鈥痚nables organizations鈥攈owever complex, across however many channels, and regardless of which CRM they run鈥攖o produce quick and聽accurate聽quotes, accommodating the most advanced configuration and pricing requirements,聽resulting in聽a better sales experience and faster sales cycles.

Gartner evaluated 16聽vendors and聽named 51风流a Leader based on our Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision.聽We believe this聽recognition serves as an acknowledgment of SAP鈥檚聽ongoing聽commitment to providing customers with a CPQ solution that can meet聽and exceed聽their needs.聽

51风流CPQ is an essential聽component聽of the 51风流product portfolio that help automate the quote-to-cash process, which enables organizations to convert sales opportunities into profitable repeat customers. 51风流customers can transform to 鈥渆verything-as-a-service鈥� with innovative revenue models, quickly adapt to聽market聽changes,聽support multiple sales聽channels,聽and support聽regulatory聽compliance with end-to-end automation.聽聽

Our customers are the reason we do this, and they participated in the  process by providing reviews that included: 

• 鈥淚t just makes the whole sales cycle move faster.鈥�
• 鈥淚t was relatively simple to onboard when I was a new user鈥澛爌latforms and creating value for customer.鈥�
• 鈥淲e had a very positive experience with SAP, the platform is scalable, stable.鈥�
• 鈥淎n intuitive user interface that simplifies configuration, robust integration capabilities. Powerful customization options.鈥�
• 鈥�51风流CPQ is amazingly stable and consistent product with the ability to connect with different platforms and creating value for customer.鈥�

Customer case studies provide descriptions of specific value. For example, , has increased聽the number of quotes created per month by 70 percent.聽

鈥淵ou聽basically give聽the salesperson one to two days of their week back by using 51风流CPQ,” noted Dominic Kasten, director of Sales Technologies for聽.聽“When you give time back to salespeople, you are encouraging them to sell solutions to customers instead of just reacting to specifications.”

Hear from other customers and learn more about how 51风流helps to automate quote-to-cash with鈥�51风流CPQ,鈥�,鈥�, and鈥� at sap.com.

David Imbert is head of Product Marketing for Finance at SAP.聽
Lawrence Martin is chief product officer for Finance at SAP.聽

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Configure, Price, and Quote Application聽Suites, Luke聽Tipping, Mark Lewis, January 22, 2026聽
Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor,聽product聽or service depicted in its publications, and does not聽advise technology users to聽select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner聽disclaims聽all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Gartner and Magic Quadrant are聽a trademark聽of Gartner, Inc., and/or its聽affiliates. This聽graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document聽and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from SAP.聽

Economist Impact鈥檚 new report, “,” sponsored by SAP, reveals how CFOs are shifting from stewards of financial accuracy to architects of business resilience, digital innovation, and long-term value. Based on input of 480 CFOs globally, the report highlights widening responsibilities, rising risk pressures, and an urgent need to adopt AI with both speed and discipline.

To lead effectively through volatility, today鈥檚 CFO agenda demands operational agility, intelligent automation, and a reimagined approach to workforce development. Here鈥檚 how today鈥檚 finance leaders are adapting.

The expanding CFO mandate

Gone are the days when CFOs focused solely on financial planning and reporting. Today, their influence extends far beyond traditional finance boundaries. Nearly 90% of CFOs report they are more involved in digital transformation and risk management than three years ago. Two-thirds are actively shaping sustainability and ESG strategies.

This evolution reflects a broader truth. CFOs are now central to decisions that impact customers, products, and talent. They are expected to anticipate disruption, mitigate risk, and enable agility鈥攁ll while safeguarding profitability.

Macroeconomic, geopolitical, and technological shifts are pushing CFOs deeper into operational decision-making. As one CFO quoted in the report explained, finance leaders today must 鈥渨ear multiple hats鈥� and develop a deep understanding of business fundamentals, processes, and controls to guide transformation effectively.

With expectations rising and responsibilities converging, the next challenge is clear: aligning these expanded priorities with the capabilities required to execute them.

A sharper risk radar in an uncertain world

CFOs are on the front lines of uncertainty with increasing pressure to keep risks and costs from ballooning. In fact, more than 80% of CFOs reported that they are now more involved in risk management and compliance, with 34% significantly so.

Yet, it is not higher costs that worry CFOs most, it is unpredictability. Inflation, shifting trade rules, and increased interest rates make capital allocation more challenging, with only 37% feeling confident about meeting liquidity targets, compared with nearly 90% for revenue goals.

In response, CFOs are doubling down on what they can control. AI-enabled scenario planning is enabling faster, more sophisticated modeling, while real-time operational signals are being translated into forward-looking risk indicators. Flexibility has also become essential, from upgrading systems for adaptable production to renegotiating vendor contracts with shorter, more variable terms.

Ultimately, the mandate is clear: build organizations that can absorb shocks, respond in real time, and maintain strategic momentum despite uncertainty.

CFOs at the center of AI adoption

Digital transformation has become a core responsibility of the CFO鈥檚 role, with nearly nine in ten reporting increased involvement鈥攎uch of it centered on AI. Finance leaders cite especially strong potential in compliance, where generative AI can parse complex regulations, track rule changes, and automate updates to internal systems.

But several challenges stand in the way of scaling AI鈥檚 impact:

Talent: the biggest barrier to AI acceleration

More than 60% of CFOs cited upskilling and hiring digitally fluent talent as top challenges, with fragmented systems and limited real-time data access adding further friction. As a result, CFOs are strengthening both team skills and data quality, recognizing that AI can only scale when people know how to use it and the data behind it is trusted.

The ROI paradox

CFOs must deliver quick wins from AI even though its most meaningful gains in forecasting, innovation, and growth take longer to materialize. To resolve this tension, leading CFOs are setting clear performance benchmarks, directing AI toward revenue-driving use cases, and coordinating across the business to scale capabilities that unlock sustained value.

Designing the workforce for an AI future

While AI is reshaping work, rising concerns about workforce displacement remain a real challenge for finance teams. However, nearly seven in ten CFOs see AI as a tool to augment human capability, prompting a rethink of roles, skills, and hiring decisions. Leading CFOs are redesigning early-career roles, investing in digital and analytical skills, and building blended teams that pair human judgment with AI-driven insight to strengthen the leadership pipeline.

Taken together, these shifts signal a broader evolution: finance is moving from a function rooted in historical reporting to one defined by predictive insight, real-time decision support, and enterprise-wide capability building.

CFOs who balance rapid efficiency with long-term investment in data, skills, and new ways of working will turn AI into a sustainable competitive advantage rather than a short-lived productivity boost.

Looking ahead: the new CFO playbook

Economist Impact鈥檚 research shows that the modern CFO shapes how organizations navigate risk, adopt AI, and build the workforce capabilities required for continuous transformation.

This shift demands a new playbook that unlocks capacity through automation, strengthens cross-functional alignment, builds flexibility into systems and supply chains, and reimagines finance career paths for a digital-first future. As one interviewee noted, 鈥淭he modern CFO is not just the guardian of value but the architect of future value.鈥� That future will belong to leaders who pair disciplined cost and risk management with bold investment in data, skills, and AI-driven insight.

With SAP鈥檚 financial management solutions, finance leaders can unify data, processes, and intelligence to meet the expanding demands of the role. As the expectations placed on finance continue to grow, 51风流remains committed to empowering CFOs with the clarity and confidence needed to lead through uncertainty and shape a more resilient future.

.

David Imbert is head of Product Marketing for Finance at SAP.

We believe this recognition reflects SAP鈥檚 completeness of vision and ability to execute in the Cloud ERP Finance market.

Why we believe 51风流Cloud ERP is recognized as a Leader

At the core of this recognition is , built on a unified, dimension-driven architecture that provides real-time planning and decision-making across global entities. With localization for 60 countries, embedded analytics to enhance compliance and controls, and advanced capabilities including treasury, subscription billing, and joint venture accounting, 51风流Cloud ERP equips organizations to operate with confidence and scale with agility.
 
This recognition comes to life in the stories of our customers.

Customer spotlight: Bain & Company

One example is Bain & Company, a global consultancy that implemented 51风流Cloud ERP to standardize and future-proof its finance foundation across 40 countries. By unifying core financial processes and adopting a 鈥渃lean core鈥� approach with minimal customizations, Bain accelerated its global close, strengthened governance with transparent KPIs, and simplified the integration of acquisitions.

As Stephen Mackey, EVP of Global Finance at Bain, explained that 51风流Cloud ERP 鈥渨as the best fit for Bain. It future-proofed our technology stack, enabled us to get the data we needed to make business decisions, and positioned us to grow.鈥�

And from a CIO perspective, Ramesh Razdan added: 鈥淲e wanted a platform that solves the problems of today and sets us up for the future. With SAP, we鈥檝e built a strong foundation, and this is just the beginning.鈥�

A key differentiator is the integration with , which enables customers to automate critical finance processes such as validating account balances, processing invoices, and reconciling payments. With prebuilt bots and no-code tools, CFOs can accelerate the financial close and improve efficiency, while laying the foundation for SAP鈥檚 next wave of AI-driven financial analysis and automation planned for 2026.

When we speak to customers about 51风流Cloud ERP, they appreciate the seamless integration with (51风流BTP), which allows them to extend, customize, and connect finance processes without disrupting their core. They highlight the leading capabilities delivered with , enabling finance teams to gain natural language interaction, contextual financial insights, and task automation that reduce manual work and support faster, smarter decision-making.

Looking ahead

We believe being named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP Finance highlights SAP鈥檚 commitment to continuous innovation. From enhanced localization and compliance support to intuitive and embedded AI, 51风流Cloud ERP is designed to help finance leaders stay ahead of regulatory, technological, and business change.

With SAP, CFOs can streamline operations, strengthen controls, and drive resilience — leading finance into the future with confidence.

.

David Imbert is head of Product Marketing for Finance at SAP.
Lawrence Martin is chief product officer for Finance at SAP.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from SAP.

However, the pace of change has made traditional approaches, like best-of-breed point solutions, no longer sufficient to help finance teams keep up.

That is why the future of finance technology should act as an orchestra, not disjointed soloists.

Finance teams require a unified experience where applications, data, and AI work seamlessly together. With 51风流Business Suite, these elements come together as one orchestra, enabling finance to operate in harmony and deliver outcomes that point solutions alone cannot achieve. This means not only faster close and stronger liquidity, but also tighter compliance and credible plans that hold up under change.

To strengthen collaboration across finance and bring innovation to the CFO鈥檚 office, 51风流unveiled Joule鈥檚 next stage as the AI force at the center of 51风流Business Suite鈥檚 value creation. A new generation of role-aware assistants in Joule are designed to partner with people in their specific business roles by tapping into the right agents behind the scenes for the job. For finance professionals, 51风流introduced the next round of automation support using agentic AI.

51风流is embedding AI-powered reasoning directly into finance processes to automate routine work and elevate the strategic role of finance with the following new agents:

• The Accruals Agent will calculate accruals and deferrals based on system data and present the accountant with a proposal for review, along with a detailed explanation of the calculation logic.
• The Cash Management Agent will automate daily bank statement reconciliation tasks and recommend opportunities for optimization.
• The International Trade Classification Agent will reason over product characteristics and trade regulations and act to classify goods for international shipping, recommending customs tariff numbers and commodity codes

By bringing automation to critical but repetitive finance processes, these agents underscore SAP鈥檚 commitment to equipping the office of the CFO with AI-driven innovation that strengthens resilience in an increasingly complex business environment.

Finance as the conductor of the enterprise

The role of the CFO has expanded far beyond closing the books or reporting quarterly earnings. Today, finance teams are expected to bring together data, processes, and people from the entire business to enable seamless collaboration.

With SAP鈥檚 AI-first, suite-first approach, applications and data flow seamlessly, allowing finance leaders to coordinate business operations with confidence. This unified foundation ensures that insights are not siloed, but instead shared across the enterprise, enabling faster and smarter decisions.

Take working capital management, one of the biggest pressure points for finance leaders: A recent of 480 CFOs found confidence levels were strong in almost all areas, including revenue, profit, and customer retention, but only 36 percent felt confident in their ability to achieve working capital targets. 51风流Business Suite can help organizations meet their targets by automating manual work and enabling actionable decisions — all by leveraging dynamic, autonomous, and action-oriented solutions in 51风流Business Suite.

When an organization manages incoming receivables, outgoing payables, as well as cash and inventory within SAP, that connected experience creates data that provides real-time visibility into liquidity through 51风流Business Data Cloud.聽 That data fuels 51风流Business AI to analyze situations, recommend actions, and even resolve issues like disputed invoices automatically, which would otherwise slow the cash collection process. And with the integration of Joule and intelligent agents, 51风流Business AI not only automates, it senses, reasons, orchestrates, and acts 鈥� turning insights into outcomes that free capacity and accelerate the business.

As AI agents take on more of the behind-the-scenes work, finance professionals can step fully into their role as the conductor of the enterprise. They can guide strategy with foresight, aligning every function in harmony and shaping outcomes that extend far beyond revenue or cost goals.

CFOs and their teams can then move beyond reactive decision-making toward shaping strategy in real time. This will position their office as a driver of growth, resilience, and innovation.

Looking ahead

51风流is laying the foundation for a new era of autonomous finance, where routine processes are automated, insights are delivered in real time, and finance teams are empowered to focus on strategy and growth.

These innovations mark just the beginning of SAP鈥檚 commitment to helping businesses navigate an increasingly complex financial landscape with agility, intelligence, and confidence.

Lawrence Martin is chief product officer and head of Public Cloud Engineering at SAP.
David Imbert is head of Finance Product Marketing at SAP.