It was also the year when business leaders worldwide decided enough is enough. They began taking steps to future proof their supply chains. And we can鈥檛 forget that 2023 was the year when generative AI came to dominate every conversation about technology.

Now it鈥檚 time to look ahead. Where will world events, business developments, and technology innovations take spend management in 2024? What strategies and technology will business leaders employ to bring greater resilience and efficiency to their supply chains?

Here are predictions for 2024, from SAP鈥檚 intelligent spend and business network leaders.

鈥淚n 2023, generative AI was like a bolt of lightning that compelled every business and technology leader to sit up and take notice. We鈥檙e no longer asking if businesses will adopt AI technology, but rather how quickly they can deploy it and realize its benefits. In 2024, businesses leaders will look beyond the industry buzz for solutions that deliver real-life, AI-based use cases. They鈥檒l also see firsthand that AI is only as effective as the quality and availability of data. With the huge number of data and transactions running through our and , 51风流is uniquely positioned to help organizations access the data they need, visualize it, and take decisive action to drive their success.鈥�

鈥� , President and Chief Product Officer,
51风流Intelligent Spend and Business Network,
and General Manager for 51风流Business Network

鈥淎s we enter 2024, procurement organizations will continue to focus on cost containment and supply continuity in order to bring value to their businesses. These have traditionally been the primary value drivers and, in today鈥檚 economic environment, I see this continuing. The opportunity will be maintaining the expanded voice earned with stakeholders during the volatile, crisis-riddled past few years, given the resurgence of hyper focus on cost containment. I believe that the scope of procurement will not contract back to a sole focus on supply stability and cost containment. In fact, I think procurement鈥檚 remit will continue to evolve to lead broader supply chain risk management, given the growing variety and number of risks faced such as geopolitical tensions, sustainability expectations, the need for more diverse sources of supply, and lingering labor availability concerns. The challenge facing procurement will be how to tackle all of this successfully. What we’ll see is the use of innovation like generative AI, spend analysis, and category management solutions to not only provide relevant, real-time business insights, but, importantly, to increase the efficiency and productivity of procurement teams, giving more capacity to focus on the strategic work stakeholders now expect.鈥�

鈥� , Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer,
Intelligent Spend and Business Network, SAP

鈥淭he more things change, the more they stay the same. Or do they? Last year we were talking about how businesses needed to grapple with economic, political, and environmental uncertainty. That hasn鈥檛 changed. What鈥檚 different is how quickly new strategies and technologies have emerged to help businesses deal with these challenges. In 2024, I expect business leaders to continue pursuing supply chain resilience and to look for solutions such as AI that enable them to make big leaps. There will also be a continued focus on cost savings. With economic concerns looming as central banks raise funds rates to counter inflation, I foresee leaders being asked to deliver higher margins for their enterprises. To do this, traditional cost-focused sourcing and procurement cost compliance will be essential.鈥�

鈥� , Chief Revenue Officer,
Intelligent Spend and Business Network, SAP

鈥淎s enterprises continue on their journey to digitalize procurement processes, the need for an even more intuitive user experience will increase. Procurement professionals are looking for ways to spend more time on value-adding tasks and are looking to generative AI and analytics to support them at the point of decision. Moving into 2024 and beyond, we expect the demand for these technologies to increase, as well as for new use cases to arise. At SAP, we are already evaluating further ways to embed generative AI and analytics into solutions throughout our 51风流Ariba portfolio to help make our customers鈥� business lives easier than ever.鈥�

鈥� , SVP, Chief Product Officer,
51风流Ariba Procurement Solutions, SAP

鈥淎s technology evolves, pragmatic business leaders are looking for ways to leverage these new developments to help streamline and simplify their processes. Managing a workforce that can be comprised of up to 40% external workers demands tools that can simplify the user experience and offer broad visibility to both external and full-time workers. I predict that in 2024 we will see more organizations lean into total workforce management strategies to address this need for greater visibility across full-time and external workers, allowing businesses to align the skills they have with the work they need to complete. Along with a more holistic approach to managing their workforce, these same companies can leverage innovative AI tools designed to offer efficiencies and improve the user experience. In 2024, 51风流Fieldglass customers will be able to leverage powerful AI tools, including AI-enhanced statement of work creation, translation capabilities, and our new powered by generative AI. These offerings are just the beginning, with many more use cases to come.鈥�

鈥� , Chief Technology Officer,
51风流Fieldglass Solutions, SAP

鈥淚n my conversations with customers and prospects about their plans for 2024, they consistently voice concerns about supply chain disruption and economic uncertainty. Meanwhile, most seem to appreciate that artificial intelligence is vital to maintaining their competitive edge, yet many are unsure how to distinguish the actual value from the ample hype. In 2024, we will see more of the value that AI can deliver to organizations with capabilities to support their value chains. These include generative and predictive AI capabilities to help forecast disruptions, recommend alternate sources of raw materials, detect errors in invoices, extract pertinent data from requests for information, predict shipment and delivery times, and complete catalogue details. Trading partners need the ability to enter into additional collaborative relationships, such as those between buyers and suppliers spanning 51风流Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration and material traceability and freight collaboration solutions. Also in 2024, we see network convergence taking center stage to give organizations a shared onboarding experience across all network applications, as well as a set of common data federation services to support data residency requirements.鈥�

鈥� , Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, 
51风流Business Network

鈥淚n 2024, generative AI will deliver trillions in economic benefits. It will help companies realize greater top-line growth, be more productive, and safeguard supply chains. At the same time, resiliency will continue to be a major focus. The combination of AI and business networks will drive game-changing resiliency and productivity by facilitating improved demand forecasting and more efficient inventory management. These technologies will empower businesses to respond proactively to market changes, allowing them to source new suppliers quickly. In times of supply chain disruptions or demand surges, the nimblest companies will benefit most. Business networks will help them anticipate challenges with real-time information sharing and enhanced supply chain visibility. And there鈥檚 more good news for midmarket and smaller companies: as enterprise adoption of these technologies may begin to lag behind due to complex and unique use cases, segments like the midmarket and smaller companies will start to gain the competitive edge, building more resilient, predictable, and sustainable supply chains at scale.鈥�

鈥� , Global Head, 51风流Business Network
Customer Success and Go-to-Market, SAP

鈥淲e鈥檒l see business digitalization efforts go a level deeper 鈥� and become substantially more integrated 鈥� in 2024. Continued adoption of AI, automation, and virtual forms of payment will drive streamlined processes in travel, expense, and invoice. Instead of using a company credit card, employees will be able to expand their use of virtual payments for all business expenses, including travel. In turn, we鈥檒l start to see two types of transactions emerge: trusted and exceptions. Most transactions will use trusted payment methods, and AI will quickly validate them as compliant, enabling near-immediate reimbursement. Exceptions will trigger AI-driven, automated audits to ensure compliance. In both cases, payments will be issued faster with more ease, and employees will have more time to focus on what matters most to them and the organization.鈥�

鈥� , Head of 51风流Concur Market Strategy,
51风流Concur

“After another year of significant disruption caused by economic and geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain optimization has risen up the agenda as companies seek to better manage their working capital. Embedded finance has emerged as a solution, promising to reshape the way we do business and interact. Embedded finance has the power to expedite transactions, facilitate financing between trading partners, and lower trade barriers. By harnessing embedded finance, companies have the potential to optimize processes and access financing solutions seamlessly through B2B platforms. Ultimately, this will result in more streamlined payments, faster credit decisions, and expanded access to working capital.鈥�

鈥� , Chief Product Officer, Taulia

鈥淎s organizations, especially midmarket companies, continue to navigate today鈥檚 dynamic business environment, they are realizing the need to work with solution partners to create more value for their customers and themselves. A strong relationship between organizations and their partner ecosystems is critical to success, and I expect we will continue to see more businesses, both large and small, looking to establish these relationships. With the cost of managing sustainable supply chains continuing to increase, companies should turn to their partner ecosystems to leverage their expertise, skills, and services. This approach can help unify a company鈥檚 operations to provide a greater experience for its buyers and sellers, enabling stronger collaboration, greater visibility and transparency, risk mitigation, and more efficient operations.鈥�

鈥� , Head of Intelligent Spend and
Business Network Partner Ecosystem, SAP

One More Prediction

Recent times have shown that unexpected disruptions aren鈥檛 the only reason businesses struggle in times of crisis. It鈥檚 also about their readiness to deal with disruption, to adapt, and to come out stronger when the crisis subsides. Many business leaders have learned this lesson. They鈥檙e taking action to ensure 鈥� to the best of their ability 鈥� that their businesses are prepared for what comes next.

Of course, that鈥檚 easier said than done. Sometimes it feels like we need a crystal ball to see into the future. Or, to use a more common term, we need 鈥渧isibility.鈥� Visibility into market trends. Visibility into world events. Visibility into every corner of the supply chain.

Here鈥檚 a prediction you can take to the bank: in 2024, 51风流will continue to design and deliver and solutions that can drive efficiency, leverage AI in ways that are relevant, reliable, and responsible, and create greater visibility for every size business.

Mike Conners is a communications specialist for the 51风流Spend Management Communications team.

For the past year, Alam, president and chief product officer of 51风流Intelligent Spend and Business Network, and his team have been speaking with 51风流customers, gaining an intimate understanding of their spend management challenges and envisioning solutions to address them. This includes carefully assessing the buzz around artificial intelligence (AI) to separate what is the usual tech hype from the true promise.

They also mobilized their team of spend management-focused developers to deliver the very innovations he was about to unveil. 鈥淭he bottom line is we deliver more spend management innovation than anyone else in the industry because we have more resources devoted to spend management than everyone else in the industry,鈥� Alam told the audience.

With its 鈥渕assive force of engineers鈥� and deep commitment at the highest levels of the business, he reminded everyone that 51风流is singularly focused on helping businesses solve their urgent and critical spend imperatives 鈥� whether they are practical or existential. This includes:

• Improving visibility into the supply chain and taking action to counter an ever-changing trade landscape
• Doing business in a socially and environmentally responsible manner
• Finding the right talent, at the right time, for the right job

鈥淭he common theme in all of this, of course, is your spend鈥he biggest lever you have to help your business achieve the results it needs to achieve,鈥� he said.

Applying Generative AI Technology to Spend

As 51风流Spend Connect Live moves forward, there will be a lot of talk about generative AI and how it can help businesses address urgent and critical imperatives. In his keynote, Alam noted that we are seeing a step change around AI 鈥� not just in the technology, but also in the willingness of customers to adopt AI to drive strategic transformation across business processes and functions.

But what does Alam consider the underlying promise and purpose of AI? 鈥淭he ability to harness data to drive insights and make decisions鈥hat is the promise of AI and it鈥檚 what鈥檚 driving all of the AI the momentum and excitement,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a matter of if anymore with AI. It is a matter of when or perhaps how quickly businesses can adopt these technologies and feel the impact.鈥�

With its intelligent spend management solutions, 51风流has made it a mission to enable businesses to use generative AI to harness data for greater insights and decision-making. Which brings us to two of the important innovations Alam announced during his 51风流Spend Connect Live keynote: 51风流Spend Control Tower and 12 new generative AI scenarios to be deployed across the spend management portfolio.

Introducing 51风流Spend Control Tower

鈥淚n the hundreds of conversations I鈥檝e had with customers in the last year, the No. 1 ask I get from them is the ability to see and analyze their spend across all categories,鈥� Alam said. 鈥淎nd by 鈥榮pend鈥� I mean more than just the financials. Today, spend also means the carbon emissions impact across all categories.鈥�

Then he unveiled , which offers advanced AI features and the ability to see across all spend 鈥� in SAP鈥檚 cloud ERP solutions, 51风流Ariba solutions, 51风流Fieldglass solutions, 51风流Concur solutions, and 51风流Business Network 鈥� to help uncover cost-saving opportunities and process improvements, beginning in the first quarter 2024. Alam said he was also 鈥渆xcited about AI driving scope 3 carbon emissions reporting in 51风流Spend Control Tower.鈥�

All of the spend data is rationalized in a unified data model as part of our next-generation data lake, the supplier data platform. Three years in the making, it is the backbone for all of our spend analytics. In addition to fueling 51风流Spend Control Tower, it also enables embedded spend insights in our applications and powers our generative AI innovations.

12 Generative AI Scenarios for Spend Management

Alam noted that each day, individuals spend a significant amount of time doing mundane tasks because they need to be done. These take time and focus away from tasks that are more strategic and of higher value.

鈥淕enerative AI has the potential to eliminate the mundane and elevate the strategic in the daily lives of you and your team members,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his is our moment to unleash productivity gains that have been lacking for years.鈥�

He announced designed to help 鈥渄rive efficiency, quality, and insight into processes that cut across spend management.鈥� Here鈥檚 a high-level view of how these scenarios can help businesses:

• In 51风流Ariba solutions, they can provide a better understanding of suppliers鈥� sustainability position, enabling businesses to make the right decisions.
• In 51风流Fieldglass solutions, they can make it possible to write better, more comprehensive statements of work (SOW) and job descriptions in seconds versus hours.
• In 51风流Concur solutions, they can help users estimate the potential trip cost and better understand travel and expense policies.

Find out more about the new generative AI scenarios .

Virtual Experience

If you were unable to attend 51风流Spend Connect Live in Vienna, you can still take part in our virtual experience on October 24. for details.

Mike Conners is a communications specialist for the 51风流Spend Management Communications team.

Perhaps what we鈥檙e experiencing is something business leaders have known for years: uncertainty and disruption are the constant. It鈥檚 how we deal with them that sets us apart.

As we approach 2023, the same questions linger: How long will inflation continue? Will there be a recession?

Unfortunately, it鈥檚 difficult to find clear answers. For example, The Wall Street Journal recently reported , which should eventually lead to lower prices. But on the same day, it also reported — more ominously — that the globalized supply chain continues to .

With global supply chains remaining dynamic and perpetually susceptible to disruption, where does this leave us? If the past few years were focused on responding and surviving, 2023 looks to be the year when business leaders leverage proven technology to build long-term resilience for their organizations.

We asked our leaders for their perspective on this as well as what they expect in 2023. Here鈥檚 what they had to say.

鈥淒uring the last two years of continuous disruptions, companies were forced to realize the necessity of supply chain visibility. As companies shift to building more proactive strategies, they will make plans to adopt new technology to achieve such visibility, helping them build resiliency within their organization. User experience will also remain a top priority for companies, allowing employees to accomplish the tasks they need across their spend management applications. As we look ahead, data insights and intelligence will also play a significant role in helping end users do their jobs more effectively to deliver more value to an organization. Skill shortages will remain a concern among many industries; however, finding, onboarding, developing, and retaining talent are what will differentiate the successful organizations from the ones that aren鈥檛.鈥�

– , President and Chief Product Officer,
Intelligent Spend and Business Network, SAP

鈥淕iven the supply chain challenges we continue to experience, businesses will most certainly continue to digitalize spend management processes and leverage business networks to increase supply chain collaboration, to improve organizational agility, and to gain real-time business insights. The other side of this coin is people. Thinking about how to avoid the ongoing talent crisis and build a workforce of longevity, we will see more businesses focus on nurturing their employees to retain good talent. They will enhance the workforce by upskilling existing talent to meet employees鈥� desire for career growth while also meeting evolving business expectations. Businesses will attract early talent to the workforce by enticing them to make a difference in the world by helping to solve the next generation of problems. This will require businesses to continue to drive clarity on their mission and purpose. Last, but certainly not least, businesses will maintain focus on including diverse perspectives to ensure they are delivering the strongest strategic decisions that can only come from diversity and inclusion. If an organization cannot deliver on the above expectations, they will inevitably be less competitive in the market for top talent and a resilient workforce.鈥�

– , Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer,
Intelligent Spend and Business Network, SAP

鈥淎s we approach 2023, it鈥檚 clear that the world鈥檚 business leaders will continue to grapple with economic, political, and environmental uncertainty. The good news is that dealing with uncertainty does not mean operating our businesses blindly. Digitalized procurement processes, data visualization, and business networks have ushered in a new era of visibility, collaboration, and strategic decision-making. With the right technology, procurement and supply chain professionals have access to an integrated view of total spend across their enterprise and deep visibility into their supply chain. This enables improved inventory management, predictable lead times, more efficient sourcing of supply, and cost savings. It also helps them tackle some of their most complex challenges, like achieving sustainability compliance and building long-term resilience for their business.鈥�

– , Chief Revenue Officer,
Intelligent Spend and Business Network, SAP

“Over the last few years, workers and employers alike have come to see the huge upside of leveraging a flex workforce. Even pre-pandemic, workers were looking for a different experience, one that offered flexibility and the opportunity to try new things. Temporary workers have proven they offer an effective way to address staffing and skill gaps, control costs, and manage the overall workforce more effectively. This year an found that 50% of organizations surveyed plan to increase their use of external workers. My prediction for 2023 is that businesses will continue to build on the efficiencies of the temporary workforce. They鈥檒l leverage coupled with freelance management systems and direct sourcing providers to find, engage, and manage external workers — both contract and contingent — enabling them to streamline recruiting, contracting, onboarding/offboarding, and security.”

– , Chief Technology Officer,
, SAP

鈥淚n 2023, the 51风流Business Network team will strengthen its commitment and partnership with customers to achieve supply chain transparency, resiliency, and sustainability. We will continue to modernize and innovate our network to drive vibrancy, infuse the trading partner experience with enhanced one-to-many supplier integration and intelligent insights, and improve platform performance and scalability. In addition, we will accelerate the transformation to our federated next-generation 51风流Business Network, enhancing value for all trading partners within the world鈥檚 largest B2B marketplace.鈥�

– , Senior Vice President, Chief Product
Officer, and Head of 51风流Business Network, SAP

鈥淚n 2023, market conditions and inflation will remain volatile as a new paradigm impacts interrelated supply chains. This is driving businesses to focus on fundamentals like controlling costs and finding new revenue. Meanwhile, governments, employees, and consumers are elevating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors to a higher priority. These factors are driving buyers to diversify their supply chains, creating opportunities for suppliers to 鈥榮hine brighter鈥� by highlighting their presence and value and their ESG credentials. Interestingly, inbound and outbound logistics continue to emerge as key competitive differentiators to drive efficiency, control cost, and earn customer loyalty. Business networks offer transparency, access to working capital, and connection that enable buyers and suppliers to address disruption collaboratively and build supply chain resilience. In 2023, organizations should look to leverage robust business networks adapted to their industry — not just generic solutions.鈥�

– , Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing and
Solutions Officer, 51风流Business Network

鈥淎s we head into 2023, I expect businesses to act on the need for agility and instantaneous collaboration with trading partners, no longer relying on manual processes to connect buyers and suppliers. As we have been reminded countless times in recent years, supply chain volatility is all but guaranteed. I anticipate a shift in how companies prepare for disruption; while 2020 to 2022 has largely consisted of supply chain shortages, many companies could also start to face supply and inventory overages, given the current macroeconomic state. Having visibility to manage both ends of the spectrum and creating supply chain transparency is critical. Companies will look to evolve their business network into one with real-time collaboration capabilities and unobstructed inter-company visibility across trading partner networks. Collecting and acting on intelligent insights will be key to developing networked enterprises beyond the siloed, disconnected nature of previous years.鈥�

– , Global Head, 51风流Business Network
Customer Success and Go-to-Market, SAP

鈥淭he year ahead will be a test of leaders鈥� abilities to do more with less, including weighing the costs and benefits of their corporate travel program in maintaining key business relationships. The pandemic taught us a lot about the value of business travel. According to from early 2022, most U.S. finance managers said their company experienced a revenue loss in 2021 as a direct result of employees鈥� inability to travel at pre-pandemic levels. It鈥檚 important that leaders keep these learnings in mind as they prepare for uncertainty in 2023. They鈥檒l have to balance saving money where it counts, continuing progress on priority initiatives like sustainability, and positioning their company for growth when the economy stabilizes.鈥�

– , President,
Concur Travel, 51风流Concur

鈥淲ith the role of procurement continuing to become increasingly more strategic, we are seeing a greater need to digitalize category management. This is confirmed by a conducted by Economist Impact and sponsored by SAP, which found that more than 40% of respondents said category management is a top priority in driving digital transformation in procurement. Additionally, businesses are looking to create buying experiences that are more predictive, personalized and sustainable for their employees as well as buyers of strategic categories across all types of spend — direct and indirect materials, maintenance, repair, and operations and service. In 2023 and beyond, we expect the demand for procurement technologies such as these to continue to grow as they enable businesses to make the data-driven decisions needed to better inform their indirect and direct spend channels.鈥�

– , Senior Vice President and
Chief Product Officer, Procurement Solutions, SAP

To hear more perspectives from supply chain leaders, tune into the featuring Bryan Rawson, senior manager of Software Development at T-Mobile, and Sudy Bharadwaj, vice president of Strategic Engagements for Intelligent Spend and Business Networks at SAP, as they discuss how organizations can make more agile, informed business decisions to help prepare for what lies ahead in 2023 and beyond.