabilities.
  • Swarovski: As one of the world’s premier jewelry and accessories brands, offering high-quality experiences that draw on its long heritage in luxury is key for Swarovski. In the latest step of its 40-year partnership with SAP, Swarovski will be leveraging RISE with SAP and SAP Commerce Cloud, among other solutions. Taken together, SAP can help Swarovski further customer loyalty as well as create unique customer experiences, all while having a future-proof digital core with the flexibility and security to support continuous innovation.
  • Hunkemöller: Hunkemöller, Europe’s fastest growing lingerie brand, will be using SAP to further offer customers personalized experiences and help keep up with the strong demand for its products. Moving to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition marks the first major step for Hunkemöller in its digital transformation journey. Through its future implementation of SAP S/4HANA for fashion and vertical business, a version of SAP S/4HANA optimized for the fashion industry, Hunkemöller can manage its business from design to wholesale and retail all on one platform. This helps Hunkemöller deliver collections faster on all channels, optimize inventory and cost, and increase margins.
  • Chow Tai Fook: Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group (Chow Tai Fook), the renowned jewelry retailer headquartered in Hong Kong that has an extensive retail network in China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, the U.S., and Canada, has adopted SAP SuccessFactors solutions to help accelerate its human resources digital transformation. Leveraging SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central and SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting, Chow Tai Fook is aiming to streamline core HR processes, optimize recruitment, and enhance employee experience and the productivity of its workforce, thereby driving sustainable business growth and an ability to meet future development needs.
  • Blue Diamond Growers: Blue Diamond Growers is a grower-owned cooperative representing approximately 3,000 of California’s almond growers. It is also the world’s leading almond marketer and processor. Through its use of SAP, including, among other solutions, SAP S/4HANA and SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain, Blue Diamond has been able to improve its supply chain, on-time delivery rate, inventory management, and demand forecasting. Taken together, it allows this century-old agricultural cooperative and global consumer-packaged goods company to provide the best value and experience to its growers and customers.
  • e.l.f. Beauty: For almost two decades, e.l.f. Beauty has been producing premium quality cosmetics and skin care that’s clean, cruelty free, vegan, and Fair Trade Certified at an extraordinary value. To modernize its backend and help meet customer demand, e.l.f. will be using SAP. Through solutions such as RISE with SAP, SAP Analytics Cloud, and SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain, not only does e.l.f. expect to improve demand forecasting but also further enhance its customer experience.

Success in retail requires clarity and conviction around business planning and digital adoption. Businesses can grow intelligently and take control of their future, bringing together rich enterprise data and AI-embedded applications to empower everyone in the organization.

Join us at NRF 2024 to see what advancements we have planned for enterprises this year and learn how our retail-focused solutions can unlock the power of AI for your business. Schedule an in-person meeting or booth tour with us today.

Matt Laukaitis is EVP and Global GM for SAP Consumer Industries.

Stay up-to-date with all things SAP Subscribe to the SAP News Center newsletter
Categories: What's New

SAP Announces New AI-Driven Retail Capabilities to Enhance Customer Experience – From Planning to Personalization

SAP News - Thu, 01/11/2024 - 10:00

WALLDORF SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced new AI-driven capabilities to help retailers optimize business processes and drive profitability and customer loyalty.

These innovative capabilities, from planning to personalization, will provide retailers with holistic customer insights and data analysis to adapt and thrive amid rapid market changes.

“These AI-driven retail capabilities build on SAP’s industry-tailored, intelligent customer experience (CX) strategy, which provides companies with deeply integrated functionalities to enable their most critical business processes and customer journeys,” said Ritu Bhargava, president and chief product officer, Industries and CX, SAP. “SAP’s composable architecture unlocks the creative potential of retailers, allowing them to cherry-pick capabilities tailored to their unique needs and rapidly innovate and respond to market demands, ultimately helping them to supercharge profitable growth.”

Put the power of trusted business AI from SAP to work for your industry Explore now

The new capabilities include SAP’s unmatched industry expertise and embedded SAP Business AI technology to deliver true end-to-end retail solutions. AI is only as good as the data that powers it, and SAP’s ability to integrate experiential and operational data across the enterprise enables more insightful, AI-driven decision-making for businesses. This integration produces more intelligent, personalized experiences for customers, as the best retail outcomes require great CX.

“In today’s environment, it’s critical to have insight across the business, which is why Swarovski has continued to adopt and leverage SAP’s end-to-end solutions, enabling us to connect our business processes,” said Lea Sonderegger, chief digital officer and chief information officer, Swarovski. “Since leveraging SAP software, we’ve had the flexibility and security to support continuous innovation, which offers us a consistent foundation for cultivating unique Swarovski customer loyalty across all touch points and innovating to create unique customer experiences.”

“Retailers and brands that achieve growth and profitability in today’s economy will bring together rich enterprise data and AI-embedded applications to enable everyone across their company to deliver amazing, personalized experiences to the right customer, on the right channel, at the right time,” said Leslie Hand, group vice president, Retail & Financial Insights, IDC. “IDC anticipates more aggressive investment by retailers than we’ve seen in years, and working with a strategic partner that understands and can deliver end-to-end capabilities is essential for buyers.”

Examples of some of the newest capabilities include:

  • SAP Predictive Demand Planning: This solution will provide retailers with more accurate and longer-range demand forecasts across channels using a self-learning demand model. Besides enabling scalable, cost-efficient, high-volume calculations, it will offer precise forecasting and automatically identify and consider a variety of demand factors and external data. The solution will provide apps for forecast configuration, analysis, adjustment and simulation and offer intelligent alerting with root causes and recommendations.
  • SAP Predictive Replenishment: SAP is adding store replenishment capabilities in a phased approach to its existing SAP Predictive Replenishment solution. The capability will replenish inventory in stores and distribution centers for an optimized, multilevel supply chain across flexible planning horizons. It will consider demand volatility, business targets, rules and constraints to determine optimal order quantities with the lowest expected costs. The capabilities improve fulfillment efficiency and on-time delivery by providing planners with a central tool to create order and delivery patterns for product flows within the supply network.

    Example use case: A grocer wants to establish a highly automated approach for replenishing yogurt to lower costs and waste while improving customer service. SAP’s new solutions will automatically forecast and schedule replenishment orders with the correct quantities for the right locations while keeping costs low. Business users can then review and accept intelligent recommendations and transfer to the procurement system to create purchase orders, as well as understand any issue, address it quickly and avoid problems in the future.
  • SAP Order Management for sourcing and availability: With this solution, available now, organizations can determine the optimal sourcing strategies to deliver customer satisfaction and minimize fulfillment costs. Business users can configure strategies aligned to their unique goals, including delivery time, utilized capacity, cost to ship and shipments per order and then run simulations to test the strategies before implementation.
  • SAP Order Management foundation: With this foundation, available now, business users can create omnichannel order flows that respond to business events, such as a fraud hold, delivery or in-store pickup activity, using an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop workflow automation tool. Additionally, retailers can customize event triggers based on their unique business processes, and the corresponding actions can take place within the order management system or relevant system of customer engagement.

    Example use case: A coffee retailer is offering its customers real-time fulfillment updates. SAP Order Management foundation ensures a streamlined operation, which efficiently coordinates with the required insights to fulfill customers’ needs, even in complex cases for various items, such as subscriptions, in-store pickup and sourcing accessories. SAP Order Management for sourcing and availability also provides a centralized view of inventory to ensure customer demand is always met.
  • TikTok and LinkedIn integrations for digital ads: The SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement platform now integrates TikTok and LinkedIn for targeted digital ads. Marketers are empowered to segment customers, quickly engage leads, optimize ad spend, boost acquisition and retention, enhance the omnichannel retail experience and build trusted relationships for growth. Retailers can easily create, sync and expand audiences; connect with consumers on preferred social channels; complement campaigns with personalized ads on TikTok and LinkedIn for conversion; and use data-driven insights to convert leads and reengage at-risk customers.

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

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

Transform shopping experiences on every channel — and improve sustainability across the value chain — with cloud retail solutions from SAP Learn more

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP’s 2022 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
© 2024 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices.

Categories: What's New

Why We Must Leave No One Behind in the AI Revolution

SAP News - Thu, 01/11/2024 - 05:05

Today’s conversation about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on people, jobs, and society is not so different from the early days of cloud computing.

In 2009, I helped launch the first cloud-based email service for business. Until then, every company had a server room and a team of IT professionals running their corporate email systems. When we started talking with companies about moving to cloud-based email, IT professionals gave a dozen reasons why they could never make the switch — it wasn’t secure enough, lacked the performance they required, or couldn’t meet their functional needs.

In time, we came to realize these were not true technical limitations. The real reason they didn’t want to shift to the cloud was not the tech but concern about the impact on their jobs, the relevance of their roles, and their professional identity. With this realization, we focused on ensuring these dedicated IT professionals had opportunities to retrain and upskill in cloud technology.

The cloud has been a massively transformative technology, yet its impact will pale compared to AI’s on people, jobs, and society. Businesses such as SAP, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations all have important roles to play to ensure the benefits of AI extend to everyone and that no one is left behind.

It Begins with Trust

Trust in technology is crucial. If AI is used nefariously, doesn’t give reliable results, or perpetuates biases, large segments of the population will not trust the technology enough to use or benefit from it.

See how you can benefit from AI built into your core business processes Learn more

For our part, SAP Business AI solutions are built with the highest concern for security, privacy, compliance, and ethics. We require our internal AI Ethics Steering Committee to review every AI use case in consultation with an external AI Ethics Advisory Panel of cross-disciplinary experts.

We also have a comprehensive framework for mitigating risk in AI. This includes ensuring no use case crosses our pre-defined red lines, such as perpetuating discrimination or abuse. Our AI capabilities, for example, help ensure the use of inclusive language in job descriptions and interview questions, and we provide our AI Ethics Handbook online for everyone to access.

Bridging the AI Skills Gap

With generative AI, the pace of innovation is faster than any other technology change I’ve experienced. Tech workers, like those in my opening story, could be left behind without an intentional focus on education and training.

Companies like ours are releasing new training and tools to close the skills gap. Last year, SAP announced an ambitious goal to upskill 2 million professionals by 2025. And we’ve seen 1.5 million new learners taking advantage of our offerings, meaning we’re on track to exceed our goals easily. But we’re not going to stop. The need and the opportunity are too great.

We have also made it easy for developers to find and use AI tools by launching AI Foundation on SAP BTP. This one-stop shop provides ready-to-use AI services and tools to accelerate the development of generative AI-infused applications in a secure and trusted way.

AI Benefits Must Accrue Equally Worldwide

In January 2023, the World Economic Forum reported that the division in AI between the Global North and South was deepening. Education and career opportunities must extend beyond the tech sector and be accessible to under-represented populations.

Take the continent of Africa, which is set to have more young people entering the workforce by 2035 than the rest of the world combined, where supporting education and career opportunities will result in better technological advancements and reduced inequalities. The SAP Educate to Employ program, launched alongside UNICEF and Generation Unlimited, seeks to create pathways to technical jobs for underserved young people in countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya.

Momentum continues to grow. This year, SAP, as part of the World Economic Forum’s Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship, joins together with Microsoft, EY, and others to support a new working group focused on AI for Social Innovation. Together, we are mobilizing resources to address the use of AI to positively impact issues such as human rights and climate action.

There is no question AI will radically change the way we live and work. We all have the power to shape this transformative technology so it operates responsibly and benefits everyone.

Julia White is chief marketing and solutions officer and a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE.

Get the latest news and stories from SAP delivered to your inbox weekly Subscribe now

This piece originally appeared on the World Economic Forum site.

Categories: What's New

SAP Welcomes Resolution of Past Compliance Challenges with U.S. and South Africa Authorities 

SAP News - Wed, 01/10/2024 - 15:00

SAP SE has entered into final settlement agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), and South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). SAP welcomes the conclusion of these matters and will fully comply with the terms of the agreements.  

As noted in the settlement agreements, SAP conducted a thorough and extensive investigation into historical misconduct and fully cooperated with the authorities.  

SAP separated from all responsible parties more than five years ago and has since significantly enhanced its global compliance program and related internal controls. Our significant remediation efforts, combined with our full and proactive cooperation with the authorities, have led to full resolutions of these matters.  

SAP has zero tolerance for those who do not adhere to the company’s compliance policies and procedures. SAP remains vigilant in maintaining the highest standards of ethics and compliance so that, together with a global network of customers, partners, suppliers, employees, and thought leaders, SAP can help the world run better and improve people’s lives. 

Media Contacts:
Joellen Perry, +1 (650) 445-6780, joellen.perry@sap.com, PT 
Marcus Winkler, +49 (6227) 7-67497, marcus.winkler@sap.com, CET 

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP’s 2022 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
© 2024 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices.

Categories: What's New

SAP Is a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Configure, Price, and Quote Application Suites

SAP News - Wed, 01/10/2024 - 09:15

I’m pleased to share that for the sixth consecutive year, Gartner has named SAP a Leader in its Magic Quadrant for Configure, Price, and Quote Application Suites. Read the full report.

SAP CPQ enables organizations – however complex, across however many channels, and regardless of which CRM they run – to produce quick and accurate quotes, accommodating the most advanced configuration and pricing requirements, helping to result in a better sales experience and faster sales cycles.

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from SAP. Click to enlarge.

Gartner evaluated 16 vendors and named SAP a Leader based on our “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision.” We believe this recognition serves as an acknowledgment of SAP’s continued commitment to providing our customers with a CPQ solution that can meet all their needs.

SAP CPQ is an essential component of SAP’s portfolio of products that help automate the quote-to-cash process, which enables organizations to convert sales opportunities into paying, profitable, and repeat customers. Leveraging a modular cloud approach, SAP brings together SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP CPQ, SAP Subscription Billing, and SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management to enable customers to accelerate monetization of their subscription business.

Deliver the perfect solution for your customers with fast and accurate quotes Learn more

With SAP’s quote-to-cash products, customers can transform to “everything-as-a-service” with innovative revenue models, can quickly adapt to changes by offloading operational complexities, and can achieve accuracy and compliance with end-to-end automation.

In under 15 minutes, the sales team at Cleaver-Brooks is creating sales quotes for its complex boiler systems. The company has been using SAP CPQ since 2005 to help automate and scale its legacy quoting process, generating more than 20,000 quotes annually by 750 salespeople.

“You basically give the salesperson one to two days of their week back by using SAP CPQ. When you give time back to salespeople, you are encouraging them to sell solutions to customers instead of just reacting to specifications,” noted Dominic Kasten, director of Sales Technologies, Cleaver-Brooks.

EXFO Inc, a manufacturer of equipment, software, and services that help companies transform 5G cloud-native and fiber-optic networks, reduced the time it took to approve customer discounts by 50% to less than 24 hours while the number of sales quotes created per month increased by 70%.

EXFO has created a new quote system with a 360-degree view of customers to slash response times, improve quote accuracy, and enhance customer experiences. It has also created a new revenue stream by combining products and services in a single quote.

“SAP CPQ underpins an intuitive system that helps sales teams produce speedy, accurate quotes, letting them concentrate on what matters most to customers,” said Sheila Thibodeua, CRM Solutions and Digital Sales manager of EXFO.

Hear from other customers and learn more about how SAP helps to automate quote-to-cash with SAP CPQ, SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management, SAP Subscription Billing, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

Eric Van Rossum is chief marketing and solutions officer for SAP Cloud ERP.

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. 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.

Get the latest SAP news delivered to your inbox every week Subscribe to our newsletter
Categories: What's New

SAP Evolves Executive Board to Maximize Innovation Adoption and Customer Value in the Cloud

SAP News - Tue, 01/09/2024 - 08:05

WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced two changes to its Executive Board to build on the company’s success ensuring customers benefit from the cloud in the era of AI.

SAP’s dynamic cloud growth over the past three years, coupled with the development of an industry-leading modular cloud suite, has set the stage for the next phase of innovation and impact.

Starting April 1, 2024, a new Board area will be created to accelerate cloud growth and adoption. This Board area, led by Thomas Saueressig, will be focused on ensuring customers’ ability to embrace continuous innovation in the cloud. At the same time, Muhammad Alam will join the company’s Executive Board, succeeding Thomas Saueressig and assuming responsibility for SAP’s product engineering.

“I am excited that Thomas Saueressig has agreed to take on a critically important new role focused on maximizing potential for our customers in the cloud,” said Professor Hasso Plattner, chairman of the Supervisory Board of SAP SE. “Thomas’ demonstrated leadership, expertise and customer focus will be key as he works to build a team responsible for comprehensive value delivery. Muhammad Alam is a visionary leader and a passionate engineer who shares SAP’s commitment to excellence and innovation, and he is well suited to continue driving the success of our product engineering teams. On behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, I wish him a successful start.”

New Board Area Will Focus on Innovation Adoption in the Cloud Thomas Saueressig

Effective April 1, 2024, SAP will put the power of a new dedicated Board area called Customer Services & Delivery behind the company’s drive to support customers in their cloud transformation journey, accelerate innovation adoption and further increase customer satisfaction. The new Board area will help ensure that customers are able to swiftly adopt and consume innovation, maximize the benefits of the cloud and realize the value of SAP’s integrated portfolio. Saueressig, who joined the Executive Board in 2019, will head the new Board area, building on his success in transforming the SAP Product Engineering organization, re-focusing the portfolio and delivering continuous innovation over the past five years.

“Everything we do at SAP, we do for our customers,” said Saueressig. “With Customer Services & Delivery, we establish a new level of attention to our customers’ success. I could not be more humbled to lead this new Board area and this incredible team. Customer Services & Delivery is the place where deep product expertise and strong customer relationships are united as one. Together we will drive innovation adoption and customer satisfaction to new heights.” 

Engineering and Innovation Are the Priorities for New Board Member  Muhammad Alam

Succeeding Saueressig and assuming responsibility for SAP’s product engineering, Alam will join the company’s Executive Board, effective April 1, 2024.

Alam joined SAP on January 31, 2022, as president and chief product officer for the Intelligent Spend and Business Network. In this role, he leads the engineering and design teams focused on procurement, travel and expense, external workforce management and SAP Business Network. Prior to SAP, Alam worked for 17 years at Microsoft, most recently as corporate vice president of product and engineering for Microsoft Dynamics 365 business applications.

“Since I joined SAP, I have been amazed by the breadth and depth of our product portfolio, our engineering excellence and the tremendous value our engineers create for SAP’s customers,” said Alam. “I am truly honored to have been appointed to the Executive Board and thank the Supervisory Board for their trust. Together with the best product and engineering team in the world, we will continue our transformation journey and bring incredible innovation to life across and beyond our solutions for customers.”

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

Get the latest news and stories from SAP delivered to your inbox weekly Subscribe now

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 25 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.

Note to editors:
To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this platform, you can find high resolution material for your media channels.

For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:
Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24
United States only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)

For more information, press only:
Joellen Perry,+1 (650) 445-6780, joellen.perry@sap.com, PT
Marcus Winkler, +49 6227 767 497, marcus.winkler@sap.com, CEST
SAP Press Roompress@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP’s 2022 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
© 2024 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices.
Please consider our privacy policy. If you received this press release in your e-mail and you wish to unsubscribe to our mailing list please contact press@sap.com and write Unsubscribe in the subject line.

Categories: What's New

SAP to Release Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2023 Results

SAP News - Tue, 01/09/2024 - 08:00

WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) will release its results for the fourth quarter of 2023 and 2023 year-end results on Wednesday, January 24.

SAP CEO Christian Klein as well as CFO Dominik Asam will host a press conference to present fourth quarter financial figures and 2023 year-end results, as well as an outlook on the current financial year.

Media representatives are invited to join in person or participate in the press conference via Webcast at 10:00 a.m. CET/ 4:00 a.m. ET, accessible at https://broadcast.sap.com/go/pc.

Update: Replay Availability

The recording of the press conference can be found here.

Get the latest news and stories from SAP delivered to your inbox weekly Subscribe now
Categories: What's New

How Detecon Takes ERP to the Cloud with SAP Preferred Success

SAP News - Mon, 01/08/2024 - 09:15

Working in the cloud makes things much easier – especially for enterprise management software systems, or ERP systems. But the transition is often complicated and resource intensive. Detecon shows how this can be solved with the help of SAP Preferred Success.

In 2018, Detecon, part of Deutsche Telekom’s group of companies, started replacing its legacy ERP systems with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. The company was eager and committed to gaining competitive advantage through more agile processes while emphasizing its leadership in digitalization. 

For the new system migration to succeed, Detecon put together a core team. However, one of the biggest challenges in the project was ensuring the company’s customer projects were not neglected during the process and remained top priority. It quickly became clear that the resources of the core team were not always 100% available – additional support was urgently needed to keep up with the demand.

Fast track the value of your cloud investment with SAP Preferred Success Learn more SAP Preferred Success Helps Detecon Migrate to the Cloud

Detecon needed support, mainly in the areas of finance and professional service, and relied on SAP consulting experts working alongside SAP Preferred Success for additional expert guidance. It was an efficient combo, Jochen Trefzger from Detecon reports.

SAP Preferred Success is a service that can provide a full, personalized set of guidance resources, including proactive release guidance, regular success checks, tailored learning offerings, enhanced service-level agreements, and access to an exclusive catalog of value-add services – all designed to help make the transition to the cloud as smooth as possible.

Effective Collaboration Between Detecon and SAP

To proceed with the cloud migration, Detecon engaged in weekly meetings with the SAP Preferred Success team to discuss and determine areas that needed more attention. During this time, a customer success partner from SAP evaluated Detecon’s adoption of the software, made required recommendations for further improvement, and remained accessible as an SAP point-of-contact to answer questions and provide overall guidance.

Moving to the cloud requires expertise and a well-thought-out strategy. It is paramount to allocate enough time for the planning phase, put together a stable project team, and have additional expert guidance on hand to support when the required expertise is not available in-house.

Interested in SAP Preferred Success? Schedule an appointment with your account executive or visit the SAP Preferred Success Web site.

This article originally appeared on the German SAP News Center.

Follow SAP News on LinkedIn and stay connected Stay up-to-date
Categories: What's New

Supercharging Retail with AI: Blending Commerce and Lifestyle

SAP News - Fri, 01/05/2024 - 08:15

Global events and changing consumer behaviors in the digital era are causing retailers to look toward the future with concern. In 2024, these pressures will drive businesses increasingly to ask questions.

How can I increase sales without raising overhead? How can I create year-round stability for sourcing, inventory, restocking, and order management? And how can I build better omnichannel brand connections in a competitive market where customer loyalty is increasingly tied to consumer values like sustainability?

Learn how to succeed with retail solutions from SAP Find out more

Yet, with AI-enabled advances opening a world of possibilities for operational efficiencies and hyper-personalized, real-time, omnichannel customer experiences, the future of retail is anything but bleak! 

AI is set to level up the retail landscape. Retailers that embrace AI will be the first to achieve higher sales and better brand connections — now and in the future. Much of this adoption will be driven by the need to resonate with savvy consumers who want to buy from brands that share their values and offer experiences that blend seamlessly into their online and IRL (“in real life”) lifestyles.

The strategic use of AI — infused with operational, customer, and third-party data — can help retailers deliver experiences that genuinely emanate from and fit snugly into their customers’ everyday lifestyles.  

At SAP, we use business AI to help companies optimize business processes, drive profitability, and boost customer loyalty. How can AI help retailers accomplish all that? Here are a few challenges we’ll helping retailers solve at NRF 2024.  

Driving Profitability with AI-Powered Operations 

It goes without saying: If the customer can’t find the right product, there is no sale. Poor product discovery can result from the complexity of managing product catalogs, which leads to inaccuracies, poor recommendations, and reduced conversion rates. Inconsistent product tagging and inaccurate descriptions, which are often handled manually by key account or merchandising managers, can ensure products are hidden beyond customers’ reach.  

AI can alleviate these headaches and streamline product catalog management, improving product data accuracy and delivering a more personalized shopping experience to boot. The SAP CX AI Toolkit is a single generative AI layer powered by data from across SAP products. Built on proprietary AI models and fine-tuned large language models (LLMs), it surfaces in e-commerce features in SAP Commerce Cloud. The toolkit renders catalog management challenges painless with: 

  • AI Product Tagging: The SAP CX AI Toolkit analyzes catalog images and text to tag products within a catalog automatically. The tagging system ensures that each product is appropriately categorized and labeled, reducing errors and inconsistencies. 
  • AI Product Descriptions: The toolkit leverages AI to generate personalized and compelling product descriptions. By analyzing product attributes, it can automatically create product descriptions that resonate with customers and provide the details for more informed purchasing decisions, enhancing customer experience and increasing sales. 
  • Bulk Editing: Bulk editing of product tags and descriptions allows the quick and efficient update of large catalogs, ensuring that customers are presented with relevant and complementary products. Automating these time-consuming tasks frees catalog managers for higher-value work. 
Optimizing Operations with AI-Informed Logistics 

Getting products to customers necessitates having the right products in the right amounts at the right time. Issues like cost-to-ship, delivery timelines, pick-and-pack expenses, and capacity management can turn into perennial roadblocks that lower efficiency for inventory and sourcing management. Big challenges include consistently managing stock levels for cost efficiency, simulating sourcing strategies for sustainability and margin improvement, and delivering the best solutions to enhance customer satisfaction.

One example of this difficult balancing act is the need for retailers to optimize the return process while proactively managing orders.  

See how you can benefit from SAP Business AI built into your core business processes Explore AI from SAP

AI can play an invaluable role in efficiently managing inventory and sourcing by tailoring sourcing strategies. In SAP Order Management Services, AI is integrated to do just that, using key performance indicators (KPIs) such as cost-to-ship, delivery timelines, and pick-and-pack expenses. With target value, significance weight, and optional constraint for each KPI, retailers can uncover the most effective sourcing strategy and simulate single orders based on these strategies.  

Beyond inventory and sourcing, AI can improve predictive order management and streamline the return process, enhancing overall efficiency and customer satisfaction. 

Meanwhile, the proliferation of channels makes mastering omnichannel advertising and sales a daunting challenge, but if retailers are not advertising where customers are, there’s no chance of making a brand connection. Fortunately, retailers can increase their omnichannel excellence with targeted ad solutions such as TikTok and LinkedIn integrations for digital ads from SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement.

However strong your omnichannel game is, the opportunity to strengthen brand loyalty and drive repeat purchases drops severely when distribution problems prevent timely delivery. If, for example, a customer cannot get those specific shoes from their “For You Page” (FYP) in time for a big event, there will be no sale.  

For distribution centers, balancing conflict goals such as reducing logistic costs and managing supply chain constraints and supplier restrictions can make achieving efficient fulfillment with optimal order quantities and minimal manual intervention feel out of reach. Enter the power of AI to solve complex constraints at multiple levels and ensure retailers can get products to customers with sustainable business practices and high profit margins. 

AI-infused SAP Predictive Replenishment enhances distribution center ordering by automating and optimizing order quantities. This includes analyzing demands from all channels, supply chain constraints, and business goals to determine the most cost-effective order quantities. The solution consumes machine learning-based demand forecasts of related SAP solutions. These AI capabilities help manage demand volatility and are integrated with existing SAP solutions for improved fulfillment efficiency. SAP Predictive Replenishment integrates with industry cloud solutions such as SAP Order and Delivery Scheduling, the future SAP Predictive Demand Planning, and SAP S/4HANA.

Boosting Loyalty with Sustainable, AI-Infused Recommerce  

Increasingly, consumers are seeking to minimize their environmental impact and connect with conscientious brands. The need to build this brand awareness and consumer goodwill has many retailers looking to recommerce as a new business model that drives revenue and customer loyalty.

With recommerce, consumers can quickly and easily connect the dots between buying secondhand products from brands and saving money, reducing waste, and improving their overall carbon footprint. Trade-in programs that allow consumers to return their used goods in exchange for incentives also enable retailers to create closer, long-term customer relationships.  

Such a unique opportunity, of course, comes with challenges. How do you ensure used products are inspected, matched to catalog items, cleaned, repaired, and priced based on their condition? What about the potential necessity of manual data entry to capture the details of unique items, which can introduce errors? Crucially, how can you increase sales and reduce overhead costs while running a recommerce business?  

In some ways, these are challenges reminiscent of a typical supply chain process and its challenges that business AI from SAP is uniquely qualified to solve thanks to SAP Recommerce. For this reason, SAP Recommerce will be embedding AI across the solution, enabling retailers to run an intelligent and sustainable business that increases profitability, enhances brand value, attracts new customers, and promotes more sustainable consumption.  

At NRF 2024, SAP will show how AI is becoming the competitive edge retailers need to grow intelligently. AI-driven insights for more efficient omnichannel fulfillment decisions, optimized assortments, personalized recommendations, and resilient and sustainable supply chains will empower organizations that adopt AI to make the right decisions and seamlessly scale.

I’m proud to say that SAP has been offering AI-infused capabilities for years, with more industry-leading innovation on the way. 

I invite you to find us at NRF 2024, where we’ll be sharing how embracing relevant, reliable, and responsible AI helps businesses look toward the future with confidence. 

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer of Industries and Customer Experience at SAP.

Meet the SAP team at Retail’s BIG Show, booth #4323, level 3 Learn more

This piece was originally published on CIO.com

Categories: What's New

Leading the Way in the Nordics with SAP R/3

SAP News - Fri, 01/05/2024 - 07:15

Helle Dochedahl, managing director of the SAP Nordic & Baltic region, and former SAP Co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe look back on over 35 years of SAP in the Nordic countries — and reveal the story of how one of the first SAP R/3 customers there went live.

Learn the history of SAP, 50+ years of success building on a track record of innovation Explore here

Helle Dochedahl and Jim Hagemann Snabe met in the mid-1980s while they were both studying in Aarhus, Denmark. They didn’t know it back then, but that wouldn’t be the last time that their paths crossed. In 1993, they met again.

At the time, Snabe was consulting manager at SAP in Denmark, having joined the company three years before as a trainee straight out of university. “Back then, SAP was on a big push to expand its business internationally and was hiring young people from around the world. It spent a year training them in Walldorf and then sent them back to their home countries,” says Snabe.

With a year in Walldorf under his belt, he returned to SAP Denmark in April 1991, joining its 25 other employees, half of whom were consultants. A few months later, he was asked if he wanted to take over as consulting manager. “I was 24, and the youngest guy there, but after my year in Germany, I had a strong and solid understanding of the systems. Being entrusted so soon with responsibilities like this helped employees grow and was characteristic of SAP’s culture.”

In 1993, Snabe was looking to expand his team of consultants. Dochedahl, meanwhile, was working at a small Danish ERP company. She recalls: “I had just had my first son and was on parental leave when I saw the job posting in the newspaper. I had already heard quite a lot about SAP from Snabe and some other friends from university, so it got me thinking.”

At the time, Dochedahl was living in Aarhus with her husband, who also works in the IT industry. But in 1988, SAP had chosen Denmark’s capital city as the base for its Danish business.

“If you wanted to make it in IT, you had to go to Copenhagen,” says Dochedahl. She first called her mother, who agreed to help out with childcare. Then she called Snabe, who hired her on the spot. But there was one condition that he had to agree to: “I couldn’t and wouldn’t leave my son to spend several months training in Walldorf. So I taught myself most of the things that I needed to know, and every so often, I would head to Walldorf for a week.”

When she joined the company in 1993, Dochedahl did not have much to do with the SAP R/2 mainframe program. SAP R/3, the company’s new client-server software, had launched the year before. And it was with SAP R/3 that the small Danish subsidiary would make history.

Early Days in the Nordics

Let’s rewind for a moment. From 1987 onwards, SAP was making a name for itself in the Nordics through its marketing and sales initiatives and customer workshops. Joergen Oestergaard, who was managing director of SAP’s Nordic business from its very beginnings in early 1987, created the first business plan for the markets there.

Since the first SAP R/2 systems were quick to sell and implement, and interest among other companies was growing steadily, SAP management and SAP International decided to set up the first subsidiaries in Nordic countries.

In Sweden, SAP Svenska AB opened its doors in February 1988. The Danish office, SAP Danmark A/S, followed a month later. Into the 1990s, it also served customers in Norway, with the Swedish office supporting those in Finland until the end of that decade. From 1984, SAP International, located in Biel, Switzerland, ran SAP’s international business and spearheaded the company’s global expansion.

The person in charge was managing director Hans Schlegel. Schlegel was there when, in April 1988, everyone from SAP Denmark and SAP Sweden met at a hotel in a ski resort north of Oslo for a five-day Nordic kickoff meeting. They were joined by employees of A/S EDB (Electronic Data Processing), a Norwegian IT company that had by then been operating in the market for 25 years and would partner SAP to help sell the SAP R/2 system and translate it into Norwegian. At the Hotel Storefjell meeting, they worked out how best to coordinate activities, shared their experiences, and learned from each other.

Following that meeting, both subsidiaries went on to flourish. In 1992, for example, SAP Sweden was already generating around $3.6 million (around 30 million Swedish krona) in revenue. And its list of customers included the Swedish national rail operator SJ (Statens Järnvägar), Ericsson Business Communications, and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) as well as some subsidiaries of German companies.

Reinvention at the Right Time

Jim Hagemann Snabe first encountered SAP R/3 in 1991, and he and the team at SAP Denmark then “began to sell the vision of SAP R/3 to Nordic customers” — even though the product wouldn’t officially launch until July 1992.

One of the customers that had already implemented SAP R/2 was Finnish chemical company Kemira, which was headquartered in Copenhagen at that time.

As SAP Co-Founder Hasso Plattner recalls in his book Anticipating Change, implementing SAP R/2 at Kemira, a “UNIX company,” had been “painful.” So, he promised them that, “as soon as we have a UNIX system, we’ll replace your system.”

In the summer of 1992, that day arrived: Snabe and his team won a new SAP R/3 customer for SAP, and, according to Helle Dochedahl, Kemira became “the first customer outside Austria, Germany, and Switzerland to go live with SAP R/3.” Though Dochedahl wasn’t working for SAP at that time, she recalls that, when she later visited Kemira: “They told me the story themselves and how proud they were of being first movers and daring to go for it.”

While visiting Kemira, Dochedahl made a discovery of her own: “I spotted some land for sale opposite the Kemira office. We bought a plot and built a house on it, and I’ve lived there ever since. That was 28 years ago now.”

Jim Hagemann Snabe sees the successful implementation of SAP R/3 at Kemira and at other customers in the Nordic countries and around the world from a different angle. “At that time, SAP was doing very well with SAP R/2. But rather than simply reap the rewards, it decided to invest heavily in the next generation of solutions. I believe that is partly why SAP is still one of only a small number of European IT companies that are successful. SAP has always been able to reinvent itself from a position of strength, instead of waiting – like many of its competitors – until it’s almost too late.”

Who’s Who

Helle Dochedahl celebrated 30 years at SAP in April 2023. “I was ‘born’ with SAP R/3,” she says, and reflects on the many other milestones in her own SAP story. She has fond memories of the many companies – including Arla, Carlsberg, and Velux – that she worked with and learned from during her early years in presales. “I have been very fortunate to work in many different areas, such as presales, education, and now sales. And I’ve served as COO. The various positions I’ve held have allowed me to adapt my career depending on where I was in my life and what my personal wishes were. What I love about SAP is that you can always raise your hand and there are development opportunities for all life stages.”

When asked why she has stayed with SAP for so long, she says: “You stay with a company that makes you feel good! It is the combination of great colleagues, the important job we do for our customers, and the opportunity to always try new things that creates the magic.”

Jim Hagemann Snabe started at SAP as a trainee in 1990 and worked as a consulting manager before moving to IBM in October 1994. In January 1997, he returned to SAP to become the country manager for its market unit in Sweden. Having held a number of leadership positions in sales, services, and development, in July 2008 he was appointed to the SAP Executive Board as the member in charge of innovation and product development. In February 2010, he was appointed co-CEO alongside Bill McDermott. After he retired from the SAP Executive Board in 2014, Snabe served as a member of the SAP Supervisory Board until July 2017.

Today, Snabe holds a number of positions, including chairperson of the supervisory boards at Siemens and Northvolt.

Kemira is a global leader in sustainable chemical products for water-intensive industries. It primarily serves customers in the pulp and paper, water treatment, and the energy industries. Recently, Kemira has not only transformed its existing SAP ERP, it has also rebuilt its entire global process and system landscapes on SAP intelligent enterprise architecture. The transformation program saw five dovetailed initiatives implemented simultaneously during a 15-month period: an SAP S/4HANA transformation, a redesign of financial accounting processes, adoption of SAP Datasphere as the enterprise data warehouse, a digital data excellence initiative, and a full migration of 360 on-premise interfaces to SAP Integration Suite.

Kemira has 5,000 employees and, in 2022, generated around €3.6 billion in revenue. It sells its solutions in more than 100 countries.

Categories: What's New

Bosch Rexroth AG’s Journey Toward Field Service Success

SAP News - Thu, 01/04/2024 - 08:15

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, service is emerging as the catalyst for transformative change, enabling manufacturers to drive significant profits and gain a competitive edge. This leads companies to be more focused on providing ongoing services and solutions to meet the ever-changing needs of their customer base.

Bosch Rexroth AG, one of the world’s leading providers of tailor-made system solutions in drive and control technology, aimed to improve its customer experience by providing technicians with the right qualifications and quality service while increasing overall productivity.

The business transformation success of Bosch Rexroth is demonstrated through how its premium-quality field service support has been a key driver of success.

Taking Customer Experience to the Next Level Digitalize field service and optimize operations with SAP Learn more

Bosch Rexroth aims for real-time scheduling and seamless communication, which allows service technicians to respond to customer requests and resolve issues faster. Scheduling technicians based on their skills, availability, and location — ensuring the right technician with the right expertise and tools — helped the company not only increase productivity, but also take the overall customer experience to the next level.

“We need to make sure that the right quality and the right people with the right qualifications are on the road,” said Carsten Breitenbach, project manager at Bosch Rexroth, in the webinar Taking Field Service Teams Digital, the Journey of Bosch Rexroth. “The wrong planning not only costs us money as a company, but also causes customers to lose trust.”

He added,“It significantly improves our response times and enables better route planning and resource allocation resulting in lower operating and maintenance costs and he continues.”

Facilitating real-time communication between customers, technicians, and support teams enables technicians to collaborate with support teams and access experts remotely to resolve complex customer issues. By having access to the customer database and service history on their mobile devices, technicians can diagnose and resolve issues quickly.“Technicians can see where they need to go, where is the site address, and who is the contact person directly on their mobile devices,” Breitenbach explained.

Digitization also helped customers to easily schedule appointments. Now they can track job progress and provide feedback through self-service portals and mobile apps.

Highlighting that customers have been given positive feedback about the digitalization of the overall service, Breitenbach concluded: “With FSM [field service management], the technicians can focus on the job and spend more time with the customer instead of paper-processed administrative tasks. We also hear feedback from customers that they love to see us becoming digitalized.”

Maximizing Workforce Productivity

Amid this exciting paradigm shift in the field service sector, many companies continue to rely on outdated, inefficient systems.

“When the complexity is bigger, this is nothing you can handle with Excel or Outlook,” Breitenbach shared. “This is why we decided to implement the FSM application.”

Highlighting how time-consuming was the former process within the company, he further explained: “Our technicians had to enter the hours manually into the timesheet. Now, the data is available immediately and you can directly start the invoice process. We could reduce the reporting time from weeks to days. With FSM, we achieved not only a faster process but also reduced the effort of manual input”

By simplifying the processes and leveraging digital tools, Bosch Rexroth recognized that a user-friendly and intuitive digital system was crucial for its adoption and success.

“If you adopt new digital services, it must be simple,” Breitenbach added. “If it’s too complex, people will simply not use it. It is very important to make the job easier, not hinder them on the job.”

Within Bosch Rexroth, different countries and business units were using their own FSM applications. The company needed to bring them together in just one pilot project and have a common field service management template.

“One of our main goals was to seamlessly integrate automated booking and back-end ERP integration without disrupting existing systems in Europe,” Christopher Thiesen, solution manager for CRM at Bosch Industrial Technology, shared in the webinar.

Without making any changes to the ERP system but utilizing the ongoing systems, Bosch built a flexible system that enables seamless communication within each division, business unit, and country where it is needed.

Meeting Regulations and Legal Requirements with Standardization

Acknowledging the importance of keeping up with the increasing governmental regulations and legal requirements, procedures, and industry standards, Bosch Rexroth integrated field service processes to support compliance with local rules and regulations.

“The last goal was the harmonization and standardization of field service execution,” Breitenbach added. “We try to harmonize as much as possible and use standards wherever possible. This certainly helps us to achieve a common quality standard.”

Bosch Rexroth now has the flexibility offered by FSM, allowing the company to adapt to different regulatory environments.

Growing Revenue Generation

Through a guided approach and data collection, Bosch Rexroth has witnessed remarkable growth in revenue generation. According to Breitenbach, “Boosting the sales lead generation helped us to generate revenue. We did not expect such a high result.”

The implementation of FSM transformed its sales process by directly guiding technicians to ask a set of specific questions. By doing so, Bosch Rexroth ensured the collection of accurate and relevant data, guaranteeing the quality of the information gathered. This valuable data is then seamlessly transferred to the customer relationship management (CRM) tool through an interface. As Breitenbach further explained, “Then the sales guys can take up the lead and follow on that potential.”

By simplifying the processes and leveraging digital tools, Bosch Rexroth has streamlined operations, enhanced customer satisfaction, and empowered its field service technicians with a user-friendly, flexible, and simple solution. Witnessing a remarkable growth in revenue generation, Bosch Rexroth achieved a common quality standard while accommodating country-specific regulations.

By embracing the power of FSM, Bosch Rexroth has established a competitive advantage and continues to thrive in the ever-evolving business landscape.

Discover how leading companies are modernizing service management to deliver exceptional service experiences Read the paper

Oyku Ilgar is a marketing specialist for Digital Supply Chain at SAP.

Categories: What's New

SAP Named a Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Multi-Enterprise Supply Chain Commerce Network Report

SAP News - Wed, 01/03/2024 - 08:15

SAP continues to act on our vision of enabling companies to create transparent, resilient, and sustainable supply chains across a massive amount of trading partners. We’re being recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Multi-Enterprise Supply Chain Commerce Network 2023 Vendor Assessment.

Why SAP Is a Leader

In an increasingly digitalized world, it is imperative that companies stay connected via a business network. I believe SAP was selected as a Leader because SAP Business Network – our entry into the Multi-Enterprise Supply Chain Commerce Network space – can successfully drive buyer-supplier collaboration across procurement, supply chain, logistics, and asset management by providing a digital platform for trading partners to collaborate externally and exchange data just as, if not more, efficiently as their own internal processes.

Source: “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Multi-Enterprise Supply Chain Commerce Network 2023 Vendor Assessment,” by Simon Ellis, December 2023, IDC #US49948423.* Click to enlarge.

The IDC MarketScape report notes these competitive strengths of SAP Business Network:

  • Depth and breadth of product features and functionalities, as well as a future road map covering all major B2B collaboration categories (indirect, direct material, MRO logistics, financial, services, and sustainability) and scenarios in an end user, persona-based manner.
  • Integration and extensibility capabilities include integration between SAP ERP, SAP procurement modules, other applications like ERP, SCAM, and customer applications, and technologies such as machine learning, AI, and blockchain through SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP).
  • Global adoption and breadth of collaboration makes SAP among the industry’s largest, highly adopted B2B collaboration platforms enabling trading partners to collaborate in real time. Ongoing efforts to harmonize commerce, asset intelligence, and logistics continue to enhance the power of the connected economy.

The IDC MarketScape report notes, “Manufacturers and retailers looking for a vendor of both a multi-enterprise network and supply chain procurement application should consider SAP,” citing the “breadth and depth of [its] business network capabilities, strategic road map vision, and unmatched integration with core SAP and non-SAP supply chain and procurement applications,” making SAP a strong choice.

Charting the Evolution of SAP Business Network

I’m so pleased that as a pioneer in business networks, we continue to be recognized for our commitment to executing our vision. As we’ve continued to evolve our road map, I’m reflecting on how far we’ve come and paved the way for the future of intelligent business networks. From the founding of Ariba Supplier Network in 1996 to what we’ve become today, SAP Business Network touches US$4.9 trillion in commerce annually across many business processes and industries and has over 2 million active users on the network.

SAP Business Network powers transparency, resiliency, and sustainability Learn more

Recent years have shown us that intelligent, digital business networks are essential to supporting an agile supply chain. SAP Business Network is a comprehensive platform that helps connect people, processes, and systems across multiple enterprises, ultimately creating transparent, resilient, and sustainable supply chains that can span the globe and be tailored to each line of business, helping to drive partner collaboration beyond a company’s own four walls and spanning the entire value chain.

I’m proud to say that SAP Business Network can provide best-in-class supply chain collaboration, helping companies adhere to legal mandates, scale with confidence, and automate repetitive tasks, leaving more time for strategic decision-making informed by patterns gleaned from vast amounts of data. Our vision – what so many talented people at SAP are working towards every day – is to create the world’s best and largest B2B marketplace to help our customers meet their business goals.

Recent Advancements Continue to Revolutionize B2B Collaboration

If you know SAP, you know about our commitment to continuous innovation. In 2023, we announced many exciting innovations around SAP Business Network, including:

  • Build on artificial intelligence in SAP Business Network. My colleague Muhammad Alam announced our plans to further integrate generative AI in spend management at SAP Spend Connect Live. Customers can look forward to enriched supplier responses to SAP Business Network Discovery postings, helping to facilitate more transparent communication between buyers and suppliers. Generative AI improvements can give suppliers the ability to generate clear, concise catalog descriptions, as well as summarize common errors for users so buyers can find exactly what they’re looking for.
  • Tackle industry-specific challenges with SAP Business Network for Industry. We’ve combined our more than 50 years of industry knowledge with the power of business networks to help customers address industry-specific supply chain challenges. Take a look at how companies across industries use SAP Business Network to help predict and respond to disruptions, comply with industry regulations, and meet sustainability goals.
  • Learn more with trading partner insights. Account managers struggle with obtaining comparative measures to assess the performance of trading partners. New KPIs and benchmarks, presented in a streamlined dashboard, can allow suppliers to evaluate customer transaction performance of orders, invoices, and payments with automatically generated KPIs and SAP Business Network community benchmarks. These insights can support collaborative dialogues with customers to help reduce transaction costs and mitigate business risk. Watch the demo to learn more.
  • Draw insights from data with component planning collaboration. With component planning collaboration, buyers and suppliers can view the forecast planning data for a finished good together with its components. Armed with this visibility, buyers and suppliers can respond to material shortages and adjust production accordingly, making supply more predictable. Learn more in this demo.

Stay tuned for more exciting innovations this year. Stay up-to-date about recent and upcoming innovations and explore road maps here.

Transforming the Future of Business Networks

I am proud that SAP is being recognized as a leader in delivering solutions that connect people, processes, and systems, enabling trading partners to collaborate effectively. I can’t wait to see our road map continue to come to life as we collaborate with our customers to develop innovations that help them achieve their business objectives by automating tasks, scaling efficiently, and operating sustainably.

To learn more, visit the SAP Business Network product page and read the full IDC MarketScape report here.

Tony Harris is senior vice president and chief marketing and solutions officer for SAP Business Network.

*IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures vendor product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term. The Strategy score measures alignment of vendor strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5-year timeframe. Vendor market share is represented by the size of the circles. Vendor year-over-year growth rate relative to the given market is indicated by a plus, neutral or minus next to the vendor name.

Subscribe to the weekly SAP News Center newsletter Subscribe today
Categories: What's New

Corvias Combines SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP BTP to Streamline Efficiency and Maximize Results

SAP News - Tue, 01/02/2024 - 08:15

Corvias is known for its unwavering commitment to addressing critical infrastructure challenges. The company’s work isn’t merely about providing housing or energy – it’s about enhancing quality of life and promoting collaboration within communities.

This vision is underpinned by concrete plans that will help turn it into a reality. That’s why Corvias recently began modernizing its business processes for the future. Together with Avvale, the company embarked on a journey that led to the adoption of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition and SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP).

A Vision for Optimization Photo courtesy of Corvias

Before choosing SAP, Corvias was grappling with a complex organizational structure, one characterized by disconnected systems and processes across accounting and purchasing. The allocation process was cumbersome and required redundant updates in multiple parts of the system, causing administrative headaches.

Executive leadership quickly identified the need to simplify workflows so that they could deliver information to the right stakeholders effectively and quickly and create an integrated system that could move data seamlessly between processes without human intervention.

Choosing SAP for Success

To help overcome its challenges, Corvias selected two primary SAP solutions: SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition and SAP BTP. With them, Corvias hoped to primarily centralize its data, enabling integrated purchasing and accounting capabilities. The implementation also leveraged SAP Fiori to help develop customized applications for allocating segment costs.

Today, Corvias’ processes are simplified and streamlined, thanks to real-time, actionable information accessible by key members of leadership through SAP. This allows them to be more strategic in their decision-making with greater visibility into real costs and profitability at both the individual and project levels, contributing to a more efficient financial management system for the company overall.

Far-Reaching Benefits

The adoption of SAP has empowered the company to concentrate on enhancing its working capital through ongoing improvements. This has fostered a culture of innovation and encouraged a proactive approach to operational challenges and enhancements within the organization.

Get tailored-to-fit cloud ERP that adapts to your organization’s unique transformation Learn more

In accounts payable, for instance, the implementation of automated purchase order management processes has resulted in a notable decrease in touch points. The accounts payable team has seen a reduction from seven to two touch points in 75% of cases. This not only enhances efficiency but reduces the likelihood that errors will occur as often as they would with manual processes. The streamlined purchase-order management system has become a valuable asset in optimizing the company’s financial workflow.

Corvias has also embraced a more unified and secure information management system. By standardizing data security roles throughout the entire organization, SAP provided a reliable and protected method for managing information. This consistency has made it easier for site teams to handle administrative tasks, freeing up their time to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Best of all, these SAP solutions provided a flexible and scalable platform that allows Corvias to seamlessly incorporate acquired or new companies.

Looking Ahead to the Future

Corvias’ journey with SAP and Avvale showcases the transformative power of streamlined systems and integrated solutions. By addressing the challenges of a complex organizational structure and disparate workflows, Corvias not only achieved operational efficiency but also laid the groundwork for future scalability. The collaboration with Avvale unlocked expert guidance and support throughout the process, highlighting the importance of strategic partnerships in navigating the evolving landscape of technology integration.

Today, as Corvias continues to oversee diverse projects in partnership with the military, higher education institutions, and communities, the adoption of SAP stands as a testament to the company’s commitment to innovation and excellence across all its mission-critical endeavors.

Mike Kaszuk is SVP and COO for Midmarket at SAP.

Get the latest SAP news delivered to your inbox once a week Subscribe to our newsletter
Categories: What's New

Driving Economic Growth and Gender Equality Through the Power of Connection

SAP News - Thu, 12/28/2023 - 10:15

“The power of coming together to deliver change.” It’s a driving philosophy of 2023 SAP Innovation Award winner WEConnect International, an organization devoted to helping female entrepreneurs by using technology to help them compete in a global marketplace. It’s a mission I relate to on a number of levels. 

As SAP’s vice president and head of Diversity & Inclusion in North America, I’m proud to oversee numerous talent development and career advancement programs for women and other marginalized, underrepresented groups, programs that will help them excel today and prepare for advancement tomorrow.

Having been an entrepreneur myself, I remember the challenge of not having access to information that would have opened up my business to a range of possibilities. Systemic change drives impact over time and SAP is committed to changes fostering gender parity and equitable opportunities for all. We are very proud of that!

Submit your ideas for the 2024 SAP Innovation Awards Learn more about the awards

From a deeply personal standpoint, I understand that women have to excel at what we do in the world and must contribute back to society, leaving it better for the next generation.

This was the general theme of SAP’s recent Live Chat on the Tomorrow’s Tech Today platform. I was honored to be a guest, along with Elizabeth Vazquez, president, CEO, and co-founder of WEConnect International. We’d met earlier this year at SAP Sapphire, but SAP and WEConnect International have been partners far longer, as our Global Sourcing & Procurement organization leverages the organization for supplier diversity purposes to drive global spend with women-owned businesses. Additionally, most recently it developed a platform assisting women-owned businesses across 135 countries. Together, we discussed how inclusion is more than just the right thing to do, but a business imperative for the sustainability of our society.

The Revolution Will Be Inclusive

SAP’s Live Chat on Tomorrow’s Tech Today platform is a new, limited series hosted by thought leader Sally Eaves, highlighting the latest innovations in emergent technology integration across a range of sectors and themes. In each episode, SAP innovators come together with experts from a variety of backgrounds, sharing stories that can inspire all of us. While each organization may differ, each interviewee shares their version of the same story – overcoming a unique challenge with the type of innovation we all aspire to achieve.

SAP Innovation Awards: Inclusion and Enablement with Experts

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube Always load all embeds--> The Great Equalizer

In the United States alone, 42% of all businesses are owned by women. These employ more than 1 million workers.

Not only are women half of the population, but we make or influence 85% of all consumer purchasing decisions. With that scope and buying power, having a platform to enable success is critical to the economy as well as society. But there are so many challenges. On average, corporations, governments, and other large organizations “spend only 1% with women-owned businesses, and that’s a massive market failure,” Vazquez pointed out.

Legacy platforms helped aggravate the situation. WEConnect International’s member-buyers found it difficult to search for women-owned suppliers, while the businesses struggled to navigate their systems to register and apply for certification. Language barriers created the predictable complications. On a business-to-business (B2B) level, many women-owned businesses were small and midsize and not even on the radar of the larger corporations. The platform would serve as an equalizer for buyers “to go online and search for these competitive solutions that, frankly, our buyers just didn’t even know existed,” Vazquez said.

Like-Minded, Like-Kinded

One advantage WEConnect International enjoyed in launching its platform was the list of influential partners, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), ExxonMobil, Accenture, IBM, and Procter & Gamble (P&G). And not only was SAP playing a key role in building the platform, we are also member-buyers.

In other words, we were “like-minded, like-kinded,” walking the walk, talking the talk, truly committed to leveraging our purchasing power to realize this goal.

The solution, dubbed WECommunity, would stand as a great example of inclusion by design.

Art of the Possible

By connecting member-buyers to a database of more than 16,000 registered or certified businesses, WEConnect International broke through the barriers that previously existed. The streamlined process enabled an additional 7,900 women-owned suppliers to register with the organization. These included businesses from 12 new countries, a 28% increase in global reach. The revenue growth of the suppliers has led to the creation of 24,000 new jobs.

Since deployment, WEConnect International went from tracking US$4 billion in spend with women-owned businesses based outside of the United States to $8 billion.

“Together we’re actually moving money into the hands of women who, in turn, employ more people and support their families and communities,” Vazquez said.

With those types of results, it’s clear to see why WEConnect International embodies the spirit of SAP Innovation Awards. Through its use of SAP’s tools, the group has created not just a platform, but a vision of the art of the possible.

To learn more about SAP Innovation Awards and discover the incredible stories of innovation, visit www.sap.com/innovationawards.

Margot Goodson is vice president & head of North America Diversity Inclusion at SAP.

Connect with SAP News on LinkedIn Follow us
Categories: What's New

Self-Sovereign Identity Gives Users Control Over Their Personal Data

SAP News - Thu, 12/28/2023 - 09:15

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is the first technology to give individuals maximum control over their digital persona – and it’s as simple to use as a social login. Businesses will benefit too.

At the moment, we identify ourselves online in one of two ways.

Typically, we sign into an online service – a Web site or app – using an e-mail address or username and password, and in doing so share some of our personal information. With this method, whenever we switch to another service we have to repeat the log-in process with a different password. This leaves fragments of our data behind on each service we use and forces us to create and remember a different password for each one, which is annoying but essential for security reasons.

The more convenient option for initial log-ins is to use a “social log-in,” such as your Facebook ID, which allows you to use the same username and password to access a variety of different services. With this one “federated identity,” you can complete your initial log-in to a participating app or service by simply selecting “Sign in with….”

Understand how SAP respects and protects individuals’ privacy rights Learn more

The downside of this convenience is that your personal data – and that of millions of other users – is controlled by a single company, creating honeypots of data that hackers have often successfully targeted in the past. There are many examples of sensitive information being stolen, including address data, medical data, credit card details, and more. Aside from not being ideal from a privacy perspective, most people would probably not feel comfortable using a social log-in to access a sensitive service like their bank account.

But there is a third option. Self-sovereign identity (SSI) – also known as decentralized or portable identity – allows users to identify themselves on the Web using credentials stored in a digital wallet on their smartphone. It offers the same convenience as a social log-in, but the user is in full control of the data.

“This technology is not owned by a company,” says Mehran Shakeri, development team lead at SAP Innovation Center Network. “It’s the first completely open standard for digital identity on the Web, and it gives individuals maximum control of their data when deployed with a proper registry.”

User-Friendly ID Technology – For Businesses Too

Companies and organizations can also use SSI technology. After all, they also have an identity – usually in the form of a public entry in a commercial register. For example, when logging into a business network, a supplier must share a range of data, including its tax number, IBAN, and postal address.

Currently, this data cannot be automatically verified. Entities created in internal systems must be verified using a relatively complex and costly third-party service. Records can be inconsistent and difficult to keep up-to-date. Data is often transferred from one system to another without being automatically verified.

This major issue can be solved if a company has a self-sovereign identity. Its digital wallet then serves as a single, vetted source of truth and there is no need for an external third party to verify its credentials.

This opportunity for a “golden record” of master data extends beyond company boundaries. “At SAP Innovation Center locations, we have projects in progress with DATEV, the Dutch government, and a host of other customers to validate use cases with SSI,” says Alexander Schaefer, head of SAP Innovation Center California. “We see tremendous potential in integrating the SSI standard into SAP software.”

This technology would eliminate many of the identification processes currently in use, some of which are highly complex. Anyone who has opened an account with an online bank knows just how many steps it takes to prove your identity. With SSI, all users have to do is scan a QR code with their smartphone to share the relevant, verified credentials stored in their digital wallet. This digital wallet can be on their phone or laptop, for example, as a browser plug-in. The wallet is secured by common authentication mechanisms such as FaceID or TouchID, which have proven to be very secure.

Future-focused solutions can solve today’s challenges and shape the next generation of enterprise software Learn about SAP Innovation Center Network Trusted Authorities Can Issue Credentials

For SSI to work, individuals need a digital wallet containing credentials that have been issued by a trusted third party – such as their driver’s license, MBA certificate, or tax ID. An empty wallet is useless. Trusted authorities that hold this type of data can issue the relevant credentials, which is why it is so essential that these entities adopt SSI.

Among the many companies that can issue these credentials, German IT service provider DATEV was one of the first to embrace the concept. “Together with DATEV, we have demonstrated how self-sovereign identity enables seamless business processes across ecosystems. Transactions from all parties are digitally notarized and tied to their cryptographically verifiable credentials,” says Schaefer. With decentralized identity, master data of organizations becomes trustworthy, which can ensure that companies communicate with verified and trusted partners in the ecosystem.

Before we can all be issued with these credentials, however, SSI technology needs to be widely adopted. Shakeri is confident that mass adoption will come. “There is hardly an industry that would not benefit from SSI,” he says.

SSI as a Driver of Transparency on Sustainable Business

To enable apps to use SSI for business-to-business communication, SAP Innovation Center Network has developed a multi-tenant service built on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) called Decentralized Identity Management. With this service, customers can issue and manage verifiable credentials – and verify the credentials themselves – creating the foundation for a decentralized business network where multiple parties can collaborate and share data.

Shakeri’s team is currently working on a use case for sharing ESG (environmental, social, and governance) certificates. “These certificates certify that a supplier operates sustainably, does not use child labor, does not exploit its suppliers, and so on,” he says.

At present, it can be time-consuming to achieve transparency in the supply chain, particularly in terms of how well individual suppliers focus on sustainability in their businesses. With SSI technology, it will be possible to check whether suppliers operate sustainably by requesting their ESG certificates from their digital wallet before deciding whether to work with them.

SSI could even make it possible to trace the origins of a product’s individual components across supply chain parties that work with different solutions – theoretically all the way back to the raw materials. While there is still work to be done to bring the full vision of SSI to life, customers can already benefit from the technology today in one of the many use cases that are likely to be significantly impacted by this technology. This can include supplier onboarding, master data management, and supply chain collaboration in the areas of sustainability and human rights.

Questions for the Experts

Q: Will SSI be widely adopted?

Shakeri: The outlook is very good at the moment, with many large companies actively investigating SSI and its potential. Government projects are also underway, including eIDAS (electronic IDentification, Authentication, and trust Services) in Europe, which aims to provide European Union citizens with a digital ID based on SSI. One of SAP’s cooperation projects with the Dutch government is exploring the impact of SSI in the public sector. If a European digital ID were to be introduced, it would drive adoption enormously.

Is SSI a blockchain-based technology?

SSI is not inherently tied to blockchain technology. However, blockchain is often associated with SSI because it provides a decentralized and secure way to implement some of the key principles of SSI. Blockchain can be used to create decentralized identity systems where individuals have control over their identity information and can selectively share it with others without the need for a central authority.

In the context of SSI, blockchain can be employed to record and verify identity-related transactions, ensuring transparency, security, and immutability. Some SSI implementations use blockchain or distributed ledger technology to anchor identity-related data, but SSI itself is a broader concept and not all SSI systems rely on blockchain.

Is SSI interoperable by design?

There needs to be a standard format for identity data that all industries and governments can agree on. SSI is still in the prototype phase, so we aren’t there yet. But given that it is in everyone’s interests, it’s realistic to assume that a standard format will be agreed on.

Get the latest SAP news delivered to your inbox once a week Subscribe now
Categories: What's New

Putzmeister Digitalized Global Field Service Management Processes to Increase Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction

SAP News - Wed, 12/27/2023 - 09:15

Innovation is not the first thing that springs to mind when you think of the concrete industry. But innovation and concrete go hand in hand at Putzmeister, a Germany-based global market leader of concrete pumps, machines, and vehicles that the construction industry requires to process and distribute concrete and mortar. For instance, in 2021 Putzmeister introduced the first emission-free, truck-mounted concrete pump, the iONTRON Hybrid, as a worldwide novelty.

Besides innovation, excellent customer service is a top priority for the company that employs more than 3,000 people and maintains a partner network in 90 countries.

Due to constant business growth, existing customer service processes became insufficient and the company knew it needed to introduce a state-of-the-art solution that would support harmonizing field service management processes from a local and regional level to a global rollout.   

“We worked with SAP at various service locations in Germany, but service processes were heterogeneous and involved paperwork and manual feeds into the system. Although we captured a lot of data, the processes didn’t allow us to effectively leverage them and they often got stuck in PDF documents,” Bernhard Urban, head of Customer Service Germany at Putzmeister Concrete Pumps GmbH, said.

As a consequence, Putzmeister set out the following goals:

  • Improve and streamline high-end customer service globally.
  • Replace manual processes with modern, optimized, digitalized processes for field service management.
  • Digitalize deployment planning of service technicians.
Introducing a Global Standard for Services Processes

To stay ahead of competition, Putzmeister decided to introduce a global standard for its service processes and select an innovative and digital solution to support planners, dispatchers, and service technicians with the following main objectives:

  • More efficient resource scheduling
  • Optimization of field technician assignments 
  • Harmonization, simplification, and digitalization of field service processes, including processing complex service reports with master data from SAP ERP
  • Employee leveraging of inspection protocols
  • Integration with mobile devices allowing field technicians to report time, material consumption, and expenses
  • Sped up and digitalized shop-floor processes

The company found that SAP Field Service Management best suited its needs. The cloud-based solution helps digitalize field service and optimize operations while working to reduce environmental impact through efficient service delivery.

For the implementation of SAP Field Service Management, Putzmeister turned to Sybit, an NTT Data company. “The Sybit team has comprehensive experience in the area and provided valuable recommendations and guidance, especially in early project stages,” Urban said. That enabled Putzmeister to go live with a pilot in less than eight months and involved business process re-engineering and optimization. The cooperation with Sybit was very fruitful thanks to an agile project management approach, intelligent key user training, and field tests.

Increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve satisfaction with SAP Field Service Management Learn more Establishing a New End-to-End Service Process

Service requests from customers are now entered into SAP ERP by the back-office team and automatically transferred into SAP Field Service Management for resource scheduling. Service technicians then receive a notification on their mobile device to confirm the order. At the same time, they get insight into inventory and can request the spare parts and materials they need.

When it comes to order execution, technicians can have all the information at their fingertips, including various inspection checklists related to service categories and images. They can do material availability checks from inventory, confirm used and no longer used components, and request additional supplies. The service report is then created on their mobile device and submitted to the customer for confirmation. Moreover, the solution allows service technicians to include additional details to create the invoice, such as actual time recording, unplanned activities, automatically calculated daily allowances, and other costs related to the on-site service.

The benefits Putzmeister achieved are:

  • One harmonized, digitalized, and integrated service process for service locations in Germany and the global industrial technology team
  • Optimized customer service thanks to instantly available information, such as machine data, operating hours, error quotes, and faster invoicing after order fulfillment
  • A single source of truth for all information that helps increase service quality
  • Transparent, digitally available, real-time service reports
  • Increased productivity and time savings for planners, dispatchers, and technicians
  • High user acceptance from service staff due to a modern user interface (UI), mobile access, and better insights to execute work orders
Preparing for an International Rollout

After the successful pilot implementation in Germany and first international rollout in Spain, Putzmeister wants to take the next step and roll out SAP Field Service Management to its global operations.   

“The digitalization of field service management brings countless benefits, both for our customers and our employees, and helps us gain more efficiency,” Urban concluded.

Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at SAP.

Connect with SAP News on LinkedIn Follow us
Categories: What's New
Syndicate content