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Recently, SAP partnered with the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team to upshift its IT infrastructure and become future-proof. Together with SAP, the team will tap into cloud solutions, infrastructure, and services that will enable them to thrive on and off the track.

Formula One is a technologically innovative form of motorsport, where each car features over 300 sensors onboard that generates 1.5 terabytes of data in a single race weekend – data that needs to be analyzed to detect potential performance enhancements and reliability and safety concerns.

But until the late 1960s, Formula One cars were designed on traditional drawing boards by engineers using retractable pencils and a set of French curves. This is not dissimilar to the tech industry, where for decades the value cases for investing in technology were architected for customers by busloads of engineers armed with Excel spreadsheets.

Cloud computing changed not only what technology to buy, but also how businesses engage with their vendors when making investment decisions. Enabled by new technologies like mobility and artificial intelligence (AI), customers now expect immediate responses, exponentially faster time-to-value, immersive experiences, and flexible and intuitive engagements powered by robust low-touch and self-service capabilities. Not surprisingly, industry research shows that four out of five B2B customers will want to be engaged digitally by 2025.

SAP executes digital customer engagement via digital hubs located on six continents. The hubs are home to highly collaborative teams of diverse, digitally skilled talent that can deliver comprehensive, virtual customer engagement services. Like an F1 team, digital hubs use cutting-edge technologies to help drive accelerated business outcomes for customers with great customer experience, incredible innovation speed, and optimal levels of productivity achieved through data-driven, surgically precise execution.

Speed of Execution: Embracing Flexibility and Adaptability

Formula One teams operate in a relentless pursuit of speed, continuously refining their strategies to gain a competitive edge. Similarly, the ability to deploy teams to serve SAP customers virtually with the latest digital innovations allows us to reach more businesses faster at precisely the time they need us, no matter where in the world they might be and which stage of their digital transformation journey they are at.

Step into the future with SAP digital hubs, where innovation meets opportunity Learn more

Digital customer engagement can allow us to close the feedback loop across thousands of customers around the globe at velocity, helping to shorten their time to value from years to months and from months to weeks. In 2023, SAP digital hubs supported more than 22,000 digital customer engagements across the globe, setting these customers up for successful digital transformation journeys at unprecedented speed.

Speed matters and the race is on. The ability to recognize what a customer needs to grow and to work with partners that can quickly address these needs has foundationally elevated the need for digital customer engagements.

Precision in Execution: Leveraging Data and Technology for Optimal Performance

In Formula One, every aspect – from car design to the race strategy – hinges on harnessing and analyzing terabytes of data, often in real time. Similarly, in an increasingly competitive business environment, embracing precision through technological innovation allows organizations to balance accelerating their digital transformation decisions and optimizing profitability. The balance can be struck only through an almost unreasonable obsession with measuring and executing on fact-based insights.

At SAP digital hubs, we can track key value metrics across the entire customer journey, be it for demand campaigns, customer value propositions, personalized digital asset performance, the adoption of new productivity-driving tools, and so on. We do this not only to understand what’s most relevant to our customers but also to track the effectiveness of what we do and how we do it in the context of what our customers need.

Customer Experience: Focusing on Value, Personalization, and Great Experiences

In Formula One, success is not solely measured by speed. The sport thrives on delivering a captivating experience tailored to engage multifaceted fans from a multitude of angles, making sure everyone gets value from the event. The same is true in the digital business world.

SAP’s digital hubs virtualize and leverage SAP’s rich heritage of industry best practices and benchmarks to help personalize the customer journey, bringing customer stakeholders in alignment with one another and delivering on SAP’s value promises across geographies, cultures, and industries through immersive and memorable experiences. SAP digital hubs can accomplish this across the entire customer journey with SAP – from the time we create awareness, to customer onboarding, to supporting customers with valuable solution and industry expertise, until we help customers realize the full value of the SAP solutions they adopt.

AI-Powered, Human-Led Approach: Focusing on Digitally Native and Digitally Skilled Talent

In Formula One, decisions pivot on data. But it’s the team that uses their experiences to apply that data and simulate different scenarios to discover new ways to drive superior outcomes. Similarly, while data and AI technologies fuel decisions and actions in SAP digital hubs, it’s human ingenuity that leverages the tech and data and elevates customer outcomes.

Just like the F1 teams, our hubs attract and employ only the best of the best, offering a high-energy working environment that thrives on intricate collaboration. The individuals who join us can gain immediate cross-role and cross-geography exposure, enabling them to become productive members of the team in record time. Continuous learning and pointed diversity, with gender parity in half of our digital hubs today, form the backbone of our digital culture, where everyone is treated with respect, skills are constantly honed, and different roles are seamlessly orchestrated to present a unified customer experience.

The rules change, and we have to as well. Every pit stop and each customer touchpoint is a chance to pivot in real time, refine, and go faster, helping SAP customers and shareholders gain more value at exponential velocity and great volumes. This is the “3V” promise of SAP digital hubs and this is how we win the race!

Sam Masri is global head of Digital Hub, Customer Success at SAP SE.

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With the gathering pace of headlines touting artificial intelligence in the business press, one could be forgiven for assuming that all facets of the enterprise stand to benefit equally from its application – everything from the electric stapler to the espresso machine to the ergonomic furniture.

But in reality, some functions are much better suited than others to gain from AI. The deeper the reservoir of data associated with an operational process – and the broader the sharing of that data not only within an organization but among its trading partners as well – the greater the potential for AI to bolster collaborative capabilities, instill operational resilience, and unlock exponential value.

By facilitating the convergence of trading partners’ operational data, cloud-based networks strengthen transparency and foster collaboration across interconnected processes such as procurement, supply chain, logistics, and asset management. The vast troves of data accumulated from these functions – and the insights they reveal – bear significant implications for forecasting demand, planning inventory, sourcing components, procuring labor, maximizing utilization, managing logistics, gauging sustainability, achieving compliance, and securing financing. Yet the sheer volume of such data, sometimes spanning billions or more transactions, can defy human interpretation in the quest to optimize decision-making.

That’s where artificial intelligence comes in.

As the world’s largest B2B collaboration platform, SAP Business Network facilitates hundreds of millions of transactions per year, capturing a unified, end-to-end view of spend. So prodigious is the cloud-based network’s volume – exceeding US$5.3 trillion in commerce annually, greater than the gross domestic product of every nation except the United States and China – that, through innovations in predictive and generative AI technologies, SAP Business Network is transforming procurement, supply chain, logistics, asset management, and related operational processes, with the goal that every business runs as an intelligent, sustainable enterprise.

Connect people, processes, and systems across multiple enterprises to digitalize transactions Check out SAP Business Network

The cloud is uniquely fit for the task of delivering simplicity within a many-to-many network of trading partners. A network’s features, from its search functionality to the matching of buyers with suggested suppliers, must aid the dual goals of transparency and ease of use. Predictive and generative AI capabilities augment businesses’ ability to discover trading partners on the basis of complementary resources, mutual value, and strategic alignment. With every successive use, generative AI sharpens its ability to anticipate operations professionals’ requirements to match supply with demand. Meanwhile, AI helps businesses to automate their most time-consuming procurement and supply chain activities through predictive mechanisms as well, hastening the ability to arrive at better, more informed decisions. When applied to the broadest possible sets of operational data, AI removes the guesswork from business-to-business commerce and replaces it with new leads, renewed confidence, and resilient supply chains.

With these objectives in mind, SAP Business Network is transforming its powerful discovery functionality into a simple chat prompt this year. Also in 2024, generative AI will enable SAP Business Network to create catalog content based on existing data in the network, detect potential errors within invoices, and obtain quote requests from buyers via natural-language, on-screen dialogue with matched suppliers. Integrating AI capabilities into SAP Business Network thus promises to reshape the trading partner experience by enabling buyers to reach far more suppliers with precision for the specific goods and services they produce. Trading partners large and small benefit equally from the increased flow of accurate, detailed, and complete information identifying each other’s offerings and competitive advantages.

As AI technologies take shape and mature, infusing intelligence natively into business processes, digital commerce platforms are certain to introduce many enhanced capabilities. Naturally, with its scale and history of innovation, you can expect SAP Business Network to lead the way. But you’ll know the moment that artificial intelligence has truly transformed enterprise software when its features subtly blend in, almost imperceptibly, to simplify everyday operational processes, making business applications more intuitive and predictive for trading partners. That is our vision for AI at SAP Business Network, where the intelligence may be increasingly artificial but the commitment to customer success is invariably genuine.

For further information on SAP Business Network and how we are equipping enterprises with AI and other digital tools needed to counter disruption, visit sap.com/businessnetwork and sap.com/ai.

Jörn Keller is executive vice president and chief product officer of SAP Business Network.

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WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) announced that Churchill Downs Incorporated (NSQ: CHDN, “CDI”) has selected the GROW with SAP solution to support the company’s financial technology transformation as CDI continues to grow within the racing, online wagering and gaming entertainment industries.

CDI has chosen cloud solutions from SAP to serve as its technology foundation for the financial systems across its portfolio of 27 properties in 14 states, including Churchill Downs Racetrack (“Churchill Downs”), the home of the Kentucky Derby. CDI’s significant technology transformation builds on the company’s partnership with SAP as a signature partner and the first official technology partner serving Churchill Downs, the Kentucky Derby and the Kentucky Oaks.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition: Ready-to-run cloud ERP Learn more

By adopting SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, CDI can benefit from the ready-to-run cloud ERP that delivers the latest industry best practices and continuous innovation. Additionally, choosing SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP SuccessFactors solutions allows CDI to leverage the cloud to streamline its data sources while using business data to make informed strategic decisions underpinning business transformation. From creating engaging employee experiences with SAP SuccessFactors solutions to running business analytics to understand and predict data, CDI plans to be able to integrate business data from various acquisitions, allowing it to have one, unified view of its business operations.

“Cloud solutions from SAP will enable us to streamline our financial processes and support the significant long-term growth of our company,” said Marcia Dall, CDI Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. “We are excited to work with SAP to innovate and evolve our financial technology platform with cloud solutions from SAP.”

“Churchill Downs Incorporated has a long history of entertaining and delighting people,” SAP North America President Lloyd Adams said. “By choosing SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and several other cloud-based solutions, CDI now can integrate data across its portfolio and make data-driven decisions that help the company reach its goals. This is an incredible example of how companies invest in SAP solutions to help them grow.”

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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 2023 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.

BYK is a leading global supplier of specialty chemicals. The company’s innovative additives and differentiated solutions optimize product and material properties as well as production and application processes. Amongst other products, BYK’s high-performance additives improve scratch resistance and surface gloss, the mechanical strength or flow behavior of materials, and properties such as UV and light stability or flame retardancy. BYK also produces measuring and testing instruments that serve to effectively assess appearance and physical properties.

To better react to market changes and expand its competitive edge, BYK saw the need to select and implement a new supply chain demand planning system.

Integrated Approach to Address Demand Planning Processes Holistically

The company was challenged with inefficient, diversified, and isolated supply chain demand planning processes on disparate legacy planning systems that impeded forecast accuracy. Therefore, the goal was to enhance data and process transparency and establish one source of truth for sales, operations, and demand-planning processes.

Create accurate demand plans with the support of SAP Find out how

BYK found that the SAP Integrated Business Planning application for demand, a cloud-based application with comprehensive capabilities, could best meet its goals to harmonize demand planning processes across the organization and improve forecast accuracy. In addition, the company decided to use the SAP Supply Chain Control Tower solution, enabling the company to get real-time visibility and control over its supply chain.

For the implementation and deep solution know-how, BYK sought help from SAP Services and Support and the SAP Preferred Success service, which included architecture planning, implementation guidance, and process reengineering expertise. Moreover, SAP helped deploy SAP Integrated Business Planning for demand and SAP Supply Chain Control Tower in a technically standardized and lean way.

Enabling All Functions with a Single Source of Truth to Improve Decision-Making

Major benefits BYK achieved include:

• Improved collaboration by implementing a harmonized and automated demand planning process
• Simplified and integrated planning practices for sales, demand planning, supply chain management, controlling, and strategic supply planning teams with more than 200 users
• One platform as a single source of truth for improved data quality and process transparency across sales, operations, and demand-planning processes
• Increased forecast accuracy with real-time data reflecting changes to planned demand

• Quantity- and value-based planning for all planning teams to make decisions based on financial impact

“With SAP Services and Support, we successfully implemented SAP Integrated Business Planning for demand and SAP Supply Chain Control Tower, enabling precise and accurate demand planning,” said Matthias Beenen, Supply Chain Process Management, BYK. “This is critical to supply chain efficiency and for delivering high quality service to our customers.”

“In the future, we will continuously work on optimizing the implemented processes and extend SAP Integrated Business Planning for demand by adding subsequent supply chain planning processes,” he concluded.

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

Top image courtesy of BYK.

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Do you ever feel like the list of procurement challenges we wake up to grows a little bit longer every day? Just as we come to terms with one, another pops up. Whether it is the economy, global turmoil, the latest tech disruption, or any number of other things, we are always being tested.

On top of that, we still need to foster relationships with suppliers, manage costs, address sustainability mandates, and build resilient supply chains — all while transforming procurement into a more strategic business function. Not surprisingly, procurement leaders are looking to the next wave of technology to help them position their organizations to adapt quickly to changing conditions.

RISE with SAP: Better adapt to changing market dynamics and innovate more quickly Learn how

For many, moving key business processes to the cloud represents that “next wave” and for that, RISE with SAP is the perfect option.

The RISE with SAP solution is a managed cloud offering that enables a smooth, secure migration of on-premises ERP, including SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA, to the cloud. Its holistic approach to business transformation empowers organizations to better adapt to changing market dynamics and innovate more quickly.

Businesses can leverage RISE with SAP to modernize their IT infrastructure, optimize and automate key processes, and unlock new levels of efficiency. They can also harness the power of data and analytics to make informed decisions, enabling them to achieve their business goals more effectively and efficiently.

The Challenge for Procurement: Extending Digital Transformation to Suppliers

For many years, “digital transformation” has been the hot trend for business functions, including procurement. Organizations are moving their internal business operations from manual processes and disparate software applications to integrated ERP systems. These systems are starting to leverage generative AI to improve the user experience, digitalize manual processes, and accelerate strategic decision making.

This is a win for the business with one caveat: “traditional” digital transformation does not go beyond the four walls of the organization. This creates a challenge for procurement because suppliers operate outside those four walls, where communication can be anything but digitalized. In fact, a 2023 IDC InfoBrief sponsored by SAP* revealed that 68% of respondents use email to transmit and receive data and documents for procurement and supply chain collaboration. Other methods include telephone (44%), supplier/customer portals (38%), and EDI (26%).

Given the technology available today, this is not only unproductive, but it also is completely unnecessary. With RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP offers a premium plus edition that includes SAP Business Network for Procurement. This enables businesses to extend the digital transformation of business processes outside their walls.

Better Collaboration, Faster Invoice Processing, and an Improved User Experience

SAP Business Network for Procurement is a cloud-based collaboration offering that gives buyers and suppliers a way to find each other and do business within a single, networked platform. The network makes it possible for organizations to:

• Exchange data and documents digitally with suppliers, eliminating the need for phone calls, faxes, emails, or snail mail
• Achieve enhanced spend visibility and compliance
• Access a marketplace of suppliers to ensure business resilience, diverse spending, and alignment with sustainability objectives

Additionally, improved transactional operations and invoice status visibility enable better working capital management for stronger trading partner relationships. Finance colleagues can enjoy a faster month-end close due to improved accounts payable efficiencies and increased procurement and payment compliance.

SAP Business Network for Procurement Extends SAP S/4HANA Cloud

When RISE with SAP is combined with SAP Business Network for Procurement, procurement teams can collaborate digitally with suppliers across procurement and invoicing processes. This dramatically improves transactional efficiency.

SAP Business Network for Procurement

A natural extension of ERP, SAP Business Network provides an environment in which procurement processes initiated from SAP S/4HANA Cloud can be transmitted digitally to suppliers. As a result, suppliers can view and generate transactions like orders, order confirmations, ship notices, and invoices, and then act quickly to accelerate the procure-to-pay process.

SAP Business Network for Procurement improves process efficiency in many areas, including:

• Purchase order processing: Digital purchase orders that are created in ERP are sent automatically to suppliers. Once confirmed by the supplier, buyers have visibility into order acceptance and delivery dates.
• Invoice payment status: Invoice and payment status information is available on the SAP Business Network dashboard to update suppliers, eliminating the need for phone calls.
• Invoicing business rules: Buyers have the flexibility to configure applicable business rules that require adherence to business process and regulatory compliance.
• Change order update: Buyers and suppliers can communicate changes to open purchase orders, which creates an auditable record of changes and variations. Related documents, such as shipping notices, are also synchronized with updates.
• Payment compliance: Quick invoice processing and data accuracy minimizes wrong or duplicate payments, while improving accounting processes and overall financial visibility.
• Supplier collaboration: Digitalization enables quicker feedback from suppliers, making it possible for suppliers to “flip” purchase orders into confirmations and invoices, reducing errors and manual effort.
• Promotional opportunities: Networked suppliers have additional opportunities to grow their business by using the network to promote their offerings and connect with new customers.

The Next Wave of Digital Transformation

When you invest in RISE with SAP, you are enabling your business to migrate core business processes to the cloud. By complementing this solution with SAP Business Network, you extend your digital transformation to interactions with trading partners though a single, end-to-end technology landscape built on standardized processes and consistent data.

This is the next wave of technology that will enable you to address the ever-growing list of business challenges you wake up and face every day.

Etosha Thurman is chief marketing and solutions officer of Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP.

Improve supply assurance, procurement efficiency, compliance, and spend transparency on SAP Business Network Learn more

*Driving Best-in-Class Supply Chain Collaboration with a Business Network, doc #US50854723, July 2023

WALLDORF —  SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that it has extended the contract of Dr. Juergen Mueller, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of SAP SE, for another three years until the end of 2027. Mueller joined SAP in 2013 and has been a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE since 2019.

As CTO, he leads the Technology & Innovation Board area at SAP and has successfully established SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) as the platform for SAP and as an external business unit. In his mandate as CTO, he will prepare SAP for its accelerated cloud growth. In addition to SAP BTP, he is responsible for architecture decisions and innovations across SAP as well as Business Transformation Management with SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX. Global security and cloud compliance are also part of his responsibility.

“I would like to thank the Supervisory Board for their trust and am thrilled to continue shaping SAP’s technology strategy and driving innovation for our customers around the world,” Mueller said. “Together with our teams, I will continue working with the clear goal of being the number one enterprise application and business AI company.”

“In recent years, Juergen Mueller and his team have successfully developed SAP BTP and established it as the platform of choice for our customers,” said Professor Hasso Plattner, chairman of the Supervisory Board of SAP SE. “We thank Juergen Mueller for his successful work to date and are convinced that he will continue to ensure SAP’s innovation capabilities in the future.”

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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 2023 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.

The new SAP HANA Cloud vector engine enables businesses to combine the power of large language models (LLMs) with company-specific, real-time data and business process know-how, all integrated in one multi-model database: SAP HANA Cloud. With the latest quarterly release, the vector engine is now generally available.

SAP HANA Cloud is a market-leading database-as-a-service enabling intelligent data applications and is one of the most adopted services within SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) internally at SAP. As of today, more than 180 different applications and services use SAP HANA Cloud with its multi-model capabilities.

Now, SAP HANA Cloud is also a leader in the generative AI age.

At SAP, we work with various LLMs such as GPT-4, Llama2, Falcon-40b, and Claude2. While these models offer amazing opportunities, they also have limitations. For example, LLMs may rely on outdated training data and lack company-specific data and business process context.

As an example, imagine having an LLM as a colleague. This colleague would be very intelligent, able to program, pass exams, or have arguments – but this colleague would not know anything about what happened in the world in the past year, nor have any idea about internal processes of your company or any of your systems. Even worse, after every conversation you have, this colleague would forget what you just talked about. Working with such a lack of memory would be of limited value. This shortcoming is why an LLM cannot answer easy questions like “What do you think about the offer from our most important supplier last week?” An LLM can only work with the initial training data – all other data must be provided as context.

Supplementing this lack of information is where SAP HANA Cloud vector engine can assist. The engine can provide LLMs with all the relevant data of an organization through a process called “retrieval-augmented generation.”

Build and deploy intelligent data applications at scale with SAP HANA Cloud Learn more A Game-Changing Feature

So how does the vector engine work? It is a new addition to SAP HANA Cloud’s multi-model engines, enabling customers to utilize the similarity between two or more vectors to solve business problems. With the integration of AI-focused technology, SAP HANA Cloud can now empower businesses to combine intuition along with data-driven insights to solve even the most complex of problems.

Some key benefits and features of the vector engine include:

• Multi-model: Users can unify all types of data into a single database to build innovative applications using an efficient data architecture and in-memory performance. By adding vector storage and processing to the same database already storing relational, graph, spatial, and even JSON data, application developers can create next-generation solutions that interact more naturally with the user.
• Enhanced search and analysis: Businesses can now apply semantic and similarity search to business processes using documents like contracts, design specifications, and even service call notes.
• Personalized recommendations: Users can benefit from an improved overall experience with more accurate and personalized suggestions.
• Optimized large language models: The output of LLMs is augmented with more effective and contextual data.

The Database Foundation of SAP’s Generative AI Strategy

The addition of the vector engine establishes SAP HANA Cloud as the default database in SAP’s generative AI solution strategy. Customers can create the next level of user experiences along with other services within SAP BTP. As an example, SAP BTP can provide centralized access to SaaS-based LLMs from multiple vendors as well as host LLMs from open-source models or third parties. The generative AI hub in SAP AI Core, a capability that facilitates the use of generative AI capabilities, will soon rely on SAP HANA Cloud as the primary vector storage. One function of the generative AI hub feature is to help provide a process for creating embeddings and storing the resulting vectors in SAP HANA Cloud. Customers building intelligent data applications can use both services together to augment LLM queries with relevant context for meaningful answers.

SAP is working on foundation models that are specific for SAP-related industry and process knowledge.

The Database for Innovation

SAP HANA Cloud continues to lead the market by storing and processing different types of relevant business data – all within the same database. The new vector engine, combined with other multi-model capabilities, opens a world of possibilities for applications to help enhance the execution of business processes. Whether improving search capabilities, gaining deeper insights for informed decisions, or optimizing LLMs, SAP HANA Cloud enables the type of applications that can elevate the expertise and effectiveness of every user.

To learn more, sign up for an introductory webinar on April 4. Do you already have a use case for SAP HANA Cloud vector engine in mind? If so, consider registering for the SAP Early Adopter Care program.

Juergen Mueller is CTO and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Technology & Innovation.
Stefan Baeuerle is head of Database, SAP HANA Database, & Analytics for Technology & Innovation at SAP.

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When an organization starts its digital transformation journey, it does so expecting great outcomes. Whether that means increasing competitiveness, efficiency, innovation, growth, employee satisfaction, reducing costs, or all of the above — expectations are always high.

Expectations can also be very diverse. End users want their jobs to be made easier and more productive. The typical CIO wants scalability, greater data protections, and a secure IT infrastructure that runs with lower total cost of ownership.

And we — the cloud software provider — also have a clear-cut expectation that customers should actually use the software. Otherwise, bold transformation objectives won’t be met and subscription contracts won’t be renewed.

Disappointment is often described as the gap between expectations and reality. When software adoption is low and expectations for digital transformation outcomes are high, disappointment is almost guaranteed.

That is why we are making the changes necessary at SAP to increase customer adoption. Adoption is our main lever for increasing customer satisfaction by ensuring we deliver on the promise of large-scale transformation.

A New Ambition for Service Delivery

My goal leading our new Customer Services & Delivery Board area is to make it easier and faster for customers to adopt our solutions. We want to ensure that customers get all the benefits they are expecting out of their large-scale cloud transformation by reducing the hurdles and ensuring long-term value.

We are fully committed to ensuring that new digital opportunities are not only introduced, but also used to their full potential. Our focus is not on “lift-and-shift” to the cloud, but on holistically and actively supporting our customers in their transformation. And we act as customer advocates, trusted partners, and guardians of their interests.

My new Board area will therefore bundle services, including professional services, premium engagements, customer innovations, and customer support. In addition, it will include cloud infrastructure, cloud operations, cloud lifecycle management, and private cloud provision for SAP customers worldwide.

Why Now?

Adoption has always been at the core of our efforts. What’s different now is that a truly transformative technology — artificial intelligence — has emerged and is enabling end users to interact in more natural human ways. This has powerful technological and societal implications.

Be ready for AI built for business with SAP Learn how

It is also presenting software providers like us with unique opportunities to enhance adoption. Think how easy (and fun) AI interactions have become. AI innovation is a catalyst for us to enhance adoption, and we are seizing the moment with determined steps toward providing SAP Business AI.

But for our valued customers to benefit from all the advantages of SAP Business AI, we really need to be there for them throughout their cloud transformation journey, because AI innovation only happens in the cloud.

What’s Changing?

We know that cloud customers want flexible and innovative solutions that help them solve their biggest challenges and that can be deployed quickly and consumed easily. For the past 52 years, we have been vested in the success of our customers with the best team of experts in the industry to support them at every point of the customer value journey. That has not changed!

What has changed, however, is that we are putting the power of my new Board area behind the delivery of our solutions, providing governance and support to our delivery ecosystem, and continuously improving our cloud delivery and support methodologies. And we have created a unique opportunity to bring together cloud operations to streamline the entire customer experience.

Our overarching objective is customer satisfaction. We are committed to increasing it through comprehensive and innovative post-sales technical delivery services or partner-led implementations to drive our customers’ business transformation and deliver measurable value, which is “business speak” for absolutely delighting them! That’s how we will ensure organizations can fully realize their new digital opportunities.

Offering Transformation as a Service

We deliver the most complete business transformation suite in the industry. That has been our ambition since launching RISE with SAP some years ago. With the range of capabilities on offer today — including RISE with SAP, GROW with SAP, SAP Signavio, cloud application lifecycle management, SAP LeanIX, and, of course, SAP Business Technology Platform — we are well on our way to enabling customers to accelerate transformation.

We are committed to optimizing our portfolio for delivery, and we are working on tooling and automation to speed up the process. That’s how we are reaffirming our promise to provide transformation as a service. 

Closing the Gap Between Expectations and Outcomes

Adoption of our portfolio opens new possibilities for business model innovation along with increased competitiveness, cost savings, and employee satisfaction, while realizing the benefits of new SAP innovations more quickly: essentially all the outcomes organizations are expecting when they set out on the pathway to digital transformation.

So, you could say, we’re more dedicated than ever to closing the gap between expectations for cloud transformation and the corresponding outcomes.

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, leading Customer Services & Delivery.

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WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that SAP Chief Investor Relations Officer Anthony Coletta will leave the company to pursue a new opportunity outside of SAP. SAP is in the process of finding a successor. To ensure a smooth transition, Coletta will remain in his current role until the end of June 2024.

“Under Anthony’s leadership, SAP Investor Relations has strengthened its role as a reliable partner to the financial community. He further enhanced the trusted relationships with our investors that his successor will be able to build on,” said Dominik Asam, member of the Executive Board and CFO of SAP SE. “We are grateful for Anthony’s contributions and wish him well for his next steps.”

Coletta joined SAP in 2006. Prior to taking over the role as chief investor relations officer, he served as CFO of SAP North America, chief controlling officer of Global Sales in the Global Customer Operations team and in several other leading roles in the Americas region. Before joining SAP, Coletta held various leadership positions in finance and strategy, including at Siemens and ThyssenKrupp. Coletta holds master’s degrees in economics and applied foreign languages from Sorbonne University in Paris and has extensive international professional experience, including in Europe, Latin America and the United States.

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Carbon footprint calculation, patient privacy, and machine learning based on sensitive data – thanks to advanced encryption methods like fully homomorphic encryption.

Most have been in this situation before: one of the providers or services we use is a victim of a data breach and we want to determine if our personal user data has been impacted. This is where fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) comes into play. With FHE, the encrypted, personal password is compared against the data set of stolen user data and potential matches are identified without ever revealing the user’s password.

Use cases for this type of privacy-enhancing technology (PET) are numerous. They range from applications in medicine, where third-party service providers can analyze health data without compromising a patient’s privacy, to performing machine learning and AI algorithms on encrypted data, allowing organizations to derive insights from sensitive data sets without exposing the data to potential breaches or privacy violations.

How It Works

Fully homomorphic encryption allows calculations to be performed on encrypted data without having to decrypt it first. Confidentiality is maintained, as even the results are encrypted and can be viewed only with the appropriate decryption key. Further techniques for processing encrypted data are multi-party computation (MPC) and trusted execution environments (TEE).

Mathias Kohler, research manager at SAP Security Research, outlines the differences: “While FHE is the most known of the encryption technologies, MPC is the ideal candidate if working with several parties exchanging encrypted data across company borders. And it can be substantially faster than FHE.” While both are software-based technologies, TEE is hardware-based, which makes it the fastest choice. The downside: TEEs, unlike MPC and FHE, require decrypting the data for processing. While decryption happens in a trusted hardware environment isolated from the operating system, it can allow data leakage via side-channel attacks. Notably, PETs do not need to be considered in isolation and can augment each other. For example, MPC can encrypt and distribute an FHE decryption key, protecting the FHE key and ensuring no single party can decrypt everything.

SAP protects businesses’ applications and data by building, running, and maintaining more-secure operations Learn more Why It’s Relevant

There is a demand for this kind of technology. By 2025, 60% of large organizations will use at least one privacy-enhancing computation technique in analytics, business intelligence, or cloud computing, according to Gartner.

Fully homomorphic encryption has numerous applications, especially in scenarios where privacy and security are paramount, such as secure computation in the cloud, privacy-preserving data analysis, and secure outsourcing of computations. As long as one party is performing the data processing centrally, FHE is the encryption method of choice. FHE enables organizations to share encrypted data with partners or third parties for analysis or monetization purposes while maintaining data confidentiality. This is particularly relevant in industries such as advertising and market research.

Interesting use case scenarios from SAP’s perspective could be secure benchmarking and predictive maintenance.

Secure Benchmarking

Companies often assess their competitiveness relative to industry peers and compare business-relevant KPIs, such as automation rate or return rates, with peers and even competitors. With fully homomorphic encryption, all participating parties can share encrypted KPIs without revealing individual data. As a result, they learn about relevant statistics, such as averages or medians, to assess their relative competitiveness and decide where to improve and invest.

Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance is a machine learning technique to forecast demand for maintenance or spare parts based on historical data. “In certain industries, required data, such as usage patterns and failures, is considered sensitive and is not easily shared with data scientists or maintenance operators,” says Anselme Tueno, senior researcher at SAP Security Research. By computing on encrypted data, however, no sensitive information is revealed while still allowing for the required insights to be gathered for prediction tasks.

Carbon Footprint Calculation with Multi-Party Computation

While it is early days from a product availability perspective, SAP is working on potential use cases with customers and partners. One key example is calculating carbon footprints of products.

Prime examples for complex collaborations are today’s supply chains, intricate networks that encompass various levels of suppliers, manufacturers, and processed goods. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of comprehensive visibility across the entire process – either for technical reasons or because businesses are often reluctant to share sensitive data across supply chains that often include direct competitors.

However, to accurately assess and disclose a product’s carbon footprint, sensitive production details and associated carbon costs for production-relevant parts and materials are required. Here, MPC can reveal only the required carbon footprint without disclosing associated, proprietary manufacturing details with other supply chain participants.

Currently, SAP is working with Bosch on cloud-native software for secure multi-party computation called Carbyne Stack.

“SAP participates in this open-source project and supports the development of Carbyne Stack’s storage and processing services and the deployment of Carbyne Stack on Amazon Web Services (AWS),” Kohler explains. “For Bosch, Carbyne Stack is a type of cloud-native operating system for MPC workloads that manages resources to run as efficiently as possible in multi-cloud deployments.” This effort can help SAP in the long run to integrate MPC as technology into SAP solutions and services while running in a cloud-native environment.

What’s Next?

Despite all the benefits around processing data, encryption introduces significant computational overhead due to the complexity of performing operations on encrypted data. Slow processing speeds, especially for complex operations and large data sets, makes fully homomorphic encryption impractical for real-time applications or large-scale data processing. Although the performance of FHE has greatly improved in recent years, its practical adoption is still limited due to the processing overhead and performance considerations. Ongoing research is focused on the design of FHE-specific hardware accelerators.

“PETs for computing on encrypted data have the power to amplify data-driven business collaborations and reshape the future of cloud computing,” explains Jonas Böhler, senior researcher at SAP Security Research. By safeguarding data, they enable access to previously untapped information while minimizing privacy risks and thwarting data breaches. The future of computing is encrypted.

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In a merger between two well-matched organizations, cultural integration can be the key to successfully transforming into a single high-performing entity ready to take on new opportunities. Notably, more than a few high-profile mergers have failed due to cultural incompatibility. Add a third organization into the merger and the cultural complexities increase exponentially. But some multi-organization mergers do successfully navigate these challenges and reap the transformational benefits.      

Convista, a consultancy and SAP partner based in Cologne, Germany, emerged stronger and better positioned to serve its clients following a recent merger that brought together three former consultancies: Axxiome Health, ConVista Consulting, and enowa. With 25 years of experience delivering transformation projects to its clients, Convista used that expertise in its own rebranding to present its capabilities to clients and employees: a vibrant people culture as well as a respected and trusted brand supported by SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition for ERP and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central for core HR.

“Trust and transparency are common values that we share at Convista,” declares Convista CEO Martin Hinz. “Combined with a dynamic team spirit and passion, it’s what we bring to our clients every day.”

With a workforce of around 1,200 employees, Convista has made a name for itself through its dedication and expertise providing end-to-end solutions to clients throughout the world with a presence in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Spain, Brazil, Israel, and further locations across the globe. It supports client projects primarily in four sectors: insurance, industry, healthcare, and energy/utilities. In recent years, Convista has twice been awarded SAP Partner of the Year in the Financial Services sector.

“At Convista you meet everyone on the same level, independent of your skill level or where you are in your career,” says Stefanie Weber, project lead of People and Culture – HR Systems, Convista. “Also, when we’re working with customers, we try to approach them at eye level, which makes quite a good working environment. The implementation of SAP SuccessFactors came as a natural extension to our brand and our culture.”

The Challenges of Data Siloed in Three Systems

Weber says one of the reasons she joined Convista in 2012 while studying business at university was the high priority its leaders place on trust and transparency, values that permeate the entire organization and empower employees in their work and career development. “Trust is one of our main values,” she underscores. “Also, the trust that people are willing to do their best to get motivated and move the company ahead.”

Convista grew quickly both organically and as a result of mergers with other consultancies. In 2019, IT service provider Axxiome Health joined the ConVista Group to deepen the organization’s expertise in the health insurance sector. In 2021, enowa joined the group, infusing its knowledge of industries and insurance. With the mergers complete, the incipient organization became the new Convista on January 1, 2023.

Though team members were highly motivated to collaborate from the start, Convista’s vision for itself as a modern organization was held back in both its daily work for projects and internal services. Using disparate tools based on older technology and a patchwork of third-party solutions that lacked integration proved to be inefficient and unsuitable as a basis for decision-making.

“Whenever we wanted to have a report, even something as simple as a headcount, we always had to go into three different systems, collect the data, and report on that,” Weber recalls. “It’s just one of the many examples of why we really urgently needed one IT platform.”

Project ONE Achieves Milestone Integration

To build a strong foundation for future growth, Convista embarked on “Project ONE” with the goal to have one digital platform flexible and powerful enough for the entire organization. For this, it chose SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP SuccessFactors solutions with self-service capabilities for employees to log time-off.

Overall, implementing SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition can result in streamlined HR processes; end-to-end integration with seamless connectivity between HR and finance functions for accurate and up-to-date employee data across the organization; greater transparency of data for analytics and reporting on workforce trends, costs, and profitability to enable better strategic planning and resource allocation; and compliance with regulatory requirements and data security.

SAP SuccessFactors solutions can fuel the success of every individual and drive org agility at scale Learn how

Among the key advantages is the ability for employees to access their own HR-related information, such as personal details and time-off balances. This self-service capability helps empower employees, improve transparency, and enhance the overall employee experience.

Convista’s project team decided for a phased approach to the implementation by first introducing the SAP solutions in Poland and later in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland – with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition planned to launch in the German-speaking countries during the course of 2024. To optimize success, the project team used the combined best practices of Convista and SAP and hosted regular meetings that provided clear communication to steer the project. “We were always aligned on the requirements of the other teams,” says Weber, who managed the HR workstream. “We all knew the main goal of the implementation. This was helpful for everyone on the project.”

In-house experts from Convista certified on SAP SuccessFactors solutions contributed valuable knowledge for the implementation. Consultants from SAP Services and Support successfully integrated the cost center replication from SAP S/4HANA Cloud to SAP SuccessFactors and the workforce replication from SAP SuccessFactors to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and delivered a detailed administration guide on the integration setup for Convista. Additionally, they provided an overview, the architecture guidance, and the navigation through major hurdles in performing the configuration to set up identity access governence (IAG), identity provisioning service (IPS), and identity authentication services (IAS). The SAP Early Adopter Care program supported Convista for the master data integration (MDI) during the implementation and helped to solve all roadblocks efficiently.

On January 1, 2023, Convista’s 80-person team in Poland was the first to go live with the new SAP solutions. “It was really a great experience for them and quite an advancement,” says Weber, citing the benefits of the new solutions that provide optimizations and intuitive workflows. The project took a pivotal turn on January 1, 2024, with the launch of SAP SuccessFactors solutions for Convista’s 800 employees in the German-speaking countries.

“The biggest milestone was to have [SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central] speaking with each other,” says Weber, who emphasizes how valuable it is for the team “to have an end-to-end process within one platform.” With an integrated IT platform in place, she says that it is no longer necessary to do workflows, authorizations, or any other processes in other systems.

The seamless synchronization of data by using a common data model for SAP business applications helps reduce the need for manual data entry and redundant processes. This means, for example, employee data that is maintained in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central is available in real-time in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition; while master data, like cost center data, flows seamlessly from SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central. Eliminating data silos enables the HR and finance teams to work with consistent, accurate data for all-important employment decisions and legal reporting obligations.

Now Convista’s team is unified in its brand, values, spirit – and employee data. 

More Transparency and Intuitive Workflows Are Just the Beginning

Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, according to Weber, with employees speaking favorably about the improved transparency and workflows. “The first thing I heard from everyone was, well, this is simple and intuitive. They were so happy about it,” she says. “They are big fans of the mobile application. They find it very transparent and easy to use.”

For some colleagues, the new solution lets them view their own data for the first time. “When we went live, everyone was viewing their profile,” says Weber. “This was also quite new that you are able to see what data is maintained for your person, your address, but also job information – to view it and have this transparency. People like this very much and also the ability to have the self-services in SAP SuccessFactors.”

To strengthen communication between HR and employees, Convista will bring more people processes onto the new digital platform. In fact, the team very recently implemented the SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solution for annual employee appraisals, goal setting, and project feedback. “It’s just the beginning,” Weber says. “There’s still a lot of work ahead of us.”

Hinz says, “We have been careful to preserve our workplace culture during the transformation. Now that we are rebranded as one organization, we are seeing the benefits of that early effort. With SAP, we now have the digital platform to build people-centered processes that advance our vision as a unified, high-performing organization serving our clients.”       

Find out more about SAP SuccessFactors solutions.

Jacqueline Prause is a journalist at SAP.

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The era of the hard sell is over – companies are now focused on creating sales and service experiences that naturally attract customers and solidify their loyalty. But this winning approach requires much more than the traditional seller-buyer transaction of engagement, trust, personalization, and mutual benefit.

B2B and B2C customers are demanding virtual sales interactions and smooth, consultative customer service experiences, according to a report from Harvard Business Review Analytics Services. Yet, 51% of businesses still struggle to provide the right data, processes, and capabilities that allow sales and service teams to deliver moments that create lasting connections.

Now, with greater ease, SAP customers can access the content, guided expertise, resources, and planning methods essential to building a cloud-based technology foundation for this new era of sales and services. And all of this is possible through the SAP Preferred Success plan for SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud, expanded edition.

Maximizing Value with Focused, Proactive Guidance

Offering a combination of omnichannel sales and value-added customer service is, by no means, a simple feat that can be achieved overnight. Making this transformation requires mutual understanding and close collaboration between sales and service teams, accessing data-driven insights on customer needs and expectations and delivering value at every touch point with effective technologies.

The expanded edition of SAP Preferred Success for SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud can deliver that advantage with exceptional support from knowledgeable SAP experts throughout the lifetime of a cloud solution investment. Without processing another statement of work, SAP customers can move from planning and implementation to go-live and active operation with such speed and effectiveness that they can transform their customer experience faster and more efficiently.

Fast track the value of your cloud investment with SAP Preferred Success Learn more

For example, reviews and related analysis help maintain peace of mind throughout the deployment of a cloud solution, keeping organizations on the right path toward achieving their goals. This can include quality checks to help ensure integration integrity, in-depth release guidance for future feature adoption, targeted training programs on the latest topics and best practices, and service-level agreements for enhanced support.

But what makes the expanded edition of SAP Preferred Success for SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud truly distinctive is the long-term, enhanced partnership it can provide to help advance and accelerate the cloud journey. Throughout the subscription lifecycle, organizations are continuously supported by experts and specialized services designed to meet their unique needs.

Access to Product Specialists

Appointed based on their technical and product-based expertise, product specialists leverage their knowledge and insights to help accelerate business outcomes and maximize the consumption of SAP solutions. They achieve this by recommending and overseeing the delivery and scheduling of crucial services, providing direct access to experts for targeted advice on solutions, and advising on SAP best practices.

This experience can allow sales and services organizations and their stakeholders to enhance the ROI of their overall investment in cloud solutions from SAP by:

• Acquiring functional and technical knowledge when needed
• Receiving answers to queries related to standard integration with other SAP solutions
• Addressing critical implementation difficulties quickly and resolutely

Solution Reviews

During prescriptive solution reviews, SAP experts work closely with customers to analyze their usage patterns and advise on process improvements and transformation journeys that align with their success plans and business goals. Specifically, they focus on aligning usage with best practices, measuring the impact of changes on business operations, and identifying areas for improvement.

Customers can also benefit from collaborating with subject-matter experts during these reviews, receiving recommendations and advice on changes that can help mitigate or resolve business challenges, improve the customer journey, and reduce bottlenecks proactively. This service can offer stakeholders valuable insights into simplifying and optimizing operations, reducing administrative work, boosting process efficiency, and enhancing transparency for user adoption and cloud landscape stability.

New Feature Activation

SAP customers can also receive assistance in identifying, evaluating, activating, and maximizing the impact of the latest features to support their business operations better. Subject-matter experts help provide an enhanced adoption experience by aligning business goals with value and product capabilities, creating a tailored adoption plan, and providing guidance and enablement to activate features.

The new feature activation service can also assess and enable the impact of new configurations and simple customizations added to SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud. By matching business needs to updates that offer better value, SAP experts can evaluate the potential benefits and risks of the new additions, pinpointing system changes needed to activate and test the update to measure business outcomes.

Reaching Mission-Critical Goals with Extra Impact

The right technology partner can make all the difference – especially as expectations for sales and customer service experiences continue to evolve. Providing access to expert guidance, resources, and support when and where needed helps ensure businesses drive customer loyalty and success.

The expanded edition of SAP Preferred Success for SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud can deliver on that promise with a transformative approach to sales and customer service. This significant step towards creating personalized, value-driven experiences can help sales and services teams not only meet but exceed customer expectations, turning transactions into lasting connections.

Ready to amplify the impact of your sales and customer service experiences? Visit the SAP Preferred Success area of sap.com or contact your local SAP representative to learn more about SAP Preferred Success for SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud, expanded edition.

Amitesh Tiwari is a solution manager for the Chief Innovation Office of Cloud Success Services at SAP.

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Without a doubt, the world of work has dramatically transformed over the past several years, with generative AI initiating the latest wave of change for organizations around the world. In a more complex and less homogenous business landscape, top-down HR processes of the past no longer meet the rising demands of employees for flexible career paths, intuitive work processes, and two-way communication – not to mention the growing skills gaps and talent shortages that keep leaders up at night. 

Leaders need to embrace generative AI as a way to address these challenges with talent intelligence and advanced analytics. According to Gartner, 26% of CEOs rank the talent shortage as the top damaging factor to business outlook, and 76% of HR leaders agree they will be lagging in organizational success if they don’t adopt and implement generative AI in the next 12 to 24 months. 

Adopt the latest in HR innovation with SAP SuccessFactors solutions Learn more

 At SAP, we have a proven track record of providing HCM solutions in the cloud for leading organizations around the globe. Our customers trust us to not only manage their sensitive employee data and payroll, but to help them understand their workforces as they prepare for the skills they need in the future. 

The SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite provides truly global HR cloud software with powerful AI capabilities to help organizations meet the challenges of today and innovate for tomorrow. Our more than 10,000 customers – from startups and midmarket companies to large enterprises – use our solutions to help bring out the best in their people by harnessing the power of AI to elevate every experience, guide every people decision, and connect HR across every aspect of the business. We do this with: 

• Core HR and payroll: A single source of truth is key for any organization to enable insight into the entirety of its workforce: employees, contingent workers, and dynamic teams. The SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite can provide localized support for over 100 countries and territories and cloud payroll for 50 countries and territories, plus additional modular solutions for time, benefits, and HR service delivery.

• Talent and learning: Skills gaps and talent shortages have been persistent challenges that continue to exist across all industries. Addressing them starts with an understanding of skills that currently exist, followed by pathways for employees to find new opportunities, learn new skills, and access mentors and feedback. The talent intelligence hub across SAP SuccessFactors solutions uses AI to continuously help organizations and employees understand their skills and match people with personalized career pathways.  

• A modern user experience: Every person has unique needs and preferences – in how they work, how they communicate, and what’s required for their role. Along with a refreshed, modern user experience, we’ve built in generative AI capabilities throughout our solutions to help people work smarter. And with Joule, SAP’s copilot, they can quickly complete HR tasks and get conversational responses to their questions.

• HR connected to ERP, finance, and more: Having access to people data connected across the business is critical to building agility, speed, and resilience within an organization. With the power of the broader SAP portfolio, organizations can improve end-to-end business processes across the entire business. This is also complemented with our partner ecosystem, which includes over 350 apps for HR.

We firmly believe that when organizations invest in their people – in their passions and potential – they return the investment over and over. And with the rapid acceleration of AI, it’s more important than ever to build pathways to employee growth, including new ways to upskill, reskill, and discover opportunities that align with a person’s skills, interests, and aspirations. 

Learn more about the SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite.

Dan Beck is president and chief product officer for SAP SuccessFactors.

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Although women comprise about 35% of the workforce at SAP, when it comes to shaping AI it seems they are punching above their weight.

Here, five SAP employees share about their roles, motivations, and tips for anyone wanting to step into AI. The women – Khawla Mallat, Camila Lombana Diaz, Xin Chen, Nadine Hoffmann, and Puntis Palazzolo – span four countries and three areas: Data Science Engineering, Product Management, and AI Ethics.

SAP Business AI: Revolutionary technology, real-world results Learn more

Data Science Engineering

Dr. Khawla Mallat, Security and Quantum Exploration Team, SAP France

“Be ready to be challenged all times,” says Mallat, if you want to build a career in AI.

Unlike most data scientists at SAP, Mallat does not work directly on the product but is firmly anchored in researching and addressing “some of the technical challenges related to AI, namely fairness, explainability, privacy, and security.”

Photo courtesy of Khawla Mallat

Prior to joining SAP two years ago, Mallat was confronted with the unintended prejudices of face analysis systems. Certain demographic groups, explains Mallat, used to be inadvertently omitted or underrepresented in the underlying data sets, leading to shortcomings in the face analysis capabilities. Such cases highlight the broader issue of bias in other AI applications. In areas like HR, she continues, removing personal details in data sets might seem to solve the bias issues, but AI can still infer these details. This leads to potentially biased outcomes and the lack of explainability in AI models makes identification of such biases difficult. Letting data sets like this take root and grow into powerful data models not subject to scrutiny will only magnify the inherent bias or discrimination.

Today Mallat’s passion for addressing such unfairness aligns well with her role of identifying the inherent risks of AI, educating teams about them, and defining technological solutions to mitigate them.

“We need to adopt an interdisplinary approach to AI, with experts from ethics, legal compliance, and domain experts, for example, and abstract ourselves from the role of data scientists to succeed,” says Mallat.

“I love working in AI,” she continues. “Everything is progressing at an incredible pace so if you want to work in AI, you have to have a certain thirst for knowledge. And, regardless of your role, you must take AI ethics – regulations and regulatory frameworks – seriously because these have huge implications not only for SAP but for individuals and societies in general.”

AI Ethics

Camila Lombana Diaz, Responsible AI, Germany

“AI is a mirror of our capacities as humans. And the biggest responsibility for those working in AI is, what do we want to see in that mirror?” explains Lombana Diaz, AI ethics research expert in the AI Ethics/Responsible AI team located in the SAP Business AI growth area.

Lombana Diaz’s responsibilities include maturing and applying the SAP AI Global Ethics policy, creating and delivering enablement content, defining AI personas and processes, and giving guidance to make responsible AI an operational reality for development, as exemplified in SAP’s AI ethics handbook.

Photo courtesy of Camila Lombana Diaz

When she joined SAP eight years ago, initially as a UX designer and then a strategic designer, machine learning and AI were core topics. But it became increasingly clear to her that “understanding the human implications of AI for a responsible and ethical AI demands a human-centric perspective.”

Even though SAP is committed to the ethical development of AI – developers must now complete AI ethics assessment tasks and a steering committee scrutinizes all high-risk use cases – Lombana Diaz emphasizes the need to remain focused on the inherent risks and unintentional harms that AI may present. Part of her role is an ongoing assessment of the technology, identifying risks and limitations and communicating them to different teams.

As AI continues to evolve at speed, so do the roles. Lombana Diaz is passionate about seeing AI beyond the confines of a technology-centric perspective. “AI is now an omnipresent technology shaping our daily lives; hence, we need individuals working in the field who challenge AI technology to be community centric. AI ethics is a space for experimental, open, curious, collaborative, and human-centered individuals,” and, she concludes, “the time to step into AI and build a career is now because, unlike the technology, the business of AI, the legal and ethical aspects, are still being shaped.”

Data Science Engineering 

Dr. Xin Chen, SAP HANA Machine Learning, China

“I have always enjoyed working at SAP since joining nine years ago. I like the work environment and the colleagues here and I really want to encourage others to join us here in AI,” says Chen, data science researcher on the SAP HANA Machine Learning team.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Xin Chen

The team works on a toolbox providing different kinds of machine learning algorithms for regression, classification, clustering, and so on for the SAP HANA predictive analysis library.

Part of Chen’s role is investigating research papers on the latest machine learning algorithms and, together with the team, deciding which algorithms would be beneficial to customers. Once the machine learning algorithms are implemented, Chen and the team evaluate feedback from customers and deliver enhancements.

Recently Chen and her team researched machine learning algorithms investigating notions of fairness. “Fairness is a very hot topic just now,” she says. “In mathematics, there are different notions of fairness, but it is still a complex and evolving topic.”

And Chen’s advice to would-be AI developers? “Critical thinking will become even more important to understand what solutions to offer, to make judgements on your own innovations, and to know if the generated output is right or wrong,” she says, reflecting on how this skill will become ever more important for future AI developers.

Product Management

Nadine Hoffmann, SAP Business AI, Germany

“I translate and I want to fascinate,” says Hoffmann, global AI product manager in the SAP Business AI growth area.

Even after more than 20 years at SAP, disruptive ideas and mindset shifts still energize Hoffmann. To be an expert in new technologies, and to be energized and enthused by the constant volume and speed of them, is critical to being successful in the AI product management teams of today because product management is the glue between partners, customers, the field, and development.

Photo courtesy of Nadine Hoffmann

“On the one hand,” says Hoffmann, “SAP has data scientists, software engineers, and researchers taking our software to the next level. And on the other, there are experts defining the legal and ethical guardrails.” Product management must be fluent in both “technical software speak” and “customer speak” to understand desires, pain points, and business processes.

Pivoting between these and aligning customer speak with technical software speak is akin to being a  translator, Hoffmann says. Our software will only meet the requirements of customers if there is a common understanding between the teams responsible for the technological development, the legal teams responsible for ethical and legal compliance, and the customer.

Regardless of the latest innovation, Hoffmann says success in product management is “not only about convincing teams and partners about the ease and positiveness of a technology, but also infusing them with a fascination about it so that they become passionate advocates and are intrinsically motivated to find out more by themselves.”

Data Science Engineering

Puntis Palazzolo, AI Strategist & Ethics Lead, SAP SuccessFactors, U.S.

“The ethical challenges presented by AI have transcended the scope of individual enterprises, extending beyond entities like SAP. It is crucial that we collaborate with others to collectively address AI’s emerging concerns,” says Palazzolo, who leads the SAP SuccessFactors Data Science team.

The team acts as a consulting service on AI use cases for product teams in SAP SuccessFactors, analyzing the problem, developing code and algorithms, and building proof-of-concepts. Successful AI use cases are then integrated into SAP SuccessFactors solutions.

Photo courtesy of Puntis Palazzolo

Much of the data in SAP SuccessFactors solutions is sensitive customer data. With the dramatic increase in generative AI use cases, safeguarding customer data must take precedence, Palazzolo says. “Generative AI is a powerful technology that introduces new challenges, such as hallucinations and automated decision-making. In high-risk sectors like HR, we need to explain how we reach certain decisions, especially when we are impacting people’s lives.”

Palazzolo joined SAP 11 years ago and has been based in Palo Alto, California, since 2013, where she represents SAP on MLCommons – a collaboration of academia and companies, such as Google and NVIDIA, dedicated to developing safe practices and industry-standard benchmarks to improve AI models. 

Her advice to current and would-be AI practitioners? Follow your passion, be ethical, and make your voice heard while we still have time.

“Legislators alone cannot write AI regulations for us because they do not have a full understanding of its complexities,” she says. “We cannot solve all the problems by ourselves, but we must make our voices heard to shape the future of AI.”

Alexa MacDonald is an SAP News editor.

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WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies, has chosen the RISE with SAP solution to accelerate its journey to the cloud.

RISE with SAP: Improve compliance and build business resilience in a managed cloud offering Learn more

Deutsche Telekom is the first enterprise to implement RISE with SAP through SAP’s recently expanded partnership with T-Systems as a premium supplier of RISE with SAP, marking a significant milestone in the relationship between SAP and Deutsche Telekom.

As Europe’s largest telecommunications provider, with more than 252 million mobile customers, 25 million fixed-network lines and 22 million broadband lines, Deutsche Telekom operates in more than 50 countries. Aligned with the company’s vision to be the leading digital telecommunications provider in the world, Deutsche Telekom has chosen RISE with SAP to transform a major part of its ERP landscape to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. As a premium supplier of RISE with SAP, T-Systems will migrate, consolidate and manage more than 300 systems into the public and private cloud using T-Systems’ Future Cloud Infrastructure (FCI) and select hyperscalers. This is designed to enable customers to meet all German and European data protection requirements, as well as to benefit from tailored migration and orchestration of complex landscapes.

Peter Leukert, chief information officer of Deutsche Telekom, said, “SAP is a trusted and important partner for Deutsche Telekom in both reliably running core business processes and accelerating innovation in the cloud. Through RISE with SAP, we can drive business transformation and take our partnership to new heights. With SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Deutsche Telekom will be able to drive efficiency across key business functions such as logistics, procurement and finance.”

“Deutsche Telekom’s decision to select RISE with SAP to migrate and streamline more than 300 of their systems to the cloud marks an important milestone in their business transformation and continues a long history of our two companies innovating together for our customers,” said Scott Russell, member of the executive board of SAP SE, customer success. “This investment by Deutsche Telekom will give them new capabilities, drive greater efficiencies, and allow them to access key insights from across their enterprise so they can adjust to changing market conditions and seize new opportunities faster than they could before. We look forward to supporting Deutsche Telekom in this exciting new era of their cloud transformation.”

As a premium supplier of RISE with SAP, T-Systems offers “Thrive with T-Systems,” a collection of end-to-end transformation services that includes consulting, migration, implementation and operation of RISE with SAP and support for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.

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About SAP

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

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In an ever-changing global landscape, businesses must be prepared to navigate shifts and changes while keeping their operations running smoothly. Recent years have seen a series of events that have underscored the critical importance of resilient supply chains. Rather than being caught off guard by these challenges, companies need to equip themselves with the right tools and strategies to not only adapt but thrive in uncertain times. Collaboration within a business network has emerged as a key solution for addressing these challenges and increasing resilience.

Supply chain resiliency has become a critical factor for businesses across industries. According to a recent IDC white paper, sponsored by SAP, titled “Enabling an Adaptive Supply Chain: Multi-Enterprise Business Networks and Supplier Collaboration,”* companies must develop a new level of resilience in their supply chains. This involves adapting operating models and gaining a true end-to-end understanding of supply chains. Outdated approaches to communicating and transacting with trading partners lead to issues related to visibility, compliance, and efficiency. SAP Business Network can provide a modern approach to digitally connecting people, processes, and systems with trading partners, revolutionizing supply chain collaboration. It can enable companies to adapt to changes more quickly and easily, ultimately helping them to meet customer expectations and comply with regulations.

SAP Business Network: A Solution for Visibility, Efficiency, and Compliance

In today’s complex business landscape, companies face numerous challenges that impede visibility, efficiency, and compliance. Outdated tools, siloed systems, and point-to-point connections often result in broken connections and fragmented insights into the supply chain. Collaborating with contract manufacturers or subcontractors becomes difficult, and identifying new or alternate sources of supply quickly is a challenge. Moreover, complying with new or existing regulations can be a daunting task.

To address these challenges, SAP Business Network offers a solution that can enable companies to overcome these obstacles and achieve their goals. It can provide a range of capabilities to help enhance visibility, efficiency, and compliance across the supply chain, and helps them be more resilient.

The largest and most comprehensive business network, trusted by millions of companies around the world Learn more about SAP Business Network

One of the key features of SAP Business Network is its ability to enable digital document and data exchange with trading partners based on automated business rules. This includes the seamless routing of various line of business documents, such as invoices and orders, as well as shipping confirmations, work orders, and quality notifications. By automating business rules and supporting multi-party scenarios, such as working with contract manufacturers or subcontractors, the network can improve efficiency and streamline processes as well as help ensure compliance with regulations. Additionally, SAP Business Network can support onboarding and system-to-system integration, helping to ensure seamless connectivity with various communication standards like EDI, cXML, and Peppol. It also offers interoperability with third-party systems and networks, working to further enhance the connectivity and integration capabilities.

The network can also provide intuitive dashboards and apps that can offer visibility into the status of orders and shipments. This helps companies track and trace batches and serial numbers, facilitating the resolution of quality issues in products when they occur. By leveraging these dashboards and apps, businesses can proactively manage their operations, improve decision-making, and enhance overall efficiency.

Furthermore, SAP Business Network includes a trading partner directory that allows suppliers to create and manage company profiles. These profiles can be viewed by buying companies, providing them with valuable insights into potential suppliers. The directory also incorporates environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings from EcoVadis, enabling buying companies to choose suppliers aligned with their sustainability goals. Additionally, the trading partner directory enables buyers to search for suppliers, facilitating the identification of new or alternate sources of supply. This capability can not only enhance supply chain resilience but can also present opportunities for cost savings, diversification, and innovation.

According to a recent IDC MarketScape report, SAP is recognized as a leader in the worldwide multi-enterprise supply chain commerce network market.** The scale and reach of the network, with annual commerce reaching US$5.3 trillion and 746 million B2B transactions in 2023, make it a valuable tool for helping expand supplier bases and enter new markets.

Supply Chain Collaboration in Action

SAP Business Network is trusted by millions of companies across 190 countries. One of these companies is Vestas, a leading wind turbine manufacturer. Vestas has implemented SAP Business Network and SAP Ariba solutions to address quality control issues and streamline its complex global supply chain. With over 10,000 individual parts sourced from suppliers worldwide, Vestas relies on the B2B platform of SAP Business Network to collaborate with suppliers, track orders, and ensure quality standards are met. The network allows Vestas to conduct quality tests, document them, and take corrective action if needed. It also provides transparency and an audit trail in case of quality defects or incidents. By leveraging SAP solutions, Vestas has improved supply chain efficiency, reduced friction losses, and advanced its sustainability goals.

Another customer that has benefited from SAP Business Network is Richemont, a global luxury goods company. Richemont has utilized the network to establish seamless collaboration with suppliers and partners, streamlining its supply chain operations. By leveraging real-time data exchange and visibility provided by SAP Business Network, Richemont has been able to proactively manage inventory, optimize production planning, and respond swiftly to market demands. This has significantly enhanced the company’s supply chain resilience and enabled it to deliver exceptional luxury products to customers with efficiency and agility.

These success stories highlight the power of collaboration and technology in building resilient supply chains. SAP Business Network can provide the platform for companies to connect, collaborate, and exchange critical data, enabling them to navigate disruptions with resilience.

Leveraging Technology to Strengthen Your Supply Chain

In a world where disruptions are expected and circumstances tend to change, building resilience in supply chains is crucial for the success of businesses. The ability to adapt and thrive in the face of uncertainty requires collaboration, transparency, and efficiency. SAP Business Network offers a comprehensive solution that can enable companies to achieve these goals.

*Source: IDC White Paper, sponsored by SAP, “Enabling an Adaptive Supply Chain: Multi-Enterprise Business Networks and Supplier Collaboration,” #US51374823, November 2023.
**Source: “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Multi-Enterprise Supply Chain Commerce Network 2023 Vendor Assessment,” #US49948423, December 2023.

Tony Harris is SVP and chief marketing and solutions officer of SAP Business Network.

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LAS VEGAS — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced new product and partnership milestones that reimagine travel and expense management experiences and offer new capabilities powered by generative AI.

Connect travel, expense and invoice management for today visibility and control Learn how

These announcements were made at SAP Concur Fusion 2024, the flagship conference for SAP Concur users and experts, from March 19-21 in Las Vegas.

AI is only as good as the quality and breadth of the data it draws upon. SAP Concur is one of the global market leaders in travel and expense solutions with more than 92 million end users booking travel and/or processing expenses.

SAP debuted new business AI capabilities in SAP Concur solutions to help customers save time and improve accuracy when managing business travel and expenses:

• Concur Request: Now uses generative AI to provide intelligent cost estimates for trip planning.
• ExpenseIt solution: Customers can upload receipt images to ExpenseIt web, where it taps AI to automatically create a new expense with several key fields prepopulated. Plus, ExpenseIt now itemizes hotel folios using generative AI.
• Generative AI search: A new capability within Concur Support allows SAP Concur customers to type questions in natural language and get quick answers using generative AI without having to submit a support ticket.

The evolution of Concur Travel, featuring a consumer-grade user experience, now offers new content and features:

• Hotel and rail content: New direct integrations to American Express GBT, BCD, CWT RoomIt, FCTG and HRS designed to enhance the traveler’s shopping experience by providing more options, clarity and transparency. Additionally, users can search, book and purchase UK rail content.
• Microsoft Teams integration: Travelers can share a reservation from their Concur Travel trip list to a Microsoft Teams chat, so that coworkers can book the same trip.
• Sustainability-based travel decisions: Through an integration with Thrust Carbon, one of the travel industry’s leading independent sustainability intelligence platforms, evolution of Concur Travel users can view and sort the greenhouse gas emissions of each flight segment, as well as rail and car rental options, and browse hotel providers by emissions, certifications and sustainability scores.

The new, reimagined Concur Expense experience is AI-powered, optimized for mobile and already being used by early adopter customers. In the new experience, expense reports are automatically created and easily managed thanks to the following capabilities and a new partnership with Mastercard:

• Automatic expense entry, itemization, and categorization with ExpenseIt
• Timeline view of expenses
• Intelligent notifications such as missing receipts, missing attendees or expense reports ready for submission
• Attendee suggestion based on expense type and amount
• Automated expense creation for Mastercard transactions

To learn more about announcements at SAP Concur Fusion or to join the virtual event, visit here.

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Customers Can Harness Their Business Data in Cloud Solutions from SAP Using Customized LLMs Deployed with NVIDIA AI Foundry Services and New NVIDIA NIM Microservices

WALLDORF and SANTA CLARA, Calif. — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today announced a partnership expansion focused on accelerating enterprise customers’ ability to harness the transformative power of data and generative AI across SAP’s portfolio of cloud solutions and applications.

The companies are collaborating to build and deliver SAP Business AI, including scalable, business-specific generative AI capabilities inside the Joule copilot from SAP and across SAP’s portfolio of cloud solutions and applications – all of which are underpinned by the SAP generative AI hub. The generative AI hub facilitates relevant, reliable and responsible business AI and provides instant access to a broad range of large language models (LLMs).

 As part of SAP’s ongoing initiative to build generative AI directly into the applications that power the world’s businesses, the partnership aims to help customers adopt generative AI capabilities at scale across their organizations. SAP will use NVIDIA’s generative AI foundry service to fine-tune LLMs for domain-specific scenarios and deploy applications with new NVIDIA NIM™ microservices. SAP and NVIDIA plan to make the new integrated capabilities available by the end of 2024.

“Enterprise customers want to leverage state-of-the-art technology that delivers real business value,” said Christian Klein, CEO and Member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. “Strategic technology partnerships, like the one between SAP and NVIDIA, are at the core of our strategy to invest in technology that maximizes the potential and opportunity of AI for business. NVIDIA’s expertise in delivering AI capabilities at scale will help SAP accelerate the pace of transformation and better serve our customers in the cloud.”

“SAP is sitting on a gold mine of enterprise data that can be transformed into custom generative AI agents to help customers automate their businesses,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Together, NVIDIA and SAP will bring custom generative AI to the thousands of enterprises around the world that rely on SAP to power their operations.”

Harnessing Business Data and Generative AI to Advance Customer Insights

SAP and NVIDIA plan to collaborate to integrate generative AI into cloud solutions from SAP, which include the latest release of the SAP Datasphere solution, SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) and RISE with SAP.

SAP plans to build additional generative AI capabilities within SAP BTP using NVIDIA’s generative AI foundry service, featuring NVIDIA DGX™ Cloud AI supercomputing, NVIDIA AI Enterprise software and NVIDIA AI Foundation models. These new capabilities are designed to be the basis of SAP’s development and deployment of generative AI for customers and is expected to be accessible in the generative AI hub in SAP AI Core and SAP Datasphere.

Additional generative AI initiatives include:

• New capabilities for the Joule copilot: Joule can leverage retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) capabilities built by NVIDIA and SAP, which can be deployed on leading hyperscalers or SAP’s own cloud environments. As a natural-language, generative AI copilot, Joule helps customers unlock the potential in their business by automating time-consuming tasks and quickly analyzing business-critical data to deliver more intelligent, personalized experiences.
• Innovative use cases leveraging SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Signavio: SAP and NVIDIA are exploring more than 20 generative AI use cases where the companies can combine assets to simplify and enhance digital transformation. Among these are generative AI features that can automate enterprise resource planning with intelligent invoice matching in SAP S/4HANA Cloud; improve human resources use cases leveraging SAP SuccessFactors; and accelerate new generative AI insights from SAP Signavio to better process business recommendations and optimize SAP’s customer support processes.
• Unifying AI data sources with SAP Datasphere: Built on SAP BTP, SAP Datasphere enables integration and a unified view of semantically rich SAP data with third-party data across the enterprise landscape to help customers adapt faster to market changes and make more efficient and better informed decisions. With SAP Datasphere, customers can confidently access a high-quality data fabric using AI and machine learning (ML) models. To accelerate SAP’s federated machine learning (FedML) capabilities for SAP Datasphere, NVIDIA and SAP are facilitating easier access to data for data scientists and enhancing ML workload performance with the support of NVIDIA accelerated computing platforms and NVIDIA AI Enterprise data science software such as NVIDIA RAPIDS™.
• Using LLMs for the ABAP programming language: To aid developers in creating domain-specific language code, SAP plans to use NVIDIA AI foundry services to assist in fine-tuning LLMs. This will build on SAP’s use of generative AI models to assist developers who use ABAP through the company’s ABAP Cloud model and SAP Cloud Application Programming model.

NVIDIA AI Enterprise Powers Production-Grade Generative AI Across Cloud Solutions from SAP

Once models are ready for deployment in cloud solutions from SAP, SAP plans to use NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, including NVIDIA NIM inference microservices and NVIDIA NeMo Retriever™ microservices. NVIDIA NIM can be used to accelerate and maximize inference performance across the accelerated infrastructure from SAP. Using NVIDIA NeMo Retriever microservices, SAP plans to add RAG capabilities that enable generative AI applications to more securely access data running on SAP software to improve accuracy and insights. Customers can plan to use RAG on both SAP and third-party data.

To learn more about the SAP and NVIDIA partnership, watch the replay of Huang’s GTC keynote address.

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About NVIDIA

Since its founding in 1993, NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) has been a pioneer in accelerated computing. The company’s invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined computer graphics, ignited the era of modern AI and is fueling industrial digitalization across markets. NVIDIA is now a full-stack computing infrastructure company with data-center-scale offerings that are reshaping industry. More information at https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/.

About SAP

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

Revolutionize how you interact with SAP business system while simplifying your day-to-day with faster work, smarter insights and better outcomes Meet Joule

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:
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SAP Press Room; press@sap.com
NVIDIA: Shannon McPhee, +1 (310) 920-9642, smcphee@nvidia.com

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the benefits, impact, performance, features, and availability of NVIDIA’s products and technologies, including NVIDIA’s generative AI foundry service, NVIDIA NIM microservices, NVIDIA DGX Cloud AI supercomputing, NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, and NVIDIA AI Foundation models, NVIDIA accelerated computing platforms, NVIDIA AI Enterprise data science software such as NVIDIA RAPIDS, RAPIDS cuDF and cuML, NVIDIA NeMo Retriever microservices; NVIDIA’s partnership with SAP, the benefits and impact of such partnership, and the features and availability of its services and offerings; SAP sitting on a gold mine of enterprise data that can be transformed into custom generative AI agents to help customers automate their businesses; and NVIDIA and SAP bringing custom generative AI to the thousands of enterprises around the world that rely on SAP to power their operations are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: global economic conditions; our reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test our products; the impact of technological development and competition; development of new products and technologies or enhancements to our existing product and technologies; market acceptance of our products or our partners’ products; design, manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or demands; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the most recent reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including, but not limited to, its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the company’s website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

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 2023 Annual Report on Form 20-F.

© 2024 SAP SE and NVIDIA Corporation. 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.

NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, DGX, NVIDIA NeMo Retriever, NVIDIA NIM, and RAPIDS are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change without notice.

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Businesses have always relied on third-party services to help them get things done. Today’s business environment makes procuring the right services at the right price from the right provider crucial for success. And yet, many organizations lack a mature approach to sourcing and managing services. This exposes them to greater risk and higher costs, and it leaves them unable to measure project outcomes effectively.

These are among the findings of the newly released Benchmarking Services Procurement: A Global Study, conducted by Art of Procurement and sponsored by SAP. In examining the current state of services procurement, the study seeks to answer two basic questions: Is procurement moving beyond the role of “a pass-through for services contracts”? And how are procurement teams using new approaches and technology to innovate services procurement?

The Challenges of Procuring Services

Whether it’s for IT consulting, marketing services, facilities management, or legal services, procuring services through a third party gives organizations access to personnel with advanced skills and expertise. It can also be cost-effective.

Business leaders have taken note, as highlighted in 2023 research from Ardent Partners. “On average, professional services spending comprises between 45% and 65% of an organization’s total non-employee spending,” Ardent reports.

However, acquiring these services requires a significant level of procurement sophistication. Many services are too complex to fit neatly into a catalog and sourcing them requires organizations to consider key questions, including:

• Are we buying labor or an outcome?
• What is the cost mechanism – daily rates, time and materials, fixed-fee?
• Can we balance risk with agility?
• How do we maintain our service provider relationship?

Procurement teams have the expertise to bring a higher level of maturity to professional services. They provide a strategic approach that streamlines everything from sourcing and contracting to invoicing and vendor management. But are businesses taking full advantage of their expertise?

Benchmarking Services Procurement: A Global Study by Art of Procurement and SAP Read the full study Three Things the Study Tells Us

The Art of Procurement study reveals a lot about the state of professional services procurement. Here are a few of my thoughts – from a global perspective.

Many organizations aren’t benefiting from technology.

Fifty percent of respondents said they purchase services contracts via e-mail and phone, and 23% buy from the same procurement catalogs they use to buy goods. Only 27% use a technology platform designed for services procurement.

Choosing not to use services procurement technology creates compliance and governance challenges. It also limits buyers’ ability to get the best pricing. Moreover, e-mails and phone calls don’t provide a secure, centralized data trail, which is useful for demand planning and forecasting and for making strategic decisions about insourcing and outsourcing.

Too often, bidders seek fixed pricing. That inhibits innovation.

Seventy-nine percent of respondents said they use some form of fixed pricing to buy services. Although this allows them to know the price up front, it also presents challenges. For example, with fixed pricing, statements of work must be tightly written to detail exact project requirements. Otherwise, businesses could pay for more than they receive.

The Art of Procurement research also notes “a worrisome lack of risk and reward mechanisms in services procurement contracts.” It warns that disregarding these innovative mechanisms can jeopardize supplier relationships and stifle innovation. “Without clear incentives for success and mitigations for failure, procurement could unintentionally foster a transactional, short-term mindset in suppliers, leading to cut corners or a reluctance to invest in long-term innovation.”

Organizations prefer single project bids, which are less efficient.

In the survey, 39% of respondents said they set rates by project. Managing bids one by one forces businesses to go back to the market continuously – requiring more proposals, more negotiation, and more contracts.

But there’s also good news. The remaining 61% of respondents say they use either frameworks or preferred supplier panels to drive efficiency. A framework is a general agreement with pre-qualified suppliers, outlining terms and conditions under which specific goods or services will be procured. Panels are groups of pre-approved suppliers, selected for their ability to deliver specific services. These suppliers meet specific qualification criteria and have undergone a competitive selection process.

Overall, the Art of Procurement study paints a picture where procurement is not putting forth its expertise to help the business acquire and manage professional services. As such, it is conceding its strategic role to stakeholders and suppliers.

How Technology Can Help Turn the Tide

The Art of Procurement study advises procurement teams to “select and implement technology with breadth in mind, aiming to address as much services spend as possible rather than allowing pockets of sourcing activity to flow through non-standard platforms and processes.”

SAP Fieldglass Services Procurement is a broad technology application that can simplify how external services projects are initiated, engaged, managed, and completed. It can enable procurement teams to:

• Initiate service requests with competitive bidding, facilitating collaboration on bid criteria with colleagues, expedited approvals for authorized terms and budgets, and distribution of bids to services providers.
• Engage selected vendors through a negotiation process that follows a side-by-side evaluation of all responses, and then finalize an agreement.
• Manage global services engagements within a single, centralized system – securely onboarding workers, tracking deliverables, validating work, and generating invoices.
• Complete the project with automated offboarding, including terminating system access, retrieving assets, and giving performance feedback.

SAP Fieldglass has been named to the G2 list of Best Software Products for 2024, based on user reviews. It is also one of G2’s Best Mid-Market Products for 2024.

Procurement Must Lead the Way

Based on the findings of the Art of Procurement study, it’s clear that organizations need to adopt a more mature approach to services procurement. Procurement teams have the expertise to lead this transformation, although they must do more to assert themselves within the business. Technology can help accelerate this by enabling procurement to establish consistent, end-to-end processes for initiating, engaging, and managing external service projects.

Read the Art of Procurement report here.

Gordon Donovan is global vice president of Research, SAP Procurement, and External Workforce at SAP.

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With geopolitical conflict and climate change roiling global shipping corridors from the Suez Canal to Panama and elsewhere, enterprises rely increasingly on cloud-based business networks and artificial intelligence (AI) applications to extend visibility, facilitate collaboration, and ensure they stay one step ahead of the looming threat of disruption.

Meanwhile, as legislation to bolster transparency in supply chains takes hold around the world, the digital platforms through which trading partners carry out interconnected operational processes have become indispensable for managing risk, advancing sustainability objectives, and verifying adherence to ethical business practices – even as volatility in international commerce gathers pace.

After rebounding from several years of logjammed seaports, idled factories, and quarantined workers, many businesses find that though COVID-19 has receded, disruption stubbornly persists. Yet visibility across all aspects of the supply chain – from sourcing raw materials and managing logistics capacity to securing working capital solutions and managing dispersed physical assets – remains paramount in the quest to ensure business continuity, instill operational resilience, and deepen competitive advantage.

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

To help provide businesses with the 360-degree visibility and collaborative capabilities they require across complex trading relationships, SAP Business Network can connect people, processes, and systems across multiple enterprises to help digitize transactions, harness data-driven insights, and create transparent, resilient, and sustainable supply chains. Through SAP Business Network for Procurement, trading partners can gain process efficiencies, improve supply assurance, and achieve business process and regulatory compliance by increasing operational transparency. With SAP Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration, companies can achieve supply chain visibility by enabling plan-driven automation, optimizing capacity and inventory, and streamlining workflow. Aided by SAP Business Network for Logistics, shippers and carriers can work together in unison, track and trace goods in transit, and achieve transparency throughout the supply chain by optimizing logistics processes, increasing on-time deliveries, and mitigating third-party risk. Relying on SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration, owners, operators, and service providers can strengthen joint processes and the flow of shared information through a single, consistent version of asset master data to help streamline asset maintenance processes and reduce maintenance costs. With the benefit of SAP Business Network for Finance, trading partners can enhance payment security, free up working capital through early-payment discounts, and leverage access to capital bound up in outstanding receivables.

By linking together the routine business processes of trading partners, cloud-based networks establish the breadth of data necessary to apply predictive and generative AI applications to yield meaningful insights and outcomes. Through large language models and other forms of machine learning, cloud-based applications create new content with characteristics resembling that which precedes it. With every successive effort, generative AI sharpens its ability to tailor desired content.

As the world’s largest platform for business-to-business commerce, SAP Business Network can present an ideal setting for generative AI, in that it helps bring together an extremely large volume of trading partners across hundreds of millions of transactions representing US$5.3 trillion in commerce annually. Later this year, generative AI capabilities in SAP Business Network will be able to help detect errors and present automatic summaries when businesses create invoices. AI will also enable the network to help enrich catalog content and discovery posting responses for suppliers.

SAP Business Network has accumulated significant structured content over many years to help generate broad operational insights for trading partners. When buyers, suppliers, carriers, and financing solution providers share operational data with each other in real time, the mutual value they create can be exponential rather than additive, enabling all participants in commerce to plan ahead with confidence, continuity, and enduring resilience.

For further information on SAP Business Network and how we are equipping enterprises large and small with the digital tools needed to counter disruption, visit sap.com/businessnetwork.

Jörn Keller is executive vice president and chief product officer of SAP Business Network.

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