The 11th cycle of the Hasso Plattner Founders‘ Award saw an evolution of the award itself. With a refined structure and this year’s strong thematic focus on AI, the award now recognizes achievements in two categories: Emerging Ideas, honoring visionary concepts that explore new architectural directions and long-term opportunities for customers and the business, and Scaling Innovation, celebrating innovations already delivering proven impact at scale.

The jury received a total of 254 submissions from all over the globe, from which 41 finalists representing nine different countries were chosen. Six teams made it to the final round, highlighting the breadth of innovation across teams worldwide.

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The winning teams were formally recognized and celebrated during a red carpet award ceremony on March 26 at 51ˇçÁ÷headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. Executive Board Members Christian Klein and Sebastian Steinhaeuser introduced the finalists and announced the winners in the Emerging Ideas and Scaling Innovation categories, respectively. 

Emerging Ideas winner: 51ˇçÁ÷Cognitive Twin Enterprise

The Emerging Ideas category honors bold thinking and visionary concepts that explore the future of enterprise software. This year’s winner, 51ˇçÁ÷Cognitive Twin Enterprise (51ˇçÁ÷CTE), embodies this forward-looking spirit by presenting a new way of how organizations plan, simulate, and execute in an increasingly complex and fast-changing world.  

51ˇçÁ÷CTE introduces the idea of an ever-learning, AI-powered intelligence layer built on a continuously updated model of the entire organization. It unifies data, simulation, and AI on ł§´ĄąĘ’s foundation to help deliver guided autonomy across functions, supporting the shift from keyboard-centric SaaS to governed decision-making and agent-led execution. 

Acting as a constant observer of the business landscape, 51ˇçÁ÷CTE evaluates an organization’s position against anticipated trends and potential changes. It runs what-if simulations and provides governed recommendations on 51ˇçÁ÷applications and data across finance, spend, supply chain, HR, and customer experience, with selective, low-risk auto-execution and human-in-the-loop control for high-risk steps. By doing so, it can transform ERP into an AI-native system of foresight and elevates workforce intelligence. 

The solution helps organizations move from reacting after events occur to proactively and continuously testing scenarios, anticipating risks, and evaluating options. This provides the information they need to make critical decisions, allowing them to anticipate what’s next, shape it, and execute in a single, connected environment.  

“Winning the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award validated 51ˇçÁ÷Cognitive Twin Enterprise’s vision,” Natalia Aksakova, Strategy & Portfolio at Global Finance and Administration, says on behalf of the team. “It reinforced that we are on the right path and gives us the momentum to bring the next era of ERP to life faster, with the ambition to help define how organizations operate in the years ahead.” 

Scaling Innovation winner: 51ˇçÁ÷Document AI

The winner in the Scaling Innovation category demonstrates how breakthrough innovation becomes truly transformative when it is embedded into everyday business processes and adopted at global scale. The 51ˇçÁ÷Document AI solution can fundamentally change how organizations process and understand the vast volume of documents that power daily operations.

Across industries, enterprises continue to grapple with the rapid growth of unstructured data. Invoices, purchase orders, contracts, shipping documents, and many other business records still require significant manual handling in many organizations, creating bottlenecks, delays, and avoidable errors. The 51ˇçÁ÷Document AI team addressed this challenge by bringing intelligent document processing directly into core business applications, enabling customers to automate document workflows seamlessly and securely.

What sets this achievement apart is not only the technological innovation but the scale of real-world adoption. The solution has become deeply embedded across ł§´ĄąĘ’s portfolio and is used by tens of thousands of customers worldwide to process billions of documents. By integrating advanced AI capabilities directly into existing workflows, the team has made automation accessible without the need for complex integrations or specialized expertise. This approach enables organizations to accelerate business processes, reduce manual effort, and improve the quality and speed of decision-making.

The award recognizes the team’s ability to translate research excellence and engineering innovation into measurable business impact. Their work demonstrates how embedded AI can move beyond experimentation to become a trusted and reliable component of everyday enterprise operations. By operationalizing AI responsibly and at scale, the team has helped strengthen ł§´ĄąĘ’s position as a leader in enterprise automation and intelligent applications.

Equally important is the long-term perspective behind the innovation. The continued evolution of document understanding capabilities, combined with growing adoption across ł§´ĄąĘ’s platform, illustrates how scalable AI can serve as a foundation for future innovation. The recognition celebrates not only the impact already achieved but also the momentum created for the next generation of intelligent enterprise processes.

“Winning this award is a tremendous honor for our team,” Tobias Weller, chief product owner and team lead, says. “It validates years of hard work, close collaboration, and a shared belief in the transformative potential of AI to accelerate essential business processes and capture true business value for our customers.”

Celebrating innovation across the AI spectrum

The Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award has long celebrated the people and ideas that drive 51ˇçÁ÷forward. By recognizing both scaled impact and visionary thinking, the award highlights how innovation thrives at every stage of the journey—from early exploration to global adoption. It underscores the belief that long-term success depends on both delivering value today and continuously reimagining what is possible.

At the ceremony in Walldorf, employees around the world came together or joined virtually to celebrate the winning teams and the many contributors who helped bring their ideas to life. Their work reflects the creativity, dedication, and passion that define ł§´ĄąĘ’s culture of innovation. As the company continues to advance its AI-driven strategy, this year’s winners demonstrate how teams across the organization are turning ambition into reality—helping customers run better, adapt faster, and prepare for the future.

The winning teams will be given the opportunity to pitch their project to the Executive Board in 2026. The projects will be recognized in the permanent Founders’ Exhibits in Walldorf and Palo Alto. In addition, the members of the winning teams will receive a personalized trophy.

Following the presentation of the “Scaling Innovation” category finalists, we now turn to “Emerging Ideas,” which honors visionary concepts at an earlier stage—projects that explore new architectural directions, challenge established models, and open long-term strategic opportunities for 51ˇçÁ÷and its customers. The winners will be announced during the award ceremony on March 26, 2026.

51ˇçÁ÷Cognitive Twin Enterprise (CTE)

Modern enterprises are very effective at monitoring their business and analyzing vast amounts of data, yet many still see untapped potential in safely testing complex scenarios end to end and turning insights into cross‑functional, policy‑aligned options before making mission‑critical decisions. 51ˇçÁ÷Cognitive Twin Enterprise (51ˇçÁ÷CTE) addresses this gap by creating an AI‑powered digital brain built on a continuously updated model of the whole organization. It runs what‑if simulations and provides governed recommendations on 51ˇçÁ÷applications and data across finance, spend, supply chain, HR, and customer experience, with selective, low‑risk auto‑execution and human‑in‑the‑loop control for higher‑risk steps.

The business case is compelling. Organizations that combine digital twins with agentic AI at scale report double‑digit improvements in efficiency and cost, plus materially faster decision cycles. For a global industrial enterprise with approximately €40 billion in revenue, 51ˇçÁ÷CTE is modeled to systematically prevent margin leakage, excess working capital, and audit exposure, delivering an estimated €229 million or more per year in hard impact and risk-adjusted cash benefit. By maintaining a continuously updated representation of the business, companies can test scenarios before execution and dramatically reduce the risk of costly mistakes.

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51ˇçÁ÷CTE’s real differentiator is its enterprise‑wide scope. It consolidates existing 51ˇçÁ÷capabilities and builds on 51ˇçÁ÷Signavio solutions, 51ˇçÁ÷Business Data Cloud, and 51ˇçÁ÷Knowledge Graph to maintain a shared semantic model of how the whole business runs. This cross‑domain intelligence lets Joule and AI agents optimize complex trade‑offs—such as cost versus service level versus carbon footprint versus operational risk—across all functions, rather than pushing problems from one silo to another. At the same time, 51ˇçÁ÷CTE provides a safe innovation environment: enterprises can trial new pricing strategies, network configurations, and workforce models in a production‑grade twin before agents execute changes in live systems.

51ˇçÁ÷CTE represents a strategic shift in how enterprises operate. It turns ł§´ĄąĘ’s deep process knowledge, rich transactional data, and mature governance tooling into a differentiated position in a cognitive twin market that analysts expect to accelerate from US$36 billion today to US$150 billion by 2032, with 30%-40% annual growth. As an extensible platform, 51ˇçÁ÷CTE is designed to be the trusted operational brain for that future: new agents, scenarios, and data products plug into the same enterprise twin, allowing customers to expand autonomy and business impact over time without rebuilding their foundation.

“51ˇçÁ÷CTE is more than an initiative: it’s our vision for a new era of connected intelligence. We’re bringing strategy, data, and execution into one continuous system of insight, so customers don’t just react to change—they anticipate what’s next and shape it. That’s how we win and grow together,” said Natalia Aksakova, Strategy & Portfolio at Global Finance and Administration.

51ˇçÁ÷Signavio Transformation Advisor

Organizations planning business transformations face a persistent bottleneck: identifying the right challenges to focus on and creating actionable initiatives is slow, costly, and heavily dependent on expert consultants and detailed knowledge of the organization. This traditional approach delays decision-making and increases risk in fast-changing markets, with analysis often taking weeks or months to complete.

51ˇçÁ÷Signavio Transformation Advisor reimagines this workflow by using AI to extract business challenges and create actionable recommendations to solve them in minutes. The solution identifies business challenges in uploaded reports or via text input and instantly generates recommendations linked to process insights and best practices to make them addressable. By combining advanced language models with the 51ˇçÁ÷Signavio portfolio‘s process knowledge, it enables users to achieve in minutes what previously required weeks of manual effort while keeping users in full control.

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Early results demonstrate significant impact. The tool cuts analysis time by up to 80%, enabling faster decision-making and reducing reliance on scarce consulting resources. Since launch, approximately 200 customers have tested the transformation advisor, validating its value across organizations at different maturity levels. The solution has proven valuable both for customer engagements and for internal use in preparing sales pitches.

The innovation lies in bridging strategic business challenges and operational processes in a way no existing tool does. It automatically identifies organizational pain points and links them to targeted process flows, best practices, and improvement opportunities within the 51ˇçÁ÷Signavio ecosystem. This seamless integration empowers leaders to move from insight to action in just a few clicks, aligning transformation initiatives with company strategy.

The team embraced a proactive and entrepreneurial mindset: it started with a pure technical proof of concept then moved to a prototype for internal demonstrations, general accessibility and testing, and ultimately a releasable feature. The team demonstrated both transparency and customer focus by responding early to pull from go-to-market and sales teams while clearly stating tool limitations at each stage.

“The real fun in developing such a solution lies in seeing your idea and your knowledge grow at the same time and getting a clear pull from the market early on. The best customer sessions were those where the tool was improved live during the interview. That combined is a clear signal that we are on the right track,” said Alex Cramer, product manager at 51ˇçÁ÷Signavio Next.

AURA (Asset Understanding & Reliability AI)

Field engineers maintaining critical infrastructure face a frustrating reality: reporting asset faults requires completing complex forms on mobile devices, scrolling through endless dropdowns and codes. At one heavy equipment and infrastructure customer, 300 users report 400 to 1,000 asset faults monthly through 51ˇçÁ÷S/4HANA, but the process is slow, manual, and error prone. A single classification mistake can send the wrong maintenance crew and delay urgent fixes.

AURA (Asset Understanding & Reliability AI) revolutionizes this workflow by combining 51ˇçÁ÷HANA Cloud vector engine, 51ˇçÁ÷AI Core, and generative AI into a single intelligent solution. Instead of completing eight or more complex form fields, engineers simply upload a photo of the fault; review an AI-generated report automatically populated with asset type, location, and recommended classification; and confirm submission—all within seconds.

The technology uses embedded text, semantic search, and geospatial data to analyze both images and historical fault reports. AURA cross-references similar cases in the knowledge base, suggests the most accurate fault category, and learns from user corrections over time. 51ˇçÁ÷Cloud Application Programming Model provides the secure foundation, 51ˇçÁ÷HANA geospatial content supports asset location intelligence, and AI models process text and images using 51ˇçÁ÷HANA Cloud vector engine for similarity matching.

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Results demonstrate substantial operational impact. AURA delivers 80% faster fault reporting, fewer data entry errors and misclassifications, and improved response times. For the customer, this translates to safer infrastructure, reduced operational costs, and a future-ready foundation for predictive maintenance. The response validated the approach: the customer loved the proof of concept and agreed to proceed with AURA as an official project.

Beyond defect detection, AURA lays the groundwork for scalable AI asset intelligence. Future phases include building a knowledge graph to link asset relationships, a data product integrated into 51ˇçÁ÷Business Data Cloud for advanced reporting, and a self-learning model that continuously improves accuracy. This creates a repeatable, cost-efficient framework adaptable across industries.

The solution embeds responsible AI principles from inception. The model uses customer-specific historical data to prevent bias, includes human review before submission, and explicitly handles uncertainty to avoid hallucinations. It ensures transparency and compliance with SAP’s responsible AI framework while empowering human decision-makers.

“We believe the future of AI is not replacing people, but elevating them,” said Ruth Peng, AI specialist from 51ˇçÁ÷HANA ANZ. “AURA equips every engineer in the field, from junior to expert, with the confidence to perform at their best.”

With artificial intelligence and digital technologies massively transforming today’s workplace, a crucial question comes to the fore: how can companies maintain focus on the human aspect? Personal contact is indispensable, particularly when it comes to support on people matters. That’s why 51ˇçÁ÷is deliberately pursuing a balanced approach to providing HR support to its employees: modern technologies and AI provide efficient and smart solutions, but personal consulting remains essential to offering employees worldwide the best possible support.

“The world of work around us is changing at breathtaking speed,” says Dr. Christian Schmeichel, global head of People & Culture Services at SAP. “Currently, we have four generations in our workforce, and naturally this changes the requirements and expectations for HR. The P&C Lounge is designed to address complex questions and issues raised by employees that are better resolved through personal conversations than through the HR ticketing system.”

Comprehensive HR support approach based on multi-tier model

51ˇçÁ÷pursues a differentiated approach to employee support, which Schmeichel describes as a “multi-tier model.” Employees can find general HR information comprehensively covered on ł§´ĄąĘ’s internal portal, while standard requests—such as vacation requests, payroll statements, or certificates—are efficiently handled through self-services and the company’s Shared Service Center. The new P&C Lounge complements these offerings as a new service channel that provides the option for individual conversations when needed. This strategically brings the human factor back to the foreground: “From my perspective, this more personalized consulting approach for complex issues on a company-wide basis was missing. This is the blank spot that we are now strategically filling in our HR service portfolio,” Schmeichel says.

Previously, personal HR consulting was primarily available to managers through business partners or advisors. With the P&C Lounge, all employees now have access to individual consulting for more complex questions, from personal team issues to challenging payroll questions to career development.

The process is straightforward: employees can schedule appointments through a booking tool and are matched with the expert most appropriate for their query. The system displays which HR specialist will conduct the meeting and in which languages they provide consultation. “Whenever possible, the conversation takes place in the local language; otherwise in English,” Schmeichel explains. For payroll questions, a payroll expert is automatically assigned; for career topics, a corresponding specialist. Intelligent matching will occur with AI support.

“The HR employees who serve as experts in the P&C Lounge have been thoroughly familiarized with the new approach beforehand,” Schmeichel says. Personal affinity is also important: employees must have genuine interest in this type of work and are specifically prepared for the expected topics.

Optimization in HR through AI

Surprisingly, it was the increasing use of AI that paved the way for this new format. “This works because we have developed a very smart resource allocation concept, combined with modern technology that ensures the right expert is selected for each topic,” Schmeichel explains.

However, AI will do more than just help find the right expertise for each inquiry; it increasingly supports routine tasks in HR, creating more time to invest in personal care and dialogue. The use of Joule, SAP’s AI copilot, provides employees with a central point of contact and helps enable significantly faster and more intuitive navigation through the diverse digital HR services, relieving the burden on both employees and HR teams in daily operations.

Precisely because technologies like Joule increasingly resolve standard inquiries efficiently, personal conversation in complex situations gains additional importance. Schmeichel also emphasizes this development: “In the past, there were already pilot projects designed to enable this direct contact with the HR department. But only now do we have the technical capabilities for smart resource allocation and the corresponding capacity through the strategic further development of our HR business model.”

People centricity as integral pillar of our people agenda

The rollout of the P&C Lounge began in late 2024 with pilot projects in Italy and Japan. “We deliberately chose two culturally very different countries to see how the offering would be adapted in each,” Schmeichel explains. “While in Italy practically all appointments were booked immediately, Japan’s response was initially reserved for the first two weeks. But then the offering was well-received.”

Following the recent rollout in Germany and the United States, the P&C Lounge is now available to all 110,000 51ˇçÁ÷employees in over 70 countries. 51ˇçÁ÷adapts the offering to local conditions. For example, in the United States, due to vast geographical distances, there will be a stronger virtual component, while in other regions primarily in-person meetings are offered.

With the P&C Lounge, 51ˇçÁ÷positions itself as a pioneer for an HR strategy that places people at the center in the AI age. “In the current transformation- and technology-driven changes to the world of work, we at 51ˇçÁ÷can position ourselves as an attractive employer—with the human component being put at the center,” Schmeichel explains.

Customer interest is significant: “We currently see great interest in customer conversations to learn more about how 51ˇçÁ÷deliberately emphasizes and supports the human factor in times of artificial intelligence.”

The P&C Lounge is a perfect example of this approach of meaningfully combining technology and human interaction. “Our ambition with the P&C Lounge is to set new standards for what is possible in global HR support,” Schmeichel concludes. “It’s about the optimal combination of people-centricity and modern technology in a new world of work.”

Through their innovative implementation of Soley’s Product Mining Platform with SAP’s supply chain management technologies, they prove that sustainability and profitability can go hand in hand.

The challenge: managing complex product portfolios at scale

CERATIZIT Group, a leading provider of hard material solutions for machining and wear protection, faced a challenge common to many modern manufacturing companies: managing a complex product portfolio with over 65,000 products. The company’s Cutting Tool Solutions division needed a solution to balance economic and ecological objectives while maintaining competitive advantage.

Klaus Lupfer, product lifecycle manager at CERATIZIT Deutschland GmbH, explains the company’s motivation: “In addition to the economic perspective on the product portfolio, the ecological aspect was equally important when partnering with Soley. As a company committed to sustainability for years, we are especially excited about the opportunities that the expansion of product carbon footprint data offers.”

The challenge was not just the product portfolio’s size but also the lack of transparency regarding product performance and sustainability metrics. Employees spent considerable time compiling reports rather than making strategic decisions, while limited insights into critical materials and suppliers prevented efficient phaseout of high-emission products.

AI-powered product portfolio analysis

Munich-based Soley GmbH, a past participant in the SAP.iO program, ł§´ĄąĘ’s former startup accelerator designed to foster and integrate innovative solutions into the 51ˇçÁ÷ecosystem, developed an innovative response to this challenge. The Soley Product Mining Platform, available as part of SAP’s extension and add-on solutions, transforms complex product data into actionable insights through three core, AI-driven innovations that enable faster, smarter, and more impactful business decisions.

• AI Advisor uses AI to recommend precise actions—for example, suggesting which products should be phased out to minimize carbon footprint without sacrificing margins.
• AI Assistant provides an intuitive, natural-language interface that allows users to effortlessly interact with Soley, without requiring deep technical expertise.
• AI Detective analyzes data to uncover hidden dependencies and reveal strategic opportunities, such as identifying which configuration options should be eliminated to optimize both profitability and sustainability.

The Soley Product Mining Platform draws data from 51ˇçÁ÷S/4HANA and 51ˇçÁ÷Business Warehouse, utilizing 51ˇçÁ÷Business Technology Platform (51ˇçÁ÷BTP) as the service layer. 51ˇçÁ÷Datasphere helps consolidate 51ˇçÁ÷data and analytics, while 51ˇçÁ÷Analytics Cloud provides the analytics that form the core of the AI model. This technical architecture enables intelligent data extraction and transformation through 51ˇçÁ÷Databricks, while massive graph analytics enable complex dependency analysis.

“With these 51ˇçÁ÷solutions, we’re delivering a true game changer for the sustainability of the high tech and manufacturing industries,” says Ephraim Triemer, shareholder and advisor of Enterprise Accounts at Soley. “For the first time, our customers can go beyond ESG reporting and take real action—driving sustainability while staying laser focused on profitability.”

Seamless 51ˇçÁ÷integration creates value

By combining CERATIZIT’s Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) data with financial metrics, the Soley Product Mining Platform creates a digital twin that uncovers opportunities, identifies risks, and analyzes product hierarchies, bills of materials, and carbon footprints. With AI-driven intelligence guidance, Soley developers ensure the platform’s capabilities enable decisions and outcomes that improve both profitability and environmental stewardship.

Earlier this year, Dominik Metzger was appointed as president and Chief Product Officer of 51ˇçÁ÷Supply Chain Management, bringing a renewed focus on resilience, sustainability, and intelligent automation.

“My chief priority is to ensure that we help customers not only respond to disruptions but also proactively prepare and act,” Metzger said. “We can do so by leveraging AI, generative AI, real-time data, and predictive analytics with the power of ł§´ĄąĘ’s technology. Our vision is to build an autonomous supply chain—connected, contextualized, and collaborative.”

51ˇçÁ÷SCM leadership driving transformation

The analysis delivered impressive, measurable results that demonstrate the power of combining AI-driven analytics with 51ˇçÁ÷technologies. CERATIZIT discovered an 87% implementation rate of suggested measures, driving product sustainability and supply chain optimization. Simultaneously, the company identified a reduction of over 30% in end-of-life “ballast” products with negative carbon footprints while creating 100% transparency in sustainability data across all elements, product sets, and aggregation levels.

Alexander Springer, CEO of Soley GmbH, explains the strategic significance: “If you know which products are the most critical to the overall success of your business, you can focus on safeguarding the value chain for those products, taking proactive steps to avoid any potential supply risks.”

A model for sustainable digital transformation

The successful partnership between CERATIZIT, Soley, and 51ˇçÁ÷demonstrates how modern companies can achieve both economic and ecological goals through intelligent use of data and AI. The combination of proven 51ˇçÁ÷technologies and innovative analytics solutions creates measurable value for companies of all sizes. For other 51ˇçÁ÷customers and partners, this example shows that sustainability and profitability need not be opposing forces—with the right technologies and partners, both objectives can be achieved simultaneously.

Learn more about the latest updates to 51ˇçÁ÷supply chain management. The Soley Product Mining Platform is available on .

Europe faces a crucial challenge: while the region has been successful for decades with the principle of “quality over cost,” other continents are catching up in quality while also pursuing aggressive pricing strategies. “We must maintain quality while simultaneously reducing costs and becoming even more flexible in meeting our customers’ needs,” explains Georg Kube, head of Industry Data Ecosystems at 51ˇçÁ÷SE.

The answer may lie in the data that has been collected in German factories and 51ˇçÁ÷systems for decades. “Europe’s great asset compared to America and Asia is our historical knowledge of how good processes and good products work,” Kube says. “This systemic knowledge—how to machine, how to manufacture, how to set up the right processes—resides in European companies, typically in 51ˇçÁ÷systems.”

This data forms the foundation for data-driven business models based on the “data flywheel” principle: the more data that flows into a system, the more new data is generated—a self-reinforcing effect that can provide European companies with a decisive competitive advantage.

Manufacturing-X: Germany’s answer to global challenges

Factory-X is part of a larger vision: Manufacturing-X, an industry-wide initiative by the German government launched as part of the Industry 4.0 platform. The goal is to promote digital ecosystems and establish an international standard for data exchange.

Manufacturing-X is based on the fundamental principle of data sovereignty and addresses a classic dilemma: companies need data from others for digitalization but want to protect their own sensitive information. The solution is a legally and technically secured framework in which data can be shared in a controlled manner without owners losing control over it.

The initiative encompasses various industry-specific projects: Catena-X for the automotive industry was the pioneer, followed by Factory-X for mechanical engineering, Chem-X for the chemical industry, and Semiconductor-X for the semiconductor industry.

From horizontal to vertical integration

While Catena-X revolutionized horizontal supply chain processes in the automotive industry, Factory-X goes a step further. “Factory-X extends the proven Catena-X concepts to additional industries and brings vertical integration down to the shop floor,” says Nadine Kanja, solution head for 51ˇçÁ÷Industry Network Automotive and Catena-X.

51ˇçÁ÷shares consortium leadership for Factory-X with Siemens and coordinates the work of 47 consortium members. What’s special: while Catena-X viewed the factory as a single block, it’s at the center of Factory-X. “The shop floor is our central focus because that’s where machines with their own suppliers and maintenance requirements are located,” Kanja explains.

New use cases drive greater manufacturing flexibility

“The goal is to extend supply chain flexibility to the manufacturing area,” Kanja says. “When technical problems arise or customer needs change, manufacturers must be able to pivot quickly. However, factories aren’t exactly known for their flexibility—machines are permanently installed and hardwired. Rebuilding all of this is an enormous effort.”

This is exactly where Factory-X comes in. The initiative aims to bring flexibility directly into manufacturing—not just logistics—through new concepts like modular production, manufacturing as a service, and on-demand manufacturing. “This is an essential part of Factory-X: the flexibilization and automation of actual production processes,” Kanja explains.

Factory-X focuses on use cases that fall under the motto of “individualization and customer centricity.” These include:

• Collaborative information logistics: Optimizing information flows between partners
• Condition monitoring: Monitoring the condition of equipment and machines for proactive, data-based maintenance decisions
• Modular production: Flexible production concepts for changing requirements
• Manufacturing as a service: On-demand manufacturing through digital marketplaces

Concrete business benefits

The Factory-X use cases promise measurable improvements for various business models. Condition monitoring, for example, enables proactive maintenance instead of reactive repairs. This not only reduces production costs and downtime but also opens up new digital service revenues for machine manufacturers from their installed base.

Manufacturing as a service revolutionizes capacity utilization: production companies can automatically receive orders through digital marketplaces that match their capabilities and available capacities without extensive sales activities. Standardized data models even enable the economic production of individual pieces (“lot size 1”), which means individualization without cost disadvantages.

Another competitive advantage lies in access to new partners. Through the open data ecosystem, companies can collaborate with supply chain partners without needing existing business relationships, as standardized mechanisms make integration faster, more secure, and more cost-effective.

Technological innovation: MX-Port as key

Factory-X not only expands the Manufacturing-X initiative thematically, but also technologically. To meet the high demands of industrial manufacturers regarding existing data formats, the project places particular emphasis on the further development of standards – with a special focus on the interface format of the Asset Administration Shell (AAS).

“The importance of standardizing data is essential for industrial manufacturers and already solves many use cases on its own,” explains Georg Kube. “When discoverability and scalable security are required in large networks, users can additionally rely on the Dataspace Protocol as a result of Catena-X.”

This dual-speed strategy enables companies active in both the automotive and industrial manufacturing sectors to flexibly expand their systems as requirements grow.

The path to the future

Factory-X is designed as a development project until mid-2026 and will then transition into a stable operational phase. The vision is ambitious: a digital ecosystem that strengthens the competitiveness of European industry while enabling new data-driven business models.

“What we’re building in Factory-X can also be scaled to the other data spaces of Manufacturing-X,” Kanja explains. Mechanical engineering thus becomes a testing ground for a comprehensive transformation of European industry.

On a cold day in February 2023, Cozgarea stood alone in building one on the Walldorf campus. In just a few days, the building’s renovation was set to begin. Workstations and meeting rooms has already been cleared, heating and water had been shut off.

About 400 pieces of artwork were still on the walls, all of which she needed to personally take down, document, and have professionally packed — a logistical masterpiece that demonstrates the importance of art at SAP.

From Hasso Plattner’s vision to corporate collection

SAP’s art collection traces back to co-founder Hasso Plattner, a . “He was the driving force behind bringing art to SAP,” Cozgarea explains. Until his departure from operational business, Plattner was involved in art selection decisions for SAP. “At the time, art at 51ˇçÁ÷was handled at the Executive Board level, specifically by Hasso’s staff.”

But the company didn’t just acquire its own art objects. As early as 1994 and 1995, the first of now 60 exhibitions of contemporary artists took place at the Walldorf training center. What made it special was that the exhibitions were publicly accessible from the beginning, a deliberate step to promote interest in art in the region and encourage exchange with 51ˇçÁ÷and its employees.

“We opened ourselves to everyone who wanted to visit SAP,” Cozgarea emphasizes. “Art is a good way to start conversations.”

External visitors were able to gain an unusual insight into a technology company while simultaneously experiencing contemporary art.

Encounters between company and society

The exhibitions create a special place of encounter. An average of 400 to 600 visitors attend the opening receptions, a mix of about 30 percent 51ˇçÁ÷employees and 70 percent external guests.

“What’s beautiful is that people come together and talk with each other,” Cozgarea explains. “Whether about art or other topics – art creates connections.”

These encounters extend across various target groups: school classes use the exhibitions for workshops, students from Heidelberg University of Education develop their own projects based on the themes shown, and corporate groups incorporate tours into their team days.

From South Africa to NFT art: 60 exhibitions

Since 2008, Cozgarea has curated almost 30 of the total 60 art exhibitions at SAP. The themes have ranged from social questions to technological developments. “I observe a lot, research, and then make contact with artists or institutions. Over time, ideas come to life that address social questions and developments or that have a connection to 51ˇçÁ÷themes,” she says, describing her curatorial approach.

In 2018, 51ˇçÁ÷was one of the first companies worldwide to present an NFT art exhibition, with the title “.” The 2023 exhibition “” was dedicated to the metaverse theme and is currently viewable via virtual tour. The that have been in use at 51ˇçÁ÷for many years are addressed in the exhibitions “” and “” (both 2019). Other exhibitions like “” (2016) and “” (2018) build bridges to cultures and continents where 51ˇçÁ÷is represented.

Currently, the exhibition program is on hiatus as new spaces are being planned as part of the training center renovation. During this pause, 51ˇçÁ÷offers online virtual tours that allow employees and non-employees alike worldwide to experience the exhibitions.

“That’s important,” says Cozgarea, “because this way colleagues and external art enthusiasts around the globe can visit our exhibitions – not just on-site in Walldorf.”

Art historian with a feel for corporate culture

Cozgarea came to 51ˇçÁ÷in a roundabout way — or rather, she came back to SAP. During her studies in art history and psychology in Heidelberg, she was a working student at 51ˇçÁ÷in Communications and supported regional art projects. After her studies, she gained further experience in corporate collecting at Heidelberg Cement. “We built a very focused corporate collection back then – everything around the theme of building and cement,” she remembers.

Then, in 2008, came the call that changed her life. “They asked if I wanted to come back to SAP. And I said: ‘No, of course not — I do exclusively art.’ They said: ‘That’s exactly why!’” 51ˇçÁ÷was planning at the time to professionalize its art program and set it up more structurally. For this, there was an independent curatorial role to fill.

Today Cozgarea moves fluidly between two worlds of technology and art. “I try to bring these together through themes and bridges,” she says. The connection is what makes her work particularly appealing to her.

More than decoration: art as an educational mission

For SAP, the most important aspect is not the investment value of the artworks, but rather the educational mission and employee development they support. “The intention was always to give something back to the employees and the region,” she explains.

ł§´ĄąĘ’s collection now comprises more than 2,000 artworks distributed across 51ˇçÁ÷locations in Germany. Teams in Germany may borrow art for their offices and team rooms, a service that was originally reserved for top management but is now open to all interested parties.

“Colleagues appreciate the very personal approach,” Cozgarea says, describing the process. “They come to me, we select a piece of art together, and then we organize transport and hanging.” Many employees appreciate this small break from their work routine to select a picture.

The 400 artworks removed from building one, currently closed due to renovation, are waiting in the training center’s storage facilities for their next deployment. Some will re-enter building, but many of them will also be available to all employees in Germany for the first time.

Catena-X is a as part of the Manufacturing-X program. It enables companies along the entire supply chain to exchange data securely without giving up their data sovereignty.

“Quality management is traditionally one of the areas where data exchange is associated with the greatest inhibitions,” explains Hagen Heubach, global vice president and head of Discrete Industries at 51ˇçÁ÷and a member of the Catena-X e.V. Executive Board. Ěý“Neither manufacturers nor suppliers like to talk about possible defects. Therefore, this was an obvious use case in the context of industrial data exchange with Catena-X, which also has significant financial implications.”

A concrete example of the success of this collaboration is a recall action in which a preliminary analysis showed that 1.4 million vehicles were affected. However, after the exchange of field and production data made possible by Catena-X, it turned out that only 14 vehicles actually had to be recalled. This precise error analysis was made possible by comparing field data provided by the OEM manufacturer and production data from the suppliers of the individual parts.

By using Catena-X and 51ˇçÁ÷Quality Management, errors can be detected early and recall actions carried out more precisely, leading to significant cost savings.

This bilateral exchange also strengthens the trust relationship between OEMs and suppliers. The technical requirements of Catena-X allow each partner within the ecosystem to make its data available to any other partner for a specific purpose and for a limited time. The sovereignty over the data remains with the one who shares it. Field data, or the data produced by the vehicle on the road, are particularly valuable for suppliers as they allow conclusions to be drawn about how their parts perform under different conditions on the road.

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Catena-X: The first open and collaborative data space for the automotive industry

Initially funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Catena-X was launched in 2021 amid the pandemic and has developed rapidly since. The first development consortium included 28 partners; today there are almost 200 Catena-X e.V. members, with an increasing focus on internationality. Regional hubs have been established in North America, China, France, Sweden, and Spain to cover the specific requirements and automotive regulations of the respective countries.

“Every market has its peculiarities and different regulations and requirements for the automotive industry that we have to take into account,” Heubach emphasizes. “To this end, we work closely with the automotive associations of the respective countries, such as GALIA in France or the Automotive Industry Action Group in the U.S.”

Another milestone was the official go-live of the data space in October 2023, which enables data exchange. 51ˇçÁ÷is the leading provider of Catena-X-certified business applications and currently has the most solutions on the market in the various Catena-X use cases.

“We have to officially certify our solutions once for Catena-X — for example, it is checked whether our 51ˇçÁ÷solutions meet the standards defined in Catena-X for interoperable data exchange,” explains Nadine Kanja, solution head of 51ˇçÁ÷Industry Network Automotive and Catena-X for the Automotive Business Unit at 51ˇçÁ÷SE.

In August 2024, a new development consortium called Catena-X Next started. Scheduled to run until September 2026, its focus topics include quality management, sustainability, and the Eclipse Dataspace Connector, the central communication component of the Catena-X architecture.

Other car manufacturers such as Volkswagen and Ford have also set Catena-X as their data standard. This shows that Catena-X and 51ˇçÁ÷are gaining importance not only in Germany, but worldwide.

“What we are building in Catena-X can also be scaled to the other data spaces of Manufacturing-X,” Kanja shares. The expert group commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action explicitly lists Catena-X in its paper “Recommendations for Action for the Development of a Circular Economy in the Automotive Industry” as part of its recommendations for the transformation of the automotive industry.

The proactive exchange of field data from OEMs and production data from suppliers allows errors to be detected four months earlier on average. Heubach says this not only saves time and money, but also prevents unnecessary recall actions: “This allows you to pinpoint much more precisely what the problem is and which vehicles are affected. This leads to huge cost savings.”

Existing customers of 51ˇçÁ÷that already have 51ˇçÁ÷Analytics Cloud or 51ˇçÁ÷Datasphere, such as BMW and its supplier Schaeffler, can immediately leverage the use case with Catena-X and 51ˇçÁ÷Quality Management. Current developments aim to making use of and expand toward 51ˇçÁ÷Business Data Cloud to fully utilize AI components.

“We were evacuated and, fortunately, came out unscathed,” Hanke recalls. “But I had to hold the first all-employee meeting with the knowledge that we’d have to rebuild a flooded house, all while staying in a hotel with an unstable power supply.”

In her role, Hanke oversees strategic workforce planning, health, safety, and well-being, as well as the HR Trends and Innovation, People Insights, Organizational Design, and New Work departments.

Hanke also leads a new area of great importance for ł§´ĄąĘ’s future: the skills-led organization. But what exactly is a skills-led organization, and why is it important to focus on the capabilities of employees?

“A skills-led organization means moving away from rigidly defined job roles with a limited set of key qualifications and instead focusing more on the individual with their specific skills,” Hanke says. “The personal skill sets of employees will shape internal mobility, professional development, and our hiring strategies as a company.”

The skills-based approach recognizes that current job profile structures often fail to fully reflect employees’ competencies.

Hanke herself is a prime example of a personal skill set that extends beyond what a job description suggests. While she spent the past five years in the People & Culture Board area, her professional roots lie elsewhere.

Born in Germany, at the age of four Hanke moved to the U.S. with her parents for her father to work as a professor in computer science and software engineering at the University of Maryland. The planned one-year stay turned into nearly 10.

“I believe those formative childhood years in the U.S. not only gave me native-level English skills but also a deeper understanding of how culture shapes people’s thinking—and the importance of wanting to understand those differences,” she says.

While studying business information management in Mannheim, Germany, she joined 51ˇçÁ÷as a working student and gained experience in development. She later supported Daimler-Chrysler, initially as a technical quality manager and later as an engagement architect, where she served as a key 51ˇçÁ÷contact.

She then developed and led a customer management program for the private cloud, which at that point was still in its infancy. In that role, she reported weekly to the Executive Board of 51ˇçÁ÷SE and then-CEO Bill McDermott, which eventually led to discussions about her becoming his chief of staff.

“When I got the call, I thought there must be a misunderstanding because I hadn’t applied,” Hanke remembers. “The colleague on the other end laughed and said, ‘It seems someone recommended you.’”

This role took Hanke and her husband, along with their son born in Heidelberg, Germany, back to the U.S., where she had grown up. “I’ve never regretted it,” she says. “All in all, I’ve spent almost half my life in the U.S. and feel very at home here. I’d describe myself as half American, half German.”

After McDermott left SAP, Hanke worked in several roles for the new CEO, Christian Klein, before becoming COO in the then-new People & Operations Board area. Though she initially had little contact with HR, she quickly found the topics as engaging as they were challenging, especially given their impact on people and the organization.

“I think my own career path shows how much more experience and skills each of us brings beyond the role officially assigned to us,” she says. “The skills-based approach allows both the company and its employees to make better decisions. Employees want to stay relevant, and as an employer 51ˇçÁ÷aims to minimize disruptions for its people during changes.”

Skills Development with 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors HCM

Two key areas impacted by the skills-based approach are training and hiring. Skills-based hiring means that while degrees won’t become irrelevant, the search for candidates will increasingly focus on individual skills and prior experiences.

But how can a company gain a clear picture of each employee’s range of skills?

This is where the growth portfolio, part of 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors HCM, comes into play. All employees can conduct a skills inventory and add additional skills unrelated to their current role. These skills, often gained outside their formal roles, can now be documented.

Since it’s part of 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors HCM, the growth portfolio can integrate seamlessly with functionalities like hiring, learning, career development, and talent management—areas that benefit the most from maintaining up-to-date skill data. Based on this information, the system can offer employees personalized, AI-driven recommendations for training and development, paving the way for their next career step.

The skills-based approach also brings significant advantages for workforce planning.

As Hanke explains: “For example, we want to avoid looking externally for skills that already exist within the company but haven’t been utilized or are in the wrong areas. That’s why transparency is so crucial.”

The more accurately workforce planning reflects the skills within the company, the better decisions can be made.

“Business and HR Need to Work More Closely Together”

“HR is one of those areas where everyone thinks they can weigh in,” Hanke says. “Looking back, I must admit I initially approached it with a typical business mindset: HR—how hard can it be? But I quickly learned otherwise. The topics are incredibly complex because there’s no right or wrong answer—solutions must be tailored to individuals. My respect for the HR organization has only grown since then.”

Hanke made a deliberate decision to stay in the People & Culture Board area. For her, HR is more than just a reporting or operational function; it must be deeply integrated into business decisions.

“I believe that people transformation can be a significant competitive advantage in today’s dynamic world,” she says. “And with my mix of business and HR knowledge, I can add value here because these two areas can no longer be separated.”

Hanke also emphasizes the strategic importance of health, safety, and well-being. “Employee well-being is one of the fundamental requirements for a functioning organization.”

ł§´ĄąĘ’s award-winning health management program, Run Healthy, is set to expand globally to additional countries in 2025. Mental health, especially in the context of COVID-19 and global political developments, remains a critical focus.

“I’m continually impressed by how advanced and diverse ł§´ĄąĘ’s offerings are,” Hanke says, who has personally benefited from some of them. As a leader, she feels particularly responsible for addressing health-related topics appropriately.

“It’s important to us to see employees as whole individuals and support their holistic development,” she emphasizes. “The skills-based approach, which enables employees to fully leverage their potential, offers exciting new possibilities. We’re embarking on this journey together—and I’m looking forward to it.”

As the world’s No.1 fireworks provider, French pyrotechnics company Etienne Lacroix ships fireworks globally and has supported events such as the Burj Khalifa Grand Opening Fireworks Show in Dubai and Bastille Day, France’s national holiday that is celebrated on July 14 each year.

Logistics play a major role for the global player in the pyrotechnics sector, as shipping hazardous materials such as fireworks requires special precautions, especially when crossing international borders. Labels typically include warning pictograms and complex regulatory information in various formats. Recipients such as customs officers must be able to tell at a glance what sort of goods are inside, what the required shipping conditions are, and who is authorized to open the freight.

“On top of that, customers have their own specific requirements,” , director of Information Systems at Etienne Lacroix explains. “Also, there are different color codes in place for hazmat, depending on the country of destination. Red may mean danger in European countries, but in China, for example, it stands for celebration. Green has a different meaning in the Middle East that it does in the U.S., and so on.”

With so many different regulations in place around the globe, labeling the shipments at the end of the production line is not only time-consuming, but also leaves a lot of potential for human error. Now, with support from 51ˇçÁ÷partner STMS and SAP, the prototype for a generative AI solution was introduced that has the potential to reduce human involvement to a minimum.

Business AI Co-Innovation Project with 51ˇçÁ÷partner STMS

In early 2024, , general manager at STMS SOLUTIONS, a longtime partner of both 51ˇçÁ÷and Etienne Lacroix, participated in a event where 51ˇçÁ÷partners leveraged 51ˇçÁ÷technology to address pain points of their customers. The idea for a generative AI use case came up, and STMS approached its customer Etienne Lacroix.

At that time, IT and business experts at Etienne Lacroix were very interested in how generative AI could assist them in making their processes easier. 

“But I have to admit, I was also a little skeptical,” Marini says. “Everybody is currently talking about AI, about how to introduce it to the industry and the huge benefits we will reap from leveraging it. But suggestions are scarce when it comes to implementing it in a way that guarantees the company will benefit from it.”

“Together, we looked at the pain points of the company and discussed possible use cases with 51ˇçÁ÷Co-Innovation Lab,” Faure says. “We received the requirement from the business that AI should help avoid human tasks that are error-prone and don’t actually add value.”

Supply Chain Use Case with Generative AI

The team quickly identified that the administrative process of creating labels for shipping was a task currently performed by human employees that required a huge amount of time and focus. The huge potential for the usage of generative AI was evident. 

“With guidance from experts from the 51ˇçÁ÷partner organization, we were able to build a specific 51ˇçÁ÷app on and 51ˇçÁ÷S/4HANA to organize and use AI,” Faure says. “We then collected feedback from the business experts at Etienne Lacroix and, in the next step, brought in the generative aspect.”

To meet the regulations from the customer, the developers from STMS aggregated all the necessary data and created a model on 51ˇçÁ÷HANA Cloud vector engine.

Thanks to 51ˇçÁ÷HANA Cloud vector engine, which was newly introduced in 2024, 51ˇçÁ÷Business AI can allow customers and partners to leverage large language models (LLMs) in a much more accurate way on multi-model database 51ˇçÁ÷HANA Cloud. In case of the generative AI use case for Etienne Lacroix, the LLM was ChatGPT 3.5 Turbo.

“Technically, this prototype leverages everything 51ˇçÁ÷has to offer in terms of AI right now,” Faure says. “The app uses ł§´ĄąĘ’s generative AI hub and 51ˇçÁ÷HANA Cloud vector engine to draw on all the necessary information and generate the label.”

The remaining human task is to validate whether everything on the label is correct. “That was the most important requirement,” Marini says. “Human intervention must be guaranteed, as with all AI use cases.”

“It’s the generative aspect that makes all the difference,” Miliau Pape from 51ˇçÁ÷Co-Innovation Lab says. The LLM suggests what should go on the specific label—such as warning pictograms—based on legal regulations, historical customer requirements, cultural standards, and so on. The Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) provides the LLM with context and makes the outcome relevant and reliable. “Simply put, when the AI is trying to be as creative as possible, the RAG provides guardrails, so it doesn’t potentially go wild and come up with nonsense,” Pape says.

For each shipment, a prompt draws on destination, shipping route, specific customer data, such as the storage and language this customer required the last time, or the colors or signs used to indicate that the shipment contains hazardous materials and can only be opened by experts with a certain certification.

“My first thought when I saw this, was—simply put—wow,” Marini says. “Wow, they actually did it. Wow, this will make our lives easier. This generative AI use case, at this point, may still be only a prototype, but it’s an applicable idea, an actual use case for an actual pain point in our company.”

“To show the world of possible, push the boundaries of the technology—that is the purpose of the exercise,” Pape says.

Etienne Lacroix Group is in the process of migrating to . With the components of the app ready on 51ˇçÁ÷Business Technology Platform, go-live is planned for 2025.

“Our ERP was aging and no longer very popular with business users,” Marini says. “Migration to 51ˇçÁ÷S/4HANA gives us access to the newest technologies such as generative AI. This motivates users to take ownership of their IT solutions again and brings our business and IT together. All in all, it allows our company to fully exploit the potential of our 51ˇçÁ÷system.”

He adds: “The generative AI solution for labeling shipments is a tangible proof of the power of AI, a real use case, and we have it in our company. It is a very decisive first step in our AI journey.”

Manufacturing-X was launched as part of the Industry 4.0 platform, with the aim of promoting digital ecosystems and establishing an international standard for data exchange. It is an industry-wide initiative of the German government with various projects for different industrial sectors.

“The realization that the digitalization of industry is inevitable has become the norm over the past few years,” says Georg Kube, head of Industry Data Ecosystems at 51ˇçÁ÷SE. “A variety of use cases for different industries and new business models have been developed. They are successful – but only as long as companies work with other companies with which they already have a close partnership.”

“The most well-known of the [Manufacturing-X] projects is certainly Catena-X for the automotive sector,” Kube says. “The common aim of all these projects is to establish a new form of data exchange.”

For example, an automaker that wants to digitally integrate its direct suppliers typically requests all the data about the supplied parts from its partners, and the suppliers usually feel comfortable providing this data because of the trust that has grown over the years between the partners.

But it’s different when data is needed from companies without a direct business relationship. “A typical example is the determination of a vehicle’s CO2 footprint,” Kube says. “Suddenly, information about the CO2 footprint of the smallest plastic parts is needed, which may come from companies in the supply chain with which a company has never had direct contact. It’s not easy to access that data.”

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Trust Is the Catalyst

Companies are often very hesitant to share data freely. And for good reason: potential inferences about their cost structure or the nature of their production can be drawn from the data.

“On the one hand, as companies, we hesitate to give out our data. But on the other hand, we rely on the data of others in order for digitalization scenarios to be successfully implemented,” Kube explains. “We want to address this problem within the framework of Manufacturing-X through a new [approach to] industrial data sharing.”

“The promise,” Kube continues, “is that the digitalization, which we can currently complete up to 70%, can be fully implemented.”

Information Transfer – But Secure

“What companies lack the most today is knowledge,” Kube says. “We constantly hear from 51ˇçÁ÷customers that they would pay to find out what their own customers are doing with the products they have sold to them.”

For example, a manufacturer of robot grippers receives few insights after selling its product about where the grippers are located and what they are used for. If this were not the case, the manufacturer could make much more informed decisions about which generation of products the market needs, or whether a completely new model needs to be developed.

However, customers have concerns that this information could lead to inferences about the nature of their production and the finished product, or that this type of application might be prohibited.

With Manufacturing-X, a scenario has been created in which data sovereignty remains with the owner of the data, but the data can be provided within a narrow framework with a legal and technical structure that prevents abuse. This is the essence of a whole range of use cases in areas such as manufacturing-as-a-service, sustainability, and others.

“These use cases basically exist independently of Manufacturing-X,” Kube explains. “Most of them are neither new nor original. They just could never be fully implemented because trust in data exchange was lacking – and Manufacturing-X finally creates the conditions for this.”

ł§´ĄąĘ’s Role

As an enterprise software company, 51ˇçÁ÷has a strong interest in completing the digitization of its customers.

“The digitalization of industry works very well with 51ˇçÁ÷products,” says Heiko Flohr, head of Product Management, 51ˇçÁ÷for Discrete Industries & Industry Networks, at 51ˇçÁ÷SE. “Most of the world’s leading companies use 51ˇçÁ÷in some way to digitize its next-generation processes. Therefore, it is clear from our perspective that we must support and drive this emerging industry standard for data exchange.”

Kube notes that medium-sized companies in particular often suffer from the unavailability of data. “For this customer group, we offer a comprehensive, easily consumable application portfolio with ,” he says. “The goal is to establish industrial data sharing according to Manufacturing-X standards as a solid part of this portfolio and enable our customers to collaborate more effectively and trustfully with their supply chains.”

Within Manufacturing-X, new sovereign data exchange formats are to be created for the industry, based on European Union values such as transparency, controllability, portability, and interoperability. “We work very collaboratively and with a focus on implementation in various industry-specific initiatives to make this vision a reality,” says Mirko Paul, head of Industry Cloud Architecture at SAP. “Based on state-of-the-art, cloud-based architectures and the scalable technology standard of 51ˇçÁ÷Business Technology Platform, we ensure that these new standards are compatible with 51ˇçÁ÷applications from the outset and pre-integrated for relevant business processes.”

At the same time, 51ˇçÁ÷opens its own products and applications that are already on the market. Products and solutions such as and products in the areas of supply chain and sustainability are to be equipped with connectors that will allow them to work with this new standard.

Here Christian Schmeichel, Chief Future of Work Officer at 51ˇçÁ÷SE, discusses these transformations.

Q: The second half of 2024 has begun, and 51ˇçÁ÷is positioning itself as a business AI company, including offering an AI assistant for its business software. What do 51ˇçÁ÷employees think about the company’s increased focus on AI?

A: AI is no longer a new topic within ł§´ĄąĘ’s workforce. According to an internal study from late 2023, 80% of respondents are optimistic about AI. This has been confirmed. It’s also because we are a software company. There are certainly industries where the workforce is more cautious about AI, but this is less the case at SAP, partly because we place a high value on privacy and data protection. Our employees also see the great opportunity that 51ˇçÁ÷has with business AI to unlock the next stage of development for our portfolio. This excites many.

Q: As chief future of work officer at SAP, your team is responsible for predicting and managing changes in the workplace. How is the spread of AI currently influencing the future of employees?

A: The race for the future has intensified with AI. Our customers want to know how their workforce structure needs to evolve and what steps they need to take as a company to ensure current and future employees have the skills and qualifications needed to collaborate effectively with AI.

Global megatrends such as climate change and the entry of younger generations into the workforce are additional challenges that interest us at SAP. Like other companies, we are also exploring scenarios to determine what skills we will need in 5 to 10 years, how roles and activities will change, and what level of AI and robotics will be required in different teams. It’s not easy for anyone to imagine where we will be in five years, which keeps things exciting.

Q: What impact does the further spread of AI have on daily work?

A: Unlike other technological changes in the past, the current development in the context of AI is a fundamental shift in the interaction between humans and machines. I believe that learning to work with AI, including learning to delegate tasks, is necessary. We already see generative AI being used in all areas of work, and the topic is becoming very tangible. This ranges from research and data analysis to creating reports, presentations, and meeting minutes. It may turn out that we will take on tasks with a completely different focus in the future. For example, we may do tasks that cannot or should not be entrusted to AI because they require decisions that are currently beyond its capabilities, such as creativity, strategic thinking, or moral judgment.

Q: Can we speak of a shift away from purely role-specific work towards skill-based tasks?

A: Certainly. Depending on the role, whether it’s in development, sales, consulting, or more, there are specific, typical applications of AI. However, it also involves developing a certain mindset that involves a lot of self-reflection: what am I best at and what can I do better than AI in the future? Where can I best apply my skills? I believe this will become increasingly important. With a stronger focus on widely applicable skills rather than rigid role profiles, there is a certain fluidity in the organization. Employees will become increasingly flexible and will not need to switch roles or departments to take on tasks that match their skill set and interests. I see this as a great opportunity to increase job satisfaction.

The second major area involves the corresponding digital application skills. These include practical skills, such as giving a prompt in a way that AI can provide what is needed, as well as knowledge of ethics and compliance.

Q: Such comprehensive changes in a short period of time demand a lot from employees. How can the right people practices support them?

A: An important first step is to be aware of the changes that are happening. We live in an era where there are ever faster and more impactful technological changes happening. Employees need a toolbox to successfully face this massive change they experience every day. Topics such as mental health have been important at 51ˇçÁ÷for some time, and we see that practical techniques for stress management and adapting to changed work situations are in high demand. However, the use of AI also offers great opportunities to promote a good work-life integration.

Q: How does the application of AI today and in the future affect HR work?

A: There are already numerous exciting use cases for AI in HR that aim to make processes more efficient. For example, in recruiting, AI can generate job postings faster and create tailored interview guides. In the area of learning, there are already good opportunities, such as providing personalized information and individual training.

In addition to possible efficiency gains, AI will help the HR department become even more strategic in the future. Transactional tasks can increasingly be automated and taken on by AI, giving HR professionals more time for strategic tasks. For example, more focus could be placed on providing personal advice for employees, which is currently often hard to do given the many daily demands on HR professionals.

Q: What does the use of AI mean for the work of the People & Culture organization at 51ˇçÁ÷specifically?

A: The goal is to fully leverage the potential of AI as part of our transformation to best support our leaders and employees with their daily work. At the same time, it’s about continuously improving the efficiency within certain areas of the People & Culture organization. There is great interest among our employees in working with AI applications. To date, more than 50,000 employees have used the generative AI experience lab tool and submitted over 5 million prompts. It can now be said that AI is seen not only as a collaborative tool but also as a partner for work. Thinking “AI first” is an important aspect for continued success and to achieve our goal of becoming the No. 1 business AI company.

Furthermore, forward-looking HR work aims to create an attractive work environment where employees can do their tasks with a high level of motivation and enjoyment. In the age of AI, it will become increasingly easier to recognize in a timely manner how the workforce is doing and where there may be issues to act accordingly. Survey and feedback formats developed and controlled from the People & Culture organization should, with the help of AI, allow for results much faster in the future, helping to respond promptly to developments and needs within the workforce.

Q: How does the spread of AI influence your own work?

A: As chief future of work officer at SAP, I am excited about the opportunity to be at the forefront of the major changes that AI brings to HR work — and in the People & Culture Board area at SAP, we are actively driving the topic as a showcase for our own 51ˇçÁ÷solutions. For my role, this means actively shaping the influence of AI on the development of our workforce and the entire HR department alongside my team. This includes strategic workforce planning, modern work methods, and impulses for the further development of the HR organization to guide the future of work at 51ˇçÁ÷toward an exciting and digitalized future. AI will fundamentally change the work of employees, and the next few years will certainly be some of the most innovative in HR and the larger technology world. This is a great opportunity to significantly shape the development of the working world at SAP.

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For many years, numerous 51ˇçÁ÷products have been in use as on-premise solutions at BLS. In HR, the company has made efforts to establish standards, but differences in the execution of core processes still remain.

“When I joined BLS in 2019, I was used to a completely different level of digitalization from previous employers,” Johner explains. “Some processes were still running in spreadsheets.”

As head of HR & Transformation, he is particularly concerned with the attractiveness of BLS as an employer: “New employees expect a certain degree of digitalization as well as state-of-the-art applications. And standard digitalization is, of course, also a matter of cost. Nevertheless, the standardization and digitization of our main HR processes were important goals to increase efficiency.”

Digital Transformation with 51ˇçÁ÷Standard Content Activation Service

To address these issues, BLS decided to implement at the beginning of 2020.

Johner says: “We chose the 51ˇçÁ÷standard content activation service. Our requirement was that we could adopt at least 80% of the processes as a standard solution. 51ˇçÁ÷provided the framework and suggested best practices to quickly get up and running, with minor adjustments to tailor the configuration to our needs.”

Stefan Fuhrer, head of Management Services at BLS AG, is also pleased with the implementation process: “What really paid off was the introduction of 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors Employee Central as the first module. This allowed us to migrate all master data from the on-premise 51ˇçÁ÷ERP Human Capital Management solution to 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors solutions, which simplified the implementation and integration of all other modules and packages. By implementing 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors Employee Central, we were able to create a single data source for HR data to manage HR processes throughout the organization.”

“Most customers are used to the classic approach of ordering and implementing modules one by one,” Roland Christen, customer success partner at 51ˇçÁ÷Switzerland AG, says. “The 51ˇçÁ÷standard content activation service offers a different approach, as complete processes are introduced instead of individual modules. The customer can immediately gain added value.”

At the same time as the introduction of 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors solutions, BLS also defined the roles and teams that should be responsible for the tasks in these processes. “Where possible, we aligned internal structures with the processes,” Johner says.

Process-Oriented Implementation of 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors HCM

BLS now uses all modules of 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors HCM. “We now have the ability to technically map the entire HR-related career of employees – from their application to, if necessary, leaving the company – in a system configured with best practices,” Johner explains. “The implementation of 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors solutions has laid the foundation so that, after connecting to the other subsystems, we can now gradually reduce the administrative effort.”

Integrating the 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors Document Management Core solution by OpenText has also worked well. Compared to other solutions, Johner sees the great advantage of 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors Document Management Core in its deep integration with the individual 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors solutions. “It was also important for us to have a solution that is able to comply with the established life cycles for individual documents and, if necessary, also delete them – a key compliance factor for us at BLS AG,” he says.

This is all the more important as 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors Document Management Core is currently used at BLS as an employee dossier.

Johner appreciates the high level of transparency that the solution provides: “Each employee has self-service access to their own employee file. Controlled through role-based permissions, managers and HR staff also have access to the documents of defined employees. These documents can be uploaded via workflow. In addition, contracts can be automatically created and stored in the employee dossier after signing.”

Currently, only payroll, time management, and shared services are on premise. The next planned steps include integrating the planning tool – for the deployment of train personnel, for example – with time management and payroll. In addition, existing, rarely used subprocesses, such as a request for unpaid leave, will be integrated through an interface.

The project aligns with BLS’s overall strategy, which focuses on managing resources through more efficient processes via digitalization. “I believe that with the introduction of 51ˇçÁ÷SuccessFactors solutions, we have made a significant contribution to the company’s strategy,” Johner says.

Significant emphasis was placed on stakeholder management toward internal customers from the beginning. “We continuously informed and provided insights into the status of the project company-wide,” Johner explains. “Important internal customer groups have been represented on the project committee from the start and have been able to accompany the upcoming changes.”

Training opportunities for relevant user groups also played a great role. The system was positively received. “HR initially viewed the system with some skepticism because the processes and responsibilities have changed,” Johner says. “But now the benefits – such as having congruent data across the entire system and the disappearance of media breaks – are highly appreciated.”

“I also notice that our employees are increasingly thinking in end-to-end processes,” Johner says.

The Swiss business newspaper Handelszeitung, which ranks the most attractive employers in Switzerland every year, has ranked BLS as No. 1 in the Swiss railway industry in 2024. In the overall ranking, BLS AG is ranked 11^th out of 250 companies.

“This confirms for us that our activities in HR and the modernization measures of recent years have clearly put us on the right track,” Johner says.

This first appeared on the German 51ˇçÁ÷News Center.

Three teams were selected for outstanding and innovative projects in the categories Go-to-Market, Operational Excellence, and Products and Technology.

In 2023, 115 nominations involved more than 750 employees from 35 countries. Eight teams consisting of 81 employees from around the world made it to the final round.

In honor of the three winning teams, 51ˇçÁ÷will make donations to three charities selected by the team members. The €30,000 total donation – €10,000 per team – will be split between , , and .

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Go-to-Market Winner

Reimagined RISE with 51ˇçÁ÷Business Case with 51ˇçÁ÷Signavio and 51ˇçÁ÷Value Lifecycle Manager Integration

When shifting to a cloud-first approach, it can be a challenge to pitch the cloud to customers due to the comprehensiveness of the solution spanning across the entire value chain of an enterprise.

To apply a more streamlined and dependable method for crafting compelling value propositions, the Value Advisory team at 51ˇçÁ÷implemented the 51ˇçÁ÷Signavio portfolio of cloud-based business process management solutions within their practice to demonstrate value to customers through data-driven insights.

The team created a system where business metrics from and process performance data from were merged and applied to business KPIs to identify cases of suboptimal performance. This allows customers to more easily see the connection between business outcomes and the process capabilities, supported by data.

The approach offers a robust and repeatable performance diagnostic that can be used to identify, clarify, verify, and amplify value throughout the customer value journey, helping customers better understand the value of the cloud and . The innovation helps build customer trust and intimacy while also helping our business operate at scale. To date, this process-driven value management has impacted more than 190 customers.

“Our future focus involves enhancing usability and capabilities to comprehensively cover the customer value journey,” Nitin Singh, team leader and Value Advisory principal, says. “We extend our sincere gratitude to our leaders for fostering a culture of innovation, our colleagues for experimenting and navigating challenges with us, and prior colleagues whose work paved the way for this journey. We genuinely stand on the shoulders of giants.” 

Operational Excellence Winner

Plutus: Rate Optimization and Management

Cloud services are a critical part of ł§´ĄąĘ’s recent evolution, with the company dedicating extensive time and resources to seamlessly integrate all essential services into the cloud. This effort aims to enhance customer experiences – and Plutus serves as the cornerstone of these endeavors.

Plutus, which leverages , is a one-stop solution for major hyperscalers. It’s crafted to empower lines of business by providing smarter and more efficient advice for optimizing cloud services. Plutus can centralize the management of cost optimization and intelligently navigate users through cloud expenses, providing top-notch recommendations and comprehensive end-to-end management. It caters to users’ needs from guidance to execution, helping to ensure cost savings every step of the way.

The Plutus team used cutting-edge technologies to create a 24/7, fully integrated, user-centric cloud service hub and a smooth user interface platform that can operate across various channels. Plutus provides simplified financial operations processes by offering an intuitive interface across all platforms, working to eliminate pricing disparities and provide reliable cost-saving solutions. These efforts strongly emphasize ł§´ĄąĘ’s commitment to advancing global digital sustainability through innovative enterprise solutions.

The solution uses machine learning to provide smart recommendations. The team also plans to integrate a versatile digital chatbot based on generative AI to help ensure seamless and comprehensive user support in the future.

Plutus allows for a new approach to ł§´ĄąĘ’s cloud cost optimization strategy, unlocking new avenues for significant cost savings and margin improvements. To date, Plutus has generated over US$920 million in net savings for SAP, with projections reaching $1 billion in Q1 2024. It has also achieved and maintained remarkable, best-in-industry cloud utilization and coverage rates – exceeding 97% and 90%, respectively.

“Winning the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award reflects our dedication to teamwork and innovation,” Donghua Chen, Plutus team lead, says. “Our journey to this point has required a lot of hard work. But as we celebrate this achievement, we remain committed to continually analyzing cloud usage to maximize savings for 51ˇçÁ÷through rate optimization.”

Products & Technology Winner

CAP and capGPT – 51ˇçÁ÷Cloud Application Programming Model and Generative AI

The 51ˇçÁ÷Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) was started in 2018 as a project to address the lack of guidance for developers building apps on what is now 51ˇçÁ÷BTP. At first, developers could choose from a huge number of technologies, which made integration with the platform services a relatively high effort.

As a development framework, CAP automatically solves about 80% of the problems backend developers face – such as multitenancy, expandability, or business features such as localization and translatability. But thanks to CAP’s domain-driven approach, it is no longer necessary to always change the coding in each of those cases. And for special use cases that CAP doesn’t cover, the coding can be easily added to build in this functionality. To help safeguard customers’ investments, CAP offers the possibility to interchange components, such as runtime or the database, without changing the actual implementation.

CAP, as a centerpiece of Golden Path and , is now an integral part of the consumption experience of 51ˇçÁ÷BTP. Today, thousands of internal and external developers use CAP to build business applications on 51ˇçÁ÷BTP, driving higher developer productivity and easier 51ˇçÁ÷BTP service adoption.

“This award is a great testament to the hard work and dedication of the whole CAP unit and a recognition of the impact we have both internally as well as for our customers and partners,” Ole Lilienthal, team lead, says.

To make prototyping even easier, in spring 2023, 51ˇçÁ÷software architect David Kunz applied ChatGPT’s large language model to writing code for business apps.

capGPT, as the new functionality is called, allows users to write in natural language what they want their app prototype to be able to do. In as little as 30 seconds, they can receive all the code – which previously had to be written by hand – and access the prototype to test it. This can not only save experienced developers an amazing amount of time, but can also enable non-developers to create prototypes of the apps they need. capGPT can also generate user interfaces in addition to backend applications. It will soon be available to customers through integration into 51ˇçÁ÷Build Code as part of AI-development assistant Joule.

“Seeing capGPT go from an idea to a Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award winner within a year is a true testament that everything is possible at SAP,” Kunz says. “I feel very proud and I’m energized to continue to push the limits of what generative AI can enable.”

Photo courtesy of 51ˇçÁ÷employee Fateh Kassab

“At SAP, ethics has been part of our research and development of artificial intelligence from the very beginning,” Wieczorek, head of AI Ethics at SAP, says. “Every development in the area of AI is deeply aligned with ł§´ĄąĘ’s values.”

The Beginnings of Artificial Intelligence at SAP

Wieczorek was part of ł§´ĄąĘ’s first AI unit, founded in 2014. “In addition to the technical and product tasks, we have always considered the ethical aspect of our work from the beginning,” he says.

51ˇçÁ÷was the first European company to define guidelines for dealing with AI and set up a corresponding advisory panel. Wieczorek’s work has always had a technical focus, but he has also been a member of the 51ˇçÁ÷AI Global Ethics steering committee, a member of the Enquiry Commission on AI in the German Bundestag, and has reported on the uses of artificial intelligence at the EU Parliament.

51ˇçÁ÷initiated internal processes early on to formulate an approach to ethically unobjectionable AI, which ultimately led to the 51ˇçÁ÷AI Global Ethics policy.

To address ethical questions, experts must possess deep knowledge about AI technology and also be willing and able to engage in philosophical and moral questions as well as the legal side of technology.

“Our work in AI ethics is somewhat similar to that of a translator,” Wieczorek says. “Technological realities and possibilities have to be ‘translated’ into the language of philosophy, sociology, and law. The results must then be ‘translated’ back into technological requirements, so that a constant exchange between the two areas is achieved.”

The Role of Humans

Currently, AI systems cannot develop a motivation of their own or a concept of themselves or the world – never mind considering, on their own initiative, how to best optimize this world.

“Their purpose and tasks are determined by humans,” Wieczorek emphasizes. “What humans no longer do is define the exact implementation of the task.”

As always, when tasks are delegated – whether to machines or other people – it must be ensured that certain rules regarding fairness, transparency, and human participation rights are adhered to in their execution.

“We know less about how decisions are ultimately made when it comes to AI than we do when it comes to conventional software,” Wieczorek says. “Therefore, we must keep the possibility open to intervene if this automation does not work in certain cases as we want it to.”

What such an intervention looks like in individual cases can be quite varied, as the software as a whole and not just individual components must be considered.

The most well-known example of discrimination by intelligent software is the exclusion of historically underrepresented groups in job application processes. The historical data with which the AI is trained may reflect the biased selection criteria of the past. Therefore, it is theoretically possible that the AI may adopt and reproduce these biases for its own selection process.

“Side effects of this kind can occur relatively quickly on a large scale due to the high automation potential of AI software,” Wieczorek says. “Therefore, we must set high standards for the type and manner of automation and have the ability to limit side effects and efficiently reverse them.”

Guidelines for training data sets are neither the only leverage nor a guarantee of maximum fairness.

“There is a chain of things to consider,” Wieczorek says. “The system as a whole must be able to provide guarantees that the evaluation is fair – its behavior must be impeccable in the overall view.”

A Dedicated Ethics Review for Every AI Use Case

“In the 51ˇçÁ÷AI Global Ethics policy, it is stipulated that all of our products and solutions that use AI must be monitored from an ethical perspective – both during the development phase and later, when they are already on the market,” Wieczorek says.

Each AI use case is therefore subject to a separate review, which includes declarations from the product teams on how the use case complies with the guidelines of the 51ˇçÁ÷AI Global Ethics policy.

After their definition, all use cases undergo a classification process. However, if use cases, for example, make automated decisions that affect people or process personal data, they are automatically considered sensitive and are classified high risk.

“Such use cases then undergo a mandatory review process, which is continuously accompanied by experts, for example from my team,” Wieczorek says. “This way, each individual case is systematically checked for risks, in order to then decide, if necessary, what measures need to be taken to implement the ethical standards prescribed by SAP.”

Does the Use of AI Limit Human Responsibility?

Routine tasks taken over by AI are most often already automated to a degree and do not have to be formulated anew every time. But as increasingly personalized tasks are also being taken over by AI, such as through chat interactions, the individual user’s responsibility grows.

Wieczorek sees a shared responsibility between the AI developer and the user. “Especially with tasks that affect people and have human consequences, we will not shift the responsibility to the products,” he emphasizes.

Those providing an AI application are obligated to provide transparency about its behavior and to clarify what it was designed for – and what it was not designed for.

This in turn allows users to take on their own responsibility: tasks assigned must adhere to ethical principles and the results must be verified, rather than simply accepted.

It is particularly important for people to still be able to intervene in the functioning of the systems in case an undesired side effect, such as unfair behavior of the system, becomes apparent over time.

“It must always be ensured that humans can review, question, and possibly reverse the decisions made by the AI,” Wieczorek says. “This is the responsibility of the manufacturers of AI systems, as laid out in the 51ˇçÁ÷AI Global Ethics policy.”

Learn more about ł§´ĄąĘ’s approach to ethical AI:

Like other industrial nations, Japan has been facing massive demographic challenges in its agriculture sector. An aging population and a lack of younger individuals entering the sector to replace them have led to farms being abandoned and fields lying fallow.

Japan’s government has realized the demographical issue, of course, as it touches not only the agricultural sector. To revitalize rural areas and stem the rural exodus, the government launched a national action plan.

In alignment with this action plan, 51ˇçÁ÷Japan has joined the effort of encouraging rural communities to thrive by launching a co-innovation project with PSI, an 51ˇçÁ÷partner, and the local government of the town of Minano.

Digitizing the Agricultural Sector

The small town of Minano is located in the hills of Saitama Prefecture, about two hours from Tokyo. While the south of this prefecture is largely a suburb of the Tokyo area, the west, approaching Mt. Fuji, is still very rural and thinly populated. A former center of silk industry, the region on average is sunny and warm but can get lots of snow in winter.

“Farms in this area are traditionally small and dispersed, located between forests and mountains,” says Yoshihisa Horiguchi, chairman of MINNANO Future Create. “Big supermarkets and retailers overlook them. Nowadays, the farmers cultivate rice and vegetables in small amounts to consume themselves, sell to their neighbors, or send to their children or grandchildren that live in cities.”

Since 1950, Minano has lost roughly one-third of its population, largely due to the decline of the agricultural sector. Today, it counts about 10,000 inhabitants.

“Young people often migrate to urban areas for better education and employment opportunities,” Horiguchi explains. “Where 50 years ago, a farm may have relied on 20 young workers, now only two elderly workers are left.”

Digitization is one obvious approach that may help prevent those areas from depopulating completely.

“But while large-scale farms benefit from the economic feasibility of applying robotics and the like, it is financially and logistically challenging to apply such technologies to small-scale dispersed farms,” Horiguchi says.

Horiguchi, the owner of an automotive parts manufacturing company, co-founded the local initiative MINNANO Future Create in 2019 to solve the challenges resulting from population loss. Its members range from elderly individuals to young residents, forming a diverse group of individuals, including pharmacists, architectural designers, and other professions, all living in the town.

For one of its projects, the Minano Digital Eco Farm, it partnered with 51ˇçÁ÷Co-Innovation Lab.

IoT Solution for Monitoring Agriculture

The Minano Digital Eco Farm project aims to build a communication platform that connects farmers and urban residents as well as small-scale dispersed farms to major supply chains, forming a portfolio that coexists with existing large-scale farms. In alignment with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the project will help overcome supply chain disruptions due to food shortages and crop failures due to abnormal weather, conflicts, disasters, and more.

For this vision to become a reality, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors were distributed in various locations and managed remotely from headquarters.

“The idea was to have an IoT solution running on 51ˇçÁ÷Business Technology Platform (51ˇçÁ÷BTP) that would help monitor all the agricultural processes,” says Atsushi Minakuchi, senior solution specialist at 51ˇçÁ÷Co-Innovation Lab in Japan.

51ˇçÁ÷Co-Innovation Lab partnered with PSI, which brought in the Digital Material Controller (DMC), an all-in-one compact edge controlling server that enables easy setup of a ubiquitous IoT environment. And, due to the cooperation with 51ˇçÁ÷Co-Innovation Lab, the DMC has also obtained 51ˇçÁ÷certification.

“Many IoT sensors lack cybersecurity functions,” Mitsuhiro Yamazaki, senior advisor and former president of PSI, says. “However, by connecting sensors to a DMC with cybersecurity capabilities, it becomes possible to securely store locally collected data on the DMC, safely transmit to 51ˇçÁ÷BTP, and accumulate, analyze, and utilize data from the DMC. This enables seamless and easy integration between the 51ˇçÁ÷core system and the IoT system.”

“Collaboration with 51ˇçÁ÷Co-Innovation Lab has significantly expanded the application possibilities of DMC,” Masaki Fukui, former PSI Cyber Security Lab director and now with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, says. “Global users of 51ˇçÁ÷now could have the opportunity to easily implement and utilize a ubiquitous supply chain platform through the combination of DMC and 51ˇçÁ÷BTP.”

Through integration with 51ˇçÁ÷BTP, the deployment locations can then be displayed and monitored on a dashboard.

The idea is for citizens living in the city to enter a service contract with a rural farm or supplier and to connect via a technology platform to remotely monitor and support agricultural processes. In return, they receive part of the crops – freshly delivered to their homes in the city.

So far, two proofs of concept for farms have been completed between March 2019 and November 2022, as well as one proof of concept for a miso factory. Agriculture and rural industry are only two fields of application. Future projects could include schools, hospitals, stores, and elder care facilities.

Strengthening Rural Appeal for Inland Tourism

As a corporate social responsibility project, the Minano Digital Eco Farm came to life through the voluntary engagement of 51ˇçÁ÷employees in Japan who supported the project on top of their regular work.

The project is supported by a government program unique for Japan, the so-called hometown tax payment, which makes it possible for citizens to choose and support the region they were born and raised in or a community they wish to engage with.

“The possibility of hometown tax payment is very popular among Japanese people,” Hidenori Kurosawa, vice governor of Minano, explains. “To us in rural regions, it seems that this played a significant role in creating an interest in the countryside. People want to get to know and support local towns.”

Indeed, the appeal of small, thinly populated communities surrounded by beautiful forest landscape hasn’t gone unnoticed by Japanese inland tourists.

Kurosawa says: “We wish to make Minano appealing to visitors by offering return gifts that provide an experience – that allow visitors to come to the town, interact with the locals, and experience things that are unique to this place.”

The Minano Digital Eco Farm project aligns well with this strategy. Not only does it promote Minano’s charm but, by expanding initiatives, it addresses local challenges such as reclamation of abandoned farmland, increased self-sufficiency in food, reduction of CO2 emissions, and improved profitability in agriculture.

“We have great expectations that this initiative will contribute to addressing the town’s challenges and advancing the UN SDGs,” Kurosawa states. “We express our sincere gratitude to the volunteers from 51ˇçÁ÷Japan who provided invaluable assistance in bringing the Minano Digital Eco Farm project to life.”

“MINNANO” means “for everyone” in Japanese and is pronounced the same way as the name of the town. Fukui from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication explains the idea behind that name: “One action can have multiple meaningful impacts. The issue of unseen small-scale dispersed farms facing economic challenges can be witnessed around the globe. By collaborating with SAP, we hope to inspire rural communities beyond our own prefecture, maybe even beyond Japan.”

Being a talent scout sounds like a dream job for many: travelling across the country to watch competitions in your favourite sport and being paid to do so. However, being a scout on the road means hard work. In addition to analyzing increasingly detailed statistical data — such as the number of overplayed players or the likelihood of increasing the goal count — players are scouted live at the stadium or from watching back videos.

Both the current performance and the potential of the player are portrayed as accurately as possible. The aim is to develop a comprehensive picture of the player incorporating team ability, mentality, and other important factors.

“At a professional club, a four-figure number of scouting reports can be generated during a season,” Fadi Naoum, head of Sports and Entertainment at SAP, said at SPOBIS, the largest European sports business event, taking place in Hamburg on January 31 and February 1.

Naoum presented the new AI component for scouting at the conference.

“Squad planners and chief scouts must summarize these reports in such a way that club management can make decisions based on them regarding who should be signed,” he shared. “This was previously a manual process, but now we have been able to extensively automate it, thanks to AI.”

With the help of AI in 51ˇçÁ÷Sports One, decision-makers in the sports sector now have aggregated performance reports at the touch of a button, as well as comparisons between players. Transfer decisions can be now much faster and more informed.

Large Language Model for Automation

AI is used for the consolidation and targeted processing of unstructured data, which is mostly in natural language. It is capable of considering and processing not only different languages, but also different types of note-taking and writing styles. Behind the AI component for scouting is a large language model (LLM). This deep learning algorithm can perform tasks in the field of natural language processing (NLP).

“We currently use GPT from OpenAI, but we are also evaluating language models from other providers,” Naoum said. “The decisive advantage of the LLM is that commands can be given in natural language and can be varied according to language, text length, or target audience, as needed.“

In Brazil, for example, if a scout prepares manual reports for a specific player in Brazilian Portuguese, he can have the summary generated in German for the management of his German club.

“A typical command could be: ‘Compare the players x and y with regard to their strengths and weaknesses, write a summary and give a transfer recommendation, volume 100 words, answer in German’,” Naoum explained. “Depending on your preference, you can have the result presented as a flowing text or as a management summary.”

Co-Innovation Demonstrates Strength of Generative AI

In collaboration with Hertha BSC, a prototype was first created for the AI-based automated summary and evaluation of scouting reports in 51ˇçÁ÷Sports One. This prototype was also presented to FC Bayern’s scouting department in order to obtain an initial opinion.

“We were impressed by the high quality of the results achieved automatically in 51ˇçÁ÷Sports One using generative AI,” commented Markus Pilawa, head of Scouting at FC Bayern. “We expect huge time saving for us and, especially in the hectic transfer period, this can be another advantage for us.”

Timon Pauls, head of Squad Planning & Scouting at Hertha BSC, added: “This co-innovation project has very clearly demonstrated the actual strengths of generative artificial intelligence. The player comparisons and summaries of scouting reports that can now be created ad-hoc will be very valuable for our squad planning. “

In the near future, 51ˇçÁ÷plans to also use AI technology to enrich the results of scouting reports with information from other sources, including data about matches from external data providers. Integrating AI capabilities into other components of 51ˇçÁ÷Sports One, including performance diagnostics, training management, and match analysis, is also planned.

51ˇçÁ÷Sports One with AI-powered scouting reporting is planned to be made available to customers worldwide in the second quarter of 2024.

Top image via FC Bayern Munich

At the moment, we identify ourselves online in one of two ways.

Typically, we sign into an online service – a Web site or app – using an e-mail address or username and password, and in doing so share some of our personal information. With this method, whenever we switch to another service we have to repeat the log-in process with a different password. This leaves fragments of our data behind on each service we use and forces us to create and remember a different password for each one, which is annoying but essential for security reasons.

The more convenient option for initial log-ins is to use a “social log-in,” such as your Facebook ID, which allows you to use the same username and password to access a variety of different services. With this one “federated identity,” you can complete your initial log-in to a participating app or service by simply selecting “Sign in with….”

The downside of this convenience is that your personal data – and that of millions of other users – is controlled by a single company, creating honeypots of data that hackers have often successfully targeted in the past. There are many examples of sensitive information being stolen, including address data, medical data, credit card details, and more. Aside from not being ideal from a privacy perspective, most people would probably not feel comfortable using a social log-in to access a sensitive service like their bank account.

But there is a third option. Self-sovereign identity (SSI) – also known as decentralized or portable identity – allows users to identify themselves on the Web using credentials stored in a digital wallet on their smartphone. It offers the same convenience as a social log-in, but the user is in full control of the data.

“This technology is not owned by a company,” says Mehran Shakeri, development team lead at . “It’s the first completely open standard for digital identity on the Web, and it gives individuals maximum control of their data when deployed with a proper registry.”

User-Friendly ID Technology – For Businesses Too

Companies and organizations can also use SSI technology. After all, they also have an identity – usually in the form of a public entry in a commercial register. For example, when logging into a business network, a supplier must share a range of data, including its tax number, IBAN, and postal address.

Currently, this data cannot be automatically verified. Entities created in internal systems must be verified using a relatively complex and costly third-party service. Records can be inconsistent and difficult to keep up-to-date. Data is often transferred from one system to another without being automatically verified.

This major issue can be solved if a company has a self-sovereign identity. Its digital wallet then serves as a single, vetted source of truth and there is no need for an external third party to verify its credentials.

This opportunity for a “golden record” of master data extends beyond company boundaries. “At 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center locations, we have projects in progress with DATEV, the Dutch government, and a host of other customers to validate use cases with SSI,” says Alexander Schaefer, head of 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center California. “We see tremendous potential in integrating the SSI standard into 51ˇçÁ÷software.”

This technology would eliminate many of the identification processes currently in use, some of which are highly complex. Anyone who has opened an account with an online bank knows just how many steps it takes to prove your identity. With SSI, all users have to do is scan a QR code with their smartphone to share the relevant, verified credentials stored in their digital wallet. This digital wallet can be on their phone or laptop, for example, as a browser plug-in. The wallet is secured by common authentication mechanisms such as FaceID or TouchID, which have proven to be very secure.

Trusted Authorities Can Issue Credentials

For SSI to work, individuals need a digital wallet containing credentials that have been issued by a trusted third party – such as their driver’s license, MBA certificate, or tax ID. An empty wallet is useless. Trusted authorities that hold this type of data can issue the relevant credentials, which is why it is so essential that these entities adopt SSI.

Among the many companies that can issue these credentials, German IT service provider was one of the first to embrace the concept. “Together with DATEV, we have demonstrated how self-sovereign identity enables seamless business processes across ecosystems. Transactions from all parties are digitally notarized and tied to their cryptographically verifiable credentials,” says Schaefer. With decentralized identity, master data of organizations becomes trustworthy, which can ensure that companies communicate with verified and trusted partners in the ecosystem.

Before we can all be issued with these credentials, however, SSI technology needs to be widely adopted. Shakeri is confident that mass adoption will come. “There is hardly an industry that would not benefit from SSI,” he says.

SSI as a Driver of Transparency on Sustainable Business

To enable apps to use SSI for business-to-business communication, 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center Network has developed a multi-tenant service built on (51ˇçÁ÷BTP) called Decentralized Identity Management.ĚýWith this service, customers can issue and manage verifiable credentials – and verify the credentials themselves – creating the foundation for a decentralized business network where multiple parties can collaborate and share data.

Shakeri’s team is currently working on a use case for sharing ESG (environmental, social, and governance) certificates. “These certificates certify that a supplier operates sustainably, does not use child labor, does not exploit its suppliers, and so on,” he says.

At present, it can be time-consuming to achieve transparency in the supply chain, particularly in terms of how well individual suppliers focus on sustainability in their businesses. With SSI technology, it will be possible to check whether suppliers operate sustainably by requesting their ESG certificates from their digital wallet before deciding whether to work with them.

SSI could even make it possible to trace the origins of a product’s individual components across supply chain parties that work with different solutions – theoretically all the way back to the raw materials. While there is still work to be done to bring the full vision of SSI to life, customers can already benefit from the technology today in one of the many use cases that are likely to be significantly impacted by this technology. This can include supplier onboarding, master data management, and supply chain collaboration in the areas of sustainability and human rights.

Meet the 2023 finalists in the Products and Technology category.

capGPT – Create Business Apps with Generative AI

A mixture of fright and thrill rippled through the tech community when AI chatbot ChatGPT entered the stage in December 2022, setting new standards for generative AI. In Walldorf, Germany, 51ˇçÁ÷software architect David Kunz immediately wondered whether ChatGPT’s large language model could be applied not only to answering questions about everything and anything, but also to writing code for apps.

“To build 51ˇçÁ÷extensions running on 51ˇçÁ÷Business Technology Platform (51ˇçÁ÷BTP) – even if it’s just to build a prototype – requires a lot of deep knowledge, including learning programming languages,” Kunz explains. “Even for experienced developers, it can take up to a week to complete a prototype.”

Still, his suggestion of having a large language model like ChatGPT generate apps was met with skepticism.

“‘That’s too ambitious,’ was what everyone thought at the time,” Kunz remembers. “To be honest, this feedback was justified. I was not at all sure it was going to work. But I knew the general direction steps had to be taken in.”

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Breakthrough on a Friday night

The idea never left him. One Friday evening in spring 2023, Kunz sat down and started to work through the steps he had outlined in his proposal earlier.

At half past midnight, he sent out a video of the successfully completed process to his colleagues. From there capGPT made its way – in a refined form able to generate not only backend applications, but also user interfaces – to CTO and Executive Board Member of 51ˇçÁ÷SE Juergen Mueller’s 51ˇçÁ÷Sapphire keynote. 

“The support I received was amazing,” says Kunz, who now divides his time between capGPT and his role as an architect with the CAP team. capGPT has been adopted by many 51ˇçÁ÷developers for their own generative AI projects. 

capGPT allows users to write down in natural language what their app prototype should be able to do, receive all the code – which previously had to be written by hand – in as little as 30 seconds, and access the prototype to test it. This not only saves experienced developers an amazing amount of time, but also enables non-developers to create prototypes of the apps they need.

“From experienced developers spending a week to build a prototype to anyone spending 30 seconds – that’s what capGPT does,” Kunz says. “And by just looking at the code, it’s impossible to tell whether it was written by a human or by the machine.”

CAP – The 51ˇçÁ÷Cloud Application Programming Model

When 51ˇçÁ÷Cloud Platform became available, there was a hot debate going in the 51ˇçÁ÷developer community on how to best build applications on top of it.

Developers could choose from a huge number of technologies, but there was a general lack of guidance. Also, integration with the platform services required a relatively high effort.

Ole Lilienthal, senior development manager for 51ˇçÁ÷Cloud Application Programming, says: “We realized that, regardless of the business problem their app was supposed to solve, each developer and every development team was facing similar efforts when integrating with all the existing cloud services the platform offered.”

With the 51ˇçÁ÷Cloud Application Programming (CAP) Model, Lilienthal and his team hit the bull’s-eye.

Started in 2018, the project was aiming for a programming model that could guide developers when building apps on 51ˇçÁ÷Cloud Platform, which has evolved into what is now 51ˇçÁ÷Business Technology Platform.

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Safeguarding Customers’ Investments and Increasing Speed and Productivity

“With CAP as a development framework, we wanted to automatically solve about 80% of the problems every backend developer is facing,” Lilienthal explains.

Typically, those problems include multi-tenancy, expandability, or business features such as localization and translatability. But thanks to CAP’s domain-driven approach, it is no longer necessary to always change the coding in each of those cases. As for special use cases that CAP doesn’t cover, the coding can be easily added to build in this functionality.

“This has been a huge improvement to the productivity and speed of developers and also to the alignments between development teams,”  Lilienthal says.

To help safeguard customers’ investments, CAP offers the possibility to interchange components, such as runtime or the database, without changing the actual implementation.

As they saw the advantages CAP offers, internal 51ˇçÁ÷developers started to migrate from their existing stacks. External feedback has been particularly good, leading over time to the forming of a wide external community around CAP.

The team – located mostly in Walldorf and Bangalore, India – took a couple of already existing innovations and created something new, and then brought it to the next level. In a world of rapidly changing cloud technologies, the 51ˇçÁ÷Cloud Application Programming Model can accelerate development and safeguard customers’ investments.

51ˇçÁ÷Ariba Category Management

Traditionally, procurement challenges involve minimizing costs, sustaining quality, and ensuring on-time delivery. But in an increasingly volatile world, procurement goals have evolved to be more complex, as they now involve running in a sustainable and socially responsible manner.

“Category management is one of the leading practices that help procurement drive efficiencies,” says Lincy T. Elizabeth, product manager for 51ˇçÁ÷Ariba Category Management, 51ˇçÁ÷Labs Bangalore. “It allows organizations to categorize spend, focus on consolidation, and enhance efficiencies with a holistic view of all the requirements in terms of goods and services that are needed across multiple departments, regions, and geographical locations.”

“However, what has always kept category management from reaching its full potential is that it is a manual and data-intensive exercise that results in isolated offline strategy documents disconnected from execution systems,” Elizabeth says. “It seldom translates to successful execution and strategy compliance.”

This is where the 51ˇçÁ÷Ariba Category Management solution comes in: it can digitize this entire process.

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Positioning Procurement as an Enabler of Digital Transformation

Data analysis is key in this process, so instead of having to drill down to find information, 51ˇçÁ÷Ariba Category Management can serve up data intelligently. It features a guided process leveraging analytics, generative AI, and modular tools – helping to make an otherwise complex, time-consuming process into a streamlined one.

Customers have acknowledged the need for digitized category management and the value that this solution brings them.

“This is very evident in the solution’s inclusion in renewal discussions and the subsequent wins,” Elizabeth says. “In fact, most customers we speak to see category management as one of the top drivers for digital transformation in their procurement organization.”

51ˇçÁ÷Ariba Category Management can empower procurement to be a catalyst in an organization’s journey towards becoming an agile, intelligent, and sustainable enterprise.

“We saw the untapped opportunities in the manual process of category management and sprang into action,” Elizabeth explains. “Our team underscores ł§´ĄąĘ’s innovative spirit as we brought this innovation to our customers in just under two years. We’re immensely proud to see the value it can provide to customers in the longer run.”

Top photo courtesy of 51ˇçÁ÷employee Hitesh Deka

At least not in analog form.

“Many artists were left wondering how to sell and market their work,” says Alexandra Cozgarea, art curator at SAP. “That’s why we saw a great deal of hype around digital art at the time – and especially about artworks in the form of NFTs.”

ł§´ĄąĘ’s latest exhibition entitled “The Poetry of Blockchain” is the first it has staged exclusively for NFT art and features 47 works by 18 artists. But what exactly are NFTs?

NFT stands for non-fungible token. This is a unique, non-replaceable, and non-interchangeable digital object stored on a blockchain that acts as a certificate of authenticity and ownership of a physical or digital asset, such as a picture. It takes the form of a digital identifier composed of a unique string of characters.

NFTs in the Art Market

If you want to buy NFT artworks, you need cryptocurrency and a crypto wallet – installed on your smartphone or other device – to store them in. You’re then ready to visit one of the many open platforms on the Internet, known as “NFT marketplaces,” where people can browse NFTs or search for works by specific artists. One of these marketplaces is .

“These platforms work a little like galleries,” says Cozgarea. “Artists wishing to offer their work for sale there upload their pieces to the underlying blockchain to create NFTs in a process known as ‘minting.’”

These tokens can represent a single, unique asset or multiple copies of the same asset, in which case the image displayed on the platform will be identical but the digital identifier will be slightly different for each copy. This means an artist can mint an entire series of artworks and put them up for sale on an NFT marketplace.

“Many of the works on these marketplaces are created digitally and added straight to the blockchain as NFTs,” explains Cozgarea. “But it’s also possible to create NFTs from analog artworks such as oil paintings or sculptures. You would do this by photographing the artwork and uploading it as a JPG file.”

When you have selected an artwork you wish to buy, you place a bid for it on the platform or, if a fixed price is specified, make an offer. If the artist accepts your offer, the NFT is released and payment is made using the cryptocurrency deposited in your wallet. You then receive a link containing the address of the NFT and can transfer it to your wallet.

The acquired piece can be displayed at any time – as a JPG, video, or other file – by clicking a link or scanning a QR code. But the token itself stays in the buyer’s wallet.

“The artists exhibiting their NFTs at 51ˇçÁ÷in Walldorf copied their artworks onto a USB stick as files,” says Cozgarea. “The original artwork remains securely on the blockchain, so if the stick is lost or stolen, it makes no difference to ownership.”

“Many of my works are the result of several years of research, during which I investigate and change gaps in history, the background of coding, and the opaque influence of databases on the development of algorithms and the resulting creation of images. At every stage, I ask, ‘Who are we and what shapes our identity? What makes a person? What traces do we leave behind in the places where we live?’”

Johanna Reich, exhibiting artist

51ˇçÁ÷Working on an NFT Management Solution

NFTs are having an impact way beyond the art market. The business world has recognized their potential, too. At SAP, a team spread across three continents is working on an NFT management solution that focuses on customer engagement and loyalty programs.

To showcase the possibilities of the solution, visitors at the opening night of the 51ˇçÁ÷art exhibition were invited to access NFTs created by SAP. Sven Haiges, a software developer at 51ˇçÁ÷Labs Munich, explains the background: “We are working with MetaBrewSociety, based in Bavaria, Germany. It’s a startup that has financed itself partly by selling NFTs. By scanning a QR code on one of the beer cans we ordered with them, customers and visitors at 51ˇçÁ÷events can now claim one of our own NFTs, created with our NFT management solution.”

“At the moment, only about 5% to 10% of the population understands crypto and NFTs, and they tend, of course, to be younger people,” says Haiges. But he fully expects the level of interest and engagement to grow.

Cozgarea sees NFTs as a response to digitalization and what she describes as its promise of openness, exchange, and – to some extent – democratization. “NFTs present a concept of ownership for the digital age. People are looking for something exclusive,” she says.

There are 47 works of art by 18 different artists on display at the 51ˇçÁ÷training center in Walldorf – all on monitors. The organizers decided against streaming the works live from the blockchain because that would have been very energy intensive.

“This exhibition contains exclusively digitally produced works,” says Cozgarea. “But it also includes works that are based on traditional art forms and play with the possibilities of digitalization, such as augmented reality.”

Reinhard Schmid, one of the exhibiting artists, says: “I created my first cryptoart in 2018 and have featured in many publications and exhibitions since then. ‘The Poetry of Blockchain’ is a massive highlight for me. The fact that a global player like 51ˇçÁ÷is exhibiting NFTs is an important milestone for both me as an artist and for the entire Web3 community.”

The exhibition runs until February 23, 2024. .

Top image courtesy of 51ˇçÁ÷employee Juelma Guerreiro.

“We want to enable companies to share business insights fast and in a fresh and immediate way,” says Michael Wittmann, senior developer at , on the rationale behind the data storytelling solution he and his team are working on.

The purpose is to provide business users with short, animated “video data stories” about the key activities relevant to their individual roles.

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Eye-catching videos that are 10 to 15 seconds long will mean that users won’t have to refer to dashboards or wade through reports as they do today. Built-in templates for the most common business processes will enable anyone to create their own video data story and link it to their data sources. No design or programming experience is required.

The solution’s video data stories apply the same user experience principles as other content-sharing platforms. New videos are displayed in chronological order, and viewers can navigate easily through the different parts of a story or skip entire stories that are not relevant to them.

By incorporating animated visualizations, users can show changes in data over a specific time period dynamically. If more details are needed, they can point the audience to the right people and include links to the data sources and applications.

“One potential use case is sales reporting,” says Wittmann. Here, the solution has a predefined template that can be used to generate a personalized story for each sales accountant, showing how sales figures have changed over a defined period and including highlights and historical comparisons.

“Other information, such as headcount growth, quarterly earnings, and fact sheets for communications and sales, can also be shared through video storytelling in a far more compelling way than in PDF files or PowerPoint,” continues Wittmann.

The same applies to many of the e-mail notifications that land in our inboxes. Though not every notification needs a video data story. “It’s about finding the right balance,” notes Wittmann. “Instead of separate alerts for each event, you might receive a daily summary of the most important updates on a particular topic.”

In principle, video data stories can translate their insights into animated videos like those on Instagram. Users can decide for which events and applications video data stories are generated. “For some scenarios, daily or weekly updates are best. For others, it might be when a particular threshold is exceeded or when other kinds of exceptions occur,” explains Wittmann.

It is hard to imagine any department that would not benefit from this type of storytelling. Yet what might at first seem highly generic is in fact very individual.

“Right now, business software is clearly moving toward hyper-personalization,” says Wittmann. “That is why we want our video data stories to be used not just to share generic content but also to be tailorable to the individual viewer.”

Examples of personalized content could be team members’ birthdays and reports indicating how many of a manager’s direct reports have completed the latest compliance training.

“At the moment, we’re still defining the product,” says Wittmann. “We are working on a first version of an service that can generate videos from different applications. We have also teamed up with colleagues from to create an initial integration function for exporting video data stories directly from an analytics story.”

At SAP, Wittmann and his team have been working mainly with the Customer, Competitive, and Market Insights (CMI) team. In an early prototype, stories were generated weekly for a specific solution area to see which topics were seeing the most customer demand.

In another pilot project, the team is testing personalized video data stories for the sales organization. Here, account executives receive stories with updates on the specific customers they serve.

“We are really keen to trial the solution with customers to learn which use cases they might have, how they want to tell those stories, and where we can best integrate this capability,” says Wittmann.

To find out more about video data stories, get in touch with us at icn@sap.com.

Jeanette Rohr is a brand journalist at SAP.

Three teams were selected for outstanding and innovative projects in the categories Go-To-Market, Operational Excellence, and Products and Technology.

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In 2022, 132 nominations involved almost 1,000 employees from 42 countries. Nine teams consisting of 83 employees from around the world made it to the final round. The three winning teams chose the charity organizations ˛š˛ÔťĺĚý, to which 51ˇçÁ÷will donate €10,000 on behalf of each team – €30,000 total.

Go-to-Market Winner

ĚýMidmarket Business Always-On Platform of EMEA North

To simplify and humanize how 51ˇçÁ÷connects with its prospects and customers, the Midmarket Business Always-On Platform of EMEA North puts 51ˇçÁ÷customers in the driving seat when it comes to discovering the right solutions for their business requirements.

The platform creates an immersive and interactive way to tell the 51ˇçÁ÷story by simulating a conference center with floors, elevators, and meeting rooms. Users can play demos, watch videos, partake in visit summits and exhibitions, ask questions, book meetings, and receive relevant follow-up, all thanks to the platform’s built-in analytics. The team used SAP-owned technology as well as their own developments.

Launched in 2020, the platform has generated over €80 million in pipeline, achieved 60% net-new named customers, and led to the signing of more than 150 deals.

“I’m really proud of the job the team members around the globe have done and how this award recognizes the impact of our digital platform,” said Sandrine Pons, RVP Solution Sales & Innovation EMEA North, on winning the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award.

Amaury Martin, region solution sales leader, added: “To come up with an idea and to watch it come true and have such an impact on our customers’ value journey – that was really impressive.”

To bring the platform to the next level, the team plans to integrate it with other solutions. As Olivier Demeusy, regional CoE BTP senior director, described: “It started out as a regional platform, but we know this can cater to a wider audience within the company and with our customers and partners.”

Innovation is also a matter of humanity. As Sophie Brun, chief executive assistant, said: “The platform reflects in many ways the amazing diversity among our team, our partners, and our customers.”

Operational Excellence Winner

Harmonized Adoption and Usage Management with 51ˇçÁ÷Usage Analyzer

How many customers have adopted an 51ˇçÁ÷solution? How many of them are using each functionality? Answers to these and many other questions around adoption, consumption, and usage can be found easily in 51ˇçÁ÷Usage Analyzer.

With the Harmonized Adoption and Usage Management (HAUM) project, a core team of 25 and many contributors from Product Engineering and Customer Success established a standardized framework for scalable and sustainable functional usage measurement, creating a holistic view of customers’ usage behaviors. 51ˇçÁ÷Usage Analyzer helps provide transparency on adoption and usage insights on ł§´ĄąĘ’s cloud customer base, across all public cloud products and aligned with business practices. Harmonized usage insights can be leveraged to positively impact renewals, product investments, and reduce manual efforts.

“Persistence and teamwork are the key elements. You need to stick to your goal, and you cannot afford to work in a silo,” Martin Günther, HAUM project co-lead, summed up as his most important learning. Natascha Plücken, HAUM project co-lead, added, “You need people who believe in something where others don’t and really go through it without giving up. Kudos to all teams who contributed across different functions and business units at SAP.”

As of today, 51ˇçÁ÷Usage Analyzer has been successfully rolled out to customer-facing roles, solutions, and product and portfolio management teams. More than 75% of the enabled group is regularly working with it.

“When you have a vision and you work on that vision for years, then to realize that this vision gets honored by the company and all the people who have been involved in this – it’s a super good feeling,” Thorsten Broszies, former project co-lead, commented on winning the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award.

And this vision is not accomplished yet, Iva Stojčić, transformation lead, 51ˇçÁ÷Corporate Transformation Organization, concluded: “We will take adoption to the next level by providing proactive recommendations, KPI benchmarking, and mapping usage with end-to-end business processes. Additionally, we will provide usage insights to our customers and partners.”

Products and Technology Winner

51ˇçÁ÷Intelligent Agriculture

In the agribusiness and along the food value chain, there are increasing concerns about sustainability, how to make regenerative agriculture profitable, and how to remain competitive.

51ˇçÁ÷Intelligent Agriculture helps make next-generation, data-driven farming processes and services a reality. For the first time, 51ˇçÁ÷customers can now rely on an enterprise-grade, native cloud solution to help capture and manage farm data at a granular level and optimize farm planning and operations based on their valuable experience. Combined with artificial intelligence (AI) and data science models, agribusinesses now have the potential to produce more while reducing water, fertilizer, and pesticides. 51ˇçÁ÷Intelligent Agriculture is also a front-runner in multiple areas, such as feature-driven development supported by deploy with confidence, which helps release new features instantly, and the new Industry Cloud Enterprise Agreement.

“It’s overwhelming to win this award against such tough competition,” Cedrik Kern, solution owner, 51ˇçÁ÷Intelligent Agriculture, commented. “The innovative spirit around the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award is incredible and to be chosen is just pure joy.”

“This is a testament to us that we are doing the right thing,” Florian Waidner, product manager, 51ˇçÁ÷Intelligent Agriculture, added. “51ˇçÁ÷Intelligent Agriculture is a young product, just a year in the market and in its early adopter phase. As a next step, we want to further scale with customers and a vast partner ecosystem that we are building up.”

Also, a showcase for 51ˇçÁ÷Sapphire Orlando is in the making. “With vegan ice cream as the example, we will show the end-to-end food value chain starting on the farm gate over to sourcing from farmers, manufacturing, and delivering to the consumer,” Anja Strothkämper, global vice president, Industry Business Unit Agribusiness & Commodity Management, explained.

Technology has become such an integral part of our lives that we are often lost without it. When was the last time you looked for the best route on a map and didn’t turn on your navigation device?

But sometimes technology can also drive us nuts. Especially when it doesn’t understand what we want from it.

“What is needed is not a new way for people to look at technology, but no less than a paradigm shift towards a mutual understanding. Human ingenuity and machine intelligence in empathic symbiosis,” says Wezowski.

Our Disenchantment with Technology

Although technology has come a long way – from the discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel, to reading glasses and medicines – we’ve also learned that it’s a double-edged sword.

While technology is more present than ever in our work and daily lives, a certain disenchantment with technological progress has set in. Our generally hopeful attitude towards benign technological progress has been challenged by the knowledge that technology can sometimes create new problems, like privacy issues, the spread of misinformation, and cybercrime.

In fact, the speed at which technology is evolving is sometimes perceived as a development that might eventually leave humans behind. People worry whether they might lose their jobs to automation or if insurance companies will deny them as customers due to certain information included among all the data that is being collected about us. And there is the looming fear that machines will become smarter than the people who build and use them.

“There are, in fact, many years ahead of us during which the most relevant intelligence in the room will be the human ingenuity and creativity brain,” Wezowski reassures. “But what does it mean for us, if many people actually don’t like the way things function today? Systems that are supposed to make my life easier still ask me to fill out forms and type in my login credentials by hand.”

Let’s Focus on (Digital) Me

“By and large, we are still hunters and gatherers in the workplace,” Wezowski says. “There are so many things we need to actively look for every day! Phone numbers, files, customer numbers.”

Augmenting humans with machine knowledge enables them to remember all these mundane details at the speed of light. Machines are simply better at handling large amounts of data. But there are also things that machines cannot grasp that are self-explanatory to humans.

“Making the machine understand why you get up every morning and go to work is not easy,” Wezowski says. “How can I explain my ambition and my purpose to a machine? How can the corporate vision of my company and our heartfelt purpose be translated into machine understanding?”

Therefore, it is not enough to optimize technology – to make machines run faster and more reliably, to feed them with more and more data and develop better algorithms. Technology must optimize people’s lives: their daily work, habits, and interests. The things that truly matter to us humans. Getting to know the human that the software is being built for is only the first step.

“Work is already very hard today. All sorts of help is required for us to function throughout the day and reflect where we are at,” Wezowski says. “With the amount of information that we produce and need to internalize and understand to make decisions, we reach our cognitive limits even with eight hours of sleep and daily meditation.”

When , we can focus on strategic and visionary thinking instead and let the system take care of those mundane details like providing the necessary files for the next meeting or customer numbers.

Composed Applications Depending on Your Needs and Wishes

Applications will have to understand more context to avoid becoming just another layer of complication.

“We are the ones who can make applications more context-aware by sharing knowledge about ourselves – safely, securely, privately,” Wezowski stresses. “This is what the DigitalMe project is about: the contextual understanding of the individual, not the generalization of individual problems using personas.”

A human-centric approach means creating technology that can differ from situation to situation, responding to our needs and desires. It can learn from our behavior and compose itself accordingly. Each individual encompasses many roles: scientist, coach, mother, lacrosse player, and so on. For one composed software to support you with picking up your daughter from school in the afternoon and with budget negotiations for your next project later that day, applications need to be anchored in the individual.

Depending on the role you find yourself in a certain situation, the software you need at that precise moment must compose itself differently each time. By allowing the software to get to know the individual and thus helping to shape the software, it will eventually be a reflection of him or her, Wezowski believes. “We’ll understand each other without having to make an effort. The better the application knows us, the more respectful it can be towards our pains, needs, and preferences. It can even point out your own habits and preferences to you – at your request.”

“So, augmentation will go both ways. It will be more than a mere division of labor into machine-fit and human-fit tasks,” Wezowski says. For people to appreciate this additional help it must be offered in a reflective, unobtrusive, and nudging way.

“Imagine it more like a flow of thoughts or a discussion that you are a part of,” he says.

The Desktop of the Future

“Only what you need, only when you need it,” Wezowski sums things up. “Knowledge assembled in front of you and revealed in your situational context.”

Instead of the human asking, “How does this software run, where do I have to insert my user ID and click?” the software will act on the question, “How does this human behave?” Not people in general, not a generic persona, but Kate, Ling, Samira, or João – the individual in a given context in real time.

“We expect no less than a cultural shift from this compassionate software,” Wezowski says.

Here, meet the finalists in the Operational Excellence category.

The Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award is the highest
employee recognition at SAP, awarded annually by the CEO
to an individual or a team.

Finalist: Harmonized Adoption and Usage Management with Usage Analyzer

How many customers have adopted an 51ˇçÁ÷solution? How many of them are using which functionality? Answers to those and many other questions around adoption, consumption, and usage can now be found more easily.

In the past, harmonized usage data and KPIs were not available. Insights were only available in silos and high manual efforts were required to create a holistic view of customers’ usage behaviors, which resulted in missed opportunities to generate additional revenue and value.

Unwilling to accept the status quo, a cross-functional team initiated the Harmonized Adoption and Usage Management project. Together they established a standardized framework for scalable and sustainable functional usage measurement. This included the design, rollout, and execution of usage metering standards, along with central data collection leveraging state-of-the-art technologies. Ultimately, Usage Analyzer was developed, providing a 360-degree view of cloud customers and public cloud products.

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Video by David Aguirre

ĚýAs of today, the Usage Analyzer has been successfully rolled out to select customer-facing roles, solutions, and product and portfolio management teams. More than 75% of the enabled group are regularly working with it.

Usage Analyzer provides intuitive, role-based, and concise views into the way customers adopt and consume 51ˇçÁ÷products. The Customer Success organization leverages these usage insights to prepare customer meetings, drive adoption campaigns, and perform intelligent goal planning based on usage patterns. Product and solution management teams make use of this data to prioritize their investments and to monitor product adoption and release success.

What’s next on the team’s list? They continue to engage with business experts to expand the integration of usage insights into day-to-day activities and operations. The continuous growth of harmonized telemetric data points across cloud solutions from 51ˇçÁ÷will remain a key focus. Furthermore, the Harmonized Adoption and Usage Management team is evaluating possibilities to display usage information and KPIs along end-to-end processes to illustrate and highlight the value that 51ˇçÁ÷software provides to customers.

Finalist Fast Facts

• Submission Title: Harmonized Adoption and Usage Management with Usage Analyzer
• Team:ĚýMartin Guenther, Natascha Pluecken, Carmen Fuhlbruegge, Martin Layer, Rainer Hillebrand, Denise Schmidt, Raquel Torrents, Iva Stojcic, Richard Grandpierre,ĚýThorsten Broszies
• Number of employees:Ěý10
• Achievement:ĚýThe Usage AnalyzerĚýprovides transparency on harmonized adoption and usage insights on SAP’s cloud customer base, across all cloud products and all aligned with business practices
• Impact: Harmonized usage insights positively impact renewals and product investments, and reduce manual efforts.

Finalist: Multicloud Hyperscaler Event Monitor

Prior to the development of Multicloud Hyperscaler Event Monitor, responses to public cloud outages were reactive.

“A lack of real-time, relevant data made collaboration across incident management and problem management teams a challenge,” explains David Cruickshank, vice president of Multicloud DevOps at SAP, GCS Multicloud.

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Video by Esteban Villate

But Multicloud Hyperscaler Event Monitor delivers a continuous feed of events for all hyperscaler services consumed by 51ˇçÁ÷cloud accounts and users.

By pulling health event data from hyperscaler service health APIs, the team provided an aggregated view of public cloud outages across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. The hyperscaler data is enriched with metadata from multicloud internal proprietary systems, bringing additional context — including the name of the line of business responsible for the cloud account and the cloud accounts that are hosting production systems.

As a next step, the team correlated the data from support tickets raised by 51ˇçÁ÷lines of business with hyperscalers in order to accelerate confirmation of impact and lower mean time to resolve.

Process for Centralized Public Cloud Services

The team went on to automate identification of service-level agreement (SLA) violations by monitoring SLA performance for the hyperscalers’ platform services. The SLA violations are published on a dedicated dashboard and SLA credit requests are raised automatically with hyperscalers.

Additionally, a risk report highlighted that 51ˇçÁ÷historically had not initiated claims for SLA credit from public cloud provider partners after outages impacting 51ˇçÁ÷services. The team was tasked with mitigating this and implementing a centralized SLA credit claiming service.

“As more SAP-critical platforms, applications, and data come to rely upon the infrastructure and services of public cloud providers, SLAs represent a commitment to customers to meet fundamental operating requirements,” Cruickshank shares. “The Multicloud Hyperscaler Event Monitor provides an automated, accurate, and centralized service, filing SLA claims on behalf of lines of business when hyperscaler commitments fail.”

The enriched data brings early awareness and visibility to teams that need it during public cloud provider outages. This is especially relevant for mission-critical services like the medical industry and government agencies.

Finalist Fast Facts

• Submission Title: Multicloud Hyperscaler Event Monitor
• Team:ĚýDavid Cruickshank, Richard Bolan, Gerry McPhillips, Darren Chambers, Eimear O’Hare, Joey Lee, Abhishek Yadav, Xander O’Dempsey, Chandradhar Alla
• Number of employees: Nine
• Achievement: First-ever central aggregated view of service health events and support tickets across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. The centralized monitoring of hyperscaler platform services has resulted in identification of hyperscaler SLA violations through automation and successful SLA credit claims for lines of business.
• Impact: Enhanced visibility and awareness during hyperscaler service outages for 51ˇçÁ÷lines of business, central incident response teams, and other key stakeholders, contributing to reduction in mean time to resolve for incidents and increased operational excellence through early awareness of incidents. Successful identification and raising of SLA credit claims, helping ensure that 51ˇçÁ÷can run more efficiently in the public cloud.

Finalist: CMI Crystal Ball

What if every single 51ˇçÁ÷seller and marketer had a crystal ball that gave them unique, data-driven insights into their customers’ in-moment buying interests and strategic needs?

The majority of customers’ buying journey has now become digital, a trend that has only accelerated post-COVID-19. Customers are more empowered than ever to explore, learn, and find solutions — all online. CMI Crystal Ball was built with one simple goal: to listen to customers’ needs within their digital journey to serve them in compelling and predictive ways.

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Built by passionate data enthusiasts from across the CMI and IES Infused Intelligence teams, the CMI Crystal Ball platform injects billions of external digital signals from various data vendors. A common taxonomy model allows that data to seamlessly “talk” to each other. Finally, sophisticated patent-pending scoring algorithms driven by artificial intelligence (AI) are applied to predict exactly which companies 51ˇçÁ÷should prioritize by use case.

Empowering Every Employee with Data-Driven Customer Insights

Starting with 50 pilot users in North America, the excitement has grown to well over 7,000 active users worldwide. And the underlying data graph has grown just as fast, now covering all 1.3 million accounts in CRM plus 10 million more outside CRM.

This had also led to a wave of grassroots ingenuity from customer teams all over the world that are applying CMI Crystal Ball in an ever-expanding list of use cases, including prospecting, cross and upsell, net-new logos, competitive attack, digital activation, events, renewals, and churn.

“As an AI-driven platform designed to listen to customers’ needs, CMI Crystal Ball is truly unique in the market,” says Paul Logue, head of 51ˇçÁ÷CMI. “Enabling 51ˇçÁ÷with data-driven insights on our customers — well before our competition — can set us apart in our ability to serve our customers’ most precise needs.”

Finalist Fast Facts

• Submission Title: CMI Crystal Ball
• Team: Paul Logue, Franklin Herbas, William Doyle, Roja Saidi, Shreerang Javadekar, Susanne Beckers, Christoph Kommer, Damien Garnier, Behroz Sikander, Wei-Yi Chen
• Number of employees:Ěý10
• Achievement: The team’s achievements are recognized through broad adoption, with 7,000 users per quarter, as well as significant business impact.Ěý Externally, CMI Crystal Ball has received several industry awards from leading sales and marketing organizations (IDG, ITSMA, CIO 100) and has two pending patents (SuperScore, Topic Networks).
• Impact: Crystal Ball supercharges account engagement as measured by website clicks and registrations, a 6x to 39x increase, and major event registrations, 546 new to 51ˇçÁ÷TechEd 2022. In progressing and closing business, accounts with high predictive scores have 2.9x larger deal values and $210 million revenue influenced in Outreach.io.

An NFT (non-fungible token) drop offering 15 pieces of digital art designed specifically for the event and the anniversary will be made available via digital codes during the sessions.

“Those registered for 51ˇçÁ÷TechEd may participate in the NFT drop during the live event and collect 15 NFTs,” , head of 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center Potsdam, explains. His team developed and implemented the NFT drop.

Registered 51ˇçÁ÷TechEd participants will receive access to a Web app, including a collector’s album for NFTs. “The album appears as a timeline of ł§´ĄąĘ’s history,” Krug says. “There’s a lot of fascinating stuff to learn about our company while being introduced to NFT technologies in a gamified way.”

In live keynotes, online or onsite workshops, virtual lectures, and breakout sessions, attentive participants will spot QR codes and short links in announcement windows that can be used to claim NFTs. After the event, participants can transfer the NFTs to their private digital wallets.

“And for those who discovered and collected all 15 NFTs, an additional surprise is waiting,” Krug says.

But what will participants actually be collecting?

What Are NFTs?

NFTs – non-fungible tokens – are digital assets managed by a blockchain network. Usually, they are representations of a digital or physical asset, very often artwork.

“Non-fungible” means the asset is unmistakable and cannot be reproduced. This process of creating the asset on the blockchain is called minting. A smart contract on a public blockchain ensures the unique value of a digital piece of art.

NFTs can be bought and sold online, often with cryptocurrencies. For this purpose, there are specific NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea and Rarible on which thousands of artists and collectors are hosted.

The NFT drop for 51ˇçÁ÷TechEd was initiated by Juergen Mueller,Ěýchief technology officer ˛š˛ÔťĺĚýmember of the Executive Board of 51ˇçÁ÷SE,Ěýwho hadĚýĚýearlier in the year as a fun private project.

“It’ll be interesting to see whether NFTs gain relevance in the enterprise context,” Mueller says. “Already today, digital proof of ownership for digital or physical assets is useful for customer brand engagement with luxury goods such as jewelry or sneakers. On a broader scale, this digital proof of ownership could also be leveraged in the area of supply chain management to provide a single source of truth to all stakeholders.”

Usage scenariosĚýsuch as the latter are still some timeĚýoff. Still, NFTs are being leveraged for various digital and physical assets such as videos, sports highlights, artwork, ˛š˛ÔťĺĚýmusic.

15 Iconic Moments in 51ˇçÁ÷History as Digital Pieces of Art

The collector’s album is a Web application running on a standard Web browser for desktop or mobile.

When participants register for the NFT drop, the album shows placeholders already pointing to the most critical milestones in 51ˇçÁ÷history. The details become visible once the NFT has been collected via a QR code or link.

“In principle, the NFT drop is a technological elevation of the sticker album that most of us still know from childhood,” Krug says. “Duplicates may be swapped, of course.”

The 15 NFTs trace ł§´ĄąĘ’s path from a five-person startup in 1972 to a multinational enterprise with 110,000 employees in 2022. The NFTs from 51ˇçÁ÷TechEd cannot be sold or purchased.

“These NFTs are only available at 51ˇçÁ÷TechEd 2022, exclusively for participants,” Krug stresses. “It is a unique opportunity to win a lasting piece of 51ˇçÁ÷history, captured artistically.”

. To create your own collector’s album and gain a piece of 51ˇçÁ÷heritage, .

“When people are thinking about buying an electric vehicle, they usually start by asking two questions,” says 51ˇçÁ÷E-Mobility Specialist . “The first is, ‘Are there enough charging stations near my home and on my route to work?’ And the second is, ‘How many other EV drivers will I be competing with for charging capacity?’”

We know that the number of EVs on the roads is set to rise. So, being able to optimize charging processes so that energy can be consumed at off-peak times, when it is cheapest, will become increasingly important.

“The infrastructure we have right now is not nearly equal to meeting future demand,” says Wagner. “At the same time, here in Germany, we are wasting 6,500 gigawatt hours of renewable energy every year because we fail to balance energy supply with demand.”

“Customers tend not to think about the impact that charging a large number of electric vehicles all at the same time has on the power grid,” says , managing director of coneva GmbH. “They’re looking for a simple, affordable solution they can implement quickly to manage their charging capacity across multiple locations.”

The integration of 51ˇçÁ÷E-Mobility with coneva’s dynamic load management capabilities has created a smart, hardware-agnostic solution that can help customers charge their e-fleets more efficiently and cut their costs at the same time.

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Optimized EV Charging with coneva and 51ˇçÁ÷E-Mobility

“Our parent company, SMA, has a long history of success in energy management and has always focused very closely on sustainability, winning multiple awards in this field,” says Schneider. For example, at its headquarters in Kassel, Germany, SMA uses some of the electricity it generates through photovoltaic systems mounted on the rooftops of its parking garages to charge its e-fleet.

coneva spun off from SMA in 2018 to focus on e-mobility as distinct from its parent company’s core photovoltaic system business. coneva’s dynamic load management software for EV charging is modular, allowing it to be adapted to the configuration of the building and location in which a charging station will operate. Determining the optimum charging process involves a range of factors, including the number of vehicles to be charged, their order of priority, the time of day charging takes place, and the current price of renewable energy in the power grid.

“Clients who use our dynamic load management system not only save money and energy,” explains Schneider. “They can also control and manage the power they consume from the grid.”

51ˇçÁ÷E-Mobility: The Starting Point for Local Load Management

ł§´ĄąĘ’s own work on e-mobility has been moving in this direction for quite some time. Particularly now that the restrictions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic have eased a little and more people are traveling to the office again, companies are often seeing demand for energy peak shortly after the morning commute.

“We noticed this ourselves at 51ˇçÁ÷Portugal, for example, where employees have embraced electric vehicles in a big way,” says , vice president and chief product manager, 51ˇçÁ÷E-Mobility. “When people began returning to the office and more EVs were being charged, the distribution board in the parking garage was unable to cope with the increased demand. The fuses blew and the vehicles could no longer be charged.”

As a result, 51ˇçÁ÷Portugal has now joined Italy and Austria as one of the first subsidiaries to deploy 51ˇçÁ÷E-Mobility, including ł§´ĄąĘ’s own charging optimization processes. Integrating 51ˇçÁ÷Concur solutions and with 51ˇçÁ÷S/4HANA Cloud as its backbone, 51ˇçÁ÷E-Mobility also supports the reimbursement of employees for the cost of charging their company cars at home – using ł§´ĄąĘ’s own finance processes.

In ł§´ĄąĘ’s integration project with coneva, 51ˇçÁ÷E-Mobility onboarded the charging stations, managed them as a backend process, and handled the charging data, while coneva’s software provided the connection with the local power grid.

“Looking further ahead, 51ˇçÁ÷plans to offer an end-to-end process platform built around 51ˇçÁ÷E-Mobility and other 51ˇçÁ÷solutions to enable public charging as well,” says Scholl. “We are currently integrating the main roaming providers,” he adds. Here, the focus is on automated B2B billing between charge point operators (CPOs) and EV charging network providers. “That’s where most of the manual effort on the provider side still is right now, and it’s also traditionally one of ł§´ĄąĘ’s strengths.”

Competitors offer similar capabilities. These start with the charging points and aim to link them to the underlying business processes. 51ˇçÁ÷took the opposite approach. Scholl explains: “We already have both the process landscape and the required tax and legal expertise in different regions. 51ˇçÁ÷E-Mobility will be a global solution that offers customers much more than the purely CPO solutions that dominate the market today.”

The approach of dovetailing different industry cloud solutions from 51ˇçÁ÷has proven especially beneficial for customers that wish to move to the cloud. “In this particular case, it enables us to deliver added value that goes way beyond meeting a customer’s charging requirements, and it expands our addressable market,” says Scholl.

ł§´ĄąĘ’s partner ecosystem is a major plus point too, he says. Built up over decades, it helps 51ˇçÁ÷refine its products and offerings for customers and continually adapt them to the latest requirements. “Traditionally, 51ˇçÁ÷has always worked with a wide range of different partners – for software, hardware, and services. E-mobility is a field in which this rich diversity has a real impact and is proving highly beneficial for the entire ecosystem.”

“SMA is a long-standing 51ˇçÁ÷customer,” says Jochen Schneider. “And we at coneva see our collaboration with 51ˇçÁ÷as a logical and future-oriented alliance. Going live with our joint solution within just a few months last year was a very impressive achievement.”

The Future

This joint solution also covers scenarios in which private individuals can make their charging stations available to their neighbors and even feed surplus self-generated energy – from photovoltaic systems, for example – into the grid.

“Our vision is to offer SaaS services that will strengthen local energy markets in particular,” says Schneider. “We see that as a basic requirement for accelerating the transition to renewable energy. E-mobility and the vehicle-to-grid concept are both key to making that happen.”

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G), or bidirectional, charging is a crucial field of innovation, and it may not be long before vehicle batteries are used to store energy and release it again later when it is needed for other purposes.

“Combining e-mobility and renewable energy in this way could be a game changer – particularly in remote parts of the world that still rely on supplies of fossil fuels but could use wind and solar energy,” explains Wagner.

Scholl and his team at 51ˇçÁ÷are currently also involved in a research project in which they are working with partners including , Europe’s largest center for innovation and business creation, on a solution scenario that provides insights into the mix of energy used to charge vehicles. “This will enable consumers to charge their vehicles at times of the day when the maximum proportion of renewable energy is available – that is, when they can be sure that the electricity they use comes from a photovoltaic system and not from a coal-fired power station,” says Scholl. “Consumers will demand this level of transparency in the future.”

The phone call came on a Friday night, Schmeichel remembers: “Did I want to go to Japan as HR director? I was given time to decide until Monday.”

At the time, Schmeichel already had a track record of various HR executive roles at SAP. Born in Cologne, Germany, he acquired a PhD in Business Administration and went on to work in corporate finance and as a strategy consultant with a McKinsey spin-off. In 2005, he joined 51ˇçÁ÷where his roles included, among others, head of HR strategy, COO for HR, and HR business partner lead for four 51ˇçÁ÷Executive Board members.

Moving to Tokyo in 2013, Schmeichel encountered a country undergoing fundamental change after the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear catastrophes. “It was fascinating to see this huge country gearing up to be prepared for potentially disruptive events of the future,” Schmeichel says. There was a deep business transformation underway with a focus on rebuilding things as some regions of Japan had been completely destroyed.

“But it also left a lasting impression with me how strongly people’s safety featured in all those considerations. With the catastrophe being so fresh in everybody’s mind, there was a fundamental focus on health and well-being – on what’s really important in our lives.”

Schmeichel’s years in Japan certainly provided a learning experience for turbulent times such as a few years later and his new role as chief future of work officer.

ł§´ĄąĘ’s Holistic Future of Work Agenda

With the creation of the chief future of work officer position in 2021, 51ˇçÁ÷became one of just a few other companies to have someone managing this topic holistically at the C-suite level. Given Schmeichel’s more than 20 years in HR executive roles, this was a perfect opportunity for him to bring together all his expertise and knowledge to make sure that 51ˇçÁ÷is a front-runner in this important area.

“Historically, 51ˇçÁ÷has a track record of creating state-of-the-art, leading-edge working environments,” he says. “But with the world changing at breakneck speed and the war for talent becoming even more intense, we at 51ˇçÁ÷– just like any other corporation – have to get one thing right and that is continuously being an attractive employer moving forward.”

Schmeichel considers the global pandemic as a catalyst for workplace change that was already underway. “What started out as crisis management in March 2020 evolved into our innovative flagship program Pledge to Flex, among other things,” he says.

He regards ł§´ĄąĘ’s workplace flexibility as an advantage over competitors that have announced that they will mandate their employees come into the office again several days per week. With its Pledge to Flex program, 51ˇçÁ÷chose a more flexible approach. The hybrid working model is a frame in which everyone – in line with business requirements – is empowered to find the best balance between working regularly in the office and remotely.

“The combination of flex time, flex location, and flex workspace opens doors for talent that we otherwise couldn’t tap into,” Schmeichel explains. “We don’t want to miss out on an awesome developer, just because they are also taking care of young children or elderly relatives.”

A mix of data-driven insights and feedback from 51ˇçÁ÷employees enables Schmeichel and his team to learn how their initiatives are being received. “Almost 90% of our employees confirm that Pledge to Flex is the right way to go,” he says. “We are currently making sure that the program becomes a reality for all our 105,000 employees across all of our 75 countries.”

For employees, more flexibility also means more responsibility and self-organization though, while managers need to come up with new and modern ways of holding the team together and checking in on team members. Schmeichel and the Future of Work team understand this can lead to additional strain, but also great opportunity for enhanced performance.

“Health – and mental health in particular – are important parts of the holistic Future of Work team’s agenda,” he says. “We have to make sure that people are able to work in a sustainable way.” With initiatives such as , 51ˇçÁ÷Mental Health Day, or ł§´ĄąĘ’s mindfulness practice, the company encourages its employees to self-reflect on what is important in life for them and also take a particular look on their mental health and well-being.

A Deep Glimpse into the Crystal Ball: Creating a Target Picture for the Future-Proof SAP

But the future of work at 51ˇçÁ÷encompasses much more than adjusting to the new post-pandemic normal. One of the most important steps to undertake when gearing up for the future is to create a strategic target picture. Taking an evolutionary approach for ł§´ĄąĘ’s workforce planning, Schmeichel’s team develops a vision of what 51ˇçÁ÷could look like five to 10 years from now.

“If we know, for example, the future ratio between permanent and temporary labor, the future skills demand, or the mix of locations people will work from, we can derive from that how our people strategy and our workplace practices will need to evolve,” he says. “Hiring practices, location strategy, learning strategy – all that needs to be part of an evolving future of work agenda.”

With a clear picture of the current and future workforce and the anticipated changes in work practices and environment, it becomes obvious that HR has to evolve as well.

“If we want to serve our 51ˇçÁ÷workforce to the best extent as an HR organization over the upcoming years, we will need to leverage our digital capabilities much more. We need to simplify topics wherever it makes sense to free up time and capacity for value-adding services such as talent management or personal conversations,” Schmeichel says.

The strategic workforce planning part of the Future of Work team is closely collaborating with 51ˇçÁ÷business leaders, HR business partners, as well as controlling and corporate strategy. Key figures such as headcounts and financials are going into the target picture, but also information on the skills the workforce will need to develop.

Schmeichel explains: “We still cannot predict the future, but we can maybe ask the right questions to come up with good answers and scenario planning to have a better grasp of what may happen.”

Leading the Way for Customers and Partners

As chief future of work officer, the overall vision and mission of Schmeichel and his team is to support ł§´ĄąĘ’s own business transformation while also positioning 51ˇçÁ÷to drive other companies to become .

“Right now is probably a once-in-a-generation opportunity that might bring us as a society to the next level, rethinking the way how we live and work for the better,” he says. “We are laying the strategic groundwork today and it’s important that we don’t lose the momentum the global pandemic gave us in this regard.”

Other companies are looking to 51ˇçÁ÷for inspiration on how to manage the future of work topic holistically, including the ways in which 51ˇçÁ÷is leveraging its own technology.

“We share with our customers how we are doing it,” Schmeichel says. “A question I often get is how ł§´ĄąĘ’s Future of Work team is organized. In fact, we have set up ourselves in agile topic clusters that cover all our important subject matters such as strategy, innovation, workforce planning, Pledge to Flex, future of work insights, health and well-being, people technology, and so on. We have flat hierarchies so we can strategize and execute very fast.”

He adds, “Getting to shape the future of work right for 51ˇçÁ÷as one of the most exciting companies and to an extent also for our customers and partners is something I’m very passionate about. But working with my team that shares this vision is what really puts the fun in what I’m doing. And that’s very appropriate as, at the end of the day, future of work is also about having a fun workplace.”

Prof. Mathias Weske, head of Business Process Technology at the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam, provides insights into his work with SAP.

“My specialty is processes,” shares Weske, who worked as an academic fellow at 51ˇçÁ÷during a sabbatical over the last six months. “And when it comes to processes, 51ˇçÁ÷software — with its extensive features and broad coverage — is simply the ideal environment.”

“To put it bluntly, scientists often create their own problems and then develop solutions for them,” he says. “Research projects only get specific when they address questions from real life. That’s an important reason for me why industry and academia should work more closely together.”

Businesses also have major interest in collaborating with experts from the research field.

“Technical innovation moves so quickly that we at 51ˇçÁ÷need to work closely together with academic experts, to evaluate early on whether we should invest time and resources in a budding topic,” explains Dr. Matthias Uflacker, head of the 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center in Munich.

from the 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center Network were conceived with this very thing in mind, he continues: “Instead of starting a five-year project on a technological trend and not knowing how it will develop, or whether it will even be relevant for 51ˇçÁ÷in two or three years, we can utilize external expertise very well in the framework of six- to 12-month academic fellowships.”

Weske, a computer scientist, first got involved with the technical modeling of processes after being accepted as a postdoc at the University of Muenster. After his first professorship at the Eindhoven University of Technology, where he concentrated on business process management (BPM) within service-oriented software architectures, Weske was appointed to the Hasso Plattner Institute of the University of Potsdam in 2001.

“I’ve been there for over 20 years now,” says Weske. “We deal with software systems that support especially knowledge-intensive, flexible business processes. Knowledge workers are the focus of these systems: they have major leeway in process execution and can even decide to deviate from a predefined process.”

Under the central theme of addressing real-world BPM problems with formal approaches and engineering useful prototypes, Weske and his group solicits specific questions from their collaboration with industry partners. Instead of conducting purely theoretical research, the group actually builds software itself.

“We have spawned a number of spinoffs, including ,” says Weske.

Inspired by Wikipedia, Professor Weske and his group began working on web modeling for processes around 2004. “It’s a kind of online reference work for processes,” says Weske about the idea. “It was intended for use by anyone, without requiring installation. We were fortunate that browser technology was so advanced back then that it could execute programs as well.” In 2009, the solution was spun off from the Hasso Plattner Institute under the name Signavio, which was acquired by 51ˇçÁ÷in 2021.

This acquisition has had no small impact on process intelligence at SAP. Uflacker confirms: “We have to set the course now if we want to defend our thought leadership in this area and help shape new trends. That’s why it was an easy choice to work with Weske as an academic fellow in this area.”

Due to the traditionally close cooperation between Hasso Plattner Institute and the 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center Network, Weske was already known to many of the 51ˇçÁ÷employees whom he worked with during his academic fellowship. “My academic fellowship at 51ˇçÁ÷taught me once again how important networks are. After all, the topic of processes has many points of reference throughout SAP.”

Uflacker underscores this: “From products like Signavio to a variety of innovation projects in the process mining and analytics area, this topic is spreading throughout our company. We highly benefit from Weske’s knowledge and experience when it comes to launching research-related projects at 51ˇçÁ÷and supporting new ideas.”

In one example, the topic of composable enterprise is being researched in depth with the New Ventures & Technologies area. It involves the ability to compose processes dynamically as needed, like exchangeable modules. Among his other activities, Weske contributed to a research project here with a horizon of five to 10 years, which the 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center Potsdam is pursuing.

“Of course, it’s still too soon to tackle specific technical implementations,” says Weske. “But I hope that I was able to help with understanding the fundamentals and with the system design.”

Weske was also involved in Signavio-related activities. “I’m proud to see that Signavio is being deployed, integrated, and enhanced in so many places at SAP,” he says. “During my academic fellowship, one of our focuses was exploring how data gained from process mining can be used for process analysis.” In the area of event log generation, Weske and Signavio conducted a survey among 51ˇçÁ÷employees to identify the most important questions involving this topic at SAP.

The fellowship has opened up new possibilities, encouraging the collaboration to continue. In ideal research, a finished project is always the start of something new, says Weske: “The white paper on the event log survey raised a number of questions that can be pursued as part of doctoral or master’s theses from my group.”

This, too, is an important incentive for academics like Weske to work together with 51ˇçÁ÷and other companies. “When we as a research institution point out what companies we work with; that our doctoral candidates, master’s candidates, and postdocs don’t stay confined to ivory towers, but that what they do has the potential to be implemented and used by thousands of people, then we can attract outstanding talents.

Uflacker hopes to expand the academic fellowship program in future: “We at 51ˇçÁ÷want to acquire targeted expertise for strategically relevant projects. We’re looking for international experts for this program.

“51ˇçÁ÷is an outstanding partner for academic cooperation, not least due to the wealth of features in its software,” says Weske. “This type of fellowship benefits both sides.”

Three teams were selected for outstanding and innovative projects in the categories Go-To-Market, Operational Excellence, and Products and Technology.

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In 2021, 196 nominations involved more than 1,300 employees from 42 countries. Nine teams consisting of 49 employees from around the world made it to the final round. The three winning teams chose the charity organizations and , to which 51ˇçÁ÷will donate €10,000 on behalf of each team — €30,000 total.

Go-To-Market Winner

Support Assistant: Delighting Customers by Solving Issues Faster

To stay No. 1 in customer satisfaction, 51ˇçÁ÷continues to look for new ways to create positive customer experiences by providing fast reactions and effective solutions to their customers seeking support.

The Support Assistant is a cloud-based application that uses automation and machine learning to connect customers directly to solutions and further reduce the time needed to resolve customer support cases — without the need for a support engineer.

Customers are guided through a conversational user interface that helps them easily access knowledge repositories and act on solutions quickly and on their own. If the support of a human engineer is needed, the previous conversation thread is aggregated into a comprehensive case description that can be shared with the human.

With more than 65,000 requests in 2021 via 51ˇçÁ÷Support Portal, the Support Assistant shows impressive results. Tens of thousands fewer support cases required help from a human support engineer thanks to the automated assistant.

Winning team member Jonathan Wiens says, “While still a little bit in shock, I can say it is an absolutely amazing and incredibly proud moment.ĚýI have always believed in all the people that have contributed to the Support Assistant and today was a validation of the ideas and hard work that everyone put in to make our vision a reality.ĚýWe will go forward now, bolstered with the confidence of this win, to further evolve the Support Assistant and execute on our plans to integrate it as a central piece of ł§´ĄąĘ’s support workflow.”

Operational Excellence Winner

Cloud Customer Health Score Based on Machine Learning

Customer Health Score specifies a customer’s renewal risk and helps account teams create a positive customer experience and improve customer relationships.

The solution relies on machine learning for real-time insights to predict the renewal risk for 94% of nearly 68,000 cloud customers and use these findings to alert account teams at an early stage.

The Customer Health Score is used both regionally and globally across 11 cloud lines of business and already supports almost all cloud solutions from SAP. The prediction quality is over 80% and the team is confident they can increase it with the help of additional data, such as external financial metrics.

“Many 51ˇçÁ÷colleagues gave us their best effort, time, and talents,” from the winning team says. “The diverse skill sets represented across the team were our winning strategy. Where one pushes, the other balances. We are all equal and we contribute as one team. There is plenty of work ahead in 2022 for Customer Health Score to become even more valuable and relevant to predicting cloud renewal health at SAP.”

Products and Technology Winner

51ˇçÁ÷Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences

The issue of drug counterfeiting has experienced a dramatic rise in recent years, particularly in developing nations. It is estimated that currently more than 50% of the drugs in Africa are counterfeit.

51ˇçÁ÷Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences is an industry network based on software-as-a-service (SaaS) that helps 51ˇçÁ÷customers in the pharmaceutical industry share information on their products with supply chain partners and government agencies to enable traceability and verification of individual product packs.

With over 1,000 live trading partners, including eight of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies and most COVID-19 vaccine manufactures, the hub currently hosts 2.2 billion product packs in the blockchain for verification in the U.S. market. It manages tens of thousands of messages every day reported to governments around the world to help prevent counterfeit products being introduced into the legitimate supply chain.

“This award is a milestone in the long journey that started with a customer meeting in 2015 and that yielded a solution essential for our customers’ business while helping make the pharmaceutical supply chain safer,” winning team member says. “I am grateful for the passionate team that made this work.”

When it comes to legal or business transactions between independent individuals or organizations, humans have always relied on trusted third parties such as banks, governments, or clearing houses to validate transactions. But with blockchain as a decentralized and secure digital ledger, the way humans collaborate is getting restructured.

Blockchain enables participants to form a peer-to-peer network of independent organizations and individuals. Each of these participants may verify transactions as well as hold a copy of the transaction record without the need for a central controlling party. Cryptography functions ensure that information is shared in an immutable and authenticated way equally between all members of the network.

As an underlying technology for legal and business processes, blockchain has the potential to cut out intermediaries – and revolutionize the way humans do business with each other. Any industry that relies on complex cross-organizational processes could benefit from blockchain – and so could public sector and governmental institutions, even on an international level.

, business developer for Blockchain at SAP, says, “Streamlining public sector processes with blockchain can help battle or prevent fraud and corruption, for example, by providing a tamper-proof land register in countries with corruption issues.” Public procurement is another area of application for blockchain, as well as tracking donations and public funds.

For enterprises, the focus during the last decades was on optimizing internal business processes by making them paperless and automating them. Blockchain is a very powerful tool to extend this process optimization to cross-organizational processes and open ecosystems.

51ˇçÁ÷and Blockchain

Since it first came up in 2009, blockchain has run the full for emerging technologies. 51ˇçÁ÷was among the first companies to transform the potential of blockchain into solid products and solutions.

“Expectations were extremely high,” Stoeckhert explains. “The appeal of this vision – a single source of truth for a number of equal partners in a network – was so strong that many jumped on the blockchain bandwagon without fully grasping the technology behind it.”

Many assumptions about blockchain have been put into perspective since. Around 2018, the so-called “blockchain winter,” a general disillusionment with the technology, set in.

“However, accelerated by maturing blockchain technologies as well as related standards and ecosystems, a second wave of interest and adoption is rising in the cryptocurrency and enterprise space,” Stoeckhert says

“Supply chain transparency is the typical application for most of the existing 51ˇçÁ÷solutions. The blockchain-based can provide an end-to-end picture of the supply chain provenance. It enables customers in industries such as foods, pharmaceuticals or chemicals to analyze their products’ genealogies up and down stream,” he adds.

“Consumers, for example, want to make sure their tuna has been caught in a sustainable way that met fair trade standards,” Stoeckhert explains. “But labeling fraud is actually a big problem in the seafood market.” 51ˇçÁ÷has been working with Bumblebee Foods, the biggest seafood provider in the United States, on an audit trail that can be called up by QR code.

SAP.iO ventureĚýĚý– a 2021 finalist for the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award – is a recent innovative product focused on enhancing the traceability of raw materials products across the entire supply chain through a cloud platform supported by blockchain technology.ĚýGreenToken is running multiple pilot projects with companies in the chemicals and palm oil industry. One such pilot is with Eastman Chemical, where GreenToken is being used to provide auditable proof that Eastman’s products have been made with recycled plastic, boosting a circular economy and helping with ISCC Plus compliance. Another pilot is run by GreenToken with the palm oil supply chain in Indonesia, tracking deforestation-free palm oil from mills to one of the largest consumer product companies.

Outlook: Five Areas of Blockchain Maturity

With complex technology such as blockchain, accessibility is a constant topic. One way to lower the bar to entry could be the . Extending these tools with blockchain technology means enabling citizen developers to set up, execute, and monitor secure, cross-company processes while cutting down on IT involvement.

Further, an integration of blockchain with business process intelligence would allow users to turn their cross-company process data into insights and, ultimately, translate it into actions that help drive digital automation. “This is an area we are currently investigating within ,” Stoeckhert says. Security-wise, the adoption of those new business capabilities triggers several challenges both on the protection of cross-company process data and insights. In collaboration with 51ˇçÁ÷Security Research, the blockchain team at 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center Network explores privacy-enhancing technologies that serve as protection for shared data in a distributed ledger while enabling insights evaluation.

While today’s productive enterprise blockchain implementations are based on closed consortium blockchains, 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center Network is evaluating how the unique capabilities of public blockchains can be applied to enterprise use cases, such as for embedded finance on blockchain.

Another big step forward will be the addition of . “Blockchain still has the reputation of being a kind of digital wild west, hard-to-control area,” Stoeckhert says. The ability to unequivocally determine the identity of individuals or organizations will open up the next level of trust between participants, even in public blockchain networks.

“A further topic that is still in its early stages but highly relevant is the Metaverse. It consists of online spaces and virtual worlds that use technologies such as computer graphics and augmented and virtual reality to allow people to interact in a more immersive way than ever before on the Internet,” Stoeckhert adds. “It is envisioned that a decentralized digital economy consisting of multiple platforms will arise based on the Metaverse. Blockchain is evolving into the trust layer to represent and transfer ownership of value within the Metaverse.”

The megatrend of blockchain remains unbroken: experts expect total spending on blockchain solutions across the globe to reach . in global blockchain investments by 2024, totaling nearly $19 billion.

Expert Questions

Could blockchain replace the Internet?

While it might replace central Internet-based business models, blockchain is far more likely to serve as an additional layer to the Internet than to actually replace it. The Internet has always been about sharing information, and blockchain will add a layer of verification of that information to create trust without the need for a middleman. Thus, blockchain and the Internet complement each other, where blockchain utilizes the Internet as an enabler.

Is blockchain a threat to the financial service sector as we know it?

On the one hand, blockchain can bring new business opportunities to banks and financial services providers. We currently see MasterCard extending its credit cards with a lot of cryptocurrency features. On the other hand, we really see decentralized finance – an umbrella term for financial services offered via decentralized ledger and therefore without the need for a central controlling party like a bank – on the rise. While this is still very early and lacks regulation, it could develop into a major threat to banking business as we know it, and banks and financial services would do well not to ignore it.

Will quantum computing render blockchain cryptography insecure?

Blockchain technology relies on modern cryptography schemes, which are threatened by quantum computers. Unless blockchain adopts new schemes, so-called post-quantum or quantum-strong cryptography, it will be vulnerable to attacks, for instance impersonating people and performing unauthorized transactions. In anticipation of quantum computers, the blockchain team at 51ˇçÁ÷Innovation Center Network has already started prototyping quantum-strong blockchain using new cryptography. Moreover, it is interesting to know that quantum computing is expected to not only effect blockchain technology, but the security of the whole IT world – for example, every password, WiFi connection, and online banking application that depends on cryptography algorithms.

Here, meet the finalists in the Products and Technology category.

The Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award is the highest
employee recognition at SAP, awarded annually by the CEO
to an individual or a team.

Finalist: GreenToken by 51ˇçÁ÷

Eighty percent of the world’s palm oil originates from Indonesia and Malaysia. While some of it is being sustainably sourced in sustainable fair-trade plantations and small holdings, much is also being harvested on recently deforested land. How can you tell one from the other?

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The GreenToken by 51ˇçÁ÷solution was designed to address this issue by providing a new level of transparency into complex raw material supply chains.

“In 2019 a group of 51ˇçÁ÷palm oil customers approached us with this very problem – they wanted a robust solution to maintain facts across the value chain from smallholder to end customer,” says GreenToken Co-Founder James Veale. “Traditional batch-based inventory systems with their simple rules don’t truly reflect the exact makeup of a raw material inventory, which may be a mix of sustainable and non-sustainable sources. At scale, we would be dealing with millions of batches.”

GreenToken instead uses a digital twin token to represent a fixed and usually small amount of the raw material. Records are kept on a blockchain ledger, and as the material moves along the supply chain GreenToken passes the equivalent number of tokens that represent the volume of material moved, from one supply chain actor’s wallet to another. This creates a tracing history — an immutable chain of custody that adds complete supply chain transparency and makes the data trustworthy.

Transforming the World Economy

GreenToken’s elegant yet powerful design has found applications in many industries. The tokens can carry information on any kind of raw materials to help answer a variety of questions: “Are these food crops sustainably sourced? Has this cobalt been mined free of child labor? Is this plastic recycled with a high percentage coming from molecular recycling of plastic waste?”

With over 77% of the world’s manufactured goods passing through an 51ˇçÁ÷system, GreenToken is receiving huge interest from 51ˇçÁ÷customers under increasing pressure from both legislation and their own customer base to prove that their raw material sourcing, processing, and supply chain practices are the best that they can be.

“GreenToken is ł§´ĄąĘ’s answer to that,” says Nitin Jain, GreenToken co-founder. “We have found a truly innovative use for tokens on a blockchain ledger that gives transparency to these formerly opaque raw material supply chains. GreenToken’s purpose is to help the world transform to a sustainable and circular economy — and our innovation has made it available in the cloud using simple, frictionless browser-based interfaces.”

Finalist Fast Facts

• Submission Title: GreenToken by SAP
• Team: Nitin Jain in Canada and James Veale in Australia, co-founders, with a global team of 18, including full-time employees and fellows spread across Asia-Pacific Japan, Europe, and North America regions
• Number of employees: 20
• Achievement: Developed an elegant yet powerful method to add complete supply chain transparency to previously opaque raw material supply chains using digital twin tokens on a blockchain ledger. The solution works for any raw material supply chain. The team is currently deploying the system in the U.S. and Europe to prove that plastic has a high degree of circular recycled content.
• Impact: GreenToken allows 51ˇçÁ÷customers to not only measure and make claims on their current sustainable, ethical, and circular sourcing practices, but also use their procurement spending power to promote good supply chains over bad.

Finalist: Ecosilient

While optimizing resources and capacities is not exactly a new business challenge, B2B circular sharing platform Ecosilient aims to commodify demand, supply, and services, connecting organizations in a community to generate value more efficiently and sustainably with special focus on existing resources and capacities.

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Ecosilient helps businesses leverage resources such as obsolete assets, surplus inventory, waste, and other byproducts into a circular economy. It creates a community layer based on enterprise resource planning (ERP) to enable this growing demand for businesses, stakeholders, and investors to make more responsible decisions that drive meaningful impact on critical issues.

Ecosilient Founder Avital Ben-Natan says the team’s mission is to “decouple economic growth from natural extraction and corrosive business practices. It’s about creating a trust platform to discover and facilitate collaboration opportunities around shared values.”

The goal is no less than to address interlinked problems like the climate crisis, social inequities, or broken supply chains. Ecosilient serves as a framework for evolving SAP’s core technologies, data, and its global ecosystem into an engine for a sustainable economy.

Users will be able to work with 51ˇçÁ÷software as they are accustomed — sourcing materials, signing contracts, tracing their shipping, and managing their inventories. “But with Ecosilient,” Ben-Natan says, “there is this additional layer in our software that users can trust will guide them to make responsible choices — to do more and better with less.”

Leading the Sustainable Economy

Fostered within the 51ˇçÁ÷Intrapreneurs program, the idea of Ecosilient resonated with many people at 51ˇçÁ÷from the start and attracted like-minded employees willing to engage in their spare time. “Even though few of us have ever been in the same room, we’ve all become very close while building Ecosilient over the last one and a half years.”

Ben-Natan says names the impact of climate change as his team’s motivation. “As parents, we feel responsible for the future of our kids and our communities. We have to answer the challenges that we face as a species, but also as a planet and as an economy, and find an appropriate response.”

The team considers its solution as a natural evolution of what 51ˇçÁ÷stands for: to create order in chaos, to create opportunities and collaboration, to create a fair, responsible, and ultimately more efficient economy.

But Ecosilient is also a way for 51ˇçÁ÷to innovate its own infrastructure and the way it operates as a company, as Ben-Natan stresses: “It’s about creating a fundamental direction for 51ˇçÁ÷to lead in the sustainable economy.”

Finalist Fast Facts

• Submission Title: Ecosilient, the B2B Circular Sharing Platform
• Team: Avital Ben Natan, Umesh Shekar
• Number of employees: More than 20, with engineers, designers, innovation specialists, and mentors that have contributed to the business model, design thinking, demo, MVP, and customer engagement, and with special thanks to New Ventures and Technologies, Services IMM, and 51ˇçÁ÷Experience Garage for platforming.
• Achievement: Leveraged market research and data analysis to identify target industries and organizations for freight pooling; implemented a WIP MVP and a demo for a sustainable shipping network; started customer engagement and GTM with companies like Unilever, Bechtle, Steelcase, Cargill, and others.
• Impact: Ecosilient helps companies increase resource efficiency while promoting a sustainable economy by engaging the ecosystem to create shared value.

Finalist: 51ˇçÁ÷Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences

In recent years, the world has seen the issue of drug counterfeiting increase dramatically. In Africa alone, over 120,000 people die each year because they are being treated with fake malaria medication. It is estimated that currently over 50% of the drugs in Africa are counterfeit.

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Enter 51ˇçÁ÷Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences: this industry network based on software-as-a-service (SaaS) helps 51ˇçÁ÷pharmaceutical customers share information on their pharmaceutical products with supply chain partners and government agencies to enable traceability and verification of individual product packs in these markets.

“It was really a joint effort with plenty of input from 51ˇçÁ÷customers that inspired the info hub,” says Oliver Nuernberg, chief product owner, 51ˇçÁ÷Life Sciences. “They pointed out the need for a global network that would minimize the effort by connecting once while sharing data with many participants.”

Running on 51ˇçÁ÷Business Technology Platform, the information hub leverages the platform’s integration services to exchange messages, 51ˇçÁ÷Blockchain Business Services to make data available for verification, and portal services. In 2021, new innovative capabilities enabling the automation of onboarding processes and self-onboarding of trading partners were delivered to enable customers to efficiently onboard hundreds of partners in parallel for new markets.

The largest eight pharmaceutical manufacturers, and 14 of the top 20, are already using 51ˇçÁ÷Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences, including most of the COVID-19 vaccines manufacturers.

Next, we plan to offer 51ˇçÁ÷Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences together with 51ˇçÁ÷Advanced Track and Trace for Pharmaceuticals to enable aid workers from organizations such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders to verify, for example, COVID-19 vaccines that they receive on the spot toĚý low- to middle-income countries.

Initially, the team was made up of just a handful of 51ˇçÁ÷employees working out of Germany and Ireland. Today, there are more than 50 team members from the Customer Innovation & Maintenance organization, mainly located in India, who develop and operate the solution as well as help onboard customers and their business partners.

Amba Bisht, senior developer for Engineering in Customer Innovation & Maintenance, says: “What’s so rewarding about working on this project is how it really brings the spirit of 51ˇçÁ÷— to make the world run better — to life, because by increasing security in the pharmaceutical supply chain and preventing counterfeit medication from reaching patients, 51ˇçÁ÷Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences may ultimately save lives.”

Finalist Fast Facts

• Submission Title: 51ˇçÁ÷Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences, Saving Lives One Serial Number at a Time
• Team: Oliver Nuernberg, Martin Janssen, Dennis Keilbach, Vincent Varain, Sandeep Kumar Dikshit, Shashank Goyal, Amba Bisht, Anil Kumar Suresh, Geetha Ranjani G M, Athul Umesh
• Number of employees: More than 50
• Achievement: Global network with the eight largest pharmaceutical companies and 14 of the top 20, most COVID-19 vaccine manufactures, over 1,000 live trading partners. The hub currently hosts 2.2 billion product packs in the blockchain for verification in the U.S. market, manages tens of thousands of messages reported to government agencies, such as those in the EU, Russia, Brazil, and other markets, every day, all to prevent counterfeit products being introduced into the legitimate supply chain.
• Impact: Increase patient safety by authenticating pharmaceutical products, thus avoiding counterfeit drugs reaching patients; increase sustainability by reducing drug wastage.