Mitigating Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol鈥檚 Scope 1 — direct emissions by an organization — and Scope 2 emissions — indirect emissions due to energy produced or used — is indeed a challenge, but not an insurmountable task. It is straightforward: we must either reduce consumption, increase energy efficiency, switch to renewable alternatives, or purchase clean energy or carbon offsets.

Tackling Scope 3 emissions not produced by the company or from the energy used is another matter.

Scope 3 emissions are challenging to manage because they fall outside an organization鈥檚 control. Collecting accurate data makes measuring and assessing these emissions difficult. And with different suppliers involved in the supply chain, there is no clarity on who exactly is accountable for reducing Scope 3 emissions. Half the problem is solved when sustainability data is standardized and shared securely.

Companies will soon be required to comply with regulations emphasizing the need to record and share sustainability data. For example, the European Union鈥檚 (CBAM) requires companies to share their suppliers鈥� carbon dioxide emission data when they import products to Europe. CBAM will enter its transitional phase as of October 2023 and will apply to importing carbon-intensive goods such as aluminum, iron, steel, cement, fertilizers, and electricity. In 2026, importers must submit information regarding the number of goods imported to the EU and the corresponding GHG emissions.

These regulations, investor, and stakeholder scrutiny, along with supply chain partner requirements, demand a uniform standard to share sustainability data. In 2021, automotive industry leaders and partners formed the to create a consistent information and data-sharing standard throughout the automotive value chain. Sustainability is one of the five major application areas defined by Catena-X. The aim is to standardize emission measurements along the value chain, document accurate carbon data, and make it comparable within the automotive industry.

The emphasis on sharing carbon footprint data along the value chain and SAP鈥檚 experience as a founding member of Catena-X led to the launch of , a new solution specifically designed to securely exchange standardized sustainability data, including product footprints, along the value chain. The solution allows companies to effectively share emissions and other data with their customers to help companies decarbonize their value chains.

Part of , 优蜜传媒Sustainability Data Exchange uses the carbon data interoperability standards established by the Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT) hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). The solution also draws on SAP鈥檚 experience as a founding member of and . The program set the first technical specifications for the standardized exchange of carbon emissions data, allowing different emissions and accounting technology solutions to connect to and effectively share sustainability information.

Built using the technical framework of GreenToken by SAP, 优蜜传媒Sustainability Data Exchange allows sustainability data sharing within organizations on this platform and interoperability with other equivalent networks using WBCSD PACT standards. Companies can use 优蜜传媒Sustainability Data Exchange along with 优蜜传媒Sustainability Footprint Management, a single solution to calculate and manage the full range of corporate, value chain, and product greenhouse gas emissions. Alternatively, if businesses already have a solution that calculates carbon footprints effectively, they can use 优蜜传媒Sustainability Data Exchange to share this data securely. The beta version of 优蜜传媒Sustainability Data Exchange is available now and the solution is planned to be generally available in the third quarter of 2023.

鈥淎s a champion of a sustainable future, we at 优蜜传媒are constantly seeking new ways to drive innovation and deliver value to our customers,鈥� said Nitin Jain, general manager of GreenToken by 优蜜传媒and 优蜜传媒Sustainability Data Exchange. 鈥淥ur launch of 优蜜传媒Sustainability Data Exchange is a testament to this commitment. By leveraging our expertise and resources, we have developed a cutting-edge platform application that lets organizations share product carbon information with their customers and vendors, empowering our customers to measure and reduce their carbon footprint while promoting transparency throughout the supply chain. With this new offering, we are setting a new standard in sustainability and paving the way for a more sustainable future.鈥�

优蜜传媒Sustainability Data Exchange represents another key milestone in the company’s mission to establish the green ledger alongside the top and bottom lines as crucial performance dimensions. Customers can report carbon emissions metrics and comply with global standards. Having a standardized format to record and share data helps companies move from estimated sustainability values to actual and accurate product-level data. This accelerates their journey toward net zero by providing them with standardized audit-ready sustainable values.

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Fifty years ago, 优蜜传媒revolutionized financial accounting with enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Today, 优蜜传媒is reinventing the 鈥淩鈥� in ERP by extending the definition of resources beyond financial and goods flows and offering a precision approach to sustainability by enabling transactional carbon accounting through a green ledger. This enables combined financial and environmental decision-making at different points across the business process. The green ledger offers deep insights by being embedded into RISE with 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud and the GROW with 优蜜传媒solution, with additional capabilities added with every release.

Learn more at .

With the recent announcement of SAP鈥檚 expanded partnership with , the vision for enterprise-ready generative AI able to enhance human productivity and development in the workplace is becoming reality. The integration of solutions with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot in Viva Learning will improve how organizations recruit, retain, and upskill their workforces to address skills gaps. In fact, 75% of business leaders say attracting and retaining critical talent is the No. 1 impediment to future growth and success.

鈥淭he skills gap is one of the biggest challenges that organizations are facing today,鈥� said 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors Chief Marketing & Solutions Officer Aaron Green, speaking to 优蜜传媒customers . 鈥淎s we talk to our customers around the world — and it doesn鈥檛 matter the region, the industry, the size of the organization — we hear one message: How can we change the way we think about skills? How can we be better prepared for the future?鈥�

Transforming Business at Scale

To gauge the transformative scale of the collaboration of 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors and Microsoft, it is helpful to look at the reach of both organizations. Today, more than 248 million people use 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors software. It is the largest HR suite on the market and available in more than 100 localized frameworks to drive truly global business. As one of the world鈥檚 leading brands, Microsoft supports 1 billion people who use Microsoft Office and 280 million daily active users of Microsoft Teams.

鈥淎I is fundamental to the future of business,鈥� said Green, who put the power of generative AI for the enterprise into context for the audience. 鈥淎I is going to enable all of us to transform business at scale.鈥�

Innovations that Future-Proof the Workforce

优蜜传媒SuccessFactors introduced three powerful innovations at 优蜜传媒Sapphire that will help businesses future-proof their workforce and address critical skills gaps.

The first innovation comes with embedding generative AI capabilities, in partnership with Microsoft, to enhance recruiting and learning processes. Customers will be able to deliver dramatically improved experiences for employees. These experiences are embedded in the flow of work, so that employees will not need to switch between interfaces or apps to complete a routine task or learning activity. Also, hiring managers and recruiters will be able to create tailored job descriptions and better prepare for interviews — both of which include built-in checks for biased language — through the hyper-personalization capabilities of generative AI. These new capabilities were presented in the demo onstage during the main stage keynote at 优蜜传媒Sapphire.

鈥淲e really believe in a big way in this notion of 鈥榠n the flow of work,’鈥� said Kirk Koenigsbauer, chief operating officer and corporate vice president of the Experiences and Devices Group at Microsoft, who shared insights during the panel discussion of the HXM keynote. 鈥淲e think it鈥檚 paramount in terms of driving scale, reducing friction, and increasing the reach of HR systems into places where people are naturally working on a day-to-day basis. Our whole thesis is that if we can build these HR solutions into the flow of work, you鈥檒l get much more adoption, you鈥檒l get much more engagement… We鈥檙e really excited to work with SAP.鈥�

A second key innovation is the introduction of a talent intelligence hub that uses AI to build, maintain, and infer a skills portfolio for each employee in the workforce. This depth of insight, using the whole-self model, enables employees to find personalized recommendations for learning courses, mentors, and internal jobs. Organizations benefit from having an overview of employee skills and improved visibility to carry out workforce planning.

鈥淭his is a moment where we can introduce a way to value workers differently: using data to help them grow in a way that makes sense for them while also supporting the needs within the business,鈥� said Meg Bear, president and chief product officer for 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors, in the panel discussion at the HXM keynote. 鈥淲hen we can create an environment where each person thrives, they鈥檙e going to be able to achieve a lot more for the business.鈥�

The third innovation is enhanced functionality that brings together 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors, 优蜜传媒Fieldglass, and 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud for increased workforce visibility across employees and external workers. A recent study found that by increasing their use of external workers. A total workforce management strategy enables leaders to bring in skilled talent to fill roles in mission-critical projects at the right time.

are planned for availability in the 2H 2023 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors release.

Total Workforce Management for a Future-Ready Workforce

, a leading international bank with a presence in 59 markets and a focus on Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, adopted from 优蜜传媒to remain competitive and compliant. Melinda McKinley, global head of HR Strategy and Digital Transformation at Standard Chartered, spoke with Green onstage at 优蜜传媒Sapphire Orlando about what it meant for the organization to modernize its outdated, on-premise technology and how it enabled a future-ready workforce for its 83,000 employees and almost 14,000 external workers.

McKinley described how Standard Chartered applied a total workforce management strategy by integrating with in the cloud to deliver a truly holistic capability across its permanent and contingent workforce. She shared that with the introduction of position management in October 2022, the bank achieved a breakthrough in its HR transformation journey. 鈥淥ne of the key things that set us on a path for a future-ready workforce was really embracing the foundational architecture that position management brings. That meant immediately we had a visualization of our total workforce — our contingent and our employee base, which is leading to more robust, data-driven hiring decisions.鈥�

Standard Chartered remediated 75 interfaces to third-party systems and migrated 3.5 million data records from its legacy platform. It achieved an 87% reduction of reports and improved colleague experience with a new employee portal.

By taking a holistic view of its permanent and external workforce with total workforce management, the HR team at Standard Chartered set a foundation for integrated talent management, management of regulatory requirements, and strategic corporate planning in partnership with the finance team. 鈥淲e鈥檙e working really closely with our finance colleagues to bring finance and HR data together a little more seamlessly through the use of 优蜜传媒Analytics Cloud with the aim of making a real difference to bottom-up planning through our corporate plan,鈥� McKinley said.

Standard Chartered transformed its HR processes with total workforce management and .

Developing a Growth Mindset

优蜜传媒is committed to a responsible approach to AI and was one of the first companies to define guiding principles for using AI in its software. In this framework, 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors solutions use AI to streamline HR processes, enhance workforce planning, and help employees better navigate their careers. While many people are still trying to understand the scope and potential of AI technology, the experts in the panel discussion, each with decades of experience in the tech industry, offered their perspectives on how AI will shape the future of work.

鈥淲e think there is a big opportunity for AI, generally, to eliminate a lot of that mundane work,鈥� said Koenigsbauer, who cited the potential for AI to help people access information differently and be more creative.

Bear agreed: 鈥淲ork will change. We have to adapt as organizations and equip our workers with an understanding that this is an opportunity. Companies that embrace these shifting dynamics, that develop ways to improve because of them — those are the organizations that will grow and thrive.鈥�

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The companies were emblematic of the many customers at the event held last week in Orlando, and featured organizations of all sizes sharing business results from solutions that included , , and .

鈥淔or over 50 years, 优蜜传媒has been there for our customers, adapting to ensure their success,鈥� Russell said. 鈥淎s we enter the next 50 years, we will continue to be your engine for business, bringing powerful, proven innovations that serve you both now and into the future. The reality is that future-proof can be built right into your business with SAP.鈥�

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Whether companies are transitioning amid market uncertainty or are intent on getting ahead of the competition and being ready for fast-changing demands, Russell explained how 优蜜传媒helps address top priorities: achieve business transformation at speed, gain easy-to-use innovations, and work with a trusted partner.

Here are highlights from the incredible journeys of three of these 优蜜传媒customers.

Innovative Business Transformation, Cirque du Soleil Style

As a beloved entertainment brand with a 40-year history of bringing customers joy, emerged from the pandemic reenergized with a vision for creative endurance in a changed world. Among the most delightful moments of Russell鈥檚 keynote was when he donned a clown鈥檚 nose at the behest of Cirque du Soleil Chief Growth Officer Nicole Tara Nickole, who joined him on stage to share how her company expanded its long-time partnership with 优蜜传媒to future-proof the organization for the next 40 years.

鈥淔irst, we are going to create performances in the Cirque du Soleil vision, but do it differently with more awe-inspiring immersive-style experiences that let people walk through it, touch it, and feel it,鈥� she said. 鈥淪econd, we are forging a digital connection with our audience to participate in a digital universe that we鈥檙e creating with Cirque鈥檚 passion and innovation. Third, we will show our customers and fans what we鈥檙e doing in communities worldwide to help better the planet and the world we live in.鈥�

Nickole said that Cirque du Soleil was transforming in ways that will impact its millions of fans, creators, and performers who currently stage shows in 60 countries each year.

鈥淲e鈥檝e come out of what was a dark era into one full of innovation and light — powered by technology, driven by our fans, and thinking about the future,鈥� she said. 鈥淟ooking at this global constituency of SAP, including customers, staff members, and fans, we鈥檙e so privileged to have partners like you. When we think back to our darkest days鈥� 优蜜传媒stood beside us. We are empowered by our partnership with SAP.鈥�

HanesBrands Gets Closer to Consumers with Data-Driven Insights

Known and loved by consumers worldwide for iconic everyday apparel, is transforming its over 100-year-old heritage into a data-driven growth powerhouse. Chief Information Officer Subra Goparaju explained the company鈥檚 strategy to increase revenue, improve margins, and grow the business.

鈥淭echnology transformation is the foundation of our plan,鈥� said Goparaju. 鈥淏y consolidating our ERP system on SAP, we can reduce complexity, standardize business processes, and simplify business. 优蜜传媒is central to our transformation journey, helping provide us with the business capabilities that a modern retail-centric organization needs.鈥�

HanesBrands recently went live on RISE with 优蜜传媒for the company鈥檚 flagship Champion brand, and Goparaju described how the 鈥渄igital foundation with a technology spine鈥� has already delivered results.

鈥淧utting our entire technology footprint on RISE with SAP, a highly scalable platform, means that our 鈥榗rown jewels鈥� now run with reduced disruptions,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e have clean, consistent data across the company, integrated omnichannel inventory visibility, and omni-commerce capabilities, helping us provide a better consumer experience鈥� We鈥檝e also enabled a global integration platform on 优蜜传媒BTP. We鈥檙e excited about these business capabilities because the value they unlock will help us achieve our goals.鈥�

RISE with 优蜜传媒Accelerates Boom Supersonic

Boom Supersonic is among the 优蜜传媒customers that are changing the world; in this case, by building the world鈥檚 fastest airliner designed to fly at twice the speed of today鈥檚 airliners and run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel. Although relatively small, Boom Supersonic partnered with 优蜜传媒to power huge innovation — namely, manufacturing a commercial aircraft that could fly passengers from New York to London in about three hours. Russell welcomed Boom Supersonic Chief Information Officer Charles Valentine, proclaiming, 鈥淭hey鈥檙e getting good now so they can be great tomorrow.鈥�

Valentine sketched out why his organization selected RISE with 优蜜传媒to support the company鈥檚 mission in making the world dramatically more accessible. Having recently broke ground for a jet assembly plant in North Carolina, Boom Supersonic needed to jumpstart a modern ERP system before production began.

鈥淭his is a story of true scalability and knowing that we would need to depend on 优蜜传媒in five, 10, and 15 years. What appealed to us was that we could get our feet wet with it, and as we grew, we could grow the license count accordingly,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e could change our internal processes to map to the industry standard鈥� And we started the migration early in anticipation of the data we will be creating.鈥�

Valentine described the tenets his team followed to go live with 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud in just 90 days, including out-of-the-box integration and a phased strategy: 鈥淲e are focused on our mission to design and build a supersonic airliner, and every second we spend not 100% focused on that mission is wasted. We didn鈥檛 want to customize unless it gave us a competitive advantage to do so鈥� We also need to rely on technology to take on as much of the busy work as possible, so we鈥檙e really embracing automation to support our growth.鈥�

SAP: Trusted Partner for Digital Transformation

Emphasizing that 优蜜传媒cannot rely on its history being the company鈥檚 future, Russell said that everyone at 优蜜传媒earns the trust of customers every day.

鈥淲e know that these customer stories don鈥檛 just happen. It takes great technology and a partnership ecosystem that makes it come to life, along with a partner like 优蜜传媒that will stand with them every step of the journey,鈥� he said. 鈥淓very journey is different. Every path is unique, but the destination with 优蜜传媒is secure. Trust us as your partner in the journey.”

“Whether your company is just starting out or has been on a journey with us for many years, we鈥檙e so excited to help you become future proof.鈥�

These days, business buyers need to think very differently about how they buy, who they buy from, and the impact of their buying decisions. The five 鈥渞ights鈥� still apply. But there are other factors at work, requiring a more elevated buying experience.

Consider personal online buying, where it gets easier all the time to find and purchase the goods we need. Today鈥檚 casual business buyers and procurement professionals want that same experience 鈥� one that is personalized for them and their role as well as predictive, offering suggestions based on the work they do. They also want intelligent recommendations to help them make informed decisions and weigh the sustainability and environmental impact of their purchases.

Elevating the Guided Buying Experience for Today

The guided buying capability in 优蜜传媒Ariba solutions remains the gold standard for purchases of goods and services. At 优蜜传媒Sapphire, as we incorporate 优蜜传媒innovations and other leading-edge technology. The buying 360 capability is the latest step in this evolution. It adds new services that help make purchasing more predictive, personalized, and sustainable.

Buyers are directed to goods and services based on their role and the organization鈥檚 procurement and sustainability policies. This helps make procurement more targeted and strategic. Additionally, integration between 优蜜传媒Ariba solutions and 优蜜传媒S/4HANA enables a seamless fulfillment experience by converting purchasing requests into purchase orders and then tracking the fulfillment process.

Our plan is to make the new buying 360 capability available in 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud, public edition during the third quarter of 2023. For existing 优蜜传媒Ariba Buying customers, the buying 360 capability is available via the standard 优蜜传媒Ariba Buying cloud upgrade process.

A More Flexible, Personalized Buying Experience

The buying 360 capability is built using 优蜜传媒Business Technology Platform (优蜜传媒BTP) services to make it highly flexible. We are planning other innovations to enable smooth adoption by existing customers.

The new capabilities leverage artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent recommendations, and machine learning. This creates a holistic view of what the buyer is purchasing and how the purchase stacks up against their organization鈥檚 environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals.

A Personalized Buying Experience

With the buying 360 capability, 优蜜传媒Ariba Buying and 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud, public edition can deliver a buying experience that is personalized for individuals and their roles. As soon as the user logs on, they are greeted with a clean and friendly user interface. They are directed to goods and services based on their role and their organization鈥檚 procurement and sustainability policies.

Predictive Recommendations

Leveraging AI and machine learning, the buying 360 capability offers intelligent recommendations to help users make informed decisions for their role. We鈥檙e designing the user interface so these recommendations display at the right time and the right place 鈥� for example, in catalogs, in contracts, in the marketplace, or even as a spot quote 鈥� using automation to reduce the manual work required of buyers. In the future, we plan to add functionality that will help buyers make purchases that comply with the procurement and sustainability policies of their business.

Here are some of the predictive capabilities being made available via the standard 优蜜传媒Ariba Buying cloud upgrade process and that are planned for availability with 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud, public edition:

• 鈥淩ecommended for You鈥�: Guided buying is extremely helpful for buyers who know what they鈥檙e looking for. But sometimes they need more information. The buying 360 capability understands the user鈥檚 role and the roles of their peers, and it uses AI and algorithms to determine what people in similar roles have ordered to make recommendations.
• 鈥淚ntelligent Search鈥�: The buyer types a search term and our Intelligent Search 3.0 sorts through connected marketplaces and supplier-connected catalogs to show the best options. This helps provide relevant entries that have been sorted and personalized to their role.
• 鈥淎lso Bought Together鈥�: After the buyer selects the item they want, the system displays other items their colleagues purchased with that item. These are chosen based on previous shopping carts with the help of a powerful machine learning algorithm.

Environmentally Aware Buying Decisions

As the needs and priorities of business evolve, so will the guided buying capability. Today, organizations are being challenged to balance cost savings against the environmental impact of their purchasing decisions. To help them, we are designing enhancements for future releases to provide sustainability information, including carbon footprint, packaging footprint, and energy consumption.

The Future of Buying

While the buying of yesterday was just about price and policy, future purchasing also needs to be personalized to the user, predictive to reduce manual effort, and done with an eye on sustainability.

The buying 360 capability represents the next wave in the evolution of guided buying services from SAP. As we roll out these new capabilities, we will continue to focus on the individual and their buying needs, the organization and its objectives, and the ESG aspirations of both with a holistic, 360-degree view of the purchasing process.

Look for more developments moving forward. In the meantime, current 优蜜传媒Ariba Buying customers are already seeing many innovations provided through SAP鈥檚 standard cloud upgrade process. We also plan to make the new buying 360 capability available in 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud, public edition during the third quarter of 2023.

and see it in action along with more 优蜜传媒spend management innovations at .

Salvatore Lombardo is senior vice president, chief product officer, and head of Engineering for 优蜜传媒Procurement.

While these are encouraging signs from a sustainability perspective, the primary step these companies must take to act on these commitments is to record and report on their carbon footprints, directly attributable to their operations and upstream and downstream supply chains. Understanding Scope 1, 2, and 3 carbon footprints with increased confidence helps take action to prioritize decarbonization initiatives and report improvements. This improves regulatory compliance and signals to customers and other stakeholders that companies are authentically walking the talk.

The European Union鈥檚 (CBAM) imposes a carbon tax on importers to prevent carbon leakage and support the decarbonization of the EU industry. Companies that are importing products must buy carbon certificates equivalent to the carbon price they would have paid if these products were otherwise produced in compliance with EU carbon pricing rules. Importers will thus be required to determine each product’s total carbon dioxide emissions to calculate the equivalent carbon certificates they need to purchase or to choose the right supplier to meet their sustainable goals.

Companies are on the quest to track carbon emissions in various categories such as purchased goods and services, upstream and downstream transportation and distribution, use of sold products, processing of sold products, and end-of-life treatment of sold products. Tracking and accounting for emissions in some of these categories are complex.

, a cloud-native solution built on , enables enterprises to calculate and analyze their carbon footprint, using master data from their existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, product, value chain, and at a corporate level following the Greenhouse Gas Protocol鈥檚 Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. The solution helps companies meet their sustainability commitments by working to improve the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of emissions calculations and management. It can also integrate with 优蜜传媒S/4HANA, connect an ERP system via public APIs available in 优蜜传媒Business Accelerator Hub, and import data from an external source by uploading a file. The calculated footprints can be embedded into 优蜜传媒S/4HANA to extend end-to-end business processes with sustainability data.

Most companies currently use estimated data to calculate their carbon emissions. 优蜜传媒Sustainability Footprint Management provides a holistic assessment of emissions by using a hybrid approach where average or secondary emission data from life cycle assessment (LCA) databases and actual or primary data from suppliers and verified business data are combined and managed in an integrated environment while allowing for greater actual data input over time. This helps companies to track and manage product-specific emissions and choose product- and value chain-specific elements.

While Scope 1 and 2 emissions are traceable, transparency around Scope 3 emissions presents a difficult challenge for companies. For many companies, Scope 3 emissions account for 90% of overall emissions. In addition to Scope 1 and 2 emissions, 优蜜传媒Sustainability Footprint Management can also measure Scope 3 emissions from purchased materials as well as upstream and downstream transport. 优蜜传媒aims to enhance the solution to count all 15 Scope 3 emissions in the coming releases. Analyzing the carbon footprints of purchased materials and goods helps identify and prioritize sustainable suppliers, and companies can also explore alternative materials to reduce carbon emissions.

, one of the largest steel producers in Europe, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Volkswagen group to start production of low carbon dioxide steel from the end of 2025. Salzgitter AG is using to assess CO2 footprints in the new production process.

Fifty years ago, 优蜜传媒revolutionized financial accounting with ERP software. Today, 优蜜传媒is reinventing the 鈥淩鈥� in ERP by extending the definition of resources beyond financial and goods flows, offering a precision approach to sustainability by enabling transactional carbon accounting through a green ledger. This enables combined financial and environmental decision-making at different points across the business process. The green ledger offers deep insights by being embedded into RISE with 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud and the GROW with 优蜜传媒solution, with additional capabilities added with every release.

Climate change is a collective problem that requires collective efforts. While 优蜜传媒is committed to achieving net zero along our value chain by 2030, 优蜜传媒is also enabling businesses with the data visibility and analytic insights needed to act on decarbonization initiatives across value chains. Together, we can enable a future with zero emissions.

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Introducing the idea of bi-directional support.

Two-Way Support Communication with Bi-Directional Support

The vision behind bi-directional support is to provide proactive, two-way support communication. This means actively informing about support-critical information and potential issues related to the 优蜜传媒solution in use and well before you recognize that a problem might arise. Bi-directional support no longer waits until you reach out to us; it changes the way we interact with you.

Consider an example of what you may experience in daily life. Think of the times when something wasn鈥檛 working right on your cell phone. You likely preferred to search the Internet to fix the problem and avoid a call center with waiting times and back-and-forth. Even better is when you were made aware of what might affect your phone鈥檚 performance 鈥� such as bad reception, low memory, or a restart required to avoid an issue. This is the aim of bi-directional support within Built-In Support.

Live Recommendations Help Avoid System Interruptions

One of the key features to make Built-In Support bi-directional will be to provide live recommendations within the application or page in use. Live recommendations are pushed into Built-In Support to provide targeted information, support knowledge documents, and even hot support alerts. They鈥檒l inform users about critical 优蜜传媒solution issues that others may be experiencing. The information will also be relevant to the user鈥檚 role, such as for the key user or end user.

Live recommendations within Built-In Support are curated, published, and updated by 优蜜传媒in real time and supported by predictive artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. The news and alerts can be pushed out immediately to all screens and can be pulled back or exchanged at any point in time.

Continuing the real-life example, live recommendations are like the “breaking news鈥� section of a news portal app on your cell phone, only for your 优蜜传媒solution. Don鈥檛 want to miss critical information? Want it at your fingertips and, if needed, just a click away? Then you might like the new live recommendations.

The live recommendations are application-focused and only visible where needed. We鈥檙e not distracting you with news or content unrelated to what you鈥檙e working on. It keeps troubleshooting efforts to a minimum while giving you the latest and most relevant support updates. Currently, bi-directional support is being tried out for 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud. Over time, it will be expanded for all 优蜜传媒solutions that are integrated with Built-In Support.

Customer Effort Score, a Driver behind Bi-Directional Support

Happy customers are those that need little support interaction because their 优蜜传媒solutions run fine. Low interaction means low customer effort. As described in an , the customer effort score is defined as the ease with which customers can use a product or service, resolve a support issue, or find the information they need.

优蜜传媒uses the customer effort score as a customer satisfaction measurement. When answering tickets, we ask customers what their effort was behind their interaction with us to get the problem solved. Our focus is to solve any problems fast and to give customers an effortless support experience.

Additional Support Convenience with Bi-Directional Support

Bi-directional support builds on the existing Built-In Support features, such as initiating an , searching for knowledge, or creating a ticket for 优蜜传媒support. No changes need to be made to your 优蜜传媒applications and there鈥檚 nothing to install. Live recommendations are another convenient way of how 优蜜传媒support interacts with you. We continue to respond to the growing need for preventative and proactive support in the cloud to help shorten the time to solve your problems.

Built-In Support is the place to go should a problem arise in the application or on the page you鈥檙e using. It’s likely you鈥檒l find live recommendations already there to help you right away. Bi-directional support is taking another step forward in making Built-In Support more precise, accurate, and relevant about what鈥檚 affected and what you need to do. It鈥檚 convenient to get easy-to-access support information at the point of need and personalized to the application or page being used. That鈥檚 simple, that鈥檚 intuitive, that鈥檚 Built-In Support.

Learn more about .

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.

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Across the world today, companies are facing a growing challenge as they manage the gap between the skills they have in their workforce and the skills they need for the future.

Closing that gap means optimizing how they recruit and hire new talent in today鈥檚 competitive market, as well as how they deliver learning and development programs to help employees grow.

Read news, stories, and coverage from 优蜜传媒Sapphire.

The reactive, ad-hoc approach that companies have taken to tackle disruption has resulted in mismatched supply chain processes that offer little visibility and don鈥檛 keep up with the speed of change. Companies rely on convoluted, manual communication methods between suppliers and buyers. E-mails and calls get lost in the shuffle of vacations and holidays, making critical collaboration untraceable and delayed.

优蜜传媒Business Network Is an Industry-Ready Digital Network of Suppliers and Buyers

Businesses need a collaborative, many-to-many platform to drive transparent, resilient, and sustainable supply chains. That鈥檚 where 优蜜传媒Business Network comes in: a multi-enterprise collaboration network, built for industry, that helps companies execute their vision and meet growth targets by connecting with trading partners seamlessly.

Only 优蜜传媒Business Network provides collaboration across a broad range of processes, including indirect and direct procurement, supply chain, logistics, asset collaboration, finance, and talent.

But each industry faces unique challenges that can鈥檛 always be addressed with a one-size-fits-all approach. For this reason, we are introducing 优蜜传媒Business Network for Industry with an initial focus on the consumer products, life sciences, high tech, and industrial manufacturing industries. This includes:

• A portfolio of 优蜜传媒Business Network capabilities that address industry needs
• A new 优蜜传媒Business Network Industry Advisory Board to guide our product and road map strategy
• New 优蜜传媒Business Network for Supply Chain industry services accelerators for select industries to help customers fast-track their implementation and post go-live success

With SAP鈥檚 more than 50 years of industry expertise and industry process excellence embedded in our technology, we know better than anyone how to help customers tackle their specific challenges.

Capabilities Designed to Meet Industry Needs听

As we work to help companies tackle challenges with supply chain transparency, resiliency, and sustainability, we鈥檝e engaged directly with customers to improve existing functionalities and develop new capabilities for 优蜜传媒Business Network.

We developed capabilities including contract manufacturing, planning and forecasting, quality collaboration, stock transfers, support for supplier-managed inventory, material traceability, and track and trace. Several of these capabilities were developed alongside customers to answer unique industry challenges in a variety of industries, including consumer products, high tech, industrial manufacturing, and life sciences. While these and other innovations were originally created to address a specific industry need, many of them can be applied cross-industry to help businesses increase visibility, mitigate risks, and operate more efficiently.

Working with our customers has helped evolve 优蜜传媒Business Network into the well-rounded, comprehensive solution it is today. It has been amazing to see the innovations that have come out of these relationships with customers, and their stories and successes have truly inspired me. To build on what we鈥檝e accomplished so far, we鈥檙e strengthening the way we collaborate with customers and helping accelerate implementation with new industry-specific use cases.

Continuing the Tradition of Customer Collaboration

To continue the tradition of working with our customers to enhance and extend our product capabilities, we鈥檙e introducing the 优蜜传媒Business Network Industry Advisory Board. This select group of industry leaders will provide strategic direction for our product and road map, making sure we鈥檙e meeting the needs of our customers and helping their businesses grow. I鈥檓 eager to see the exciting new ideas and developments that will come out of this collaborative forum of industry experts.

Expedite Time to Value with Industry Services Accelerators for 优蜜传媒Business Network for Supply Chain

For customers beginning their journey with 优蜜传媒Business Network for Supply Chain in particular, we鈥檙e introducing new industry services accelerators from our 优蜜传媒Business Network Services team to help expedite time to value and achieve success.

These industry services accelerators support critical supply chain business processes in the consumer products, high tech, industrial manufacturing, and life sciences industries. With prepackaged industry use cases and capabilities, implementation best practices, and dedicated post go-live support, industry services accelerators are based on SAP鈥檚 knowledge and expertise with 优蜜传媒Business Network for Supply Chain. Industry services accelerators can be delivered in collaboration with partners.

Stay Tuned for More

Other additions to 优蜜传媒Business Network include new supplier innovations that will help support supplier adoption, focusing on creating an easier integration process to reduce friction and help grow your business to achieve maximum value.

To learn more, visit . Here, we鈥檒l keep you up-to-date on all of the exciting innovations happening and share resources to help you tailor your 优蜜传媒Business Network experience.

And, don鈥檛 miss learning more about 优蜜传媒Business Network and how 优蜜传媒can help solve the unique business challenges of your industry at .

Val Blatt is global head for 优蜜传媒Business Network Customer Success & Go-to-Market at SAP.

The combined power of 优蜜传媒and 优蜜传媒Signavio allows customers to achieve radical reductions in the costs and time it takes to plan, deploy, and optimize any business process transformation and continually identify and adjust processes to run at their best given current company and market conditions.

New 鈥淧lug and Gain鈥� Approach Compresses Project Timelines from Months to Days

Customers using can now radically accelerate transformation projects by leveraging a new approach called that brings together the combined value of in a way that allows ERP customers to prepare faster, deploy faster, and continually optimize value.

With the new 鈥減lug and gain鈥� approach, uses data gathered by , dramatically shortening the set-up time for in-depth process mining. Customers are able to easily go beyond the initial findings from 优蜜传媒Signavio Process Insights and within a few days get the full benefit of the capabilities of 优蜜传媒Signavio Process Intelligence and the rest of 优蜜传媒Signavio Process Transformation Suite. Conversion of process mining from a months-long project to a task that takes a few days means that 优蜜传媒customers can now have a unique ability to quickly and continually optimize processes to meet new business goals or changing customer behaviors.

For example, with this approach customers can quickly get the results of variant analysis to gain a clearer view of the flow of work. From there, they can use our reverse-engineered process models as the starting point for comparison with best practice models and drive informed discussion on next steps. Our process models are now integrated with 优蜜传媒Cloud ALM via the state-of-the-art 优蜜传媒Solution Manager connector, creating the foundation for a smooth implementation. This also allows customers to take a data-driven approach to process monitoring and refinement.

New Integrations with Key 优蜜传媒Solutions

Our vision is to fully integrate 优蜜传媒Signavio solutions with key 优蜜传媒solutions so that customers can more easily maximize the impact of their 优蜜传媒investment and simplify the user experience. New integrations from 优蜜传媒Signavio Process Transformation Suite into 优蜜传媒solutions include:

• Native integration from 优蜜传媒Signavio Process Insights into 优蜜传媒Ariba solutions, providing a new framework for understanding and optimizing workflows and processes such as sourcing, procurement, and contracts
• Accelerator for the “Manage Personal Employee Information” process on 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors solutions to help speed up the time to value with our solution
• Native integration between 优蜜传媒Signavio Process Intelligence and 优蜜传媒Datasphere to enable process-aware enterprise analytics and help streamline process mining across complex data landscapes
• Integration between 优蜜传媒Signavio Process Intelligence and as part of the enterprise automation with 优蜜传媒to close the loop from insight to action by flexibly defining which process dynamics will automatically start selected process automations, workflows, and/or notifications

While tight integration with 优蜜传媒is an obvious imperative, we are fully committed to integration with non-优蜜传媒systems and delivering on the promise of end-to-end process transformation no matter what solutions customers are using to run their businesses.

The combined strengths of both 优蜜传媒and non-优蜜传媒integrations allow organizations to create a powerful ecosystem that caters to the diverse needs of their end customers. This approach empowers businesses to be as process centric as possible, enabling them to choose the tools and processes that align with their workflows. With our commitment to non-优蜜传媒integrations, businesses can provide comprehensive solutions that maximize customer satisfaction and support their individual requirements while still benefiting from the efficiency and operational advantages offered by 优蜜传媒integration.

New Automation Powered by 优蜜传媒Business Technology Platform

Automation has high potential for improving business processes, freeing up companies to deploy their people in more strategic or complex tasks. The 优蜜传媒Signavio Process Intelligence and 优蜜传媒Build Process Automation integration can now trigger automations directly from 优蜜传媒Signavio solutions when inefficient processes are detected. Furthermore 优蜜传媒Signavio solutions, 优蜜传媒Build solutions, and 优蜜传媒Integration Suite can accelerate your path to autonomous enterprise automation by SAP.

The Future-Proof Organization Is Process Centric

优蜜传媒Signavio Process Transformation Suite is a key pillar in SAP鈥檚 efforts to help customers become more future proof. These new integrations, automations, and methodologies, in combination with unique offerings like 优蜜传媒Signavio Process Explorer and , establish 优蜜传媒as a true visionary in the field of process transformation, providing customers with access to data, insights, and value that no other vendor can provide.

Gero Decker is general manager for 优蜜传媒Signavio.
Rouven Morato is general manager for 优蜜传媒Signavio.

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Amid rapidly changing regulatory requirements and rising stakeholder pressure to operate sustainably, enterprises need an accounting system for emissions that is as auditable, transparent, and reliable as their financial data accounting.

With SAP鈥檚 new green ledger initiative, which moves companies from carbon estimates to actual data, companies can manage their green line with as much visibility, accuracy, and confidence as their top line and bottom line. The initiative is planned to become part of RISE with 优蜜传媒and GROW with SAP.

Read news, stories, and coverage from 优蜜传媒Sapphire.

鈥淔ifty years ago 优蜜传媒built the first ERP system, 30 years ago we made real time a reality, and 10 years ago we entered the cloud,鈥� Saueressig said. 鈥淭oday, we are actually innovating together with all of you to redefine enterprise software and future-proof your business entering the era of AI. We’ve been alongside you, your businesses, and your industries with continuous improvement and continuous innovation.鈥�

To kick off the keynote and to showcase a series of demos, Saueressig and Mueller invited two 优蜜传媒colleagues, Lucy Alexander and Sangeetha Jayakumar, onto the 优蜜传媒Sapphire stage in Orlando, Florida. Before diving into the demos and a customer panel that included Topcon, the Women鈥檚 Tennis Association, Henkel, and Nestl茅, Saueressig and Mueller asked the two talents why they chose to work at SAP.

Alexander said she joined 优蜜传媒because the software industry is the place to have an impact. 鈥淛ust think: 优蜜传媒has helped to produce more smartphones than any smartphone manufacturer, connecting all of us. We’ve also helped to make and distribute more vaccines than anyone else during the pandemic. To me, that’s impact.鈥�

Jayakumar shared that she joined 优蜜传媒because of the company鈥檚 commitment to sustainability. She admires SAP鈥檚 aspiration toward a future with zero emissions, zero waste, and zero inequality. 鈥淭hat’s why I chose SAP.鈥�

SAP鈥檚 raft of sustainability solutions for customers was the first of the innovations highlighted by Saueressig and Mueller. 优蜜传媒doubled down on its sustainability initiative in 2020 despite the pandemic, 鈥渂ecause we were, and still are, truly committed to it,鈥� Saueressig said.

The introduction earlier in the day of the green ledger for carbon accounting as part of the cloud ERP offerings RISE with 优蜜传媒and GROW with 优蜜传媒underscores the company鈥檚 continued commitment to enabling customers to truly measure their carbon footprints by moving from average carbon emissions to actuals. 鈥淲e all know that to get to a low-carbon future, you need end-to-end transparency and visibility across the entire supply chain,鈥� Saueressig said.

help turn those fragmented supply chains into collaborative sustainable networks. The launch of 优蜜传媒Business Network for Industries at 优蜜传媒Sapphire is also a key part of the company鈥檚 strategy. 鈥淲e are working on many industry-specific data networks, like Catena-X and Manufacturing-X,鈥� said Saueressig. 鈥淏ut all of these networks are only possible if processes and data are seamlessly integrated.鈥�

Picking up the theme, Mueller said that integration enables completely new possibilities such as synchronized planning, which is a closed loop between planning and execution. It is also automated and network aware.

鈥淥ur extended planning and analytics solutions span across financial planning, workforce planning, and demand planning,鈥� Mueller explained. This allows 优蜜传媒customers to see the impact of their decisions across all their lines of business, as well as planning more holistically.

To help companies extract and harmonize data from their 优蜜传媒and non-优蜜传媒systems, 优蜜传媒recently introduced .

鈥淲ith 优蜜传媒Datasphere, you can create a data model consuming data from different sources like 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud and 优蜜传媒BW/4HANA, and non-优蜜传媒data sources like Google, BigQuery, and others,鈥� Sangeetha explained during her demo. She added that 优蜜传媒Datasphere has a great graphical modeling feature, helping to quickly create a data model with simple drag-and-drop functionality, which can then be visualized in a dashboard in 优蜜传媒Analytics Cloud.

Saueressig cited 优蜜传媒Datasphere as an example of how 优蜜传媒is opening up more than ever, which is why 优蜜传媒has seen the partnerships announced in this area, including Databricks, DataRobot, Collibra, and Confluent, and now Google Cloud. 鈥淲e truly believe in the democratization of data,鈥� he said.

Mueller noted that 优蜜传媒has also recently announced AI partnerships with Aleph Alpha, IBM, and Microsoft. 鈥淏ut our key differentiator for you is how we use those technologies and embed these AI capabilities to reimagine business processes across all 优蜜传媒solutions,鈥� he said.

鈥淭here’s no doubt 优蜜传媒is an AI company and 优蜜传媒AI is built into our systems that power your business,” Saueressig added. As of today, 优蜜传媒has delivered more than 130 embedded use cases of AI .

For example, 优蜜传媒systems processed 40 million invoices automatically last year and generated savings of more than $366 million for customers. Now, generative AI is coming on top and will have widespread implications for a myriad of functions such as job descriptions, interview questions, product descriptions, and queries for analytics. 优蜜传媒is already working on more than 80 use cases for generative AI.

优蜜传媒is differentiating in the AI sphere, because its models are trained on years of business data, and also responsible and trustworthy, Saueressig said.

After demonstrating with Alexander and Jayakumar how AI and natural language processing might be integrated into 优蜜传媒Analytics, Saueressig predicted that AI 鈥渨ill be infused everywhere and enable totally new capabilities in our products.鈥�

Mueller then demonstrated the use of generative AI for development. Currently, he noted, many 优蜜传媒customers use standardized APIs to build future-proof extensions. 鈥淏ut imagine this,鈥� he told the audience. “What if instead of coding myself, I could simply describe what I want, and 优蜜传媒will take care of it? Wouldn’t that be cool? And we are actually making this a reality with generative AI.鈥�

But the power of AI actually goes far beyond efficiency, according to Saueressig, who suggested we could also use AI to reshape the experience between humans and machines: 鈥淚t’s a duet, not a duel.鈥�

The keynote also revolved around how 优蜜传媒has modernized its user interfaces and how it has used collaboration to streamline applications. It was shown how it is possible to improve and automate business processes using 优蜜传媒Signavio solutions and how 优蜜传媒Build and 优蜜传媒Integration Suite can bridge the gap between business and IT.

鈥溣琶鄞絜nables enterprise automation because we know that you are under a lot of pressure when it comes to efficiency in your organizations and with that you can continuously identify and improve processes,鈥� Mueller said.

During the customer panel, participants explained all the different ways they are using 优蜜传媒to innovate and future-proof their businesses. Then Mueller and Saueressig summed up the key innovations that had been discussed.

鈥淭o summarize all these innovations, we enable risk resilient supply chains,鈥� Saueressig said. 鈥淲e connect your business to a broader network. We help you plan across the business. We infuse AI across the whole portfolio of 优蜜传媒and we want to provide you with a new intuitive user experience and collaboration capabilities, all enabled by our leading .鈥�

This year, we鈥檙e focused on facilitating the career growth of existing 优蜜传媒professionals as demand for their skills accelerates faster and faster. As of today, three major innovations will bring even more support to these professionals around the globe. Our future-focused is now available to anyone with an Internet connection. We also introduced our plan to make 优蜜传媒Learning Hub the gateway to an unparalleled learning experience. Finally, we launched a role-based certification for enterprise architects, today鈥檚 most in-demand and best-paid role in the industry.

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All these innovations are part of our ongoing commitment to support workforce reinvention. We believe that in times of change, we have the remarkable opportunity to put our community in the position to seize career opportunities and accelerate business transformation.

It Starts with the Right Future-Focused Learning

From supply chain shortages and rising gas prices to inflation and shifting customer needs, many organizations rely on automated processes that enable them to adapt to an ever-changing business landscape and drive success. In this volatile atmosphere, tens of thousands of organizations have to support them on their path to a technological future, leading to skyrocketing demand for 优蜜传媒talent.

To meet this increasing demand and to help businesses succeed on their cloud journey, 优蜜传媒is making our strategic 鈥� all that is needed is an Internet connection. By lowering the barrier to accessing this content, more professionals can prepare for cloud-driven projects while staying on track with continuous learning, enhancing their digital skill set. In turn, customers can expect to gain a competitive advantage in their industry by equipping their employees with these tools and resources.

It Pays to Be an Enterprise Architect 鈥� In More Ways than One

As organizations continue to shift more of their workload to the cloud, we also see that the role of the enterprise architect is becoming increasingly vital. Bridging the gap between business and technology, enterprise architects ensure companies can reach their desired business outcomes through the effective use of technology. Recent numbers prove the demand for this role: it was ranked as , highlighting high job satisfaction and a competitive salary.

Recognizing the advantages that the role of enterprise architect can offer both individuals and organizations, we have introduced the first role-based certification program for professionals aspiring to become an enterprise architect today. This prerequisite intermediate certification demonstrates comprehensive understanding of 优蜜传媒solutions, business, and strategic aspects of enterprise architecture and ultimately helps 优蜜传媒professionals to increase career security and growth. At the same time, the certification can provide organizations with the confidence that their employees are gaining the competitive skills needed to drive significant business value on a large scale.

鈥淎SUG enthusiastically supports SAP鈥檚 enterprise architect certification program and recommends that every 优蜜传媒customer sponsor their enterprise architects to complete the certification and require any partner working on their behalf to be certified,鈥� said Geoff Scott, CEO and chief community champion, ASUG.

We believe that, in addition to investing in the upskilling of students and minorities in tech with our digital skills initiative to equip the next generation of IT workers, we have now taken an immense step to support professionals and organizations in the 优蜜传媒ecosystem with this in-demand certification.

A Successful Workforce Transformation Requires Transparency and Insights

As many professionals are experiencing changing expectations surrounding their current roles and are looking to meet these shifts and advance in their careers, we must deliver new ways to help them upskill. After all, it is estimated that . We have seen that the rate of success surrounding upskilling can rise further when leadership has access to data that allows them to guide their workforce transformation according to their specific business needs.

To take these circumstances into account, we have announced a new 优蜜传媒Learning site integration where subscribers to 优蜜传媒Learning Hub will have seamless access to digital courses, streamlining training programs to strengthen their digital skill set and help drive transformation for their company as a whole. With this new integration, .

For the first time, subscribers to the private cloud version of 优蜜传媒Learning Hub can benefit from exclusive learning management and reporting functionalities across solutions and platforms. These enhancements enable customers to access key insights and analytics that can help them plan and control their team鈥檚 skills transformation with transparency and help ensure long-term business value. For example, , an improvement in talent acquisition and retention, and a more resilient workforce.

At SAP, we recognize the challenges and opportunities that transformation presents both to our customers and 优蜜传媒professionals, which is why we have taken the next step in paving the way for unparalleled career growth and business transformation. By equipping employees with the tools and resources they need to enhance their skill set, organizations can reach new heights while employees increase their potential for future career opportunities.

Max Wessel is chief learning officer at SAP.

However, carbon accounting is still done mainly using spreadsheets and semi-automated tools that use estimates and averages for carbon footprints. Only 9% of companies have a comprehensive view of their greenhouse gas emissions and their impact across the entire value chain.

This is no longer enough. We need to account for carbon with much more precision and control by using actual data values across our business operations and supply chains in sync with financial flows. We need to redefine 鈥渞esource鈥� in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and extend our understanding of resources beyond financials. 优蜜传媒now brings a precision-approach to do just that by enabling transactional accounting for carbon.

Introducing Future-Proof Solutions for Transactional Carbon Accounting

SAP鈥檚 approach to transactional carbon accounting comprises three future-proof capabilities.

First is , a single solution to calculate and manage carbon flows with high granularity on company, process, and product levels across Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. The solution integrates capabilities from previously released 优蜜传媒solutions and adds new functionalities, such as the ability to manage a greater scope of emissions sources and support for a broader range of industry-specific requirements. Using 优蜜传媒Sustainability Footprint Management helps provide a seamless integration with 优蜜传媒S/4HANA, allowing for a strong data foundation to calculate footprints directly from individual transactions at each step of production. Companies can reduce their climate risk and make progress towards their climate commitments by better adhering to and reporting on rapidly changing standards. They can also achieve operational excellence by dramatically improving the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of emissions calculations and management. 优蜜传媒Sustainability Footprint Management will be available from June 2023.

Second, 优蜜传媒offers , a new application designed to securely exchange standardized sustainability data, including product footprints, along the value chain. The application allows precision accuracy by gathering actual carbon data directly from suppliers. 优蜜传媒Sustainability Data Exchange, part of , uses the carbon data interoperability standards established by the , hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). The beta version is available and will be generally available in Q3 2023.

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Third, 优蜜传媒also introduces the green ledger concept, which combines financial and environmental data to enable deep insights and effective decision-making at different points across the business process. Green ledger will be embedded into and for and will deliver new capabilities with each release. The next major update, for example, offers a new way to embed carbon data, starting with most impactful scope categories, into product-level costing.

Using these three powerful capabilities that , executives can have a future-proof tool kit to help manage and reduce their carbon footprints. The 优蜜传媒solutions record data based on actuals instead of averages to increase data transparency, accuracy, and reliability. The high-quality carbon data, like the financial data, is auditable, transparent, and reliable. To take climate action, companies sync the emissions data with financial data to make granular, accurate, and right-time decisions that are both financially and environmentally sound.

Acting on Carbon Emissions Data

SAP鈥檚 carbon accounting solutions allow business decision-makers to not only see emissions on an operations level, but also at the product level by including carbon footprints alongside financial data to make trade-offs between cost efficiency and carbon intensity. To make these assessments, carbon footprints need to be available at a granular level and at the point where the business decision is made.

In the automotive industry, for example, the sources of steel, rubber, batteries, and electrical components are key elements of the carbon footprint of an electric car manufacturer鈥檚 product. 优蜜传媒solutions provide the foundational data for these purchased materials and components, as well as consumed energy and other inputs, and combine it with additional data sources such as life cycle assessment databases.

Using the input data, the footprint is calculated by matching source data with emission factors. Like in financial accounting, the inflows and outflows of materials, components, and products are traced and accounted for with a high level of transparency and auditability.

This isn鈥檛 accounting for accounting鈥檚 sake. This level of data transparency helps teams across the business, from the C-suite to supply chain management to marketing, take sustainability action. They can make decisions together on both cost and carbon emissions that are rarely made in parallel today. Based on both cost and carbon values, the car manufacturer can scenario plan and make fully informed decisions about how to drive optimal financial and sustainability performance.

Bringing a Holistic View to Sustainable Business

To truly run sustainably and decarbonize business at the speed and scale needed, companies must . By embedding sustainability data into their core business processes through their ERP, executives can achieve a holistic, enterprise-wide performance capability.

Based on the ERP backbone, sustainable business data is the foundation for setting regulatory-compliant KPIs and disclosing sustainability progress to a broad range of reporting frameworks using . This holistic view is vital to understanding where emissions are occurring, setting accurate net-zero targets, and identifying specific areas to take action for maximum decarbonization impact.听The are cloud-based, modular, and integrate with 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud.

Peter Bakker, CEO of WBCSD, said accountants will save the world. He very well may be right. With over 50 years of experience in financial accounting, future-proof technology, and wide access to customer and partner ecosystems, 优蜜传媒is well-positioned deliver high-quality emissions accounting to rapidly scale business decarbonization.

Sebastian Steinhaeuser is chief strategy officer at SAP.

This week at Orlando, we introduced a host of new 优蜜传媒BTP capabilities that span application development, automation, integration, data and analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI). For those who missed out on attending the event in person or virtually, be sure to check out the and read the full list of announcements in the .

Automate the Enterprise

Today, most automation projects are repetitive, task-oriented, lower-value work, such as logging into systems and copying and pasting data. While these automated tasks save thousands of manual hours and dollars, there is still more to be done in this space.

Enterprise automation is a new solution that uses multiple advanced technologies — integration, automation, low-code, and AI — to help connect and . This solution leverages the best-in-class , , and to enable users to quickly and easily connect any on-premise or cloud IT landscape, gain visibility into business processes, and then automate those processes seamlessly.

The best part? You can jump-start your enterprise automation journey with thousands of pre-built and reusable components for integration and automation that are available in 优蜜传媒Business Accelerator Hub. And 听补苍诲 customers can access the 优蜜传媒Signavio portfolio and 优蜜传媒Build solutions at no additional cost.

Give Data Purpose

True digital transformation requires organizations to have seamless access to their mission-critical business data, no matter where it resides. Yet, with data landscapes distributed across various applications and IT landscapes, organizations spend countless hours and resources extracting, rebuilding, and integrating their data. When organizations fully harness the power of their data, they become enterprises that use it to innovate faster, create new revenue streams, and adapt to unanticipated changes.

That is why enables users to simplify the data landscape with a unified experience for data integration, data cataloging, semantic modeling, data warehousing, data federation, and data virtualization. And by closely integrating 优蜜传媒Datasphere with our open ecosystem of data partners 鈥� , , , , and now 鈥� mission-critical business data can be accessed across any cloud infrastructure.

Additional solutions like the and help give data purpose. Extended planning and analysis helps align financial, strategic, and operational plans into one single plan. And intelligent data applications can transform core business functions into self-adapting, real-time, data-driven apps that automatically provide insights and recommended actions.

Explore .

AI Built for Business

An increasing number of organizations are leveraging AI to enhance their employee productivity, process efficiency, and business foresight. In doing so, they become more efficient and agile to serve customers, remain competitive, and stay in business. Yet, many companies lack the in-house expertise to apply AI effectively across their business processes and ensure it continually delivers relevant and responsible outcomes — a necessity to maximize business impact.

At SAP, we deliver AI that is available from day one, as it is already built into the 优蜜传媒applications that power the most critical business processes. In fact, we have built ready-to-use AI scenarios into 优蜜传媒applications that span across cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP), spend management, customer relationship management, and human capital management. works for businesses because it is developed using extensive industry-specific data, deep processes knowledge, and the most responsible AI practices. We use an ecosystem of strategic partnerships for general-purpose AI tooling. In essence, 优蜜传媒AI is AI built for business.

Read more about our latest 优蜜传媒AI solutions in “AI Built for Business” by Bharat Sandhu, senior vice president of Application Development and AI at SAP.

Explore at Your Own Pace

Wherever you’re at in your journey, there are easy ways to get started: check out , , and new . Additionally, 听补苍诲 can help 优蜜传媒BTP customers migrate their ERP to the cloud.

JG Chirapurath is chief marketing and solutions officer for 优蜜传媒Business Technology Platform.

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At 优蜜传媒Sapphire Orlando, 优蜜传媒unveiled sweeping innovations and collaborations that equip customers to tackle an uncertain future with confidence.

Breakthrough announcements included responsible artificial intelligence (AI) built into business solutions, ledger-based accounting for carbon tracking, and industry-specific networks to bolster supply chain resilience. With these advances, 优蜜传媒is helping customers transform their business models in the cloud, put sustainability at the center of their operations and boost agility to succeed amid ongoing change.

鈥淲hen we work together, we will conquer any mountain,鈥� Klein said in a speech that began and ended with climbing metaphors and was punctuated with customer stories, demos, and new product announcements.

优蜜传媒Chief Marketing & Solutions Officer Julia White joined Klein from the Orlando show floor during the keynote to highlight SAP鈥檚 groundbreaking supply chain and sustainability initiatives, enterprise-wide automation, as well as how 优蜜传媒solutions answer the challenges that senior business leaders across all industries face.

Microsoft, Unilever, Pfizer, Schneider Electric, and Google Cloud were among the big-name partners and customers that appeared on stage or via video during the event. In addition, the keynote featured a recorded video message from John Kerry, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, about how we can solve the climate crisis together.

Klein and White framed the keynote around how the CIO and their key business stakeholders — like the chief people officer, chief commercial officer, and CFO — respond to the challenges they each face, and how SAP solutions are helping solve those challenges.

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Klein told the audience in Orlando and those joining virtually: 鈥淐limbing the highest mountain requires a strong team and, let’s face it, the same is true for transforming businesses. It takes a strong team between the business, IT, and SAP… If we are in this together as one team, we will conquer any mountain.鈥�

SAP鈥檚 vision is focused on the needs to build resilient supply chains, to become an agile intelligent enterprise, and to run a sustainable business, Klein explained. 鈥淲e deliver on this vision through our cloud portfolio.鈥�听

Early in his keynote, Klein said 优蜜传媒will double down on its AI strategy because of the tremendous impact AI will have on our private and business lives. For 50 years, he noted, 优蜜传媒software has been running the world’s most material and workforce-intensive business processes: 鈥淭his is why we are convinced that embedding AI in 优蜜传媒software will deliver enormous value for your business.鈥�

鈥�Today we have already embedded AI in many of our applications that are being used by over 20,000 customers,鈥� he said, 鈥溣琶鄞紸I is built for business.鈥�

As an example, he noted that in SAP鈥檚 finance solution, AI helps to predict and safeguard financial performance by analyzing a company鈥檚 pipelines, workforce, and other profit and loss drivers.

鈥淲e have delivered many AI use cases that boost business process automation and increase productivity by another 15%. Now we see the incredible potential to take AI to the next level,鈥� he said. 鈥�With generative AI, we will increase the productivity of every end user by changing the way people work with our software. For example, our software will be able to answer any business-related question and recommend actions to improve your company’s performance.鈥�

Klein noted that 优蜜传媒has already increased its own R&D investment to develop additional AI use cases and is also entering technology partnerships to expand its AI offerings, including the generative AI partnership announced earlier this week with Microsoft.听

After a demo showing how embedding generative AI into 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors software can enhance recruiting, ongoing learning, and the re-skilling and upskilling of the workforce, White, speaking from the 优蜜传媒Sapphire show floor, spoke with Aaron Rajan, global vice president of Customer Experience Technology at Unilever, about how the company is working with 优蜜传媒to address the growing demands for sustainable vanilla ice cream.

鈥淭hanks to the integration across 优蜜传媒Ariba, 优蜜传媒Business Network, and 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud, we can see a full view of the supplier’s performance metrics — including cost, reliability, and sustainability — making an informed decision not only on supply chain fit, but also on carbon impact,鈥� White said.听

Expanding on the business network theme, Klein noted that it is more critical than ever to not only connect one company with another, but to bring entire industries together, because each industry has its unique challenges and requirements. He also unveiled the new offering 优蜜传媒Business Network for Industry.

To demonstrate the power of the network, Klein cited the life sciences industry. 优蜜传媒has 80 of the largest customers already in the network, with more than 255,000 trading partners managing over $200 billion in commerce every year. He welcomed Lidia Fonseca, chief digital and technology officer at Pfizer, to the stage to explain the value of 优蜜传媒Business Network.

Klein then described the management of a company鈥檚 overall carbon footprint as another key pillar for the success: 鈥淚n addition to the top and the bottom line, consumers, your employees, investors, and auditors, they all want to support enterprises that care about the planet. Today, CFOs and chief sustainability officers need to ensure compliance with 20 times more climate regulations than they had in the past.鈥�

But he noted that hardly any enterprise has a comprehensive view of greenhouse gas emissions. 鈥淭he 优蜜传媒sustainability portfolio will enable you to record, report, and act on actuals, not on averages, based on a green ledger — including scope three.鈥�听

To explore this message, 优蜜传媒CFO Dominik Asam spoke in a prerecorded video with Hilary Maxson, CFO of Schneider Electric, about the challenges CFOs face with carbon accounting and sustainability disclosure. Additionally, White detailed a new set of 优蜜传媒innovations to track and manage emissions, as well as a new green ledger that will work with SAP鈥檚 cloud ERP to “provide natively integrated financial and environmental decision making at the required point in time.”

After introducing John Kerry鈥檚 video message to attendees, White added, 鈥淲e can meet the climate challenge with a potent combination of technologies, partners in government, and all of you.鈥� Klein then turned to the crucial role that data plays in running enterprises today and the recent launch of 优蜜传媒Datasphere, which enables customers to bring together and harmonize 优蜜传媒and non-优蜜传媒data sources.听

After White and Klein explained how 优蜜传媒Signavio software enables end-to-end business process automation and the unique benefits of RISE with 优蜜传媒and the GROW with 优蜜传媒offering, which targets mid-market customers moving to 优蜜传媒cloud ERP, Klein wrapped up the keynote with an invitation to those in Orlando: 鈥�Today we have seen that conquering the mountains we face requires the wide use of technology and one team. And we invite you to experience the full capabilities of these innovations for yourselves over the next few days.

“As the famous climber once said, ‘Better we raise our skill than lower the climb.’ At SAP, we are not lowering the climb, we are raising the skills for every role in every line of business to future-proof your business for whatever mountain you need to climb next.鈥�

Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) for 优蜜传媒S/4HANA (buy side) marks the next milestone on the 优蜜传媒and Icertis joint product road map, as the companies continue to transform contract-driven processes by integrating contract intelligence with 优蜜传媒solutions.

Contract intelligence enables procurement teams using 优蜜传媒S/4HANA to streamline sourcing, negotiate better commercial terms, and improve adherence to regulatory and corporate policies. The ICI platform accelerates value and increases savings both pre- and post-signature by automatically recommending clauses based on historical business relationships and tracking obligations to ensure the intent of all agreements is fully realized. Artificial intelligence (AI) embedded in the ICI platform also minimizes risk by pinpointing deviations from standard terms, while predefined rules and templates further reduce liability through contract self-generation capabilities that enable procurement teams to play a more strategic role in driving business performance.

鈥淪AP鈥檚 co-innovation with Icertis continues at a rapid pace, catalyzed by the appetite we are seeing from customers that recognize that contracts play a critical role in core business processes,鈥� said Eric van Rossum, chief marketing and solutions officer for 优蜜传媒S/4HANA at SAP. “优蜜传媒is focused on helping enterprises future-proof their operations — applying AI to contract data presents a prime opportunity to impact nearly every procurement process that is tied to revenue, savings, and risk. Integrating Icertis Contract Intelligence with 优蜜传媒solutions enables more efficiency, automation, and insights for our mutual customers, enriching their enterprise data lakes with critical information around commercial relationships to better support scalability and growth long term.鈥�

In addition to ICI for 优蜜传媒S/4HANA (buy side), Icertis delivers integrations with 优蜜传媒solutions across both buy- and sell-side contracts, including ICI for 优蜜传媒Ariba, ICI for 优蜜传媒Fieldglass, and ICI for 优蜜传媒CPQ.

鈥淚n today鈥檚 business environment, inefficiencies and data silos throughout the contract life cycle lead to revenue leakage and regulatory compliance challenges that detract from strategic business objectives,鈥� said Niranjan Umarane, executive vice president of Product Management at Icertis. 鈥淐ontract intelligence becomes a critical fifth system of record in the enterprise technology stack when integrated with 优蜜传媒solutions, enabling value far beyond pre-signature efficiencies to increase revenue, reduce costs, ensure compliance, and manage risk. Icertis was the first 优蜜传媒partner in the contract lifecycle management market to offer deep process integrations jointly designed and developed with SAP, creating a seamless experience for enterprise leaders looking to modernize and transform core operations with contract intelligence.鈥�

Icertis and 优蜜传媒demonstrated a , following the announcement of their expanded partnership as enterprises look to contract intelligence to solve significant business challenges through digital transformation.

Together, the companies will continue to identify new AI use cases for contract data and opportunities to enable strategic outcomes through enterprise relationships, innovating for mutual customers in anticipation of future business needs.

Maura Hameroff is senior vice president of ERP, Finance, and Digital Supply Chain Product Marketing at SAP.
Alex Nadesan is vice president of Global 优蜜传媒Alliances at Icertis.

• 优蜜传媒Business AI, the Green Ledger and Business-Ready Innovations Across the Portfolio Underscore SAP鈥檚 Ability to Help Customers Solve Their Most Pressing Problems

Breakthrough announcements included responsible AI built into business solutions, ledger-based accounting for carbon tracking and industry-specific networks to bolster supply chain resilience. With these advances, 优蜜传媒is helping customers transform their business models in the cloud, put sustainability at the center of their operations and boost agility to succeed amid ongoing change.

鈥淚n a world of geopolitical tensions, product and skills shortages and new regulations, our customers continue turning to 优蜜传媒for the solutions they need to solve their most pressing challenges,鈥� said Christian Klein, CEO and member of the Executive Board of 优蜜传媒SE. 鈥淭he innovations we鈥檙e announcing at 优蜜传媒Sapphire build on our heritage of responsibly developed technology and decades of industry and process expertise to ensure our customers鈥� success today and in the future.鈥�

AI Built for Business

At the dawn of a new AI era, 优蜜传媒is strengthening its commitment to embed powerful AI capabilities across its portfolio to help customers solve business-critical problems in the flow of work.

Customers can use 优蜜传媒Business AI with confidence because it is built responsibly. Today, 优蜜传媒is announcing a raft of advancements to 优蜜传媒Business AI, including innovations that personalize customer engagement, make procurement more productive and expand organizations鈥� abilities to find and develop critical talent across their entire workforce.

优蜜传媒also draws on the strength of its rich ecosystem to benefit customers. Yesterday 优蜜传媒announced the next step in its long-standing partnership with Microsoft. The companies will collaborate on integrating 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors solutions with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot in Viva Learning as well as with Microsoft鈥檚 Azure OpenAI Service to access powerful language models that analyze and generate natural language. The integrations will enable new experiences designed to improve how organizations attract, retain and skill their people.

Moving Toward a Green Ledger

Fifty years ago, 优蜜传媒revolutionized financial accounting with enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Today, 优蜜传媒reinvents the 鈥淩鈥� in ERP by extending the definition of resources to include carbon.

Amid rapidly changing regulatory requirements and rising stakeholder pressure to operate sustainably, enterprises need an accounting system for emissions that is as auditable, transparent and reliable as their financial data accounting. With SAP鈥檚 new green ledger initiative, which moves companies from carbon estimates to actual data, companies can manage their green line with as much visibility, accuracy and confidence as their top line and bottom line.

优蜜传媒is announcing an update to the solution, a single solution that calculates and manages the full range of corporate, value chain and product-level emissions. 优蜜传媒is also announcing the 优蜜传媒Sustainability Data Exchange application, a new solution for enterprises to securely exchange standardized sustainability data with partners and suppliers so they can decarbonize supply chains faster.

SAP鈥檚 green ledger initiative is planned to become part of the and solutions.

Innovations Across the Portfolio, Platform and Ecosystem Shore Up Customers鈥� Resilience

优蜜传媒also announced a host of innovations across the rest of its portfolio. For example, drawing on the success of 优蜜传媒Business Network, a comprehensive B2B collaboration platform where some US$4.5 trillion of trade is conducted annually, 优蜜传媒announced 优蜜传媒Business Network for Industry. This offering combines the benefits of networked supply chains with SAP鈥檚 unique industry expertise to help customers across consumer products, high tech, industrial manufacturing and life sciences boost supply chain resilience quickly.

Innovations launched across 优蜜传媒Business Technology Platform dramatically accelerate business process organization and enable enterprise automation at scale. Advancements in 优蜜传媒Signavio solutions mean customers get critical process insights in hours, not days. Updates to 优蜜传媒Integration Suite bring together holistic processes across 优蜜传媒and non-优蜜传媒systems on-premise and in the cloud. And new event integration capabilities in SAP鈥檚 low-code offering, 优蜜传媒Build solutions, give business experts the power to trigger automations across all business processes.

As customers face increasingly fractured data landscapes, 优蜜传媒also recently built on its commitment to open data that increases customers鈥� ability to uncover deep, actionable business insights with an extensive expansion of its partnership with Google Cloud. The comprehensive open-data offering enables customers to build an end-to-end data cloud that brings data from across the enterprise landscape using the 优蜜传媒Datasphere solution together with Google鈥檚 data cloud.

优蜜传媒also doubled down on as the need for top-notch professional developers continues rising along with the increasing pace of technological innovation. The company announced new programs to meet the growing demand for 优蜜传媒experts across its ecosystem to continue driving customers鈥� ongoing business transformation in the cloud.

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About SAP

SAP鈥檚 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: 优蜜传媒customers generate 87% of total global commerce. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers鈥� businesses into intelligent enterprises. 优蜜传媒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 鈥� without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 25 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, 优蜜传媒helps the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. For more information, visit .

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听

That is what we solve at 优蜜传媒with our unique approach to AI.

Built-In, Relevant, Responsible Business AI

At SAP, we deliver AI that is available from day one, as it is already built into the 优蜜传媒applications that power the most critical business processes. It works for an entire business because it is developed using extensive industry-specific data and deep process knowledge. Organizations can use it with confidence, as it is created using responsible AI practices. In essence, 优蜜传媒AI is AI built for business.

Today at 优蜜传媒Sapphire, we are announcing 15 new business AI capabilities, many powered by generative AI. We have also expanded our partnership with Microsoft on generative AI.

Let鈥檚 have a closer look at a few of these new capabilities.

Strengthening Human Capital Management

A company鈥檚 greatest asset is its workforce. Our focus for human capital management (HCM) is to use AI to help organizations attract, retain, and skill their employees. New generative AI capabilities in 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors Recruiting enable hiring managers to create compelling and accurate job descriptions that capture the desired skills and attributes of each role. Integration with Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word allows them to fine-tune further and then seamlessly publish back in 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors software. Generative AI capabilities in the 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors solution also generates interview questions tailored to specific job descriptions and candidates鈥� resumes, helping ensure inclusive language. The combined effect of these business AI capabilities saves hiring managers precious time and improves interview quality, maximizing the effectiveness of the hiring process.

We are also announcing talent intelligence hub in 优蜜传媒SuccessFactors software, which leverages people鈥檚 skills, competencies, capabilities, interests, work styles, and learning preferences to formulate recommendations that help employees develop and grow. These recommendations inspire, guide, and support employees by suggesting learning choices, roles, mentoring programs, and peer connections. Organizations also gain a better understanding of skill sets in their workforce to improve internal mobility, retention, and workforce agility.

Both of these business AI scenarios are planned for availability this year.

Growing Supply Chain Resilience

In supply chain, we are using AI to help predict, prepare, and respond to rapidly evolving demands. New generative AI capabilities in 优蜜传媒Transportation Management enable automotive and manufacturing companies to automatically process the tens of thousands of delivery notes they receive daily in different formats. The automation avoids data entry errors and works out of the box without requiring curated training data.

Additionally, in 优蜜传媒Extended Warehouse Management, we are introducing an intelligent slotting capability that uses AI to suggest how to optimize warehouse organization, stocking, and replenishment based on a product鈥檚 characteristics, demand, or forecasts. This capability helps maximize warehouse space and increase the efficiency of warehouse management.

Users can take advantage of the intelligent slotting capability today; intelligent goods receipt is planned for availability later this year.

Increasing Efficiency and Compliance in Procurement

In procurement, we are using AI to help users contain costs and increase compliance across different markets. The new intelligent invoice conversion capability in 优蜜传媒Business Network makes it easier for procurement teams to onboard new suppliers by automatically extracting and processing relevant information from supplier invoices. A close feedback loop improves the mapping accuracy over time, further expediting invoice processing and accuracy.

We are also using AI to enhance the employee purchase experience with personalized recommendations in 优蜜传媒Ariba Buying. The guided buying capability uses data, such as employees鈥� roles, to suggest products and services chosen by peers and other pertinent products from the company catalog to improve the buying experience and curb maverick spend.

The guided buying capability in 优蜜传媒Ariba Buying is available today; the intelligent invoice conversion on 优蜜传媒Business Network is planned for availability later this year.

Reducing Risks and Controlling Costs in Finance

In finance, we are using AI to transform all finance operations with insights, recommendations, and automation. The new intelligent collections in 优蜜传媒S/4HANA helps collection specialists forecast the risk of a late payment on an invoice and better prioritize which customers require follow up. This not only streamlines an extremely time-consuming task, but also simplifies risk management and makes it easier for corporate treasury to manage liquidity and capital levels.

Intelligent collections in 优蜜传媒S/4HANA is available today.

Improving Employee & Customer Experience 听

优蜜传媒Digital Assistant provides a unified natural language interface for 优蜜传媒solutions. We are adding new generative AI capabilities to provide users with tailored assistance based on their context, helping new and experienced users be more productive with the tasks at hand.

优蜜传媒Digital Assistant is also expanding its capabilities to provide users with proactive and contextual assistance inside their applications, starting with 优蜜传媒Customer Experience solutions. With the new 优蜜传媒Digital Assistant for customer experience, sellers and support teams can easily get holistic insights, create recommendations, and automatically generate content to personalize customer experiences.

Both these capabilities are planned for availability later this year.

Increasing Agility and Foresight Across your Business

We have covered just a few of the many business AI capabilities we are announcing at SAPPHIRE. The figure below summarizes all of them — including the ones that bring value to several business functions, such as generative AI scenarios in 优蜜传媒Analytics Cloud and 优蜜传媒Signavio Process Manager.

New AI Capabilities

Delivering AI with Trust and Transparency

Responsible AI has been integral to our AI strategy since its inception. We follow a holistic approach to delivering AI that puts humans at the center of our products and processes. To do so, we have established an ethics policy and compliance processes to put responsible AI into practice. The AI in our applications is transparent, so we can understand how it makes inferences and builds recommendations. It respects the privacy of sensitive data and helps users avoid bias in your decisions. Altogether, we ensure you remain in control.

Learn more about these announcements and how 优蜜传媒AI is built for business:

Bharat Sandhu is senior vice president of Application Development and AI at SAP.

By Martin Heinig

Digital technology advancements in augmented and virtual reality as well as in artificial intelligence (AI) over the last decade have provided an incredible ability to capture and hold our collective imaginations. These technologies have transcended beyond the hype by offering immediately clear and convincing use cases for enterprises that bridge the physical and digital divide.

For example, AI-powered digital twins could provide incredible future-focused insights with simulations to anticipate and prevent supply chain disruptions. Employee onboarding could be individually tailored and optimized to deepen human connection in a hybrid world.

Immersive technologies are a broad umbrella that includes extended reality — virtual, augmented, mixed– 3D displays, spatial audio, gesture recognition, spatial sensing, speech recognition, haptics, and the metaverse. With the metaverse , these continuums of experiences and technologies have the potential to shape how customers and employees engage with businesses. That鈥檚 why organizations are increasingly turning to 优蜜传媒and its partners to help them completely transform their business.

The 优蜜传媒and Accenture Partnership

To support our mutual customers, 优蜜传媒and Accenture have teamed up to create immersive experiences and business models that are built on (优蜜传媒BTP), which offers future-ready interfaces contextualized with business data and processes. Combining immersive services on 优蜜传媒BTP with Accenture鈥檚 technology vision, proven methodologies, industry experiences, and skilled practitioners, organizations could pilot and scale solutions with trusted partners.

With these services, organizations can offer digital experiences that can enrich employees鈥� onboarding, attract digital native talent, and empower users to operate more collaboratively and unlock efficiencies like never before.

Immersive services on 优蜜传媒BTP could support customers to leverage their 优蜜传媒business capabilities and data to capture value through differentiated business models and experiences. Accenture鈥檚 expertise in immersive application development, industry expertise, and innovation methodologies will help customers realize and scale end-to-end immersive applications in every industry.

Watch to learn more about the 优蜜传媒and Accenture partnership:

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As the two companies continue their collaboration, customers can benefit from this partnership by exploring the following high-value use cases.

Hybrid Business Steering

Hybrid business steering empowers enterprises to manage and optimize their business collaboratively by enabling analytics, outcome simulations, and next-gen human-computer interactions on digital twins across the entire company business landscape. The intent of the is to enable users to:

• Interact with data more intuitively and operate assets safely in an immersive and engaging digital experience
• Proactively monitor asset health and predict potential asset downtime
• Visualize the movement of goods through a supply chain network in real time, zoom in on specific data points, and manipulate data using virtual tools and interfaces
• Simulate different scenarios and assess the impact of business decisions before implementing them in the real world

The hybrid business steering use case demonstrates how customers could consume 优蜜传媒data more easily and leverage their existing 优蜜传媒landscape for immersive business applications.

Digital twins are increasingly being used in a wide range of asset intensive industries, including industrial manufacturing, automotive, energy, aerospace, and construction. They are an important tool for developing and testing new products and systems before they are built — saving time and money while reducing risk.

Augmented Employee Experience

Bridging the physical and digital world is what makes employee experiences like onboarding and mergers and acquisitions strong use cases for immersive technologies. Organizations with a strong onboarding process average . Despite these benefits, only say their company does a 鈥済ood job鈥� of onboarding. The helps employees to:

• Experience the company culture, mission, organizational structure, and team
• Tour office facilities in the digital campus
• Learn from leaders with role-specific questions
• Upskill on new products and projects with self-paced immersive learning
• Meet colleagues in a fun way

Importantly, employees can move at their pace. As part of their hyper-personalized and contextualized onboarding experience, they can learn and re-learn, ask as many questions as needed until they are familiar — all in a fascinating virtual environment that can be configured to suit their personal needs.

Organizations benefit from making it easier to onboard employees, reducing onboarding time and costs. The impact continues as existing employees grow, get promoted, and transfer between departments. This also helps businesses retain valuable and experienced talent within the organization and during mergers and acquisitions.

The augmented employee experience use case shows how employees could explore an organization, meet colleagues, and learn role-based skills in a safe environment while saving time and costs and increasing employee health and safety.

Customers and partners interested in early access can contact icn@sap.com.

Martin Heinig is head of 优蜜传媒New Ventures & Technologies.

Accenture and 优蜜传媒Collaborate to Deliver Transparent, Resilient and Sustainable Supply Chains on 优蜜传媒Business Network

By Sankar Kaliaperumal and Muhammad Alam

Accenture and 优蜜传媒have expanded their strategic relationship to focus on the accelerated delivery of transparent, resilient, and sustainable supply chains across key industries on . The collaboration aims to offer customers increased transparency and visibility across assets and inventory, as well as faster value realization with 优蜜传媒Business Network.

Ongoing disruption has taken its toll on the global supply chain. In response, organizations have invested heavily to boost inventory, processes, and capacity. In fact, reveals that 61% of chief supply chain officers say they鈥檝e been applying new technologies, ways of working, and AI in order to reinvent core processes, And 60% say they will be reinvesting in these areas over the next two years.

The opportunity now is to create synergies and efficiencies between processes and stakeholders and to unify all the points of interaction and integration. By doing so, organizations can collaborate, connect, transact, and partner on shared processes and information with trading partners across the supply chain.

With this in mind, Accenture and 优蜜传媒are helping extend the power of the 优蜜传媒Business Network with new capabilities, assets, and accelerators for:

• Logistics: Capabilities to collaborate with carriers, track goods in transit, and capture and validate data related to emissions and product genealogy help to ensure that trading partners are operating in a sustainable way
• Procurement: Responsible sourcing capabilities monitor for suppliers鈥� compliance with metrics and values in the network
• Supply Chain: Business to business (B2B) integrations support cross-industry supply chain processes and create specialized solutions for supply chain planning, purchase order collaboration, and quality management processes
• Asset Management: Intelligent capabilities optimize asset performance by using data in a central repository that shares information with equipment, asset operators, manufacturers/OEMs, and suppliers, which increases trust and collaboration between parties and results in faster completion of maintenance and repairs with fewer errors, improving the availability of the asset

鈥淪upply chains of the future require , enabled by data and a strong digital core,鈥� said Caspar Borggreve, senior managing director and lead of the Accenture 优蜜传媒Business Group. 鈥淎ccenture鈥檚 deep expertise in supply chain management, 优蜜传媒Business Network capabilities, transformation strategies, and leading industry practices can help our clients realize value faster with future-ready supplier networks that bring new into operations, increase agility, and reduce sustainability risk.鈥�

One organization that realized value faster from increased supply chain resiliency and its ambitious procurement transformation is , an energy technology company that provides solutions to energy and industrial companies worldwide.

鈥淏aker Hughes鈥� partnership and collaboration with Accenture and 优蜜传媒played a big part in the successful transformation of our procurement operations and supplier enablement in 120 countries,鈥� said Sharad Mantri, senior director and global IT leader at Baker Hughes Company. 鈥淎ccenture helped us establish a modern and integrated technology infrastructure to simplify procurement processes and increase supply chain transparency and resiliency.鈥�

Customers like Baker Hughes benefit from Accenture and SAP鈥檚 combined knowledge, resources, global presence, and unique ability to scale with multiple and parallel projects going live simultaneously. For supply chain transformations, Accenture and 优蜜传媒leverage a wide range of capabilities, use cases, assets, custom prototypes, preconfigured solutions, and purpose-built accelerators for focused industries in consumer packaged goods, high-tech, and manufacturing.

Sustainability and resiliency are top of mind for companies across all industries, which is creating a sense of urgency for a solution like 优蜜传媒Business Network. Working together with Accenture, 优蜜传媒is helping customers address common industry-specific needs and challenges with the largest and most comprehensive business network, trusted by millions of companies around the world.

Accenture was recently honored with the 2023 优蜜传媒Pinnacle Award for Cloud Business Transformation 鈥� Sales Success and 优蜜传媒Global Intelligent Spend and Business Network Partner Excellence Award 2022听 for Sales Success 鈥� Large Enterprise.

Sankar Kaliaperumal is managing director of the ACN Technology practice and North America 优蜜传媒Ariba Lead at Accenture.
Muhammad Alam is president and chief product officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP.

Climate change and the energy crisis we are facing have exposed the need for greater transparency when it comes to understanding and managing our energy consumption. Compound that with economic uncertainties, remote work, inflationary spirals, global warming, and compliance issues and you have a shortlist of what businesses face today. Nearly every company must manage facilities, offices, shops, or other types of physical spaces, and the need to balance supply and demand along with investment and costs, as well as contractual obligations, is key.

But do we really understand how certain actions impact our carbon footprint?

This is where smart technologies take center stage in reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions. Professional real estate organizations are facing multidimensional challenges that need to be supported by data-driven processes and latest technologies. By unleashing the enormous potential of connected data, you enable and manage optimization strategies to future-proof building operations. The partner ecosystem can also play a critical role in enabling data-sourcing for smart real estate management by combining expertise in data integration, analytics, domain knowledge, and collaborative innovation.

The Best Ecosystem Wins

A collaborative network is key for companies of all sizes to increase speed of innovation and to become more resilient. Teaming up with our partners not only unlocks innovation but ultimately provides faster time-to-value for our customers and addresses critical capabilities as part of our 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud road map. The way to embed partners and collaborate with them has changed over time: today, many 优蜜传媒partners leverage 优蜜传媒Business Technology Platform (优蜜传媒BTP) to create well-integrated solutions to provide seamless processes and experiences for our customers.

Combining the strengths of market-leading organizations like Planon and Schneider Electric with the expertise of 优蜜传媒will provide significant business value and innovation to their real estate business by connecting buildings, people, and processes. The cloud ERP solution from 优蜜传媒serves as the backbone for managing end-to-end business processes, together with Planon, market leader for vertical real estate and facility management software, and Schneider Electric, global specialist in energy management and automation for buildings.

Customers will benefit from the data flowing from smart technologies seamlessly into ERP processes. This will unleash the potential of the huge amount of real estate-related data, transforming this into real business value.

鈥淲ith this partnership, both 优蜜传媒and Planon customers will be able to derive end-to-end value across the enterprise,鈥� said Pierre Guelen, CEO and founder of Planon. 鈥淭he combined solutions will enable customers to run best-in-class real estate and workplace operations and elevate user experience. Greater efficiency will reduce costs, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions.鈥�

Delivering Enterprise-Wide Value

This is something that only SAP, together with a partner ecosystem, can deliver in an integrated way. The partnership will lead to a joint product road map for deeper process and technological integration to deliver enterprise-wide value, including greater compliance and IoT-connected business insights and automation. Customers will benefit from seamless data exchange among all departments involved in management, maintenance, and support of real estate facilities, such as finance, purchasing, accounting, and business-specific functions like real estate and facility management.

优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud, together with 优蜜传媒BTP as the technological backbone to drive such innovation, will unlock new ways of doing business. 优蜜传媒BTP will serve as the central integration platform for the new combined solutions, which allow customers and partners to integrate easily with existing 优蜜传媒solutions. The joint offering will be available as a premium certified Endorsed App via our digital commerce platform 优蜜传媒Store and will provide value to 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud, public and private edition, customers.

The partnership with Planon follows a 360-degree partnership approach that includes:听

• Strong product co-innovation and collaboration to create integrated scenarios where customers benefit from premium certified integrations
• Proven premium certification, where SAP鈥檚 validation increases customer confidence by providing the assurance of a fully tested, out-of-the-box, SAP-approved integration that meets our product standards
• Strong go-to-market collaboration with active co-selling, joint positioning, co-marketing, and executive sponsorship to bring the co-innovation to our customers

The partnership activates a broad set of capabilities to help real estate portfolios become more sustainable while increasing access to consumption data, initiatives, and related investments. The Planon Real Estate Management for 优蜜传媒solution is already . A fully integrated version is intended to be available early next year.

This partnership strengthens the vision of our collaborative, data-driven, and networked cloud ERP solution by bringing together 优蜜传媒S/4HANA Cloud as the heart of an intelligent, sustainable enterprise together with the power of our ecosystem.

By implementing smart cloud ERP solutions that are designed to reduce energy consumption and optimize operations, organizations can achieve a more efficient and sustainable business environment — similar to how a well-functioning thermostat can create a comfortable and energy-efficient workplace.

Jan Gilg is president and chief product officer for Cloud ERP at SAP.

At 优蜜传媒Sapphire Virtual in 2022, Lenovo joined a conversation with Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer and Member of the Executive Board of 优蜜传媒SE Julia White on 鈥淩ealizing the Power of Becoming an Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise.鈥�

With regard to the investments 优蜜传媒makes in the area of digital supply chain, Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of , said, 鈥淚鈥檓 very happy to see the continuous enhancements for our supply chain solutions. Lenovo delivers over 150 million products a year, which means we deliver about five products every second to our customers around the world with an on-time delivery rate of 96%. 优蜜传媒is key in this effort with its world-class supply chain solutions.鈥�

鈥淭ogether with SAP, Lenovo is building new, state-of-the-art smart factories globally. These new smart factories are running on Lenovo infrastructure with end-to-end, order-to-delivery solutions connecting over 2,000 suppliers to billions of customers,鈥� said Yuanquing. 鈥淭hat will definitely take Lenovo manufacturing to a whole new level.鈥�

Scaling Operations and Investments to Meet Growing Customer Demand

Arthur Hu, senior vice president and CIO at Lenovo and CTO of at Lenovo Group Ltd., remarked, 鈥淚t鈥檚 critical to have the latest technology. Digital helps us achieve the efficiency and accuracy at scale and smart technology helps us take the latest operating models and incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into our operations. has been helping us power that journey and is one of our cornerstone investments in the modern, digital, and smart core.鈥�

Sustainability Is Moving to the Forefront

Lenovo is seeing sustainability move to the forefront in communications with its customers across all levels and geographies. 鈥淭his matches perfectly with Lenovo鈥檚 services-led transformation that we are driving,鈥� said Hu. 鈥淟et鈥檚 take, for example, device as a service 鈥� . We are able to design sustainability into each step of the offering. We can think about how to deploy efficiently, maximize utilization during the asset lifecycle, and use recovery services for secure and responsible handling at the end of the useful device life.鈥�

鈥淏y reimaging our services with sustainability in mind, we are able to do right for our customers and meet our sustainability goals. The right technology and services means being able to say yes to more things and the right things,鈥� he concluded.

Transitioning from a Hardware Company to a Full-Service Technology Solutions Provider

In terms of transformation, Hu said: 鈥淎t Lenovo, we know transformation because we are starting it and doing it ourselves. We call it 鈥楲enovo powers Lenovo.鈥� We have revamped our entire company with a new services-led business model supported by modern digital infrastructure.”

鈥溣琶鄞絟as been on a long journey with us. Beyond smart factories and , we are using cloud services from 优蜜传媒to great effect,鈥� he added. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got in the cloud to gain visibility into our procurement spend and we are using to manage employee expenses and provide a better experience. On the frontlines of our transformation is , which is our umbrella for offering everything on our portfolio as a service. That鈥檚 been a key trend.”

鈥淭o make it work, we needed the ability to engage our customers differently than in the traditional hardware sale, building by period, by service, by item,鈥� said Hu. 鈥淎nd here we are using on powered by . This allows us to rapidly bring new business offerings to the market in a scalable way.鈥�

鈥淲e are working to identify innovation opportunities with SAP. We are taking what we are doing together on transformation, figuring out what other companies may require, and turning that into code and functionality as 优蜜传媒solution components. This makes the entire community and ecosystem more valuable,” said Hu. “All this comes together to make an excellent case where we are using the combined power of our technologies to advance our transformation at speed and lead the way with new, compelling value propositions for our customers.鈥�

Learn more about how to achieve resilient, connected, and sustainable supply chain management processes from design to operate or from 优蜜传媒Sapphire Virtual in 2022.

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

analysts predicted 80% of worldwide energy suppliers will use digital customer engagement solutions by 2026 to cater to the appetites of millennials and Gen Z, which will make up the majority of the utility industry鈥檚 customer base. A survey of Asia-Pacific city planners found they planned to prioritize initiatives that would manage critical resources like water using smart meters.

Similar to societal norms around sustainability, smart cities as a concept has evolved and expanded. According to James McClelland, senior global director of Industry Marketing for Utilities at SAP, organizations serving every community 鈥� from rural to urban and everything in between 鈥� care about efficiency, sustainability, and the circular economy.

鈥淲hether it鈥檚 water, gas, electricity, or other natural and energy resources, utilities want to become more efficient and reduce waste and lower carbon emissions for a more sustainable environment,鈥� said McClelland. 鈥淭he real power of a smart city comes down to data analytics from innovations like smart meters. With a better understanding of individual usage, utility providers can help customers make sustainable choices based on their household needs, collectively making the world a better place.鈥�

Case in point is American Water, which provides regulated and regulated-like drinking water and wastewater services to an estimated 14 million people in 24 states. Neeru Sharma, the company鈥檚 senior director of Business Partnership and Delivery, said the company distills every major decision into two questions: How will it make our company more efficient? And how will it positively change the customer experience?

I talked with Sharma at the event, where she told me about her company鈥檚 digitalization plans that included a network of smart meters based on the Internet of Things (IoT).

鈥淲e are a purpose-driven, customer-focused business,鈥� said Sharma. 鈥淥ur company vision revolves around efficient operations to deliver a superior customer experience and contribute to a sustainable society with better water consumption management. Going to a cloud-based platform is our first step in becoming an intelligent enterprise.鈥�

Operational Efficiencies from IoT-Based Sensors

American Water is at the vanguard of the utility industry鈥檚 digitalization trend that is fueled by consumer demographics and sustainability mandates.

Sharma equated technology innovation with her company鈥檚 business agility and resilience. Headquartered in New Jersey, American Water is the largest and most geographically diverse U.S. publicly traded water and wastewater utility company.

American Water recently selected to collect real and near real-time data from meters, as well as 听to connect information to billing and other systems. Unlike yesteryear鈥檚 monthly meter readings that relied on resource-intensive truck rolls, sensor-based smart meters automatically capture water usage data more frequently, giving American Water a clearer understanding of actual water consumption levels for billing and planning purposes. Access to real-time and on-demand data will also flag potential problems, helping the company keep meters in peak working condition.

鈥淲e won鈥檛 have to wait until the end of the month for usage data,鈥� said Sharma. 鈥淲e can identify and manage meter read issues, consumption patterns, and potential leak patterns at scale in buildings, and connect it directly to our billing systems. As a water utility, it鈥檚 very important for us to use our own resources to efficiently and better manage water distribution across our communities.鈥�

Analytics Behind Sustainable Business

Of course, sustainable water management does not mean reducing customer access to water. In this case, it translates to analyzing and acting on data from smart meters. For example, an unnatural spike in water consumption beyond typical usage rates could indicate a potential leak or a malfunctioning meter.

鈥淵ou need solutions that will provide up-to-the-minute information, surfacing water consumption trends on a daily basis,鈥� said Sharma. 鈥淎nalyzing that data, we can see if a customer鈥檚 consumption is consistent with or outside of historical norms. Having this on-demand data available can help us conduct proactive maintenance to prevent disruptions.鈥�

Sharma credited technology innovations like smart meters with helping the company meet sustainability objectives and build trusted relationships with customers.

鈥淚t takes a lot of steps to deliver clean water from the source to the customer鈥檚 faucet,鈥� she said. 鈥淭echnology is integral to providing that visibility into our entire process of bringing quality water in compliance with regulations to our customers. We want our customers to be fully aware of their water usage and what they can do for a more sustainable community. Data transparency is just as important to tracking our performance against ESG objectives.鈥�

Smart Communities are the Future

Smart meters are a harbinger of what鈥檚 to come as utilities grapple with managing water, arguably the most finite valuable natural resource on the planet. Leading utility providers are gearing up for major transformation.

analysts predicted that by next year, stricter environmental regulations will have pushed 30% of water utilities to invest in integrated information technology (IT) 听补苍诲 operational technology (OT) data. Forrester analysts said that by 2024, 40% of energy suppliers will have lifted the core business logic from billing to customer data and experience management, becoming three times more effective at marketing new products.

Between climate change risks and consumer and community demands, water utilities need technology more than ever to boost efficiencies that improve the customer experience, representing the dawn of the next generation of sustainable smart communities.

.

While the Trilogy jeans company doesn鈥檛 exist, its digital transformation depicted in life-size 3D and physical displays was very real and incredibly inspirational. Dazzling in scope, yet simple in pragmatic ease of innovation, a series of interactive and immersive displays demonstrated how Trilogy designed and delivered sustainable pink denim jeans in record time after one pair became a sensation on TikTok.

鈥淟eaders at consumer products companies know that sustainability is good for the environment and more regulations are coming,鈥� said Robin Wilson, retail industry executive advisor at SAP. 鈥淥n top of those drivers, customers want sustainably produced, personalized products, which represent the next wave of innovation in many industries, including products like jeans and other clothing.鈥�

Satisfying Consumer Demand for Sustainable Products

Similar to most heritage companies, Trilogy had struggled with slowed sales, fractured supply chains, and a stale product mix. Delivering authentic, sustainable fashion for eco-conscious influencers and tastemakers while remaining profitable was its central challenge. True, companies have been producing sustainable garments, but higher costs have relegated some items to niche markets. Even as consumer willingness to pay more has increased along with regulatory mandates, organizations need to profitably embed sustainability into products, starting with planning and design.

Wilson, who guided me through the showcase, said that consumer product manufacturers like Trilogy initially ask if it makes sense to design a sustainable item, or think of something different. For example, the on-site display of pink- and blue-colored jeans revealed three ways to develop denim sustainably: nanobubbles use air instead of water for softer, wrinkle-resistant jeans, ozone treatments replace toxic chemicals but provide that faded color that fashionistas celebrate, and laser technology provides a custom fit minus dangerous blasting or sanding techniques.

鈥淒enim undergoes a lot of water rinsing processes for softness and wrinkle-resistance,鈥� said Wilson. 鈥淲e have customers that have created their own laser process to reduce the amount of water that goes into their denim products. And, when consumers can understand the environmental footprint of each jeans鈥� design because they can see what materials are used and how they鈥檙e produced, they know exactly what they鈥檙e buying.鈥�

Consumers Want Sustainable Convenience

Building a more sustainable business is only possible with connected information to act on, from early consumer demand signals to on-time product delivery. based on help companies quickly attract both fashion-forward consumers and fast followers.

鈥淎nalytics from integrated data tell companies which consumers are interested in certain products, how often they鈥檝e purchased these products, and how likely they are to buy similar items again,鈥� said Wilson. 鈥淧roduct managers can explore if this is a consumer segment to consider developing a personalized offering in a smaller run, collecting feedback from them before potential expansion to a wider market. They can provide a on the Web site and develop campaigns to educate additional consumer target groups, expanding market share.鈥�

Collected securely and with the customer鈥檚 permission, helps companies anticipate what people want. Standing in front of colorful screens and physical robotics that automatically guided sustainable jean production encompassing material choices, manufacturing locations, production lines, and transportation options, I could see the dynamic dance of data between finance, supply chain, and marketing to deliver the omnichannel customer experience.

Business Network Sources Sustainable Suppliers

Once Trilogy teams decided on product designs, they turned to their to source raw materials. Among the questions were: Do I have vendors in my network that can provide nontraditional materials like seaweed or synthetic spider webs (both were displayed with jeans in glass cases)? And are those vendors sourcing materials from sustainable suppliers, including treatment of direct and indirect employees?

鈥淩esponsible design takes into account every aspect of that garment such as the type and amount of material and other design elements along with supplier sustainability beyond the first tier of partners,鈥� said Wilson. 鈥淚ncreasingly, consumer products organizations are planning ahead to reduce product components that end up in landfills and factor in at the outset of design. For example, through and 优蜜传媒S/4HANA, companies can capture all the data from the bill of materials to track milestones like water saved and lower carbon emissions.鈥�

Managing the full life cycle of a pair of sustainably manufactured jeans goes further than the many tiers of a company鈥檚 supply chain. Companies also need to have employees with the right skills sets to develop products that consumers want and compliance exigencies demand. Production facilities have to turn on a dime as disruptions occur. It鈥檚 often said that we can only act on what we can measure. By acting on connected data, organizations can deliver the proverbial pink denim jeans of anyone鈥檚 dreams.

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鈥淒igital transformation is just the newest term we鈥檙e using to describe the next stage of continuous improvement, bringing connected data from a really cool toolkit of Industry 4.0 innovations directly to people on the factory floor, helping them solve problems easily,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he people in the plant understand where the biggest problems are and where the biggest value comes from. It鈥檚 no different than the problem-solving we鈥檝e always done. What are you waiting for? You have to start today; find your problems and solve them.鈥�

Best known for its plumbing products, operates over 50 manufacturing plants worldwide and is a .

Intelligent, Connected Data Delivers Business Agility

When Gulick joined Kohler last year, she identified culture, infrastructure, and a strong foundational 听system as three critical ingredients to digital transformation. At the same time, fast-changing customer demands and interconnected geopolitical events have shifted how companies do business. As ecosystems expand, security threats mount, workforce shortages continue, and industry boundaries blur, connected personalized data has become the common denominator for digital transformation.

鈥淭his is a fun job because we鈥檙e going into plants and augmenting humans, hyperconnecting them with data that allows them to continuously improve. Our goal is to help every one of our valued associates work smarter and not harder,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here is not a perfect time to digitally transform. Consumerism has changed, with even greater expectations for customization and expediency. Manufacturers require intelligent, connected data to drive the automation for performance at that level, or they just won鈥檛 make it.鈥�

Gulick rattled off a slew of business results possible from intelligently connected data. Employees on the factory floor can ramp up faster, getting the personalized training they need at the right moment. This helps companies increase productivity and morale while meeting quality and safety standards. Machine learning algorithms can perform mundane, repetitive tasks with greater ease and accuracy, freeing up people for more strategic tasks, like new careers managing robots. Predictive maintenance from Internet of Things (IoT)-based sensors that monitor equipment helps prevent unexpected production line stoppages. Gulick said that one of Kohler鈥檚 transformative plants in Alabama achieved significant realized cost savings because they were alerted to replace a failing part before it broke down.

鈥淚t鈥檚 the bidirectional information that really boosts business agility,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e sending the information from tools and equipment to people when they need it, and they鈥檙e able to take the right action or escalate the problem seamlessly.鈥�

Practical Digital Innovation from the Factory Floor

Unlike past eras of innovation, digital transformation these days is impressively practical while requiring upskilling of employees to create the greatest impact. People can use technology in new ways and, over time, drive repeatable value throughout the company. At Kohler, leaders continue to gauge what training is needed to allow an agnostic culture of associates, partnered with advanced technology like robots and cobots. The foundation, including architecture, infrastructure, and culture, are factors for success. Their watchword is standardization.

鈥淲e strive to be the employer of choice in addition to the brand of choice,鈥� said Gulick. 鈥淧art of our road map is having a single source of data from our core 优蜜传媒systems run in a standard way across all of our plants. Intelligent data will provide executives with a strategic view that tells them where to focus today and how to make smarter decisions for tomorrow. For associates across our plants who know what their problems are, we want to drive autonomy with consistent guard rails so they can innovate faster.鈥�

Inducted into the last year, Gulick is looking ahead to her eventual obsolescence as she helps lead Kohler鈥檚 digital transformation.

鈥淚鈥檝e been doing disruptive thinking for almost a decade, and no matter what plant I walk into, I have realized that no person goes to work to do their job poorly,鈥� she said. 鈥淕iven the right tools, workers of all generations will get the job done, with quality and efficiency. Once we have connected intelligence, we can reimagine everything at our plants worldwide, including supply chain, operations, customer experience, and even profit and revenue streams. All companies need to begin transformation from where they were yesterday.鈥�

What are you waiting for indeed!

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In this country, the is expected to fund significant spend on electric vehicle charging stations. Manufacturers worldwide, especially startups, are full speed ahead, bolstered by recent investments totaling US$72 billion in the United States and $50 billion in Asia according to .

EVs Shake Up Supply Chain Status Quo

EVs are much more than a sustainable fuel alternative. They鈥檙e steering the entire automotive ecosystem towards an innovative, technology-driven business model. EV startups are jumping on advanced technologies that circumvent traditional models to reinvent internal and external supply chains. One example is , a North American EV manufacturer that鈥檚 digitalizing operations from finance through services to drive the company鈥檚 aggressive growth plans. You may have heard about the company鈥檚 flagship vehicle, the single-seat EV called the . Designed for a single occupant, it offers a unique driving experience for the environmentally conscious consumer. I caught up with Jim Gwynn, director of Information Systems at ElectraMeccanica, when he spoke at the event about how this three-wheeled vehicle will revolutionize the urban driving experience including commuting, delivery, and shared mobility.

鈥淭he unique two-door, single-passenger design offers drivers agility and safety, as they can enter and exit from either door, making it ideal for activities like pizza deliveries, security, and parking enforcement,鈥� said Gwynn. 鈥淭o meet current strong demand for our SOLO vehicles, and manage our rapid growth for years to come, we needed an enterprise-class ERP system that connects information company-wide for a digital-first experience that鈥檚 highly scalable, functional, and regulatory compliant.鈥�

Digital Unites Global Operations to Meet Market Demand

No one is more thrilled with ElectraMeccanica鈥檚 transformation from startup to fully operational OEM than the company鈥檚 retail and fleet customers now taking EV deliveries. Digitalization has been central to this important transition. Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, with international production, assembly, and testing facilities, ElectraMeccanica selected RISE with 优蜜传媒to build its . The vision is to connect everything from product design, supply chain planning, and production, to sales and after-market care.

鈥淲e needed an ERP system that would grow with our business,鈥� said Gwynn. 鈥淲e selected 优蜜传媒because it鈥檚 a complete solution that will allow customers to reserve and procure vehicles online and help us directly connect market demand with strategic planning, bringing that into the ERP system with and . The vehicle management system means we will have full traceability of our EVs and the components inside throughout the product life cycle. Equally important, 优蜜传媒solutions have broad acceptance in the automotive OEM market.鈥�

Business Results from Intelligent Data Sharing

ElectraMeccanica is building an assembly and engineering center in the U.S., and Gwynn expected further cloud-based digitalization like warehouse management that will include vehicle inspection facilities at the new plant and beyond. As far as he鈥檚 concerned, there鈥檚 no time to lose.

鈥淪peed is critical in bringing these innovations across our business so that we can anticipate and respond to what our customers want,鈥� said Gwynn. 鈥淗aving digital representation for all our core business processes allows us to share valuable data between sales and operations, making us more informed for stronger decision-making and business resilience.鈥�

Digital-first operations have already generated business results. Automating mundane processes has eliminated repetitive work, allowing employees to spend more time on value-add activities such as order intake and vehicle allocation. With a simplified employee experience, people can collaborate more easily across the company鈥檚 expanding geographical locations for increased productivity.

As EVs disrupt the entire automotive industry, new market entrants like ElectraMeccanica are front and center, creating a historic opportunity to reinvent mobility. Digitalization helps connect information between ecosystem participants 鈥� government regulators, manufacturers, consumers, and others 鈥� to deliver on the promise of a more sustainable world. SOLO is an apt name for ElectraMeccanica鈥檚 innovative EV, but the truth is, we鈥檙e all in this together.

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Three Trends Drive Investments in Digital Startups

Nino Marakovic, founder and CEO of , said that enterprise software startups have experienced record-breaking investments in the past two years, driven by the urgency of large companies adopting technology to help them transform and position themselves for the future. Originally SAP鈥檚 corporate venture capital arm, Sapphire Ventures has been an independent financial investment firm for 12 years. 优蜜传媒is the largest investor in the Sapphire Ventures portfolio that totals US$10 billion.

鈥淟ast year alone, more than $60 billion was invested in startups making supply chains more sustainable, intelligent, and resilient,鈥� said Marakovic. 鈥淎nother major investment area is data and machine learning as we see more of the workflows and data move to the cloud. Companies want solutions that help customers manage, orchestrate, organize, and analyze that data. The third high-growth area is future of work. Company shifts from on-site to remote and hybrid work, [coupled with] a tight labor market and wave of employee resignations, have a created a perfect storm that鈥檚 modernizing the workplace.鈥�

Data Saves Money and the Environment

Ivaldi Group is a great example of how startups are innovating to help supply chains hardest hit by pandemic-related disruption, in this case, in the automotive industry. Uvaldi Group participated in the New York City COVID-19 recovery cohort. SAP.iO Foundries is the company鈥檚 external startup accelerator. Integrating data from customers, Ivaldi Group鈥檚 software calculates the carbon footprint of an auto supplier鈥檚 spare parts operation, analyzing potential candidates for advanced, local digital manufacturing such as 3D printing.

鈥淐ustomers are interested in finding money where they didn鈥檛 know they were losing it and reducing their carbon footprint,鈥� said Stefani Pellinen-Chavez, COO at Ivaldi Group. 鈥淲e review the data, including how far a customer ships products, how long they remain in inventory, how hard it is to source these parts, and how long their factory or facility would be down if this part was not available鈥uppliers might create local manufacturing centers so the community can partner with larger corporate customers.鈥�

Holistic Planning with Connected Data Company-Wide

In an uncertain world, supply chain planning has become one of the major challenges for companies navigating disruptions. Juergen Mueller, member of the Executive Board of 优蜜传媒SE and chief technology officer at SAP, shared how organizations are innovating on to collaborate with their ecosystem, explore what-if scenarios for planning purposes and flexibility, and gain competitive advantage. He said that advanced analytics and connected data help people immediately see and act on the impact of material shortages and potential alternatives for factory production lines, suppliers and logistics partners, finance and cash flow outlook, and workforce demands.

Sustainability Data Shores Up Supply Chain Resilience

Jan Gilg, president and chief product officer of 优蜜传媒S/4HANA, said that organizations are 鈥渏umping all over鈥� resilient, sustainable supply chains, using 优蜜传媒solutions for data visibility that bolsters strategic business advantage. Holding up the example of an everyday item like a cup of coffee, he said that numerous companies worldwide were involved in its production, from the farmers growing and harvesting coffee beans, to a vast network of suppliers and transportation providers that deliver fresh brew to consumers.

鈥淥ne of our large customers manages 288,000 farmers across two thousand brands of coffee they sell, with thousands of suppliers,鈥� said Gilg. 鈥淲e have an entire portfolio that helps customers like this manage their supply chain and make them more resilient鈥anaging the flow of materials and value. Now we鈥檙e adding the third dimension, managing the flow of environmental information to understand the carbon footprint created while a product is produced, shipped, and brought to their customers. Over one-third of investors have global assets related to companies that are sustainable. Two-thirds of consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainable brands.鈥�

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This was how Dr. Feiyu Xu, global head of AI at SAP, opened her fascinating session at the , explaining how advances in high-performance computing, Big Data, and machine learning have commercialized AI, turning it into value for people and business.

An Inspirational Pioneer for AI

Award-winning researcher and startup founder Dr. Xu joined 优蜜传媒in 2020 to help realize the technology鈥檚 full potential for business value in both consumer and industrial sectors. Among the first generation of students to study AI, she鈥檚 undauntedly met the challenge of creating the company鈥檚 holistic strategy tackling this tremendous market opportunity. After attending her session, I spoke with her about how companies are bringing AI into the business for intelligent transformation.

鈥淲hat鈥檚 important is having an understanding of business processes and the right data so you can embed AI systematically into applications company-wide where it provides intelligence that guides better decision-making and the development of differentiated products and services to drive market growth,鈥� she said. 鈥溣琶鄞絟as access to that level of customer information given its broad product portfolio, deep industry expertise, and strong ecosystem of partners.鈥�

Multicultural Perspectives behind Unified AI Strategy

Dr. Xu, who grew up in China and completed her AI undergraduate and post-graduate studies in Germany, credited some of her foundational career strengths to her multicultural perspective. She鈥檚 certainly applied those insights, as she鈥檚 created a worldwide team she leads from 优蜜传媒offices in Berlin.

鈥淚 bring both my Chinese heritage and the research lessons I learned from Germany to my work today,鈥� she said. 鈥淲orking with teams of AI scientists, business leaders, product managers, and customers worldwide, it鈥檚 important to have open discussions as we fulfill our responsibilities to 优蜜传媒customers. We鈥檝e been an AI pioneer, and this technology remains central to our intelligent enterprise transformation along with our customers.鈥�

AI Ethics and Security Are Priorities

Noting that large-scale AI gives organizations a major competitive edge, Dr. Xu reinforced the company鈥檚 commitment to helping customers make business process improvements while staying safe and secure.

鈥淲e鈥檙e focused on customer education so they understand how to get the most from AI using 优蜜传媒software applications for automation, optimization, and forecasting across the organization,鈥� she said. 鈥淎t the same time, we adhere to a with principles for responsible use of this important technology.鈥�

Real-World Value from AI

According to the latest survey, AI remains the top priority for CEOs for the third year in a row. During her session at 优蜜传媒Sapphire Orlando, Dr. Xu shared a huge list of ways that AI now contributes to the intelligent transformation of organizations. As business travel returns, AI makes expense reporting a breeze. Manufacturers are using AI to automatically identify and reorder parts before they鈥檙e damaged and can negatively impact production goals. AI-based tools will rise to any e-mail challenge, automatically routing messages to the appropriate recipients for time-saving efficiencies.

鈥淭here are so many intelligent applications for AI across business processes,鈥� said Dr. Xu. 鈥淎I helps organizations discover market trends and turn prospects into lifelong customers. In manufacturing, AI improves efficiencies from design to production. Especially during times of disruption, AI can help reduce supply chain risks with better forecasts for short- and long-term planning. Organizations can adjust operations and people strategies to scale in sync with changing market demands.鈥�

Intelligence Combines Humans Plus Machines

Dr. Xu cited business results from customers in numerous industries using 优蜜传媒solutions with embedded AI. One railway transportation company achieved 99% automation rates to speed up invoicing and payments. A technology company gained 24/7 access to time-critical order information with conversational AI. A telecommunications provider filled 77% of vacant positions by automatically matching existing qualified employees with open positions.

What鈥檚 important to remember is that just like the people who program it, AI is constantly learning. analysts predicted that by next year, 60% of businesses will embrace a decision-making model that combines the power of AI and human judgment for more informed decision-making. By 2026, expected that 85% of enterprises will combine human expertise with AI, machine learning, natural language processing, and pattern recognition to augment foresight across the organization, making workers 25% more productive and effective. As for John and Mary, AI has left their love story in the dust.

Read more stories from the 优蜜传媒Pioneers series.

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In a world where the only constant is change, Nagarajan has identified one element crucial to every enterprise. 鈥淢cKinsey estimates that up to 70% of profits can be at risk when a company is not running sustainably,鈥� he said. 鈥淎t SAP, we consistently see that those businesses striving to become more sustainable, intelligent enterprises not only adapt, but thrive in the midst of challenges.鈥�

In a follow-up interview, Nagarajan shared his insights.

Boardroom Conversations

Sustainability has been on the edge of conversations for a long time as companies have been trying to see what it means. It has now moved from being a moral imperative to a business imperative, and effectively, it鈥檚 an imperative for humankind.

The imperative is summed up by two recent conversations I had with customers, one with one of the world’s largest CPG companies, the other with one of the world’s largest discrete manufacturing companies. In both instances, they simply switched from the usual conversation around transformation and optimization to the topic of sustainability, saying it must be woven into the core of the business. Both customers said the same thing: their head of sustainability is now part of boardroom discussions. Their main concern is that sustainability is going to spin off as a separate silo if it鈥檚 not woven into the core of the organization. These customers were clear: what we do is done on SAP, hence you need to work with our sustainability officer to embed sustainability in our operations. There can be no business transformation in isolation from sustainability.

In the past, part of the challenge of becoming more efficient was that organizations didn’t have access to data in real time, so they weren’t able to act on it in real time. Now, it鈥檚 possible to solve that problem with 优蜜传媒S/4HANA. Organizations want to do the same thing with sustainability. They don鈥檛 want to just figure out what their carbon footprint or plastic waste is, they need to know what it is in real time and how they are going to change it because otherwise all they know is they have a problem.

Daunting Urgency

Customers can often be overwhelmed by the urgency of the topic and the magnitude of the task. Many are still in the process of understanding scope three emissions, analyzing the levers to reduce the impact and exploring options to move from industry standards to primary carbon data exchanged with their main suppliers

We also need to make sure that we’re not boiling the ocean. Take the carbon footprint for packaging as an example. You don鈥檛 capture 100% of your carbon footprint right away, but you can capture carbon footprint over a sizable portion of the value chain.

The first thing is to give customers an early insight and early win for the business, something concrete they can resolve. When they realize how much they accomplished by capturing 60% of their footprint, then they can look at the remaining 40%, which could be scope three upstream. You tackle this enormous problem by breaking it down into chunks and amplifying early quick wins to take the organization with you on the journey.

Transformation Fatigue

Change is the only constant, so it gets tiring, especially as we often see one transformation leading to another.

The technology decision is one of the easier decisions to make during a transformation. Many of our customers have been with us on this journey over the course of our fifty years, and they鈥檙e confident of our strategy and vision. What they really want to know is how we manage change and help them comply with new regulations, as well as how we can help them take their organizations with them on this journey. They ask, how can 优蜜传媒own the delivery of their transformation outcome and help accelerate their time to value.

We must ensure that their employees are willing participants and not just recipients of the transformation. Cloud transformation is a methodology from a technology perspective, but it’s truly amazing from a business capability perspective because it compresses and accelerates the time to outcome. By transforming their business with services in the cloud, our customers are able to remove the fatigue that comes with long-term transformation. Projects that previously took years are reduced to months, allowing teams to refocus on their longer-term goals in much shorter time frames.

In a nutshell, how we change the organization is about focusing on customer outcomes and not about selling a product. It鈥檚 not about product out. It’s about customer in.

Inspiration and Optimism

Sustainability and caring about the environment are part of a mindset that already belongs to the younger generations. Millennials are looking at solutions in a different way than the generations that created the problems. They鈥檒l be living with the consequences of whatever is done now to fix them.

One of my early managers used to say, forget about thinking in a box. You don’t know where the box is. I’m a massive optimist at heart. I believe in the collective intelligence as opposed to the individual intelligence. I鈥檓 inspired when I get people together and I see their eagerness, their intent and desire for things to get better. Things get better by doing one small thing at a time, by doing it every day, and doing it continuously in the long run.

优蜜传媒Sapphire The Hague

At the end of event, Nagarajan chose to inspire his team with a speaker known for creating landscapes for the future. Dutch artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde believes creativity is our true capital. connect people and technology through installations that improve daily life in urban environments, spark the imagination, and fight the climate crisis. Clean air, clean water, clean energy, and clean space are their new values, and light is their language. He told the EMEA audience: “We first have to imagine a better future and only then can we create it.鈥�