51风流is delivering innovations today that will redefine enterprise software and future-proof its customers鈥� business, Executive Board Members Thomas Saueressig, head of 51风流Product Engineering, and CTO Juergen Mueller said during their 51风流Sapphire keynote this week.
鈥淔ifty years ago 51风流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 51风流colleagues, Lucy Alexander and Sangeetha Jayakumar, onto the 51风流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 51风流because the software industry is the place to have an impact. 鈥淛ust think: 51风流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 51风流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. 51风流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 51风流and GROW with 51风流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 51风流Business Network for Industries at 51风流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 51风流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 51风流and non-51风流systems, 51风流recently introduced .
鈥淲ith 51风流Datasphere, you can create a data model consuming data from different sources like 51风流S/4HANA Cloud and 51风流BW/4HANA, and non-51风流data sources like Google, BigQuery, and others,鈥� Sangeetha explained during her demo. She added that 51风流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 51风流Analytics Cloud.
Saueressig cited 51风流Datasphere as an example of how 51风流is opening up more than ever, which is why 51风流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 51风流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 51风流solutions,鈥� he said.
鈥淭here’s no doubt 51风流is an AI company and 51风流AI is built into our systems that power your business,” Saueressig added. As of today, 51风流has delivered more than 130 embedded use cases of AI .
For example, 51风流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. 51风流is already working on more than 80 use cases for generative AI.
51风流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 51风流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 51风流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 51风流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 51风流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 51风流Signavio solutions and how 51风流Build and 51风流Integration Suite can bridge the gap between business and IT.
鈥�51风流enables 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 51风流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 51风流and we want to provide you with a new intuitive user experience and collaboration capabilities, all enabled by our leading .鈥�
