Edina Manuel, Author at 51��News Center

Loop Earplugs’ Digital Journey to International Expansion with SAP

Edina Manuel — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:15:00 +0000

Loop Earplugs, an innovative leader that has revolutionized the way we experience sound protection, has recently adopted 51��S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to support rapid international growth.

“The world is becoming increasingly noisy, and our mission is to support our customers in hearing the world the way they want to,” said Koen Spliet, project manager, Loop Earplugs. “A strong practical value and an aesthetically appealing design have made our earplugs a desirable accessory. Fueled by the popularity of our earplugs in Europe, the U.S., and Asia, we have scaled globally, growing at 1,500% over the last four years.”

To continue the growth momentum, needed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution capable of seamlessly supporting its international expansion with robust, embedded localization. This would ensure real-time insights into the state of the business, allowing Loop to focus on innovation that continuously advances its core business functions.

Loop chose 51��S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition offered through the GROW with 51��for scaleups program due to its clear, future-proof, and scalable architecture that can easily integrate with Loop’s existing e-commerce channels and marketplaces. In addition, the ability to support external partners in fulfilling Loop’s supply chain was one of the key advantages that put SAP’s solution forward.

“We are delighted to have Loop Earplugs in the GROW with 51��for scaleups community. We support growth-focused companies in expanding their operations, maximizing valuations, and running lean and agile businesses capable of fast growth,” said Romain Gauthier, VP, GROW with 51��for scaleups. “The program helps scaleups grow the bottom line through optimized operations, working to ensure they are always ready for business expansion.”

“With our rapid growth, time is always essential and we greatly appreciated being engaged digitally by . It was an exceptionally fast, professional, and personalized way to address all the questions and ideas we had, exceeding our already high expectations,” Spliet said. “We had about 30 contacts with 51��on our buying journey, yet only two were needed in person. This was critical in meeting the accelerated business outcomes we required.”

“51��is evolving our customer engagement, founded on AI and the latest technologies, which are enabling our digitally-skilled talent to deliver fast, immersive, and end-to-end customer experiences. This allows our customers to pursue their digital transformation journeys at the pace their businesses dictate,” explained Sam Masri, global head, 51��Digital, Customer Success.

“For example, based on SAP’s industry best practices and the information our teams had about Loop’s value drivers, our Digital Solution Advisory team in the EMEA digital hub was able to determine ahead of the meeting with the customer that 51��S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition was the best fit. This immediately triggered our Digital Value Advisory and Digital Asset teams to deliver a customer-specific microsite, with the business case, solution demos, and reference videos for Loop to explore at its own pace. This seamless and digital motion helped Loop wrap up the buying journey in under four months from the first contact,” Masri added.

51��worked with the partner Delaware that engaged with the customer in person at its location. The hybrid engagement model, where 51��engaged digitally and Delaware was available on-site, provided the best mixture of high-velocity digital engagement and human touch to deliver a personalized and efficient solution discovery and adoption journey to the customer. “We are impressed with SAP’s AI capabilities and the efficiencies they enable. We are now exploring how we could leverage these 51��innovations for our own productivity gains as well as for our sustainability efforts,” Spliet said.

Digital Excellence Accelerates Growth for 51��Partner Inetum

Edina Manuel — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 11:15:00 +0000

SAP’s extensive partner ecosystem empowers thousands of customers around the world to consistently improve and grow their businesses with cloud solutions from SAP. To continue supporting the growth of this vibrant and dynamic partner community, 51��is equipping partners with digital practices, tools, and methodologies to help serve more customers faster and more responsively while enhancing their own efficiencies.

Inetum has been an 51��partner since 1998. With over 28,000 professionals, 2,700 are 51��consultants across the EMEA, MEE, and LATAM regions. As a European leader in digital services, it specializes in 51��solutions across 19 countries, with a focus on the offering.

“In some countries, such as Spain, Inetum has traditionally served public sector and large enterprises, but, as part of our cloud growth strategy, our aim was to also expand into midmarket and new territories,” said David Bayon, global 51��go-to-market director at Inetum. “The traditional sales approach we relied on couldn’t meet the demands of engaging midmarket customers at scale, and our collaboration with the 51��EMEA digital hub, then subsequently with the MEE hub as well, was critical in helping us make this transition.”

Located on six continents and 15 locations, 51��digital hubs are home to more than 1,000 digitally native, highly skilled, multidisciplinary teams. These teams innovate with artificial intelligence (AI) and the latest intelligent technologies, like digital modalities, to virtually serve large numbers of 51��customers at exceptional velocity while delivering high-quality, immersive, and personalized customer experiences and expert advice, whenever and wherever customers need it.

“Thanks to the digital approach and replicable digital assets and practices, we’ve reduced the time it takes to enter new markets – from six weeks to kick off our midmarket outreach in Spain to three weeks to do the same in Portugal and two in Morocco! This has led to an increase of 400% in the efficiency of our 51��sales specialist team, helping us exceed our first-half 2024 targets by 192%,” Bayon explained.

Inetum’s work with 51��digital hubs enables the company to quickly validate which customers it can bring the most value to at any given time, in a given territory, while addressing local languages and cultural specifics. The partner also has access to the 51��digital hub modalities, which are based on AI and immersive technologies, to help support the creation of compelling customer value propositions at scale and speed while also making them available to customers via tailored microsites in a self-service mode for elevated agility. Digital modalities can further provide continuous feedback and data on what works and what doesn’t, as well as how the process needs to be tweaked for maximum impact.

“The partnership with Inetum is a prime example of how 51��digital hubs synergistically collaborate with 51��partners to add value to customers’ value journeys with SAP. We share our digital methodologies – digital modalities for high-quality customer engagements at scale and speed – and we support our joint customers with digital adoption tools and practices, ensuring faster time-to-value from 51��solutions. We’re also learning from Inetum’s experience on new industry best practices, and we test innovative and award-winning digital practices together,” said Sam Masri, global head of 51��Digital Hubs.

By the end of 2024, Inetum will also be serving customers in Mexico, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, and the UK and Ireland while also releasing its own intellectual property for the strong digital support of the retail, wholesale distribution, and engineering and construction industries. The company also plans to launch capabilities to help 51��Business One customers migrate to 51��S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition within the same period.

TAM International Chooses 51��to Drive Ambitious Growth

Edina Manuel — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 11:15:00 +0000

Production planning and scheduling is the bloodline of a successful manufacturing facility – it supports agility to adapt to market demands in real-time regardless of market fluctuations while optimizing inventory, distributing the workforce, decreasing waste, and ensuring the projected financial performance.

TAM International is a manufacturer of drilling products and services for the oil and gas industry with headquarters in Houston, Texas, and a presence on six continents. With a lofty goal of growing tenfold over the next 10 years, the company set out to ensure its business operations were adaptable, innovative, and efficient in a world that’s always changing. To achieve this, TAM International decided to adopt a state-of-the-art ERP system that would drive transparent and efficient business operations across finance, scheduling, and manufacturing.

“Our legacy scheduling system did little to empower our ambitions, and at times it felt like we were working for it. To quickly shift gears and remain competitive in a volatile industry, we needed to modernize and adopt solutions that would work for us, not have us work for them. We needed automated workflows and reporting, quality control, and the ability to connect different parts of our business for transparent planning and execution across the entire enterprise,” explained Rebecca DeHoyos, supply chain director, TAM International.

TAM International was aware that 51��was the gold standard for ERP in industrial manufacturing but believed that only the biggest corporations could afford it.

“We did not include 51��in our early conversation, thinking we were too small for them. Then, an executive from the 51��North America digital hub reached out to our CFO and presented not only the benefits of SAP, but also a convincing message backed by customer references that SAP’s cloud portfolio was indeed suitable for companies of all sizes. This changed everything,” DeHoyos said.

, located on six continents, are the engines that execute SAP’s digital customer engagement. The multi-disciplined and digitally skilled talent in the hubs use AI and the latest technologies to help support customers regardless of where they might be located or at which stage of their value journey with 51��they are. Through a powerful combination of automation and expert engagement, customers can realize their digital transformation business outcomes exponentially faster and at greater convenience.

“The first contact with a new customer is critical. Our digital customer engagement teams embed AI to scale SAP’s industry best practices to accelerate and deepen the understanding of customer needs, concerns, and aspirations before the very first meeting,” said Sam Masri, global head, 51��Digital, Customer Success. “We are delighted to have played an important role in facilitating an immediate connection to a dedicated account manager and multiple 51��experts who addressed the challenges that TAM International had, setting a strong starting point for a successful digital transformation road map for the customer.”

To gain a full understanding of the customer’s fundamental business goals and the obstacles caused by the disconnection between finance, scheduling, and production, the Industries and Value and Solution Advisory teams at 51��were engaged right from the start. Following the solution demos and the business case presentation, and were identified as the solutions of choice for TAM International.

“There is another major benefit of our partnership with SAP,” DeHoyos added. “Our workforce is incredibly diverse and young, with a majority sitting in the 27 to 41 age group. They are tech natives and will only work with businesses that share their passion for business success driven by technological innovation. Working with SAP’s ERP is a goal for many, and our relationship with 51��has also elevated our profile, making us more relevant to this talent group.”

51��Digital Hub Innovations Win Silver and Bronze at 2024 Stevie® Awards

Edina Manuel — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 11:15:00 +0000

Three of the more than 40 predominantly AI-based tools that 51��digital hubs use to serve large numbers of customers through insights-driven and robust self-service capabilities won silver and bronze at the 2024 for Sales & Customer Service.

Enterprise GPT and digital launchpad, powered by Joule, won silver in the Best Use of Technology in Sales category, while 51��Digital Value Discovery won bronze for Value-Based Selling Techniques.

Courtesy of The Stevie Awards.

Digital customer engagement at 51��is executed via digital hubs located at 15 locations across six continents. The hubs are home to more than 1,000 digitally skilled, multi-disciplinary teams that innovate with and apply AI capabilities to serve personalized and immersive engagements, whenever and wherever needed.

“51��digital hubs were able to support more than 22,000 customer engagements last year – primarily virtually – thanks to a plethora of AI tools we adopt internally to drive wider customer coverage and faster execution of digital customer engagements,” explains Sam Masri, global head of Digital for Customer Success at SAP.

“We are scaling and expanding our digital customer engagement capabilities to every customer-facing role and function in SAP, ensuring everyone uses multiple AI tools to outsource administrative, repetitive, and manual activities to AI,” he elaborates. “This way, we have more capacity to focus on strategic activities that address customer needs and increase customer satisfaction. We engage with 51��customers of all sizes and industries at a pace that matches their pressing business requirements, accelerating business outcomes they get from our cloud solutions.”

The Stevie Awards encompass several of the world’s leading business award programs, including the prestigious American Business Awards® and International Business Awards®. More than 2,300 nominations from organizations of all sizes across all industries from 47 nations and territories were evaluated in this year’s competition. Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 200 professionals worldwide.

Driving Business Outcomes for ONEX Holding with Digital Customer Engagement

Edina Manuel — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 13:15:00 +0000

With the new generative artificial intelligence (AI) copilot Joule, 51��is uniquely positioned at the intersection of business and technology, opening up an enormous opportunity for economic value creation on a global scale. To help customers capitalize on this opportunity fast, 51��is also embedding AI and intelligent technologies in its customer engagement motion.

“The value, relevance, and velocity demanded from a cloud leader extend to both the solutions provided and the end-to-end customer engagement. Industry research shows that by 2025, four out of every five B2B customer engagements will be executed through digital channels,” said Sam Masri, global head of Digital, Customer Success, SAP. “Our customers need to achieve the business outcomes from their digital transformation much faster with streamlined interactions, reduced engagement complexity, and robust tech-enabled capabilities that make the buying journey agile, personalized, and memorable.”

With operations spanning more than 10 sectors and 80 business units across Europe and the Middle East, ONEX Holding entrusted 51��with its five-year digital transformation plan. For the 35 legal entities in its oil and gas division, ONEX adopted , among other solutions, complemented by to support its sustainability strategy. In six months from the initial digital contact, ONEX’s digital transformation journey was mapped out and the implementation successfully kicked off. Such velocity was gained through digital customer engagement with about 90% of the entire process being completed virtually, through SAP’s digital hubs in Cairo, Egypt, and Barcelona, Spain.

51��digital customer engagement is executed via digital hubs, attractively located on five continents. The hubs are home to highly collaborative teams of diverse, digitally-native talent that help deliver end-to-end, virtual customer engagement services. By continuously applying AI and the latest technologies, these teams help drive our customers’ business outcomes at an exponential velocity while maintaining memorable and personalized customer experiences.

“Our experience with 51��was frictionless and seamless,” said Waqas Butt, ICT and digital transformation leader at ONEX Holding. “51��digital engagement gave us an incredible jump start on our digital transformation and removed all the lags you typically experience with a traditional, in-person buying journey. With the immersive, tech-driven capabilities, we had access to the demo versions of 51��solutions that had already been mapped to our KPIs, enabling us to experience what these cloud solutions could do for us in an engaging way and at our own pace.”

“The best part of our experience was having immediate access to SAP’s 50 years of leadership in enterprise processes. We had SAP’s industry, solution, and value best practices at our fingertips, made available fast through digital modalities and powered by cutting-edge technologies,” added Butt. “Although digital, the experience felt more like we were seated at the same table with top minds in 51��who had profound knowledge of all the regions and sectors ONEX operates in, including energy, oil and gas, power generation, and even infrastructure management and investments.”

Part of ONEX’s digital transformation journey includes the development of a new way of working, called “Digital Workplace,” focused on embedding digital approaches into routine business processes to gain efficiencies and promote sustainability.

“Digital transformation is not a transaction; it is a partnership in which both parties need to be like-minded. When we finally shook hands in person with the 51��digital customer engagement team, we did it because we spoke the same language – we both understand the power of starting a digital transformation, digitally. We know we are in good hands on our path to redefine how ONEX runs,” stressed Butt.

“The relationship between ONEX and 51��is a beautiful example of how virtual immersive engagements can enable and scale human relationships and interactions, not diminish them. We call this human-led, digitally-powered customer engagement with a mandate of ensuring that all 51��customers have the same path to success with SAP, regardless of where they are or when they needs us,” concluded Masri.

Edina Manuel is part of Digital, Customer Success at SAP.

51��One Billion Lives Makes a Difference in a Year of Uncertainty

Edina Manuel — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 14:15:32 +0000

What a year 2020 was; with the onset of the pandemic, everything changed. Those who pivoted and embraced the changes quickly stood like a beacon of hope for the rest.

As the first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed globally, the team running , the company’s flagship social intrapreneurship program, understood that 2020 would be the year where everything would need to move online.

“If there were ever a year to celebrate the creativity, collaboration, and passion of our people, this would be that year,” said Deb Kaplan, head of 51��One Billion Lives. “This year’s teams have been put to the test to solve social and environmental problems focused on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and COVID-19 in a fully virtual environment. With a global pandemic displacing many teams from one another due to lockdowns and quarantines, these teams continued to push themselves to find new ways to work together, solve problems, communicate more effectively, and complete the journey that they started and refused to give up on.”

Teams from across the globe joined the 2020 51��One Billion Lives challenges with over 640 submissions. More than 2,000 employees tested their limits, participating in over 40 virtual idea factories, seven regional demo days, fast track enablement, base camp, accelerator, and investment committee meetings—all to make a difference in our communities and improve people’s lives.

After successfully evaluating all presentations, we are excited to share the 2020 teams within 51��One Billion Lives with the most mature and impactful social innovation ideas.

Impact Venture

Recycletronics

Recycletronics will build a marketplace for electronic manufacturers and e-waste recyclers to drive value from unused electronics while addressing the negative impact of e-waste on the environment and human health. Learn more.

Regional Impact Transformation Ventures

Social Recruiting

There are currently more than 1 billion people in the world suffering from poverty. In Japan, this is no exception. While the third-largest economy in the world, its poverty levels hover around 16%, even prior to COVID-19. Compounded with the effects of the pandemic, people are even more at a disadvantage. So how 51��help? This team from Japan was able to find a solution. Learn more.

Mask Makers Platform

By reusing facial masks, toxic emissions can be reduced by up to 84%. The team behind Mask Makers Platform saw these statistics and realized that during COVID-19 the need for masks that were reusable was not only necessary, it was critical. Learn more.

Sebenza

Coming from many different backgrounds, team members quickly found a common thread during their idea factory session: the growing issue of unemployment. Compounded with the current pandemic, this gaping issue was becoming even bigger–fast. Learn more.

Athena

Today, it is estimated that one in 15 people in China lives with a disability, affecting 20% of families. In addition, a 2013 report conducted by Human Rights Watch found that 43% of disabled people in China were illiterate, compared to five percent of able-bodied counterparts. The report also noted that with limits to aid, approximately 15% receive any funding or support. With these barriers in place, these communities are often living in poverty with no means of getting out. This is where team Athena hopes to make a difference. Learn more.

Greensap

Within one year, deforestation within the Amazon rose nearly 30%, creating even more strain on the natural world. The mission of one non-governmental organization (NGO) to help communities within the Amazon helped this team identify and solve two common pain points for NGOs by creating a platform to help streamline processes and create transparency where it is needed most. Learn more.

Cloud for Biodiversity

On average, animal populations—including mammals, reptiles, fish, and others—have declined by 68% in the last 50 years. The fact is staggering and leaves a huge crisis for the well-being of our planet that Cloud for Biodiversity plans to address. Learn more.

TutorAll

In the spring of 2020, due to COVID-19, schools across the U.S. shut down and dining room tables became the new school desks overnight. A study presented by Brown University noted that when students start the 2020-21 school year, they were only returning with average 66% of the learning gains for reading in a typical year and an average 44% of the math gains. Educators within the school systems were seeing the effects of the pandemic firsthand and realizing that many students were being put in unfair circumstances; creating an even bigger learning gap. TutorAll, decided to find a solution. Learn more.

Take a Deeper Dive into the Teams

Recycletronics

Today, we rely heavily on electronics, from the phones in our pockets, to the computers we use for work and entertainment. But what happens with the old phones that we trade in? Or to the computers that become obsolete? The 2019 article on downtoearth.org states that only 20% of global e-waste is recycled. According to Global E-Waste Monitor 2017, India generates 2 million tons of e-waste annually, ranking fifth among e-waste-producing countries.

The Recycletronics team, based out of 51��Labs India, is working to develop a digital marketplace for electronic manufacturers and e-waste recyclers where they could connect and acquire the materials for secondary marketplaces. This will not only help reduce the amount of global waste, but also help develop a plan for how recycled materials can be introduced back into the industry.

The key market will be in India, where nearly 90% of the e-waste is informally recycled, meaning it is not government-certified and poses a health concern to workers. Consumer electronics in India account for approximately 70% of the total electronic waste and hence could potentially contribute $850 million value in derived recycled raw materials, if properly introduced into secondary market. The Reclycletronics team has their eyes set on developing this secondary marketplace.

Cerebra Green, India’s largest e-waste recycler, is already onboarded, and the team looks forward to continuing to create partnerships with more organizations in 2021. As the demand for electronics continues to grow, the team hopes that this venture will restore some balance to the output of waste while adding value to secondary markets.

While attending a workshop designed to combat the poverty issue, 51��Value Advisor Expert Satoru Ota had the idea of digitalizing a job-matching process that would help the unemployed people who are suffering from poverty to find quality positions. From there, Ota worked with his team in 51��Fieldglass to determine if a solution would be possible. Once the 51��Fieldglass team members were able to review, they began to pull in other employees to help add their industry knowledge, and the team began to grow.

A differentiating aspect of the Social Recruitment Platform is that it is meant to be a network where employees can feel confident that companies using it treat their employee well while also empowering the individuals to be matched with positions that best suit them.

Team member Roman Rozanec noted that a similar endeavor was piloted in the U.S., called 51��Fieldglass External Talent Marketplace. This project was able to connect employers who had open contract positions with job seekers. It was this talent pool that provided significant insights for Social Recruitment Platform.

“At the end of the day, we know how difficult life can be to find a job under the best of circumstances, and it is really heartening to know that we will be making a difference by helping poor communities get back on their feet, reestablishing themselves, and empowering them to live a productive life,” Ota said. “When we succeed in Japan, we hope to roll out globally. Thanks to 51��One Billon Lives, we already have global access.”

Social Recruitment Platform is currently looking into creating a customizable job matching digital platform and working with partners in Grameen Japan to pilot the idea.

In the long term, Ota hopes that this venture will be used by major companies across the industries and stakeholders. The more companies come on board, the bigger the impact the platform will have. Ota also hopes not only to help in poverty-stricken areas, but also to evolve to help others, such as artists, independent contractors, and those whose industries may offer poorer visibility into open positions.

Mask Makers Platform

When Juriaan Mulder, an 51��Netherlands employee, saw the launch of the COVID-19 sprint for 51��One Billion Lives in response to the pandemic, he started wondering: “Could we do something to help within SAP?” Mike Muurmans, Mulder’s manager, was supportive and allowed him to facilitate a team meeting with the presales team to brainstorm ideas.

At the start of the pandemic, the mask shortage was acute as global supply chains were disrupted. The team tasked themselves with solving three problems at once: help alleviate immediate need for masks; bring the supply chain closer to cut down on emissions; and produce reusable masks to alleviate the landfill problem.

They found the answer in creating a network for 3D printing.

The network brings together 51��Ariba software, customers in need of facial masks, and 3D printing businesses. Through 51��Ariba, organizations worldwide will be able to identify 3D printing companies closest to them and purchase reusable facial masks.

With the idea in place, the team created partnerships with companies that have validated and contributed to the solution and the work to develop agreements in 2021, is already underway.

“I hope this is a win for all parties, with 51��being the host for everyone’s success,” said Mulder.

Sebenza

Many see the hiring process as “find a position, apply, get hired—rinse and repeat.” But that is not the process for many blue-collar workers who still struggle to find available opportunities. These communities often do not have cover letters or resumes to lean on, but still need to find jobs to support themselves and their families. Sebenza team decided to create a mobile app to address this situation.

The team partnered with the Southern Caribbean Islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines to hone their venture’s idea. Because the Caribbean is heavily dependent on tourism, the islands saw unprecedented levels of unemployment during the pandemic. With the partnership, the team was able engage IT students on the islands and identify ministries within the country with which they could further partner.

Simultaneously, Sebenza worked collaboratively to create a good mobile app experience. A survey within Johannesburg indicated that approximately 65% of the people in the target group had smartphones. Additionally, they were able to identify roughly 300,000 free Wi-Fi hotspots within the communities as well, meaning that 50% of the target audience had personal Internet access, and the rest would be able to easily access via hotspots, which validated the mobile-first approach.

When asked about his experience with 51��One Billion Lives thus far, Mario Mustapic, a senior solutions sales executive for 51��Oman, shared: “The most impressive part is that you meet as strangers, with geographical constraints, yet your ideas unite you. Once you validate an idea, you can really reach the regional and even global scale. It’s such a great opportunity.”

Athena

In the small city of Taicang, China, there is an inclusion factory to facilitate the inclusion of differently abled people into society through meaningful employment. Through the 51��Social Sabbatical program, 51��initiated a collaboration with the factory in 2018. The team grasped just how prevalent disabilities were and how many obstacles had to be overcome by differently abled people in society.

Team Athena hopes to make a difference by discovering what was and what was not working for the differently abled recruitment experience—finding the gaps and working to solve them. Athena has successfully built and deployed an intelligent production planning application for Taicang Inclusion Factory. They are planning to design and build an intelligent tool that helps recruiters find differently abled people who are currently looking for a job. The team also is scoping out an inclusion dashboard and additional tools that should not only help recruiters, but also support the individuals in overcoming personal life barriers as well.

Athena’s main goal is to help create ways in which differently abled communities are seen, included, and accepted by society. It was here that the team leader Jason Sun, a principal support engineer with 51��China, explained, “We hope to really help these people improve their lives in every way.”

Greensap

When it comes to deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, a Vox article noted that it has increased almost 30% between summer of 2018 through July 2019. With more than 9,700 square kilometers deforested, the area is bigger than that of Yellowstone National Park in North America.

Green Hope is an NGO working within the Amazon to teach communities there how to thrive economically through reforestation and resource management. Its mission helped ignite the Greensap team’s idea.

Alejandro Vera, a Greensap team lead, was friends with Green Hope President Chan Shigematsu, and was inspired by the work the organization was doing. During the brainstorming, Greensap and Green Hope agreed to work together on the lack of transparency and traceability of donated funds passing through the current process.

Utilizing the Hyperledger Fabric on 51��Cloud Platform and 51��HANA spatial services, Greensap is working on the solution for smart contracts that make donations transparent, reliable, and conditionally tied to the automated process tracking.

Having validated the market gap and the need for a solution with NGOs, the team is currently in discussion with a number of new NGOs and certification companies to further validate their idea.

Matheus Leao, a data scientist with 51��Latin America & Caribbean, stated that one of Greensap’s first goals this year will be to produce a new development backlog to reflect the changes that the solution has acquired, based on the learnings gained from the 51��One Billion Lives events. Additionally, he noted that the team hopes to solidify additional partnership and secure more pilot customers.

“Our aim is to improve people’s lives by making the planet greener,” Leao said. “We want to support reforestation initiatives worldwide, helping bring more awareness and funding to NGOs and optimizing the cost of tree planting.”

Cloud for Biodiversity

In seeing the urgency around biodiversity, the Cloud for Biodiversity team was committed to finding a way to assist national parks and protected areas in the efforts to preserve nature and its ecosystems. Team member Lars Friedrich, a principal business process architect for 51��Germany, felt that there must be a way 51��could help turn the tide.

He was joined by Markus Herhold and Carsten Homeyer and the team met several relevant NGOs, including the Frankfurt Zoological Society, to discuss the major pain points facing these biodiversity stewards. Areas for action proved to be holistic park management, biodiversity monitoring, and park tourist experience. The team decided to create an open platform that would provide digital services to secure biological diversity and social-economic support.

Translating this plan into the 51��product wheelhouse, the team noted that each issue would be best supported by a different 51��solution. For park management, the team would work to digitalize park processes, such as finance, sales, and human resources (HR), through 51��Business One.

For biodiversity monitoring, 51��Business Technology Platform would be used to create a monitoring platform for key biodiversity indicators, animal health, and other vital information in protected areas. And park and tourist experience would rely heavily on Experience Management solutions from 51��and Qualtrics to measure the experience of tourists and provide feedback to the park, agencies, and surrounding communities.

“This will really be a win-win situation for everyone – from parks and protected areas to NGOs, SAP, and institutions that want to invest in this area,” said Homeyer.

Echoing his sentiment, Friedrich added, “I believe 51��could be a real role model here and provide customers a way to offset carbon footprint, or even a way in which they could invest into nature and biodiversity.”

As a next step, the team will pilot Cloud for Biodiversity in 2021 with Frankfurt Zoological Society and two associated national parks in Africa: Gonarezhou in Zimbabwe and North Luangwa in Zambia.

TutorAll

Sachin Bapat, a value advisor expert at 51��North America, has been involved non-profits and volunteering within the education realm for years. Having had ideas about how to help drive equity in education, in the spring of 2020 Bapat saw the need to support teaching students more than ever before—and decided that he needed to find a solution.

Bapat recalls thinking, “Can we take what is already happening through the nonprofit brick and mortar organizations and get that online?” As he began to reach out to his network, he was able to create a team within 51��who shared his passion for education. Through an idea factory session and a lot of teamwork, the product was molded into what it is today: a platform for end-to-end process of recruiting, onboarding, and training tutors.

In early 2021, the team hopes to partner with United Way of Atlanta to execute a proof of concept in order to create a minimal viable product.

TutorAll sees the venture utilizing 51��SuccessFactors solutions, 51��Business Technology Platform, and Experience Management solutions from 51��and Qualtrics as they continue to work on the tools for the platform. The aim is focus on what the nonprofits need immediately, and ultimately create a platform that enables different end user journeys that will differ for students, tutors, administrators, and so on.

Bapat notes that the end goal is widespread adoption of the solution. As the solution’s value proves itself, the solution should scale to bigger schools within the state, then to national level, and finally to global-level agencies.

“The dream is to have millions of students using TutorAll for their benefit across the world,” Bapat explained.
“51��is uniquely positioned because we already have education solutions for local, state, and federal governments. Once we have the model validated, we want to be able to utilize these relationships to drive much faster and much broader applications.”

51��One Billion Lives Sprint Against COVID-19

Edina Manuel — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 14:15:38 +0000

We are living in extraordinary times. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to reassess countless assumptions and paradigms about how we define and conduct business and, most saliently, how we live our lives.

The surge in communal spirit around the globe can leave one awestruck – from the volunteer armies around the world to significant pivots of 51��customers that have redirected their processes and assembly lines from luxury goods and automobiles to sanitizers and ventilators.

At SAP, we engaged at length in helping governments, customers, and partners cope with the COVID-19 crisis. But beyond that, we marshaled the strength of 51��solutions and our individual and collective expertise to fight COVID-19 through our flagship social intrapreneurship program, , an initiative founded by Adaire Fox-Martin, member of the Executive Board of 51��SE, Customer Success.

“For the past five years, through 51��One Billion Lives, we have successfully married our business acumen and technology savvy with the passion of our employees for making the world a better place,” Fox-Martin said. “It made perfect sense to extend our annual program to include a quick but substantial sprint to fight COVID-19.”

“By using our technology for good, recognizing and managing COVID-19 outbreaks could be reimagined. Everything from early detection and accelerated case identification to driving containment, resource allocation, and community engagement has the potential to be transformed with digital capabilities,” she added. “I am deeply proud and personally touched by the response of our people. Each submission was well formulated, detailed, and demonstrated the understanding of how 51��solutions and our people could play a major role in addressing the prevention, treatment, and alleviation of the economic and social issues associated with COVID-19.”

In the six short weeks in which the 51��One Billion Lives Sprint Against COVID-19 took place, 487 ideas were submitted. Four projects were chosen for immediate development, with first working prototypes expected by early July. Learn more about the selected ideas:

COVID-19 Cohort Management: This solution allows people with a compatible COVID-19 status to work together and engage in social activities. In this way, the number of people who absolutely must stay at home during a pandemic could be dramatically reduced, and therefore economies can stay running. Predicated on rigorous testing, tracing, and certification, the solution identifies key cohorts that could engage with each other. For example, the recovered, when proven immune, could work with risk groups as long as immunity remains. With the solution, employers could book employees to work with other colleagues and customers who are in a compatible cohort. Read more.
AERATE: A critical life-saving asset registry solution enables wide and efficient identification, tracking, and validation of the working status for life-saving medical devices, starting with ventilators. The solution would connect manufacturers, governments, and hospitals with the ability to track device locations and help ensure ventilator effectiveness at stores or at hospitals. So far, the response has been overwhelmingly encouraging and the team has pilot pursuits in the works for three countries. Read more.
Sustainable Humanitarian Action Project: The disruption of supply chains during lockdown affected governments and corporations immensely but obtaining the necessary resources has been even more difficult for humanitarian organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This solution would connect the needs of NGOs, social enterprises, and businesses to provide better and faster services in times of crisis. It brings together an external needs-assessment social enterprise called NeedsList and 51��Ariba Discovery to give humanitarian supply chains a required boost while helping 51��retail customers find the best channels to donate excess goods. Read more.
COVID-19 Humanitarian Response: When coordinating a relief mission for a major disaster or a pandemic, no one benefits from old and inaccurate data. Through fast and clear data management, the 4W Machine Learning Wizard tool helps lead a much more effective response to COVID-19. The tool reads files, extracts needed information, understands it, corrects it—even completes the missing pieces—and finally consolidates it all in a simple and streamlined manner to present a single source of truth during a relief mission. It helps cut the data processing time down from 14 days to one hour and enables NGOs to plan, prepare, and execute based on more accurate, close-to-real-time data. The end result is a collectively improved humanitarian mission. The tool is based on machine learning and natural language processing. Read more.

Ability to Socialize and Work During a Pandemic

As the impossible actually happened and the raging COVID-19 pandemic put nearly the entire world into a lockdown, Kai Wussow, like many, was confined at home. Working in a makeshift home office that at other times doubled as a kitchen table, he felt frustrated and had enough of feeling helpless.

“Like many colleagues, I could not meet customers. In my role, I believe in personal, high-touch customer support. I felt like I was trying to do my job with one hand tied behind my back,” Wussow explains. “The magnitude of the situation dawned on me, and I wondered what could be a better way to cope with the situation. Blanket lockdowns might be necessary when dealing with something brand new because we are simply not prepared for it. But this does not have to be so if we are able to manage a few things, like, in the case of COVID-19, the health status certification and management of people with compatible health status, or the ‘cohort.’”

And so, the idea for a COVID-19 Cohort Management solution was born and submitted to the 51��One Billion Lives Sprint Against COVID-19 challenge. It was founded on the premise that as long as we ensure that only the people with compatible health status interact with each other, we could still work, keep the economy running, and socialize while minimizing the spread of the virus.

Predicated on rigorous testing, tracing, and certification, the solution identifies key cohorts. For example, the recovered, when proven immune, could work with risk groups as long as immunity remains. The infected with no symptoms could work together as well as with those that are tested immune and traced.

As soon as the cohorts are clearly identified and certified, they could be self-managed to a certain extent, managed by employers, or managed by society at large. With the cohort management solution, employers could book employees to work with employees and customers who are in a compatible cohort. Some organizations have been trying to do this manually, but with Wussow’s solution, this effort could be simplified and executed at scale with improved safety.

“SAP’s large footprint in workforce management software is a great foundation to build on, and I believe that 51��Sports One software provides a great basis that could be adapted in a short time to serve the purpose,” explains Wussow. “51��Sports One is a robust system, used by the entire Bundesliga. It already deals with aspects like managing and scheduling players with injuries and diseases. It enables the players, doctors, and physiotherapists to collaborate to create training schedules for the healthy players and recovery schedules for the injured players in a safe and privacy-observing way.”

Helping Save Lives with Efficient Management of Medical Devices

When asked how he came up with the idea for the AERATE project, Andrew LeBlanc humbly says it was not his. He heard it on television.

By that he means that he, like everyone else, was following the news about the COVID-19 pandemic as it started spreading across the globe. With the exponential growth in the number of infections, country after country was in the news stating the issues with sourcing and managing life-saving medical equipment, such as ventilators. And in a pandemic like COVID-19, which attacks the respiratory system, a ventilator could make a difference between life and death.

Very few nations could pinpoint, at speed, how many devices they had, where they were, and if they were in an operational state. Government leaders were voicing out the need for hospitals and governments to be able to “flex” as one streamlined system, sharing resources in an emergency.

To LeBlanc, an enterprise architect in Customer Success at SAP, this statement did not sound unlike a usual problem statement he might receive from an enterprise customer — in his words, “brief, to the point, and requiring immediate attention.”

That same night, LeBlanc called Matthew Easlea from product engineering for 51��Australia, to tell him about his intention. Within a day, they had an initial idea to track ventilators and optimize their effectiveness.

“As an enterprise architect, you have to be deeply familiar with the entire 51��portfolio and able to sketch a solution for your customer almost instantly,” LeBlanc explains. “This sketch is then taken to subject matter experts to shield it against mistakes and boost efficiencies while closing the loop between a problem and the value delivery, incredibly fast. We applied this knowledge and process to AERATE.”

Both men understood that time was of the essence. The pandemic was spreading at a neck-breaking speed, and the healthcare facilities were overwhelmed. As a result, the plan was simple: deliver a minimum, viable, and highly beneficial solution that would connect manufacturers, governments, and hospitals with the ability to track device location and help ensure ventilator effectiveness at stores or at hospitals. Then, at a more opportune time, they could build a path to apply more intelligent innovations and scale.

By the morning, a lot was done.

LeBlanc and Easlea decided that a simplified and “focused scope” version of 51��Asset Intelligent Network was the way to go. It offered exactly what was needed: fast onboarding for critical medical devices through templates, online tracking in real time with maintenance records immediately available, effective trouble shooting, and a collaboration network to enable creation of one system that could flex and connect the necessary parties and the inventory in an emergency.

That same day, they had the manufacturers discovered. They knew that 20 out of the 28 world’s ventilator manufacturers were 51��customers. They estimated that it comprised 90 percent or more of global production.

“We reached out to organizations and colleagues that were closest to these manufacturers and we had their green light almost right away,” LeBlanc says. “The vastness of the 51��ecosystem and the value of trust-based relationships should never be underestimated. It is as crucial to our success as a company as our technology is.”

Within a few days, the first pilot was ready with actual models and manufacturers for the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile involved, proving the model worked. As alignment and concept feedback with healthcare and regulatory industry experts from 51��progressed, the team grew to 20 active and a total of close to 70 members who wanted to see AERATE succeed. But the team knew that if the system was to truly be successful, it had to go to market as an ecosystem. To accelerate information sharing, large governments and alliances had to come on board.

“This is when we decided to nominate our idea for the 51��One Billion Lives Sprint Against COVID-19 challenge,” LeBlanc says. “51��One Billion Lives will greatly help with scaling the project and making a run to impact over a billion lives while growing the 51��brand.”

So far, the response has been overwhelmingly encouraging and the team already has pilot pursuits in the works for three countries.

“What is clear from this pandemic is that no one is shut off against a disease. Its effects are no less serious than those of climate change. While I hope we will never hear of this or another pandemic again, we have to count on the possibility of a second or even a third wave of COVID-19, or even a different pandemic in the future. My vision is to help the world get ready,” LeBlanc concludes.

“Over the past month since I nominated the idea to the 51��One Billion Lives Sprint Against COVID-19 challenge, I have already validated it with a number of customers that have shown tremendous interest and would be willing to try it out as soon as it is ready, which is really a great news,” he says.

Firing Up a More Connected Humanitarian Supply Network

“You know something is a great idea when a lot of people come up with it,” Drew Birtwistle says. Experienced at creating positive social impact through his 2017 51��One Billion Lives venture, Rapid Disaster Relief, Birtwistle has been working with agencies helping people at risk since 2017. Just before the global COVID-19 lockdown started, Birtwistlecould envision the crushing effects the pandemic would have on humanitarian networks.

“When you have both ends of the supply chain, the supply and the demand, shut off almost everywhere in the world and when governments and big corporations start having issues getting adequate resources, you can imagine what happens to humanitarian organizations and NGOs,” Birtwistle explains.

Birtwistle knew 51��Ariba, the world’s largest B2B e-commerce network that sees over US$3 trillion in transactions each year, could play a huge role, but the system was not yet equipped to manage donations and humanitarian supply chain.

At the same time, Jennifer Breslin from the 51��Ariba Discovery team was talking with her colleagues about 51��Ariba retail customers that, in the wake of the sudden pandemic and the resulting lockdown, had inventory that they not only wanted to, but had to, dispose of. Brand new items had to be given away. These customers wanted a way to make sure they could give the goods to those who could benefit the most. As a matter of fact, 51��had already started thinking about what it would take to enable donations on 51��Ariba Discovery, but something was needed right now.

“Today, sustainability is key to sourcing. Every reputable company is looking to diversify and increase their spend with sustainable and positive impact suppliers. From a reputational aspect, this project is aligned with the 51��Ariba vision,” Breslin explains.

Kristen Jordeth from the 51��Ariba Go to Market team, on the other hand, had attended the Social Enterprise Alliance Summit and could not shake the thought that social enterprises, which are regular for-profit businesses but with a social mission at their core, should be more represented in Ariba Network.

“I was touched by their passion and belief that the business world could be the engine for positive change. They were thrilled that 51��was listening to their situations and wanting to help,” Jordeth says. “I drafted an idea about plugging social enterprises into Ariba Network, but with the pandemic, work, and a three-year-old at home, I never pressed the submit button. I was extremely happy when I found out that Drew, Jen, and I were on the same page.”

Through 51��One Billion Lives, the three were put in touch to fulfill the humanitarian supply chain through 51��Ariba software.

At this point, Birtwistle’s contacts connected him with NeedsList, a women-led, technology social enterprise that provides software and builds a network of suppliers for humanitarian work for a faster, more sustainable approach to crisis response.

“Could the solution to our problem be as easy as integrating NeedsList into 51��Ariba Discovery?” he wondered. The team agreed that it was the best immediate action and contacted Natasha Freidus, CEO of NeedsList, who loved the idea, and the project was submitted to the 51��One Billion Lives Sprint Against COVID-19 challenge for realization.

The initial integration is expected to happen very quickly, and the teams are excited about the follow-up plan to this quick start.

“51��Canada held a hackathon with a number of partners, including Accenture, Deloitte, EY, IBM, and Microsoft, to tackle COVID-19. Interestingly, out of the five winners, three were focused on sharing needs information and could be very complementary to our project with 51��Ariba,” Birtwistle says. “The pandemic has been tragic on so many levels, but one positive aspect that has emerged is the realization that the business and social impact must go hand in hand.”

A Humanitarian Response Through Machine Learning

Originally from Germany but having lived on three continents, Carsten Boekholt was inspired to engage in social ventures by his grandparents, who spent significant time and effort helping refugees. And having personally witnessed poverty and unmet needs in countries like Eritrea, his wife’s home country, his desire to help those in need grew.

Triggered by the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, to which he, like many others, had donated, Boekholt’s professional hat came on. Working in the Industries and Customer Advisory group at SAP, Boekholt helped some of the largest 51��customers improve their supply chain efficiency. And so he started looking into the efficiency of the humanitarian ecosystem.

“I thought that a collaboration platform providing a unified real-time view and fostering collaboration for all humanitarian stakeholders could become the basis for greater operational efficiency and better outcomes across organizational boundaries in humanitarian missions,” Boekholt says. He believed that 51��could achieve much greater impact by improving humanitarian response processes through technology and innovation, rather than through simple monetary donations.

That’s how in 2017, together with Erich Winsloe, Koert Breebaart, and Luiza Maria Ramiento, his first 51��One Billion Lives venture, Relief.iO, was born. The venture works to deliver a robust collaboration platform to drive better collaboration between humanitarian stakeholders, like NGOs, governments, and the private sector.

Since then, Boekholt and Winsloe kept a close working relationship with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). While the Relief.iO platform focuses on improved collaboration between the various NGOs, the UN OCHA team approached Boekholt with a related problem but a different challenge. UN OCHA struggled to coordinate humanitarian missions manually, with a large number of Excel files with thousands of data lines coming from numerous NGOs.

These lines of text represent the information about the needs and available resources that needed to be verified and processed manually, which often took multiple days or even weeks depending on the disaster. Strict templatization did not work since each organization would end up tweaking the templates, leveraging their own formats or unintentionally destroying them.

The team took on the challenge and worked with a group of data scientists and students in Singapore to build a tool that uses machine learning and natural language processing to read the files, extract the needed information, understand it, correct it—even complete the missing pieces—and finally consolidate it all in a simple and streamlined manner to present a single source of truth. A rough working model was built in about four months.

When an earthquake and tsunami struck Palu, Indonesia, the UN OCHA called again. This time they asked if they could use the tool for the relief efforts in Palu. The team supported the UN over the entire three-month mission. Using the new tool, the pilot in Palu brought about tremendous quality improvements and time savings, cutting the data processing time down from 14 days to a few hours. As a result, the UN was able to create a unified report and get back to NGOs on who was doing what, where, and when (4W-Report), along with analytical insights, two weeks earlier than previously. This, in turn, enabled the NGOs to plan, prepare, and execute based on more accurate, almost real-time data. The end result was a collectively improved humanitarian mission.

However, while the tool was functioning well, it was only working as a concierge service and the UN was not able to use it directly.

As the COVID-19 pandemic reached a scale that no one was prepared to deal with, the UN OCHA reached out to Boekholt once again to see how the 4W Machine Learning Wizard could help. This time the team knew the tool needed to be upgraded for self-service if countless organizations across 20 affected countries with tens of millions of people in need were to meaningfully benefit from it.

“When 51��One Billion Lives launched a new challenge specifically to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that it was once again an opportunity to leverage the program and finish what we started, scaling the tool and bringing it online,” Boekholt says enthusiastically. “The 4W Machine Learning Wizard is built as a web app and it is now time to convert it into a software-as-as-service (SaaS) solution, supporting multi-user, multi-language execution with an ability to scale.”

The team aims to enable the first self-service usage for the UN OCHA by early June 2020 to better coordinate the ongoing crisis, while maturing the tool in an agile development approach to a productized version in August.

“I feel so privileged to be in the position to help, and now that my role is also public sector-facing this project is not only a social impact project but a major conversation starter and an area of interest for our customers,” Boekholt says. “I am tremendously proud to work for a company that is clearly driven by its purpose to help the world run better and improve people’s lives.”

Edina Manuel, Author at 51����News Center