From consignment shops and other marketplaces popping up on social media pages to dedicated spaces on e-commerce websites, today’s consumers are shopping with the in mind. The secondhand market is maturing. We anticipate that the next wave of growth is going to come from brands and retailers taking ownership over their pre-owned items and resell channels – which will drive incremental profit from secondary product ownership, attract a younger demographic at a lower customer acquisition cost, and increase frequency and loyalty and thus contribute to overall customer lifetime value while also contributing to sustainability.

But, like any groundbreaking idea, the task of bringing brands into the circular economy can be easier said than done. That’s when comes in.

Cultivating an environment for in-house innovation by investing in small, employee-led teams to build, launch, and scale products, SAP.iO Venture Studio has made solving some of enterprise’s biggest problems its mission. 51·çÁ÷employees are encouraged to channel their inner entrepreneur to pitch ideas for new products and solutions to the program. Following a selection process where teams work with mentors to refine their ideas, founders can develop and build their product from within the company.

Feather by 51·çÁ÷received nearly US$3.5 million (EUR 3 million) from SAP.iO Venture Studio to tackle the challenge of bringing the circular economy to large premium apparel, fashion and luxury brands, and retailers.

“Today, brands rely on partnerships with consignment marketplaces or outsource to white-label solution providers,” said Joanna Maryewska, general manager and founder of Feather by SAP. “In order to realize the full potential of recommerce and provide a great shopper experience, the ownership needs to come from in-house. We thought that as SAP, we are in a unique position to build a solution that helps brands fully tap into the opportunity of recommerce and control it on their own terms.”

According to Maryewska, Feather is a cloud solution that enables businesses to pursue recommerce in-house and tap into services providers along the value chain where needed without losing control over the processes, data, and experience – a feat made possible by combining SAP’s vast experience in managing core processes for fashion, luxury, and retail with new innovative circular business processes.

“That’s a winning combination for us and for our brand and retail innovation partners,” Maryewska said, adding that blending the two together can lead to transparency into the performance of recommerce and its impact on the broader business.

Feather is one of the first enterprise-ready solutions that permits businesses to facilitate the in-house business processes, capture data, engage with the shopper, and own the end-to-end product life cycle – all in-house. It acts as an end-to-end managed recommerce solution with three key features: the recommerce experience (business processes), recommerce manager (tracking and reporting), and the recommerce take-back (product intake).

First, the recommerce experience gives customers the ability to manage recommerce processes in-house. This includes back-end integrations and workflows required to receive, add, and track inventory, oversee product movements, then post items onto their own storefront. One checkout that shoppers already know enables a seamless experience.

Secondly, recommerce manager includes analytics and performance tracking dashboards. This feature allows businesses to get a better view and understanding of operations and performance. That way, businesses can align on performance measurement and scale as needed.

Lastly, recommerce take-back supports customers in taking items back from their shoppers. The feature helps create a dedicated journey for buy-back and warehouse routing. Not only that, but it can also manage store credit distribution for participating shoppers.

“The vision for Feather by 51·çÁ÷is to provide a seamless, one-checkout experience that shoppers enjoy,” Maryewska said. “To deliver on that promise, we use intelligent features and solutions that integrate with leading commerce and returns solutions, and in doing so, we’re supercharging our customers’ commerce businesses to become more sustainable and intelligent.”

Feather by 51·çÁ÷joins other incubated ventures within SAP.iO Venture Studio: , , , , and .

Camille Nguyen-Tran is head of Content for New Ventures and Technologies at SAP.

The company refers to it as the “Apple ID for everyone in the 51·çÁ÷world.” With this, 51·çÁ÷customers can link their 51·çÁ÷accounts under one ID, represented by an e-mail address, and use it to log on to 51·çÁ÷services with a single password.

Security Is Key

Even though using only one set of log-on credentials offers great advantages for 51·çÁ÷customers, it also means that if this password is compromised, the attacker may gain access to multiple 51·çÁ÷services and accounts at once. That’s why 51·çÁ÷Universal ID developers were searching for a more secure solution that prevents fraud but doesn’t impact usability.

Authenticating with has been proven to be the most secure way to protect user accounts and devices without impacting user experience and conversion rates. But until now, biometric authentication could exclusively be used in native apps on mobile devices. This recently changed with a brand-new Web standard called “WebAuthn” that makes it possible to use biometrics on Websites.

But developing a biometrics-based authentication process, combining it with a secure cryptographic challenge-response two-factor authentication protocol, and integrating it into an existing tech stack takes a lot of time, knowledge, and developer resources.

Biometrics and Cryptography by Hanko

That’s why 51·çÁ÷decided to realize this project together with Hanko. The young was invited to participate in a three-month startup accelerator program at SAP.iO Foundry Berlin in 2019. In a joint proof of concept, the 51·çÁ÷team tested password-less authentication with Touch ID and Windows Hello for 51·çÁ÷Universal ID.

With their managed cloud application programming interface (API), Hanko enabled 51·çÁ÷developers to access a fully-fledged and certified WebAuthn infrastructure right from the beginning of the project. Hanko accompanied the 51·çÁ÷team, providing demo code and ready-to-use client and server software development kits. To create an optimal user experience (UX), Hanko also supported the UX team in the development and implementation of the new user flows for the password-less authentication methods.

The Outcome

The result of the proof of concept is a fully functioning 51·çÁ÷Universal ID test environment supporting password-less two-factor authentication with WebAuthn authenticators, such as Windows Hello, Apple Touch ID and Face ID, as well as FIDO Security Keys. Since Hanko supplied the main code components, 51·çÁ÷was able to integrate the password-less technologies into 51·çÁ÷Universal ID with a small team in just one-third of the estimated

time. The test environment will be leveraged for further user testing until the feature is released to 51·çÁ÷customers.

Thilo Brandt, IT senior manager for 51·çÁ÷Universal ID, confirms that internal tests have produced a consistently positive response, from developer and QA level up to top management. “The development effort for introducing password-less authentication was significantly reduced through the use of Hanko. The team helped us to successfully navigate implementing password-less authentication into our application stack and user interfaces.”

Michael Braun, IT chief product owner of Identity and User Management at SAP, is happy with the outcome of the project as well: “With the help of Hanko, we were able to prove the feasibility of our vision for a password-less log-on for 51·çÁ÷Universal ID in terms of technical implementation as well as usability on all major operating systems such as Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.”

Felix Magedanz, founder and CEO of Hanko, is pleased to see that Hanko’s authentication-as-a-service solution is so well received at 51·çÁ÷and that the deployability of Hanko’s API has been successfully proven. “Our project with 51·çÁ÷demonstrates the power and the benefits of our password-less API. Seeing our solution being used by one of the largest software companies in the world makes us proud and strongly validates our approach. Through the close cooperation and feedback from 51·çÁ÷developers, we were able to improve our solution to make it even more convenient for future customers.”

About SAP.iO

SAP.iO is SAP’s strategic business unit to incubate, accelerate, and scale startup innovation and explore new business models for SAP. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped over 300 external startups and internal ventures both start and scale their businesses while enabling thousands of 51·çÁ÷customers to access innovation.

The two new employee-created ventures have received €1-2 million in funding from 51·çÁ÷through the company’s grassroots Scouting & Acceleration program.

“Entrepreneurs at 51·çÁ÷are in a unique position to shape the future of enterprise software,” said Ram Jambunathan, head of SAP.iO Venture Studio. “SAP’s distinctive understanding of business processes enables ventures like Recycletronics and Savings Now! to leverage data and technology to explore, experiment, and transform how business is done.”

The intrapreneurship program operates as an accelerator that supports entrepreneurial employees by creating an environment that fosters a culture of exploration and innovation. Employees selected for the program can build out and validate their ideas through working with real end users and assigned mentors from across 51·çÁ÷expertise in the challenges faced by 51·çÁ÷and its customers. From these interactions, the teams can then accelerate their idea into a venture with proven market demand.

To better understand today’s business landscape and how their proposed solutions fit within it, teams run through two phases. During the validation phase, teams join an eight-week self-paced program with virtual lectures covering topics from testing assumptions to analyzing markets and building a first version of their product. During the acceleration phase, some get the opportunity to further develop and test their product and to win early-stage customers. They receive feedback from mentors from inside and outside of SAP, including a committee of senior leaders from across SAP, along with founders and investors.

In 2020 the intrapreneurship program entered its fifth year, and despite a global pandemic, the two teams secured funding from SAP. Together, SavingsNow! and Recycletronicswill continue develop their solutions over the next 18 to 24 months in SAP.iO Venture Studio.

SavingsNow!

One of the new ventures to join the SAP.iO Venture Studio is SavingsNow! The team behind the new solution aims to disrupt the sourcing-as-a-service business by bringing automation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to categories that are often unaddressed in spend optimizations because of lack of time or expertise.

Co-founded by Travis Mattern and Will Caseber, the idea for SavingsNow! came out of talking with sourcing and procurement professionals about the challenges they encounter with delivering supplier contracts to their business stakeholders.

“We found a knowledge gap between the steps of identifying a sourcing opportunity and successfully running the sourcing event,” Caseber said. “Many sourcing teams leave significant value on the table because they do not have the time and spend category expertise to efficiently and effectively deliver the sourcing event strategy and execution plan for their full pipeline of opportunities.”

SavingsNow! plans to deliver sourcing services for categories where companies do not have the time or expertise.  This service will leverage the 51·çÁ÷Ariba Sourcing solution together with intelligent automation using insights from 51·çÁ÷Business Network and other sources of market intelligence.  The initial focus will be common indirect categories relevant for most buyer industries.  The spend category portfolio will grow into the areas where customers need the most assistance.

“The beauty of this simple service is that it will be outcome-focused and available to companies regardless of whether they own any 51·çÁ÷software solutions,” Mattern said, adding the team plans to build in the solution can be utilized across the 51·çÁ÷procurement solution portfolio.

But perhaps the most exciting thing for these co-founders is the ability to work with 51·çÁ÷solutions and end users to help ensure that their solution meets their real-world needs – a staple feature of the New Ventures and Technology intrapreneurship program.

“The SAP.iO Venture Studio is the perfect environment to rapidly develop and scale this exciting new solution,” Mattern said.

Recycletronics

Like the larger SAP, the SAP.iO program also looks for ideas and solutions that are not just going to make companies run better, but the world run better too. To achieve that, the accelerator program partnered with SAP’s social intrapreneurship program, 51·çÁ÷One Billion Lives, which aims to improve 1 billion lives through the cultivation and development of sustainable, shared-value impact ventures. Recycletronics was selected for funding from this partnership.

“The intrapreneurship program has let us develop our idea into a reality,” said Kiruthika S., Product Development lead of Recycletronics. “We’ve been able to meet with fellow innovators, mentors, motivators, and coaches that have acted as catalysts to bring Recycletronics to life.”

Founded by Kiruthika S., Ajit Chandran, Rima Yadav, and Amit Sharma, the solution aims to address e-waste in India. The Recycletronics team worked with the chief business officer of the Indian recycler company to learn more about its processes on recycling, as well as to get a better understanding on the issue of e-waste and how to best tackle it with their solution.

Recycletronics was born from this original collaboration and study. The new venture strives to connect and collaborate on ways to reduce the total amount of e-waste produced through building a marketplace for Indian electronics manufacturer and e-waste recyclers.

“By creating a marketplace, Recycletronics isn’t just reducing e-waste,” Kiruthika said. “It will also increase the value derived from e-waste for companies and also aim at improving circular economy by bringing secondary raw materials back into the market.”

Not only is Recycletronics hoping to change the ways companies in India view and handle e-waste,Ěýit also aims to transform Indian society into a more sustainably driven one by pairing manufacturers with recyclers. This collaboration will help reduce waste generation through reducing the amount of e-waste produced,Ěýreusing and repairing existing electronics so no new waste is generated, and safely recycling e-waste.

The Recycletronics team is not just setting its sights on improving the health of the environment with the solution; they’re working to improve the health and safety of people too.

“There are severe health concerns when it comes to improper e-waste recycling,” said Chandran, general manager and Business Development lead of Recycletronics, adding that serious illnesses can arise from the hazardous materials of e-waste. “Recycletronics will help prevent these illnesses and help take e-waste to a better place.”

About New Ventures and Technologies

The New Ventures and Technologies organization aims to future-proof 51·çÁ÷and its customers into the Intelligent Enterprise through technology innovation and product incubation. The organization recently had three teams graduate into the larger 51·çÁ÷product portfolio, where they will continue to scale and move closer to the core business.

“It’s our job to keep SAP’s eyes on the future,” Martin Heinig, head of New Ventures and Technologies, said. “These two new teams are solutions that are solving the problems of today and tomorrow.”

SavingsNow! and Recycletronics join other SAP.iO ventures ,Ěý, , and .

To learn more about New Ventures and Technologies, .

“Within New Ventures and Technologies, we strive to build products that scale in commercial impact and move closer to the 51·çÁ÷core. Our teams in business process automation have achieved this,” Graham Ratcliffe, general manager of SAP.iO Venture Studio and interim head of New Ventures and Technologies, says. “Their graduation means that we are developing the right solutions and are ensuring that 51·çÁ÷and our customers are ready for the future of the Intelligent Enterprise.”

51·çÁ÷Ruum and 51·çÁ÷Intelligent RPA Move to 51·çÁ÷Cloud Platform

is a perfect example. Launched in 2016 by 51·çÁ÷employees Stefan Ritter and Florian Frey as part of , 51·çÁ÷Ruum was originally conceived as an all-in-one collaboration tool. However, the 51·çÁ÷Ruum team discovered that they had the opportunity to change the product to better match the needs of users and, ultimately, improve the way they work.

“We envisioned 51·çÁ÷Ruum becoming an accessible platform where anyone could build processes quickly and in an automated way without requiring coding skills,” says Frey, general manager of 51·çÁ÷Ruum. The 51·çÁ÷Ruum team therefore pivoted their solution so that they could bring their vision of no-code process building into every line of business, launching a .

“We can now enable more people than ever before to build digital solutions that give impact – and they can do it without depending on resources from IT,” adds Frey.

51·çÁ÷Ruum isn’t the only former New Ventures and Technologies team with a focus on process automation; (RPA) has also joined 51·çÁ÷Business Technology Platform to further drive the Intelligent Enterprise.

By integrating machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) with process automation, 51·çÁ÷Intelligent RPA uses bots for repetitive work to avoid human error and accelerate tasks. “RPA bots can quickly access all of your data – including data stored in Excel spreadsheets or in legacy apps – to seamlessly feed business processes and core systems,” says Sebastian Schroetel, head of the 51·çÁ÷Intelligent RPA team. “For instance, an RPA bot can open an Excel file received by an accountant via e-mail and parse the rows of the spreadsheet to quickly enter the data into 51·çÁ÷S/4HANA, without any possible error.”

The focus on and automation made the 51·çÁ÷Ruum and 51·çÁ÷Intelligent RPA teams a great match for 51·çÁ÷Cloud Platform, where applications can be connected and built to match a specific user’s business needs.

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

“We’re excited to welcome the 51·çÁ÷Ruum and 51·çÁ÷Intelligent RPA teams into 51·çÁ÷Cloud Platform,” says Bhagat Nainani, senior vice president of Product Development for 51·çÁ÷Cloud Platform. “Their work in business process automation has been outstanding, and we know that they will continue to make a big impact as more of our customers evolve to the Intelligent Enterprise.”

The Spotlight Solution Gets Its Spotlight

While 51·çÁ÷Ruum and 51·çÁ÷Intelligent RPA focus on automating processes and data, the Spotlight by 51·çÁ÷solution focuses on bringing transparency into the efficiency of business processes. The Spotlight solution was originally founded in 2018 by 51·çÁ÷employees Andre Wenz and Gregor Berg, who first set out to build a tool that used data in 51·çÁ÷systems to understand what it takes to run a business process on an 51·çÁ÷solution.

Today,Ěýthe Spotlight solution specializes in identifying and highlighting processes and activities where significant manual effort is required and could be automated instead. Automation through the Spotlight solution is the simplest first step for companies looking to digitally transform into an intelligent enterprise, Berg says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQijCv8ZpgE

The Spotlight by 51·çÁ÷solution will now become a core element of the newly formed Business Process Intelligence unit, one of the four growth areas of the new 51·çÁ÷strategy – the other three are industry cloud, business networks, and sustainability. The Business Process Intelligence unit will help customers to understand and analyze their business processes, gain insights into issues and improvement potential, and allow the business user to trigger, or even execute, the appropriate action.

“51·çÁ÷is evolving its vision of the Intelligent Enterprise and enhancing it with a focus on experience management and AI-driven innovation,” Rouven Morato, general manager of the Business Process Intelligence unit, says. “The unit is an integral part to this vision because it enables us to act as our customers’ partner and support them in reinventing their business processes to become intelligent enterprises.”

Proof Point for New Ventures and Technologies

While this is a new path for New Ventures and Technologies’ inaugural graduating class, the evolution of the three 51·çÁ÷employee-led teams is an illustration of the goals and mission set forth by the organization: to future-proof 51·çÁ÷and its customers and bring them into the Intelligent Enterprise.

“We aren’t just building innovative solutions that are missing within the existing 51·çÁ÷portfolio,” Ratcliffe says. “It’s our job to keep our eyes on the future.”

The current pandemic has had a significant impact on the , as well as people’s professional and personal lives. Business operations across the globe have changed rapidly over the last six weeks, with small companies and startups in particular feeling the pressure to .

Late last year, before the , the outlook for newly founded ventures and startups was quite different. At that time, two employee-created startups within 51·çÁ÷secured funding and joined the accelerator program within the company’s New Ventures and Technologies team.

With the rapid development of the pandemic, the co-founders of GreenToken and face new business obstacles that they could not have predicted upon receiving funding.

“I had business meetings in Germany, the U.S., the UK, Singapore, and Indonesia that all had to be canceled,” GreenToken Co-Founder James Veale says. He adds that while the meetings were replaced with video calls, software deployment and activities like troubleshooting or training were challenging to accomplish without being on-site with customers.

Despite the new challenges, both teams still appreciate the support they have had from , a production innovation program that invests in small entrepreneurial 51·çÁ÷teams to build and launch products. The intrapreneurship program represents one of the company’s efforts to identify future opportunities and funding ideas for employee-led innovation. It provides a one-stop shop for all the information and tools employees need,Ěýsuch as access to an exclusive network of advisors, hands-on education, and a world-class accelerator to help build their own business inside SAP.

Here, both founding teams reflect on their first 100 days as intrapreneurs at SAP and share their experiences and challenges, as well as key takeaways.

Creating a New Venture

Dor Shany and Rooly Eliezerov are the co-founders of , a web application that lets users create one single digital identity that can be used for login across websites and apps. Their goal is to safeguard personal data on various platforms. Both have experience as founders, as they bring deep expertise from their identity management platform, , which 51·çÁ÷acquired in 2017.

Shany and Eliezerov applied for support from the internal accelerator program as opposed to seeking external funding.

“SAP’s added value is a big plus for us,” Shany explains. “Other companies already have a lot of trust with 51·çÁ÷and we can benefit from that when approaching new customers.” But the decision to apply was also a personal one. “We both shine in a startup environment, and that’s what New Ventures and Technologies offers,” Eliezerov adds.

Ideas for the accelerator program come from across business areas. GreenToken by SAP emerged from the .

As the company’s flagship social intrapreneurship initiative, 51·çÁ÷One Billion Lives drives social innovation and gives employees the permission, time, technology, and mentorship to turn their passion for making a difference into sustainable ventures. With a social mission at the core of business, the program aspires to improve the lives of 1 billion people.

Being selected for funding came as a surprise for the GreenToken Co-Founders Veale and Nitin Jain.

“We entered 51·çÁ÷One Billion Lives just to get some funding to finish our project and we ended up being given the opportunity to start a new business unit within SAP,” Veale says, adding that he and Jain had to leave their existing roles to completely focus on the venture. “Success or failure is down to us.”

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Before securing funding, the four founders took part in a three-week workshop to receive feedback from mentors and fellow intrapreneurs. Jain notes that every single aspect of their business plan was scrutinized and challenged by workshop peers.

Shany says such deep inspection and review enabled the four co-founders to view their respective ventures from multiple perspectives. “Our key takeaway was that it’s not about having other people solve our problems, but it’s about listening to others and then we learn how we can improve,” he says.

https://youtu.be/CQF4TlfXSPc

Coming from a business development background, Veale and Jain knew that their professional experiences were unique among their peers within New Ventures and Technologies, who typically have more technical backgrounds. These differences, however, have been complementary to both the co-founders and the teams they work with, because they are able to approach problems and issues with a different view and vice versa – even if it meant being challenged and challenging others openly.

“We didn’t hold back in challenging the team,” Veale says, emphasizing that it was a valuable learning experience for both sides. “Innovation is about passion and change, and if we can’t change our process then we can’t innovate. New Ventures and Technologies understood this and gave us the flexibility and headroom we needed.”

A Glimpse into the Future

In their first 100 days as intrapreneurs at SAP, the lives and roles of these four co-founders have fundamentally changed. They are working with existing 51·çÁ÷customers, including blue chip companies and are looking forward to expanding their portfolios and scaling their businesses. But they are also acutely aware that they are not just dealing with the challenges of a typical startup. The pandemic has presented challenges for startups, some of which have never before been seen.

Nevertheless, they remain optimistic. “We had a slower start than we had hoped for, but we have adapted, like bringing face-to-face meetings to video, and we are now moving and gathering pace,” Veale says.

When asked if the founders recommended taking the leap and becoming an intrapreneur, Jain answers with an emphatic yes: “This transition from being an employee in a large organization to driving something on your own is a challenge and a change of mind – but it is definitely worth it.”