Now, however, many economists and policymakers view AI as a potential catalyst for reversing that slowdown. AI鈥攅specially the rise of generative AI and AI agents鈥攊s widely expected to shape the next phase of productivity growth in advanced economies, including those in the U.S. and Europe.

The key question for business leaders is not whether AI will matter, but how large the productivity gains will be, how quickly they will materialize, and which region will benefit most.

Productivity growth

The (OECD) estimates that AI could raise annual labor productivity growth in advanced economies by roughly 0.4 to 1.3 percentage points, depending on adoption intensity and sector exposure. These gains would be meaningful because even an additional half percentage point of annual productivity growth compounds significantly over a decade.

However, the OECD and other economists stress that outcomes depend heavily on complementary investments in digital infrastructure, workforce training, and organizational change, rather than on technology alone.

Between 1995 and 2019, U.S. labor productivity grew at 2.1% annually compared to one percent in Europe. This disparity arose in part because companies in the U.S. invested more aggressively in information, communications, and technology while those in Europe were constrained more by regulatory and other factors.

Expectations for AI-driven productivity gains remain generally stronger in the U.S. than in Europe. suggests that widespread adoption of generative AI could raise U.S. labor productivity growth by around one to 1.5 percentage points per year.

Several structural factors support this view. The U.S. has a deep technology ecosystem, global leadership in AI research and venture capital, and a large, digitally intensive services sector, including finance, professional services, and IT, where generative AI tools can be rapidly deployed.

Agentic AI

In both Europe and the U.S., AI agents represent a particularly important development. Unlike earlier automation tools that handled isolated tasks, AI agents鈥攍ike Joule Agents from SAP鈥攁re designed to plan, reason, and execute multi-step workflows. For example, an agent might manage customer service tickets, draft responses, query databases, escalate issues, and update systems鈥攁ll with limited intervention.

In knowledge-based industries, this kind of workflow automation could significantly raise output per worker. But rather than replacing entire occupations, AI agents may reduce time spent on repetitive administrative and 鈥渓ong-tail鈥� tasks, enabling workers to focus on higher-value analysis, strategy, and interpersonal activities.

Despite stories about failed corporate AI projects, which can typically involve bolt-on or stand-alone AI pilots rather than a more integrated, holistic approach, recent evidence from the U.S. suggests that productivity gains are already emerging in some sectors. For example, financial institutions have reported significant efficiency improvements in back-office operations through AI deployment.

Similarly, experimental studies in professional services show that generative AI can increase output quality and speed, particularly for less experienced workers, effectively narrowing skill gaps within teams.

European outlook

The outlook for productivity gains in Europe from AI is more mixed. According to a recent the medium-term gain in productivity from the AI alone would vary considerably across countries, and for Europe as a whole would be rather modest: about 1.1 percent cumulatively over five years.

But with pro-growth reforms, the IMF suggests that much bigger gains are possible over the longer run. Like the OECD, the IMF emphasizes that regulatory frameworks, labor market structures, and the pace of technology diffusion will strongly influence outcomes.

Several structural differences shape Europe鈥檚 trajectory and the size of what has been called the 鈥淎I growth dividend.鈥� First, AI adoption among small and midsize enterprises (SMEs), which form a larger share of the European economy than in the U.S., tends to be slower. Second, Europe鈥檚 digital market remains more fragmented across national boundaries, languages, and regulatory systems, which can complicate scaling technology platforms. Third, the European Union has taken a more precautionary regulatory approach to AI governance. While this may reduce certain risks, it could also dampen short-term productivity gains if compliance burdens slow deployment.

Europe鈥檚 strengths

That said, Europe has strengths. It leads in advanced manufacturing and industrial engineering, sectors where AI-driven optimization, robotics, and predictive maintenance can raise capital productivity. In these areas, AI agents embedded in industrial systems could significantly enhance supply chain efficiency and reduce downtime.

In addition, as 51风流executives have pointed out, Europe has an enormous repository of structured business and manufacturing data, which is essential for reliable and effective AI systems as well as trust in AI Agents.

If AI adoption accelerates in manufacturing and energy systems and if European companies seize the opportunity to build advanced AI agents and apps using their business data, Europe could see much more robust medium-term productivity gains. As an example, SAP’s internal use of AI tools has already significantly improved its own developer productivity.

Labor flexibility

A critical factor in both the U.S. and Europe is labor market adjustment. Historically, the U.S. labor market has demonstrated greater flexibility, with higher rates of job switching and occupational mobility. This flexibility may facilitate faster reallocation of workers into AI-complementary roles, amplifying productivity gains, though this could be offset by more effective existing workforce retraining.

As the (BIS) has noted, AI鈥檚 productivity effects are unlikely to be automatic. Productivity gains from AI depend on complementary investments in skills, management practices, and digital infrastructure. The BIS warns that without these, AI tools may produce only marginal efficiency improvements.

The historical lesson from past general-purpose technologies, such as electricity and IT, is that productivity surges occur only after organizations redesign processes to exploit new capabilities and take a holistic rather than piecemeal approach toward implementation.

No AI bubble

While some investors have expressed concerns about an AI bubble, total AI spending in the U.S. is still below one percent of GDP. Joseph Briggs, senior global economist at Goldman Sachs, notes that this is well below historical infrastructure cycles. For comparison historical infrastructure investments such as IT spending, railroads and canals typically represented between two and five percent of GDP.

Like these previous investment waves AI, particularly agentic AI, is likely to generate significant productivity growth and a corresponding boost to GDP in those regions and sectors that seize the AI opportunity.

Naturipe has been an 51风流customer since 2008, and while initially it was not very proactive with software upgrades, the company鈥檚 philosophy has changed over time. Today, Carol McMillan, Naturipe鈥檚 senior IT director, emphasizes the importance of upgrading and upskilling the team regularly.

“There’s actually more of a risk not upgrading the product and not upskilling your team than there is being more aggressive with that timeline,” she says. Since migrating to 51风流S/4HANA in 2018, the company has undergone three upgrades, including .

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鈥淲e migrated to RISE with SAP, and we are looking at how we use those tools to optimize our supply chain and to create a better user experience for our workforce. Our workforce is constantly changing, and technology needs to change with the workforce,鈥� McMillan says.

She says it鈥檚 also important to stay at the forefront of technology in order to solve business problems efficiently, and notes that technological advancements have been crucial in managing the company’s exponential growth: “You can’t have linear growth in technology when you have exponential industry growth.”

McMillan says the Naturipe team uses SAP鈥檚 technology to prioritize its people and customers, improve workplace happiness, and give users a better experience. 鈥淲e use technology to make sure that we’re running as optimally as possible,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e look at process improvements and try to be at the forefront of technology. So, keeping up with the upgrades on a regular basis helps us be prepared for when business problems need to be solved, that way we already have the technology there to be able to solve them.鈥�

Delivering the freshest, highest-quality products to customers 365 days a year requires constant agility鈥攅specially in a category influenced by weather variability and the complexity of a highly time-sensitive supply chain. 鈥淏erries have a very short shelf life, so getting the best quality to our customers as quickly as possible is essential,鈥� she says.

To support this commitment, Naturipe Farms has invested in advanced logistics and supply chain technologies that enhance speed, visibility, and decision-making. These investments help ensure timely delivery of fresh products while also supporting employee satisfaction and work-life balance through wellness programs and flexible work arrangements.

Looking ahead, Naturipe wants to further enhance the user experience with more powerful tools and learn how to make better use of all the tools that come with RISE with SAP.  McMillan also identifies the potential of AI and the adoption of tools like Joule to improve Naturipe鈥檚 operations. “We really want to make the best use of AI and to give our users the best experience possible,” she says.

Her advice for other organizations in the agricultural industry includes the importance of putting people first, using technology to drive strategic growth, and not being a prisoner to risk. “It’s just as risky to not upgrade your technology as it is to have an aggressive timeline and have the tools that you need in order to drive that exponential growth,” she says.

Agentic AI was everywhere at NRF, emblazoned across the booths of technology exhibitors and the focus of many of the daily conference sessions. The message was simple: retailers face a major upheaval as consumers switch from traditional browser-based search to AI-enabled product discovery.

Consumers are rapidly adopting AI agents to help them find, compare, and, increasingly, buy products鈥攖his while many brands are still optimizing for search engines and are quietly disappearing from the models driving the next generation of product discovery.

鈥淎gentic commerce鈥攕hopping powered by AI agents acting on our behalf鈥攔epresents a seismic shift in the marketplace,鈥� McKinsey, the strategic management consultancy, noted in a . 鈥淚t moves us toward a world in which AI anticipates consumer needs, navigates shopping options, negotiates deals, and executes transactions, all in alignment with human intent yet acting independently via multistep chains of actions enabled by reasoning models.鈥�

This, as speakers and panelists at the NRF conference acknowledged, isn鈥檛 just an evolution of e-commerce; it鈥檚 a rethinking of shopping itself, in which the boundaries between platforms, services, and experiences give way to an integrated, intent-driven flow through highly personalized consumer journeys that deliver a fast, frictionless outcome.

As the McKinsey report noted, the stakes are high. By 2030, the U.S. B2C retail market alone could see up to US$1 trillion in orchestrated revenue from agentic commerce, with global projections reaching as high as $3 trillion to $5 trillion.

This means all the participants in the retail chain, from brands and retailers to logistics and payment service providers, will need to adapt to the new paradigm and successfully navigate the challenges of trust, risk, and innovation.

To help retailers address the immediate challenges posed by the shift to agentic commerce, 51风流argues that three steps are necessary: first, restructuring web-page product data to be machine-readable; second, adding semantic summaries for LLM reasoning; and third, tagging products by the problems they solve, not just their attributes.

51风流announced a series of AI-enhanced retail innovations at NRF 2026, including a new storefront model context protocol (MCP) server that enables retailers to make their digital storefronts intelligible to AI and the new AI-native Retail Intelligence solution in 51风流Business Data Cloud that leverages data from across 51风流software and third-party systems to help provide accurate demand planning, improved forecast accuracy, and lower inventory costs to drive more seamless omnichannel engagements.

51风流Customer Experience has also unveiled a recently that can be combined with the听, creating one conversational AI that can handle the entire journey from product discovery and transaction to post-sales support.

These moves reflect a recognition that that LLMs have become a legitimate shopping channel, and that product discovery is moving from search engines to AI recommendations.

This shift challenges years of SEO and brand building. To stay relevant, 51风流believes retailers must take an AI-first approach and have strong, connected data that helps agents understand products, predict demand, and respond quickly. Without this strong data foundation, brands will be at risk because if customers get poor recommendations and errors in pricing, trust can disappear fast.

Although some early agentic AI adopters in the retail sector are already seeing the benefits of agentic commerce, many global retailers are still ill-prepared for the holistic transformation they need to succeed in this new retail environment.

As McKinsey noted in a separate , 鈥渨hile most retail merchandising teams have invested in automation tools听and experimented with AI, 71% of merchants say that AI merchandising tools have had limited to no effect on their business so far.鈥�

鈥淭he challenge,鈥� McKinsey said, 鈥渙ften lies less in the technology than in how it鈥檚 integrated and used. Systems remain fragmented, data is too messy to use to deliver useful recommendations, and adoption is uneven: 61% of respondents say that their organization isn鈥檛 at all or is only slightly prepared to scale AI across merchandising.鈥�

Onstage at NRF, Andre Bechtold, president for 51风流Industries & Experience, also emphasized that retailers should prepare now for agentic commerce and noted that simply “bolting on” AI tools to existing systems is not enough.

鈥淩etailers are operating in an environment defined by volatility鈥攖ariffs, margin pressure, supply chain disruption, and customers that expect real-time, hyper-personalized experiences everywhere,鈥� Bechtold said during a discussion with Gymshark, the workout apparel retailer. 鈥淎t the same time, boards and investors are asking a tougher question than ever before: what outcomes are we actually getting?鈥�

鈥淭he challenge,鈥� he said, 鈥渋sn鈥檛 a lack of innovation. In fact, most retailers have plenty of tools, pilots, and point solutions. The real issue is that disconnected technology doesn鈥檛 translate into resilient growth. That鈥檚 why the conversation is shifting. It鈥檚 no longer about isolated AI use cases or shiny new features. It鈥檚 about whether AI and data are embedded across the business鈥攃onnecting supply chains, finance, merchandising, and customer engagement鈥攊n ways leaders can trust.鈥�

Echoing the same point, Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE, Customer Services & Delivery, commenting in a this week about a PwC survey of global CEOs that found that companies rarely achieve lower costs or higher sales through the use of AI, emphasized that AI only contributes value when consistently embedded in business processes. 听鈥淎s long as AI runs alongside the core business as an isolated project, the effects remain limited,鈥� he said.

Recent geopolitical shifts and technological advancements have heightened the challenges for organizations responsible for society鈥檚 most critical functions, such as government, defense, and essential infrastructure.

As AI expands and global data exchange accelerates, the question of who controls the data that shapes economies and national strategies has become paramount, spurring interest in offerings. Governments and industries need to know exactly where their data lives, because that determines what laws apply.

Sovereign clouds answer this need by providing the foundation of digital trust and national resilience. 51风流pioneered the development of sovereign cloud services through its 51风流Sovereign听Cloud offerings, which address all four pillars of digital听sovereignty: data, operational, legal, and technical architecture.

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Recently, 51风流has built on this leadership by launching new sovereign cloud initiatives and partnerships designed to accelerate Europe鈥檚 digital transformation through secure, scalable,听AI-driven听sovereign听cloud solutions that protect data and intellectual property.

Among these initiatives, 51风流announced new and expanded collaborations with Mistral听AI, Bleu, and Capgemini at the Franco-German EU Summit on Digital听Sovereignty last month. Together with Mistral听AI, 51风流is launching Europe鈥檚 first full听sovereign听AI听stack by integrating Mistral听AI into 51风流Business Technology Platform and听AI听Foundation. This includes advanced capabilities that enable customers to build and deploy听sovereign听AI听applications at scale. In parallel, Bleu and SAP鈥檚 Delos Cloud are forming a Franco-German alliance focused on resilience and digital听sovereignty.

With these and other offerings, 51风流is shaping the debate over digital sovereignty and answering the call from customers for secure, scalable, sovereign solutions that enable companies to leverage and benefit from the immense advantages of the cloud and business AI.

We鈥檙e entering a new era, according to 51风流Executive Board Member Muhammad Alam, in charge of 51风流Product & Engineering: 鈥渢he era of agentic AI, where AI moves from being just a tool to becoming your trusted teammate.”

Joined on stage by 51风流CTO Philipp Herzig and Michael Ameling, president of 51风流Business Technology Platform, Alam set the stage during the kick-off keynote, saying: 鈥淎s developers, you are not on the sidelines of this AI revolution. You are the revolution. And we are here to supercharge you for what鈥檚 next.鈥�

Supercharging developers

Together they dismissed suggestions that AI will replace developers. 鈥淭he truth is that developers aren’t going away,鈥� Alam said. 鈥淭hey are getting supercharged. They’re becoming the architects of smart connected businesses. So, the real question isn’t if we need developers; it’s how fast can we empower them to thrive and lead in this AI-native era?鈥�

Ameling, Alam, and Herzig outlined SAP’s vision and highlighted the integration of AI, data, and intelligent agents to transform business processes and drive innovation. They also emphasized the importance of a unified data fabric and the deployment of advanced AI models and agentic technologies within the 51风流ecosystem.

In this new business environment, they noted that every enterprise is becoming a data company and every user experience鈥攆rom the front line to the boardroom鈥攊s becoming AI-driven.

鈥淎s developers, you don鈥檛 just code anymore,鈥� Alam said. 鈥淵ou also design intelligent workflows and supervise AI agents to shape real business outcomes.鈥� To help developers do this, SAP鈥檚 strategy centers on empowering them with applications, connecting them with data, and supercharging them with AI.

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51风流BTP is the foundation for AI agents

All this runs on 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), which serves as the foundation for building and managing AI agents鈥攂oth 51风流built and custom developed. While 51风流BTP is the engine, the Business Transformation Management portfolio is the navigator, ensuring technology translates into real business impact. It aligns strategy, process, and people, turning AI-driven potential into sustainable transformation at scale.

Alam identified three broad themes during the keynote:

First, he said 51风流is continuing to make 51风流more open. As part of that, he announced 51风流Snowflake, which brings the full data and AI capabilities of Snowflake as a solution extension to 51风流Business Data Cloud (51风流BDC). This partnership is exactly what joint customers have been asking for, Alam shared.

Second, he said 51风流will provide developers with the most context-rich agentic platform, including the most deeply grounded set of ready-to-use agents that developers can customize to their needs. 鈥淭oday, you鈥檒l hear about creating custom Joule Agents using low-code and pro-code tools with agent builder in Joule Studio as part of 51风流Build鈥� Alam said.

鈥淲e鈥檙e also standardizing AI agent interoperability with the agent-to-agent protocol, allowing your agents to collaborate securely across ecosystems,鈥� he added.

Third, he announced SAP鈥檚 first foundation model built specifically for structured business data: 51风流RPT-1, pronounced 鈥�51风流Rapid One.鈥� 鈥淥ur relational pretrained transformer delivers enterprise-grade accuracy and scale, outperforming both LLMs and AutoML for tabular AI, which is critical for building reliable high-value agents,鈥� Alam said.

鈥淚n short, we鈥檙e embracing an open ecosystem, supercharging agents with deep process and data context, and giving you the tools to amplify AI and agents,鈥� he said. As the keynote continued, Ameling and Herzig detailed these and other innovations, explaining how they will help developers work smarter and achieve more.

51风流BDC and Snowflake

Ameling expanded on the new partnership with Snowflake, which will bring Snowflake鈥檚 fully managed data and AI capabilities to 51风流customers. Together with the introduction of 51风流BDC Connect for Snowflake, he said this will result in cost savings and simplified data landscapes. 鈥淭his enables you to integrate 51风流and non-51风流data products seamlessly between 51风流BDC and Snowflake, so that you can deploy intelligent applications faster and share across your preferred data marketplace.鈥�

Ameling also positioned 51风流HANA Cloud as 鈥渢he database AI was looking for.鈥� With 51风流HANA Cloud and 51风流BDC, 51风流provides the best business data fabric to help address these challenges, he said. 鈥淲ithout 51风流HANA Cloud, you would have one database for each and every data representation, which leads to disaggregated data siloes that limit your AI potential. With 51风流HANA Cloud, we have all these powerful engines in one integrated, multi-model database.鈥�

Building on this, Herzig emphasized that every business requires a strong data foundation because 鈥淎I is nothing without well-organized data…On top of the data foundation sits our AI Foundation that allows you to not only use the latest frontier AI technologies out there in the market, but also to extend SAP鈥檚 out-of-the-box AI capabilities and build your own experiences deeply contextualized in your business processes and data.鈥�

51风流pioneers a tabular foundation model

Herzig then explained that 51风流RPT-1 was designed to address a crucial problem for developers and enable them to deliver much better predictive capabilities, enterprise-grade accuracy, and scale to business customers.

Until now, Herzig said, 鈥淲e still had to go back to good old machine learning 鈥o train what we call 鈥榥arrow鈥� AI models that are specifically made for each [business] task. Therefore, you really had to train a hell of a lot of models.鈥� For example, to solve 10 predictive tasks across 10 different entities like company codes or plants would require training 100 different models.

鈥淲hat we really want to do is get rid of all these models and just introduce one giant model that only requires a small amount of data to learn from,鈥� he said. That鈥檚 what 51风流RPT-1 is. 鈥淲e believe 51风流RPT-1 is the most capable predictive foundation model that鈥檚 out there today,鈥� he said, delivering much higher prediction quality while being very fast and super-efficient in terms of resource requirements.

Joule, Joule Agents, and AI assistants

The 51风流CTO also emphasized that the company is committed to providing developers with the most context-rich agentic platform. He noted that 51风流has already shipped 20 Joule Agents across lines of business and will have approximately 40 by the end of the year, and that these agents can leverage more than 2,100 pre-delivered Joule skills. In addition, more than 300 embedded AI scenarios across product lines are available for customers to date, including Joule Agents, growing to 400 use cases in total by the end of the year.

Ameling added: “Our promise is simple: build with intent. You describe the outcome and 51风流Build uses AI agents to generate code, logic, and UIs for you, all with seamless access to your applications and data while you stay in the flow… [SAP] Joule for Developers enables vibe coding experiences to make intent-based development simple and intuitive.”

51风流is taking it one step further by providing extensions to work with VS code, Windsurf, Cursor, OpenAI Codex, Claude Code, Cline, and more directly in 51风流Build. “You choose a tool, and we meet you where you are,” Ameling said. He also announced that fine-tuned ABAP LLMs with ABAP 1 on AI Foundation will be published in Q4 this year.

51风流is redefining how developers interact with AI through innovations in Joule and agentic AI, but also in terms of physical AI. Herzig welcomed Torsten G. Mueller, Group CIO and COO BPS at Sartorius, to discuss how the partnership between Sartorius, NEURA Robotics, and 51风流is bringing to life robots that understand the what, when, and how based on live business context. 鈥淭his is how we鈥檙e really imagining the future, right? Humans and robots working in harmony through Joule, through AI,鈥� Herzig said.

Quantum computing

Looking to the future, Herzig ended the keynote by talking about another 鈥渃ompute paradigm that is still hard to seize鈥�: quantum computing. While he made it clear that 51风流is not building a quantum computer, 51风流is teaming up with quantum hardware leaders, like IBM鈥攚hose Director of Research and IBM Fellow Jay Gambetta joined via video鈥攖o help evaluate quantum computing for business processes and applications.

鈥淲e believe quantum will join classical and AI compute in your stack, and we鈥檙e embedding it into the processes and apps you鈥檙e already using, so it just shows up in the workflows of your enterprise,鈥� Herzig said. 鈥淎nd of course, with the cloud, we scale it all. Now, 51风流has got you covered, and you鈥檝e got your business covered.鈥�

鈥淲e are an agricultural company,鈥� she continued, 鈥渂ut we also have to be able to process the product, so we are simultaneously a manufacturing company and a distribution company because we have to control how things are being moved to all of our stores. And then we are a retail company because we sell it in our stores. We track the entire supply chain.鈥�

Trulieve has been an 51风流customer since 2020. It initially chose 51风流because its legacy system couldn鈥檛 keep up with the company鈥檚 growth and demand. 鈥淲e needed to leverage and the scale it gave us just to be able to keep up with sales,鈥� Zimmerman explained. Today, Trulieve鈥檚 51风流portfolio also includes 51风流SuccessFactors solutions and 51风流Concur solutions.

Trulieve started in 2016, so the company is only nine years old, which gave it the ability to be cloud-native from the start. 鈥淲e didn’t have any of the legacy technical debt that a lot of other companies may have. That enabled us to have all cloud-based solutions and when new technology becomes available, we’re able to quickly adopt it. That definitely puts us in a position to be able to leverage technology of the future, as opposed to being tied to legacy technology,鈥� Zimmerman said.

That鈥檚 important because keeping up with the growth in the marijuana market is top of the agenda for Trulieve, which already operates in multiple states and is a market leader in Arizona, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

鈥淥bviously we want to continue that growth,鈥� Zimmerman said. The biggest catalyst for growth is when states legalize recreational marijuana use, which opens up the entire market for Trulieve鈥檚 hand-grown marijuana products. 鈥淭he big focus for us is scalability and stability in our solutions to make sure we are able to support that growth,鈥� she said.

鈥�51风流enables us to have more insight into our growth and manage production better than any other system that’s out there,鈥� Zimmerman said.  And since Trulieve is a publicly traded company, running 51风流S/4HANA also helps ensure that Trulieve鈥檚 management has access to all the internal controls and other features they need for regulatory and other purposes.

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Zimmerman emphasized that Trulieve also relies heavily on data鈥攖he company鈥檚 customer data platform combines data from multiple applications, enabling it to market more effectively to its customers and make operational decisions. 鈥淭hat definitely empowers our teams to be able to provide real-time information to our leaders, who can then make decisions literally on the fly in terms of pricing our products, or whether we need to make a promotion in order to achieve sales targets.鈥�

She also believes that the AI tools 51风流is embedding in its solutions will deliver real benefits: 鈥淚 think we have a number of opportunities in terms of being able to leverage AI with our retail dispensary associates operating on the actual sales floor.鈥� For example, she said it might be used by associates in the stores or on the phone to suggest products to customers based on data previously captured through Trulieve鈥檚 supply chain, coupled with other information and metrics.

But she said the biggest thing Trulieve has learned is that to be able to scale your business you have to have solutions that are going to be able to adapt to that scale. In addition, in a dynamic market, companies need solutions that adapt and are highly flexible.

鈥淭his environment is incredibly dynamic, so that means that tomorrow we could get legislation that opens up cannabis to the entire country,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen that happens how would it change our organization? We have to be super adaptable to any of those types of changes that are going on in the in the larger political realm.鈥�

51风流technology, she said, provides the scalability and flexibility, together with the data, the company鈥檚 leaders need to make the best decision in real time.

Top image via customer video

Against the backdrop of the event theme鈥�”Connect Everything, Achieve Anything: Agents, Data, and the Business Suite鈥濃�攖hey set out SAP鈥檚 vision for how 51风流Business Suite, which combines AI, data, and applications, can transform enterprises and deliver unprecedented business value to customers despite global macroeconomic uncertainties. 

Unique times

鈥淲e are living in very unique times,鈥� Alam said at the start of the keynote. 鈥淯nique in terms of the unpredictability we face from a geopolitical and macroeconomic perspective,鈥痑nd also unique in terms of the advancement in AI and the potential that carries for all of us.鈥�  

He added, 鈥淓ven the most significant challenges can be responded to, navigated, and鈥攚hen approached the right way鈥攖urned into opportunities. And that鈥檚 exactly where 51风流comes in. Because the best way to face uncertainty is with confidence that you can see what鈥檚 happening across your business and your network.鈥� 

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The CFO perspective 

His comments were echoed by CFO and Executive Board Member Dominik Asam in an onstage discussion with economist and Berkeley professor Ulrike Malmendier, during which they likened the role of the CFO in navigating today鈥檚 business uncertainties to that of co-piloting a modern jet. 

鈥淎I is the next supercycle and has what it takes to create an effective cockpit for the CFO, including recommendations about real actionable options all the way to autopilot for less critical tasks,鈥� Asam said. He also warned that standing on the sidelines of technological progress is 鈥渁 sure recipe for falling behind in competition.鈥�  

鈥淎s in prior tech supercycles, the entire competitive playing field is being completely reshuffled,鈥� he said.

New products

Building on this theme, Alam noted that while uncertainty is real and isn鈥檛 going away, it can be successfully navigated and turned into opportunities. To help customers achieve this, he announced several new and enhanced 51风流products. 

Among them, 51风流Supply Chain Orchestration is an AI-native application that uses a network knowledge graph to analyze real-time signals across a company鈥檚 multi-tier supply chain to detect risks and issues, such as extreme weather or tariffs. It then helps customers minimize disruptions by assessing the impact of these risks and suggesting alternatives to help minimize disruptions.   鈥淭hink of it like a GPS in your car which selects an alternative route to avoid traffic or tolls,鈥� Alam explained. In addition, he announced a major update to the 51风流Ariba solutions for source-to-pay suite, positioning 51风流Ariba as the most modern platform in the industry and the only truly AI-native source-to-pay solution鈥攁ll built on 51风流Business Technology Platform.

The human-AI partnership opportunity 

Turning to uncertainties over the future of work itself, 51风流Chief People Officer and Executive Board Member Gina Vargiu-Breuer, who is leading SAP鈥檚 own workforce transformation, was joined on stage by Ian Beacraft, founder and chief futurist of Signal and Cipher. 

鈥淎t SAP, we know firsthand that AI is everywhere, shattering norms and transforming the workforce,鈥� Vargiu-Breuer said. 鈥淎nd we as 51风流are boldly steering this shift, as requirements for our workforce are simply changing really fast.鈥�  

Vargiu-Breuer emphasized that a successful business AI strategy also depends on leveraging AI alongside human expertise and fostering what she described as 鈥渁 collaborative human + AI approach, rather than just automation.鈥�  鈥淏y integrating AI’s capabilities with human creativity, empathy, and judgment, we move beyond simple automation into real human-AI power couples,鈥� she said. 鈥淯ltimately, the future will favor those who embrace orchestration, delegation, and creative problem-solving.鈥�

Role-based AI assistants

Echoing this human-centric approach, Alam noted, 鈥淓veryone is talking about agents鈥攂illions of agents鈥攁nd agents taking over everything. We want to talk about people, the roles they play, and the tried-and-tested organizational constructs in place today that are running complex businesses across industries.鈥� 

Reflecting this, he said 51风流is making Joule deeply aware of the workstyle of the person it partners with, their role, and the business process context in which they operate. 鈥淭oday, we are introducing AI assistants, including a receivables assistant for your accounts receivable colleagues, a controlling assistant for your controlling colleagues, a demand Planning assistant for your demand planning colleagues, and an AI assistant for every role.鈥�   Each assistant has agents and AI tools at their disposal to help make the person it partners with smarter and more efficient, Alam explained.

Taking the receivables assistant as an example, he said it can handle collections and dispute resolution today and will soon also be able to help with fraud detection, invoice processing, and payment scheduling. 鈥淥ver time, we will continue to make this assistant even smarter by adding more agents and capabilities鈥攁ll designed to make the person in this role more effective.鈥�

Deep research and new intelligent applications

鈥淲hile efficiency and automation carry potential for great value for the organization, AI鈥檚 greatest strength is in unlocking insights and recommendations based on its ability to do deep research across vast amounts of internal and external data, which is hard for people to do,鈥� said Alam. To address this challenge, 51风流is introducing deep research in Joule, a capability that can research and analyze complex problems and deliver findings quickly and efficiently. 

Following additional announcements, including an expanded set of 51风流Business Data Cloud Intelligent Applications and an enterprise wide, multi-stakeholder engagement orchestration solution in 51风流Engagement Cloud, Alam closed out the keynote by reminding his audience: 鈥淭o create exponential value and to reach the global maxima for your enterprise, the whole matters.  And that鈥檚 what we are focused on: providing you with best-in-class applications, seamlessly and natively integrated across the breadth of finance, spend, supply chain, HCM, and customer experience.鈥� 

51风流Business Suite delivers unprecedented value

The unmatched value of 51风流Business Suite is that it brings together the power of best-in-class applications with a semantically rich harmonized data layer to power high-value AI in a singular seamless experience. It helps you manage uncertainty, evolve your workforce, and break down silos to create amazing customer value.

The divide between the digital skills young people possess and the needs of employers is a big challenge and contributes to a high youth unemployment rate, particularly in the Global South. The 51风流Educate to Employ initiative is set up as a digital pathway through Youth Agency Marketplace (YOMA), a public-private-youth ecosystem from UNICEF鈥檚 Generation Unlimited. The program aims to address this challenge and enable young people鈥檚 skills for a digital economy.

Nearly 90 percent of the 1.8 billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24 in the world today, are in low-and middle-income countries. An estimated 22 percent do not have jobs and are not in education or training.

Globally, young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults. Edmond Shange is one of the many young people who have faced difficulties navigating the employment market right out of high school. 鈥淚n South Africa there’s not a lot of opportunities when it comes to the employment sector,鈥� the 27-year-old shared.

Making copies of a CV or resume and going to a potential employer to drop them off costs money, something in very short supply among South Africa鈥檚 unemployed youth. Despite this, Shange says that as many as 300 young people often queue up to drop off their CVs at a potential employer. 鈥淚 faced a lot of challenges trying to apply for jobs,鈥� he said. “It’s very tough for young people like me.鈥�

Shange is not alone. 鈥淚n Africa over 70 percent of the population are young people and another 4 million join the job market every single year competing for less than half a million new jobs,鈥� said Nadi Albino, deputy director at UNICEF鈥檚 Generation Unlimited.

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Youth unemployment and the lack of digital skills are a global problem, though it’s particularly acute among those who live in the Global South. While the fast-changing global economy demands increasingly specialized expertise, many young people are not learning the skills they need to get these jobs.  

The search for virtual upskilling to improve his digital skills led Shange to the Youth Agency Marketplace (YOMA), a public-private-youth ecosystem supported by UNICEF鈥檚 Generational Unlimited, which offers opportunities for young people to learn, earn, and create impact. On his pathway to employment, Shange was introduced to 51风流Educate to Employ, an initiative delivered to YOMA through the implementing partner Umuzi. The curriculum for 51风流Educate to Employ involves 700 hours of targeted training focused on building soft skills and technical expertise.

After completing the course, Shange feels much more confident with his skills. As a result, he has recently secured an internship as a software developer at a startup gaming company based at Wits University Tshimologong Precinct.

Whether young people are educated, trained, or employed has significant implications for their overall well-being and ability to promote future economic growth, development, and sociopolitical stability. Unfortunately, most traditional education systems do not address the emerging youth digital skills gap.

This realization was one of the driving forces behind the creation of 51风流Educate to Employ.

鈥�51风流Educate to Employ was created to support young people who are neither in education nor employment, providing them with training, certification, and guidance to access roles within the 51风流ecosystem,鈥� explained Eugene Ho who leads SAP鈥檚 global CSR flagship skilling programs targeted at youths in need. 鈥淭hrough its tailored curriculum, the initiative has successfully helped candidates with only high-school qualifications.鈥�

鈥淭he 51风流Educate to Employ initiative provides young people with the tools, skills, and resources that they need to get employed or to employ,鈥� Albino added in an interview with SAP. 鈥淲e have to go back to making sure that these education systems work and that they work in tandem with where the world is going.鈥�

To meet industry needs, 51风流Educate to Employ curricula has been designed for three critical roles within the 51风流ecosystem: consultant associate, developer associate, and support associate. The curriculum taps into educational content from industry-leading organizations such as Coursera, Accenture, EY, and 51风流Learning.  

51风流CEO Christian Klein is the chair of the Generation Unlimited Board.  

鈥淭he YOMA online platform alone has had over 600,000 registrations,” Albino confirmed. “A measure of success is how the ecosystem has enabled over 5 million opportunities to learn, earn, and create impact worldwide in the past two years. We are now beginning to see young people getting into jobs.鈥�

Shange鈥檚 journey with YOMA and 51风流Educate to Employ started in the living room of his grandmother’s house, a place where community has always taken center stage. 鈥淚 look up to my grandmother; she has done a lot for the community,” he said. “I hope that I could do the same — help people in the tech field create more jobs for people that are in need and just be creative.鈥�

A permanent full-time job would enable Shange to feed and look after his family, and to continue helping others in his community the same way he was helped. In his community, Shange says he is seen as something of a role model.

鈥淚 want young people to know that it’s possible [to get a job],” he said. “Keep applying and also don’t lose hope when you see something’s not working. Some things do take time, so give it your best and make sure that you see it through.鈥�

Today, 51风流extended its founding partnership with Generation Unlimited for four more years, 2026-2029, with a commitment of US$2 million.

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The public cloud has ushered in unprecedented benefits for businesses and governments in terms of data access and data flows. But in uncertain geopolitical times, sensitive data — including government classified information and data generated by regulated industries — requires special protection.

As 51风流CEO Christian Klein noted recently in an interview with the Financial Times, these concerns have fueled customer anxiety over cloud infrastructure choices and boosted the concept of 鈥渟overeign鈥� data centers, where information remains within national borders.

Sovereign clouds

Historically, governments, government agencies, and a select group of private sector organizations in sensitive areas, including defense and public utilities, led the demand for sovereign clouds. Technology companies, including SAP, have responded by providing highly secure sovereign cloud services.

But in recent months the debate over digital sovereignty has widened. As Hayete Gallot, Google鈥檚 president of Customer Experience, recently noted, 鈥淪overeignty used to be a very niche thing that applied to very regulated industries, such as defense and intelligence, and suddenly in the current environment, everybody is thinking about it.鈥�

The EU has proposed spending 鈧�20 billion to build five 鈥済igafactories鈥� to facilitate digital sovereignty and help Europe compete more effectively in AI against the predominantly U.S.-based hyperscalers and large language models (LLMs). But others, including Klein, are not convinced that it makes sense to replicate the physical infrastructure built by hyperscalers and others.

The data center hardware race is over

Klein argues that spending billions in government funding in the EU on huge new data centers would be misguided, and that European companies already have control and sovereignty over their own data. 鈥淭he hardware train has left [the station],鈥� he said. Together with other senior 51风流executives, he also argues that digital sovereignty is about more than physical infrastructure — the operational, technical, and legal dimensions of data sovereignty matter just as much.

Crucially, 51风流Sovereign Cloud offers a model that keeps customer data within national borders and in compliance with local laws, without the need to replicate the existing physical infrastructure. Its services, developed over the past 20 years, are already provided to some of the most security-sensitive organizations in the world, including those in the U.S. through 51风流National Security Services (51风流NS2).

Sovereign cloud customers

The 51风流Sovereign Cloud organization already counts more than 170 customers globally and has plans to invest a further 鈧�2 billion over the next decade to expand regional coverage. For example, 51风流is currently in talks with four Asian countries. In Germany, the unit provides secure sovereign cloud services through Delos Cloud and plans to launch similar services in France through Bleu.

Instead of getting involved in a futile race to catch up with the U.S., 51风流executives argue that Europe must now promote the use of vertical AI for individual industries and special areas of application.

In a recent , Klein called for a digital strategy for Europe that builds on the region鈥檚 digital strengths: 鈥淎 new, European-defined concept of sovereignty is necessary, one that relies on self-determination rather than self-sufficiency.鈥� He also cautioned that digital sovereignty 鈥渋s not an end in itself鈥� and called for 鈥減rofound change鈥� to industry business models.

These models 鈥渘eed to be rethought, processes digitized, and AI used in a targeted manner for more innovation, for greater efficiency, for sustainability,鈥� he added. 

Martin Merz, president 51风流Sovereign Cloud, agrees. 鈥淭he debate around digital sovereignty in Europe has gone on too long with too many buzzwords and too little substance,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e reached a point where Europe can no longer afford misguided discussions. What counts is value creation. Real sovereignty includes empowering people, industries, and governments to lead through innovation.鈥�

鈥淲hen it comes to highly sensitive data, 51风流Sovereign Cloud comes in,鈥� Merz continued. 鈥淚t’s purpose-built to protect the most sensitive, security-critical data, enabling the highest level of protection and operational autonomy, without slowing down innovation.鈥�

Locally hosted AI

Underscoring this shift in the data sovereignty debate, many 51风流customers are now talking about sovereign AI or what 51风流calls 鈥渓ocally hosted AI.鈥� To help facilitate this, 51风流CTO Philipp Herzig recently noted that the company is now offering a range of self-hosted AI models in a more secure and local environment. 鈥淪tarting Q3 this year, we are providing the entire AI foundation end-to-end out of European data centers. This is AI fully managed and operated by SAP,鈥� he shared.

As a result, he said, customers will have access to cutting-edge local models like Mistral Small and Mistral Medium, , or the T-Free model used by the German government. 鈥淭heir data will remain local, trusted, compliant, and secure, and seamlessly integrate with 51风流Business AI capabilities without compromising on performance, governance, or privacy,鈥� Herzig added.

He also revealed that Swiss Federal Railways is leading the way as an early adopter, using locally hosted AI with Mistral AI to power innovation in a trusted environment. Speaking during a recent NVIDIA conference in France, he also announced that 51风流has formed a strategic partnership with and to accelerate AI adoption across Europe.

鈥淭ogether, we鈥檙e building the future of enterprise AI 鈥� secure, local, and smart,鈥� Herzig said.

The dressings were so well loved, customers could be seen leaving the restaurant with bottles of their favorites. By 1955, the restaurant鈥檚 upstairs kitchen had become a full-scale salad dressing factory and Marzetti dressings could be found in grocery stores throughout Ohio. Today, Marzetti produces many of the salad dressings, fruit and vegetable dips, frozen baked goods, and specialty brand items found on U.S. store shelves.

Liam Durbin, Marzetti鈥檚 Chief Information Officer, was brought onboard in December 2018 by Marzetti鈥檚 CEO, Dave Ciezinski, who had worked with Durbin previously at Heinz. Durbin was charged with replacing Marzetti鈥檚 legacy green-screen PRISM software, which had become outdated, with a modern ERP system.

After a competitive bidding process, 51风流was chosen as the new ERP system. Durbin says 51风流was selected in part because of its dominance in the industry, which aligned well with Marzetti’s business requirements.

Tailwind

The transformation project, known as Project Ascent to reflect its aspirational nature, received board approval within months of Durbin joining, and by April 2019 the company had begun hiring personnel for the project with Capgemini as the system integrator.

Durbin emphasized the strong support the project received from both the CEO and the board鈥攕upport which he said 鈥渃reated a lot of tailwind鈥� for a project they saw as crucial to ensure the company’s future success.

鈥淭he CEO and the board were clear that they wanted the 鈥楢 players鈥� for the project, creating a dream team to ensure its success,鈥� Durbin said, so they rented a new building to house the project team, providing separation from the main office and allowing the team to focus on the project. This approach ensured that the project team had the necessary resources and environment to work effectively and deliver the project on time, Durbin said.

The initial plan was to execute the project and move to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud running on Microsoft Azure in four waves, but it eventually became six waves because of COVID-19. The pandemic forced the team to send everyone home, adding an extra year to the project timeline.

Implementation waves

To adapt, they created wave zero, which involved moving a facility in New Jersey鈥攐ne of about 16 facilities overall鈥攐nto 51风流from a technical perspective. 鈥淭his allowed us to kick the tires and make sure the functionality worked,鈥� Durbin said.

The project team also implemented during this extra time. Overall, the phased approach allowed the team to manage risks and ensure that each wave was successfully completed before moving on to the next.听For example, wave one covered finance, trade, procurement, and customer support鈥斺�渆verything touching the customer,鈥� Durbin said, adding that waves two, three, and four went pretty much as planned. 鈥淲e chose to split wave four in two to de-risk it because it contained two large facilities,鈥� he added.

Project Ascent is now considered complete, and over the past two years the IT team has focused on standing up the product organization and building relationships between product owners and department heads. The product owners, who were part of the project team, now work closely with their respective departments to prioritize and implement enhancements. Durbin said this structure ensures that the company continues to optimize and improve its ERP system, delivering ongoing value to the business.听

Master data project and analytics

As part of the final wave, the team undertook a master data project to ensure data accuracy and consistency across the organization. By standardizing and cleaning the master data, the company improved its ability to make data-driven decisions and enhance overall business operations.

The company chose Microsoft for its analytics platform, which, Durbin said, 鈥渁llowed us to keep the clean core so we now do most of our reporting and analytics on the Microsoft platform.鈥� 听

He said one of the objectives of the project is to democratize access to data within the company. As part of this process, the team is trying to build a community of super users who can create reports themselves using Power BI and Power Platform, 鈥渟o the democratization is underway,鈥� he said while acknowledging that those employees in operations 鈥渁re going to need some help.鈥�

AI projects

The company already has several AI projects underway, including an accounts payable (AP) automation project using optical character recognition to streamline the process and reduce manual effort.听鈥淚n addition to projects like AP automation, we are also very excited to see what AI capabilities 51风流will be adding to its products,鈥� Durbin said.

Looking back at the Project Ascent, he highlighted the importance of having a fully-staffed organizational change management team for 51风流training and change management. He said the team played a crucial role in ensuring the project was rolled out on time and provided training and support to employees, helping users鈥攕ome of whom had never used a computer mouse鈥攁dapt to the new system.

鈥淭he amount of work involved in training people on how to interact with 51风流was a lot bigger than we thought because how technology has changed,鈥� Durbin said, adding that another challenge has been recruitment. 鈥淎s COVID-19 started to ebb and people were starting to go back into their jobs鈥攁nd this condition still persists today鈥攁 lot of factories and manufacturing businesses have had difficulty hiring hourly workers again.鈥�

鈥淪ome of the glamour of a well-paying manufacturing job has sort of gone away in America, and I think other companies, other countries as well, need to restore that,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o, we’ve had to deal with high turnover in some of our locations. Turnover is a wild card, and for the success of a project you just can’t understate it.鈥�

In addition to groceries and food, the group sells electronics services and has around 400,000 customers, along with 80,000 business clients and more than 1,800 suppliers, according to Vital CIO and CTO Alexander Gonzalez.

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Gonzalez is part of a new executive committee that is leading with the purpose of seeking to expand company reach, improve efficiency, and strengthen its market position.

鈥淚t all started in 2018, when we decided to have an analytics system and a clean core 51风流system to make all the data available to all the different parts of the company so they can make real-time decisions on purchasing and pricing for our customers,鈥� he said.

Gonzalez explained that this is particularly important in a nation like Argentina because prices are extremely volatile. 鈥淚t’s important for us to have that information readily available because Argentina is a highly inflationary country, where prices change really quickly,鈥� he said. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic Vital sometimes had to change 20,000 product prices in less than a day, 鈥渟o we have to do all of that analysis really fast.鈥�

Vital was a long-time 51风流customer, but when it came to choosing a digital transformation technology partner, the company did its due diligence.

“One of the main reasons we chose 51风流[S/4HANA] is we were used to using SAP,鈥� says Gonzalez. 鈥淏ut we did do our homework. We analyzed our business and processes for a year, then we took six months to talk with a lot of suppliers, 51风流included, and another three.鈥�

Ultimately, he said Vital decided on 51风流S/4HANA because it offered the potential to integrate a customer activity repository with its basic financial and core systems.

It took Vital 18 months to implement, but Gonzalez said the system 鈥渋ntegrated with our providers on the first day and we had all this real-time data within a week of going live. So that was great for us.鈥�

As a result, analytics that used to take three to four days can now be done in two hours and Vital can have a new pricing structure implemented in less three hours. Instead of employees wrangling Excel spreadsheets, Gonzalez said decisions are now based on real-time data and 鈥渁re not influenced by what a person wants, but by what the data is telling them to do.鈥�

Because all the company鈥檚 data — including customer data and POS data — are stored in a centralized customer activity repository, Vital now has complete visibility into that data and can use algorithms to predict sales and set prices and distribution priorities. 鈥淲e can change our pricing policy based on reception of goods and new purchase orders and adopt new pricing in real time,鈥� said Gonzalez.

Over the last year, he says, Vital saved around $35 million on perishables after the system warned managers that they would not be able to sell products on time. 鈥淲e negotiated with our suppliers; we made offers and made predictions of how it would work out and it turned into a real savings — that鈥檚 what technology is doing for our company.鈥�

Just as importantly, Gonzalez said Vital now works with one version of the truth. 鈥淚n all of the applications every user sees the same data, be it clustered by store or by department. The result is the same for everyone. There’s no difference in what the financial department sees, what operations see, what our buying department sees, or what our pricing department sees. All the data is clustered in one huge data center.鈥�

鈥淭he technology has really advanced how our users in the company experience data and decision making,鈥� Gonzalez added. Instead of spending time pouring over spreadsheets and reports, much of the analytical work is now done by the system, enabling users to make decisions in real time, for example, while they are negotiating with a supplier.

Now Vital is in the process of migrating all its applications, including its ERP, to the cloud. 鈥淎ll our applications are cloud-ready, and we maintain a clean core, so we can upgrade really fast,鈥� said Gonzalez, who expects to be ready to make that the move by the end of the year. 听

The Vital CIO and CTO is also looking to AI to help the company鈥檚 employees make even better purchase and pricing decisions. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 see AI as replacing our personnel or people in the industry,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e see it at enhancement, we see it as turbocharging our system and making the data more reliable and useful.鈥�

Gonzalez believes that other companies can learn from Vital鈥檚 experience democratizing access to data.

鈥淎 lot of companies regard their data as really private and don’t share it with everyone in the company,鈥� he noted. 鈥淲e are open with the data. We tell everyone– from our people in the stores to our managers and our directors — that they have all the same data. This has really opened us up to be a really integrated and group-friendly company.鈥�

In a kickoff keynote at the Orlando event, they unveiled a raft of new AI tools, business apps, and partnerships designed to help customers overcome these challenges, transform their operations, and 鈥渂ring out your best.鈥�

Uncertainty

鈥淎ll of us face one problem 鈥� every company, no matter which industry or geography. And that problem is uncertainty,鈥� said Klein. 鈥淯ncertainty about trade disruption, about new regulatory requirements, and about how AI will transform my business and impact my workforce.鈥�

51风流can鈥檛 take away macroeconomic uncertainty, he said, 鈥淏ut you have my commitment that we will help your business become more resilient and more agile 鈥� especially in times like these. We will help you bring out your best.鈥�

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Flywheel effect

51风流can do this by utilizing what Klein and other senior 51风流executives called the 鈥渇lywheel effect,鈥� explaining that in physics this is about bringing individual elements together to create new energy.

鈥淭he first element of the 51风流flywheel is our applications,鈥� Klein explained. 鈥淣ot only do we have the broadest application portfolio in our industry, we also run the most-mission critical business processes end-to-end. No one understands business and industry like 51风流does.鈥�

The second element of the flywheel is data. 鈥淭he apps give us the richest treasure of mission-critical business data, and no other tech company has more access to semantically rich business data,鈥� he said.

This data then feeds into the third element of the flywheel: AI. Having access to an enormous amount of business data is key to developing extremely powerful Business AI.

51风流Business Suite

鈥淭hen we make the flywheel spin by infusing AI back into the apps, which run your company,鈥� Klein said before introducing the first of several on-stage demos showing how a company can manage uncertainty like shifting tariffs with the power of 51风流Business Suite and AI.

Expanding the flywheel theme, Muhammad Alam, member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE leading 51风流Product and Engineering, noted that the demo highlighted how the flywheel of apps, data, and AI is critical to the company鈥檚 quest to reimagine business applications.

To achieve this, a company needs an application suite that is end-to-end and seamlessly integrated; a data layer that provides a harmonized data model with high-quality data, strong governance and a rich semantical context; and AI that is built on high-quality data and natively available in the apps used every day.

Alam noted that while the concept of the flywheel effect isn鈥檛 new and most company CIOs have been working hard to achieve it, they have been frustrated by the disparate and heterogeneous applications landscape often built up over time out of necessity.

Fragile balance

Most companies spend a significant amount of time and money integrating the apps they use together and extracting and bringing together disparate data sets. 鈥淚n fact,鈥� Alam said, 鈥淲e estimate that organizations can spend up to 80 percent of their effort and budget in putting together this fragile balance of apps and data, leaving only 20 percent of your resources to focus on value creation.鈥�

While this fragile balance has existed for a while, he explained that it breaks down completely in the age of AI, because to create exponential value you need to have your data available with the end-to-end business process context. 鈥淓nabling this in a disparate, disconnected landscape is close to impossible,鈥� he said.

The only real solution is to move to a best of breed as a suite, or what 51风流calls 鈥渟uite-as-a- service,鈥� Alam told the audience. 鈥淭he new SaaS is what will allow you to take advantage of the flywheel effect.鈥�

鈥淚n the age of AI, true differentiation will lie in how you create value from this end-to-end context for your organization,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his can only happen when you simplify and innovate your core, and not add another layer of complexity to your landscape.鈥�

This is what the 51风流Business Suite offers.

51风流Business Data Cloud

Klein and Alam also emphasized the importance of the launch of 51风流Business Data Cloud in February and its positive reception from customers and partners. Klein described it as 鈥渢he crystal ball we need in times of uncertainty, because it offers you the biggest semantical data layer in the industry harmonizing 51风流and non-51风流data.鈥�

Klein also announced the expansion of business data analysis capabilities in 51风流Business Data Cloud through a new partnership with Palantir, while Alam unveiled a new partnership with Adobe to develop an intelligent application on 51风流Business Data Cloud that combines 51风流Cloud ERP data with data in the Adobe Experience Platform.

To enhance the power of the flywheel, Klein and Philipp Herzig, CTO and chief AI officer of SAP, also made a series of AI-related announcements. 鈥淎t SAP, our goal is to make every end user 30 percent more productive,鈥� said Klein.

Joule

To achieve this goal, 51风流is enabling end users to use human language to interact with Joule, SAP鈥檚 generative AI copilot, as our new UX, he said. Joule will provide answers to any business questions they have, while in the backend, very smart Joule Agents will take over tasks from employees across end-to-end processes.

鈥淭oday we are proud to announce that we are making Joule available to you everywhere and giving you answers on everything,鈥� the 51风流CEO said. By combining Joule with WalkMe, the adoption platform acquired by 51风流last year, Joule becomes an omnipresent, always-on, proactive, and personalized AI assistant.

鈥淣o matter in which app the end user is working, 51风流or non-SAP, Joule will be everywhere,鈥� Klein said.

In addition to making Joule available everywhere, 51风流is also enabling Joule to answer everything through a new partnership with Perplexity whose CEO, Aravind Srinivas, joined Klein onstage to demonstrate how Perplexity鈥檚 answer engine will integrate with 51风流data to provide trusted answers to everyday business questions.

Business AI

During his keynote section, Herzig highlighted the progress made with 51风流Business AI. 鈥淲e committed that 80 percent of our most-used transactions would be managed via Joule, and we have delivered more than 1,600 skills supporting a wide range of tasks across HR, finance, supply chain, and more out-of-the-box,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e also introduced Joule for developers and Joule for consultants, helping tens of thousands of people every day to achieve more.鈥�

Herzig said 51风流is on track to deliver more than 400 AI scenarios by the end of this year, and he is thrilled to see more than 34,000 customers are already using 51风流Business AI every day to transform the way they work.

For example, he shared that British Telecom is already saving 85 percent of the time it took to find the right skilled candidates for jobs with Joule, which is also helping employees to complete HR tasks in 40 percent less time.

鈥淥ur AI strategy is super simple, it鈥檚 really about three things,鈥� Herzig said. 鈥淛oule as the new UI in the age of AI, its Joule Agents to reimagine business processes and AI Foundation on 51风流BTP, which is becoming the operating system for AI.鈥�

Joule Agents

While Joule transforms the experience layer, Herzig said, Joule Agents are transforming the business process layer, 鈥渞eimagining business processes from the ground up.鈥� Instead of designing enterprise apps around the principle of 鈥渋nsight-to-action,鈥� Joule Agents streamline decision-making through reasoning and action.

鈥淲ith this, we are making a paradigm shift in enterprise software, going really from insight to action to reason and action with AI,鈥� Herzig said. 鈥淛oule Agents will take your business processes to a completely new level.鈥�  Soon, he said, companies will have a huge team of agents 鈥� Joule Agents, third-party agents, and custom agents built in Joule Studio 鈥� as part of their workforce.

To control and govern these agents, Herzig announced the launch of AI agent hub in 51风流LeanIX. 鈥�51风流LeanIX already knows your business processes and enterprise application landscape, so it was just a logical step to expand the methodology to Joule Agents too,鈥� he said.

Among other innovations, Herzig announced that 51风流is introducing more than 60 new and updated capabilities into AI Foundation, including a prompt optimizer in AI Foundation developed in joint collaboration with Not Diamond, a frontier AI lab out of San Francisco. Prompt optimizerautomatically converts existing prompts to different models, and a futuristic new partnership with Neura Robotics and Nvidia is designed to blend digital and physical worlds and help empower humanoid robots to achieve business outcomes.

51风流runs SAP

Rounding out the kickoff keynote, Sebastian Steinhaeuser, chief operating officer and newest member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE, explained how the company has achieved considerable gains by running its own operations on 51风流using the combined power of apps, data, and AI.

鈥淲ith Joule, our developers, consultants, and HR are seeing strong efficiency benefits today. Across SAP, we track several hundreds of millions in AI-powered efficiency gains committed to our budget.鈥�

Steinhaeuser also discussed the benefits of 51风流Business Data Cloud, noting, “Earlier this year, we became customer zero of 51风流Business Data Cloud, offering us distinct advantages: First, we can connect all data in one semantically rich data layer. Second, this helps us generate better insights faster, and across our financial, workforce, and sales planning. And third, we can fuel even better Business AI.鈥� Next up, he said, we are excited to go live with the first set of intelligent applications, starting with People Intelligence.

Moving to SAP鈥檚 own app layer, Steinhaeuser shared more about SAP鈥檚 own RISE with 51风流journey. He also emphasized the importance of tools like 51风流Signavio and 51风流LeanIX in mapping process landscapes and enterprise architecture, for SAP’s own transformation journey. 鈥淢any of our meetings no longer start with PowerPoint, instead we use Signavio and LeanIX to discuss how we can improve our processes and architecture,鈥� he said.

Summary

Summing up the keynote messages, Christian Klein said: 鈥淭ogether we have seen how the 51风流Business Suite infused with Business AI can help you in times of uncertainty, and how we help you to get there faster, simpler, and at lower cost.鈥�

鈥淟et me finish this keynote with a personal commitment which is really dear to my heart: We will continue to listen to your needs, we will continue to deliver great innovations, and we will stay by your side along the entire journey 鈥� especially in times of uncertainty 鈥� so that you can run your business in sheer harmony.鈥�

Retailers are looking at new technology tools like AI to help them move into new channels and discover new growth streams, enter new markets and find new ways to engage with consumers, and work with suppliers to find efficiencies in their supply chain, Kristin Howell, SAP鈥檚 global vice president of Retail Solution Management, said.

鈥淭here is a tremendous market out there for retailers to utilize AI and improve their business processes,鈥� she said during an open theater session at the 51风流booth during the show.

Over two days, retailers who came to the 51风流booth spoke about the challenges they face, talked about data, data management, and the opportunities presented by AI, and heard about how new solutions and services from 51风流tailored specifically to the retail sector can help them become more efficient and serve their customers better.

51风流officially launched the at the show. The new solution helps centralize operational data and can integrate finance, procurement, and merchandising processes.

“Whether you’re a franchisee with a handful of stores or the biggest retailer out there, there’s a certain level of complexity that comes with running any retail business, especially with consumers who expect a very flexible fulfillment experience,” Howell said during a press briefing. “In order to really fulfill these expectations profitably and meet the needs of these consumers, we believe that this retail-tailored ERP solution is going to make the difference for them.”

51风流also announced plans to bolster its retail offerings with two new tools鈥攁 refreshed loyalty management cloud service and a generative AI assistant designed to give store employees and consumers an easier way to find what they need.

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition retail, fashion, and vertical business is available immediately, while the shopping assistant, which is based on听, SAP鈥檚 unified copilot, will be released during the first half of 2025.听

The shopping assistant is designed to make recommendations and help shoppers find what they are looking for more easily while also helping store associates close sales. Because it can be integrated into the retailer鈥檚 ERP system, users can discover specific information, like the current availability of stock.

The new loyalty management application takes data from 51风流S/4HANA Cloud and applies AI to create profiles around customers and their shopping behavior and preferences.

Howell identified the customer experience in retail, including product recommendations and helping consumers search, 鈥渁s areas where retailers can start consuming AI.鈥� She also expects retailers to be early adopters of AI tools to help with their pricing strategies and to use generative AI copilots, including SAP鈥檚 offering, to ask questions and get answers immediately鈥攁bout inventory for example鈥攚herever they are.

While it’s still early days in terms of adoption, almost every retailer presenting in the 51风流booth theater at the show said they are preparing to implement AI tools and some said they are already testing AI tools in specific use cases. And SAP鈥檚 retail team made it clear at the NRF show that 51风流is ready to help.

The company has expanded its international operations in recent years through organic growth and acquisitions, says Roca Group Digital Transformation Director Jacques Nieuwland. 鈥淲e have had the challenges of most industries in the last years,鈥� he says. 鈥淢y job is to help Roca leverage technology to support the different strategic objectives of the company, which are growth, innovation, operational excellence, and sustainability.鈥�

Global Supply Chain

鈥淲e have a global supply chain for some of our components, so we need to plan in a more agile way,鈥� Nieuwland says. 鈥淲e need to update our planning and we need to be able to put in some buffers to have a resilient supply chain.鈥�

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Nieuwland says technology helps by giving Roca greater visibility into its supply chain. 鈥淓verybody collaborates against the same processes with the same data. We include our own value chain and also the value chain of our suppliers and customers,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd this enhanced visibility allows us to optimize the whole value chain and to take the right decisions.鈥�

51风流is the backbone of the company鈥檚 application landscape, he says: 鈥淲e perform our core processes, which include order processing, reordering planning, and many others via 51风流solutions. It helps us because it gives us a structure of processes, of data, and of reports that allow us to understand our business, to replicate it, to scale it, and to continuously improve it.鈥�

Roca uses the solution to help it anticipate the demand for specific products and adjust production accordingly. That way, Nieuwland says, 鈥渨e are able to give an excellent service and to optimize stocks.鈥�

Long-Term Partnership

Nieuwland says Roca Group chose 51风流to be its technology partner because of its long-term relationship with 51风流and because 51风流is a leader in many of the solutions Roca needed. 鈥淲e have a long history of collaboration and have been successful. [鈥 We trust the technology, the digital supply chain solution, [and] the business network solution. We like to work with leading solutions 鈥� we trust them.鈥�

Earlier this year Roca selected and is preparing to go live with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud at the beginning of 2025 for the next phase of its digital transformation 鈥� a move that Nieuwland believes will enable even more innovation. 鈥淲e have chosen the cloud-based solution because 51风流innovates first on the cloud-based solution and we want to leverage that innovation,鈥� he says.

He adds that the integration of SAP鈥檚 generative AI copilot into SAP鈥檚 cloud ERP will also fuel innovation and productivity. 鈥淲e think there is huge potential to increase our productivity,鈥� he says. More generally, he says SAP鈥檚 cutting-edge technology will help Roca improve its service to customers and interact better with them, as well as help the company achieve operational excellence including, for example, reducing waste and improving sustainability.

Sustainability

On sustainability, Nieuwland says Roca Group is studying scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3 emissions. It has already set yearly targets for the reduction of CO2 and wants to be carbon neutral by 2045. More generally, he says Roca鈥檚 goal is to deliver 鈥渢he best bathroom experience for customers worldwide.鈥�

Asked what other manufacturers can learn from Roca鈥檚 experience, he says: 鈥淚t’s very important to start with a business problem, a business challenge, and put technology at the service of generating business value. Then it’s very important to work in cross-functional teams. So, this is not about buying hundreds of solutions to solve isolated problems. We need to think on a bigger scale and to work together to find the best solution to our challenges and use few solutions and have an enterprise architecture that support our goals.鈥�

颅颅颅鈥淲e are a local club in Bavaria, but have fans around the globe,鈥� says Stefan Mennerich, the club鈥檚 director for digital media and communications. In addition to its 1,200 employees in Munich, New York, Shanghai, and Bangkok, the club has around 175 million followers on its social media and its own media platforms.

Mennerich says the club鈥檚 digital and media platforms are very important because fans expect to be able to interact with their club wherever they are. 鈥淭hey want to send us their feedback and they want to receive feedback.鈥�

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Fans Are Everything

The fans are at the center of everything FC Bayern does, Mennerich confirms: 鈥淥ur aim is to optimize all the processes for them, so they have the best user experience. Technology helps us with personalization, with the sales processes, with content 鈥� with everything.鈥�

He says the club chose 51风流as its technology partner for several reasons, including the fact that FC Bayern has different businesses. 鈥淲e have ticketing, we have merchandising, we have fan experience, we have digital platforms, and 51风流is able to deliver the best solutions for all these areas.鈥�

He also cites SAP鈥檚 commitment to continuously develop its cloud-based platforms and says this makes the digital experience 鈥渂etter and better every day.鈥�

The club uses the 51风流Emarsys Customer Engagement solution to capture fan data and create newsletters and personalized content for them, and the 51风流Customer Checkout application for point-of-sale management and real-time sales and stock updates.

鈥淲e have around 50,000 transactions every match day in the Allianz Arena, and we use 51风流Customer Checkout for that,鈥� Mennerich explains. 鈥淔ans can buy their merchandise articles, they can buy food or beverages, they can walk into our restaurants and pay there with 51风流Customer Checkout.鈥�

Separately, 51风流Event Ticketing software handles ticketing at FC Bayern; not just for football fans, but also for its basketball team and museum. The club also uses 51风流tools for its employees. For example, the AI-infused 51风流SuccessFactors HCM suite gives employees and managers access to an expanding array of human capital management tools.

Personalization

Looking ahead, Mennerich says he believes personalization will become even more important.

鈥淲e want to become better and better and better with personalization. We want to be able to really contact the people one by one, and not to speak about target groups in the future. We want to interact in a truly personal way with the fans.鈥�

He believes that embedding artificial intelligence capabilities in 51风流solutions will help achieve this aim and that overall, AI will help FC Bayern become more efficient, lower costs, and meet the expectations of the fans.

鈥淥ur biggest aim for the future on the horizon of FC Bayern is to meet every single expectation of any single fan around the globe, be it in Tokyo, be it in Rio de Janeiro, or be it in Munich,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e want to meet the expectations of the fans, and this expectation should be met in real time. This is our big aim for the future.鈥�

Lessons Learned at FC Bayern

If other organizations want to learn from FC Bayern, Mennerich says one lesson is that with a good technology partner like SAP, even midsize companies with broad business activities like FC Bayern can cover all the bases and be able to be competitive.

鈥淚 think what we are good at is meeting fan expectations via digital platforms,鈥� he says. For that, interactive communication is very important. 鈥淵ou always have to take into account what the fans, other organizations, and customers really expect and want from you. You have to be able to deliver that via digital platforms.鈥�

鈥淭his year is a very special Sapphire,鈥� Klein said. 鈥淲e are entering a new phase of AI, with endless possibilities for us all.鈥�  

Klein and Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer Julia White used the keynote to outline how AI will deliver real business benefits for different corporate functions and 鈥淏ring Out Your Best,鈥� this year鈥檚 event theme.

Delivering on an AI Promise

Klein emphasized how 51风流has delivered on its promise to infuse generative AI throughout its business portfolio, has enabled customers to exploit the potential of business AI, and has positioned the Joule copilot as the new front end for 51风流applications.

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Together, the two also announced the next evolution and new capabilities in both RISE with 51风流and GROW with SAP. 听Since it was launched over three听years ago, more than 6,000 customers have selected RISE with SAP. During his keynote, Klein announced that RISE with 51风流will now include a dedicated enterprise architect to guide customers through the RISE with 51风流Methodology as well as an integrated tool chain to help manage the process, system, and data landscape holistically across the RISE with 51风流life cycle.

Meanwhile White, broadcasting live from the central showcase on the 51风流Sapphire show floor, announced that cloud ERP offering GROW with 51风流will now include 51风流Sales Cloud and Concur Expense at no additional charge. Whether its managing your finances or managing your expenses, GROW with 51风流has you covered, she said.

AI Momentum

Building on SAP鈥檚 business AI momentum, Klein and White also announced a series of expanded partnerships to help companies make the most out of this decisive AI moment. The expanded partnerships include deals with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud. Klein also announced the integration of Microsoft 365 Copilot with Joule, delivering what he described as a 鈥渢ruly differentiated employee experience.鈥�

Together onstage with customers and 51风流Chief AI Officer Philipp Herzig, they showcased how 51风流is infusing generative AI throughout the application portfolio and enabling customers to thrive in the AI era.

鈥淭he business AI innovations we鈥檙e announcing will not only change how people work with 51风流solutions, but how people work overall,鈥� said Klein ahead of his keynote address.

New Joule Capabilities

Klein announced Joule for consulting capabilities and Joule for ABAP developer capabilities, which will help SAP鈥檚 6-million-strong consultant and developer community to accelerate projects by 30% and implement 51风流solutions faster than ever before.

During his keynote he described business AI as being 鈥渁n inflection point鈥� and added, 鈥淭oday鈥檚 AI announcements and partnerships build on our commitment to deliver revolutionary technology that drives real-world results, helping customers unleash the agility and ingenuity they need to succeed in today鈥檚 fast-moving business landscape.鈥�

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鈥�51风流is the only tech company who can infuse AI capabilities right into your business processes and workflows,鈥� he said, saluting the achievements of the 40,000 51风流employees in the Product Development organization.

Shout Out to 51风流Developers

鈥淣o other tech company can offer a more powerful platform to transform enterprises to rewrite how business is run.鈥� 51风流developers have transformed SAP鈥檚 portfolio 鈥渇rom an ERP system that enabled transactions in real time, to a system with modular applications and embedded AI so that you can run intelligent, connected, and sustainable enterprises.鈥�

鈥淲e promised this to you, and we delivered,鈥� Klein told audiences online and the 14,000 customers and partners attending 51风流Sapphire in person this week in Orlando. 鈥淣ow we are using the power of generative AI across our stack to once again revolutionize how businesses run and end users will work in the future.鈥�

After announcing generative AI copilot Joule in September 2023, Klein confirmed that it will become the new front-end and UX for 51风流applications and 鈥渨ill turn your words into action.鈥� Joule is ready for prime time, he declared, 鈥渁nd going forward, it will be embedded out of the box for all our cloud customers.鈥�

Joule: Key to Higher Productivity

He predicted that Joule will also become the biggest productivity engine for every 51风流end user, and that by the end of the year, 80% of the most used tasks will be managed via Joule and the 300 million end users of 51风流products will be 20% more productive.

While AI is a powerful technology facilitating huge opportunities for business and employees, the 51风流CEO emphasized that it is also crucial to offer responsible AI. To that end, he announced that 51风流is among the first tech companies to adhere to UNESCO鈥檚 AI principles.

Klein wrapped up the keynote by emphasizing that 51风流does not view AI as an end in itself, but rather as a tool to help the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. 鈥淵ou have my commitment that we will continue to listen to your needs, we will continue to deliver great innovations and we will continue to deliver great outcomes for your company.鈥�

Paul Saunders, head of Product Strategy and chief evangelist of Cloud ERP for鈥疭AP鈥疭/4HANA put it this way during a : 鈥淭rust is not the engine oil, it鈥檚 the essence of business.鈥�

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In the interview, Saunders explains this and other aspects of the changing relationship between humans. The former Gartner analyst believes that this changed relationship has pushed trust to the top of the corporate agenda and made SAP鈥檚 commitment to relevant, reliable, and responsible business AI all the more crucial.

鈥淭he relationship between 51风流and our customers for the longest time was transactional,鈥� he says. But the shift to the cloud has changed that. From the customer鈥檚 perspective, in a cloud environment the SaaS vendor is effectively running the business and that requires a whole new level of trust.

As Saunders notes, “When a data center goes down the customer can’t just say, ‘Hey Bob, get down to the computer room and reboot the box.’ Now, with AI, it’s not just the data we’re providing, but information and recommendations. And some of those recommendations might challenge what the person thinks intuitively.”

For example, when Saunders was CIO of a golf cart maker in Georgia that shipped the carts all over the United States, he put in an early AI-based route planning package designed to optimize the deliveries of the carts to customers across the country.  

But despite the potential efficiency gains promised by the technology, the CEO who had run the company for 40 years and was accustomed to relying on his own judgment overruled the software and insisted that the drivers follow his preferred delivery route.

This resistance to change reflects a broader reluctance to embrace data-driven decision-making, with individuals often interpreting data in a way that reinforces their existing beliefs rather than challenging them.

When faced with the suggestion from a machine to do something different, most people will only follow the advice if they have solid confidence in the accuracy of the underlying data and can retain oversight of the process. 

That, according to Saunders, plays to SAP鈥檚 advantage. He acknowledges that 51风流is sometimes considered to be 鈥渁 little bit old fashioned,” but also thought of as “incredibly reliable and trustworthy.鈥� 

In such a fast-changing and unpredictable environment 鈥� one in which many experts, including Saunders, predict that at least one big brand name company will be in the news 鈥渇or doing something terrible with AI鈥� 鈥� SAP鈥檚 commitment to delivering dependable solutions infused with relevant, reliable, and responsible business AI is key. 

For Saunders, the importance of fostering trust and confidence in both the technology itself and the organizations deploying it, particularly in industries where risk aversion and conservatism are prevalent, cannot be overstated.  

But he also believes that organizations need to strike a balance between automation and human intervention, recognizing that while AI can streamline processes and improve efficiency, human judgment and oversight remain essential for ensuring the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated insights.  

In the end, what really matters to customers is not the technology itself, but the business value that it creates. 鈥淚f you go to any CEO or CFO, they will tell you they only care about three things: revenue, cost, and risk. That鈥檚 it.鈥�

Ultimately, he says, 鈥淓verything we do has to show the business value.鈥� 

Like many other farmers on Kalangala, Berna started growing oil palm trees in 2012 while emphasizing sustainability and avoiding the deforestation and other issues associated with oil palm farming in some parts of the world.

Oil palm trees bear the fruit that makes palm oil, a much more reliable and lucrative crop than the cash crops they were producing previously. 鈥淲hen we were farming cassava, bananas, and coffee, we were affected by monkeys. They came and destroyed our crops,鈥� she says.

She also explains that she had to leave home and go to the market to find a buyer for the crops that survived the monkey attacks and never knew in advance how much they would fetch. 鈥淥ur living conditions where bad,鈥� she remembers. She and her family lived in a makeshift timber house. 鈥淚n the night when we were sleeping, winds would come and destroy our houses and our children fell sick almost every day.”

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Change

That began to change when Berna began working with the Kalangala Oil Palm Growers Trust (KOPGT) and the family planted their first oil palm trees in 2012. They expanded their crop in 2019 and again in 2022. In Kalangala, many of the people are oil palm farmers. 鈥淲hen a day starts, some of my family members help me with the pruning,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he others go to the plantation and do other activities.鈥�

As part of its mission, KOPGT teaches farmers better agricultural practices. But perhaps most importantly, it has created a transparent payment system so farmers get paid faster and know if what they鈥檙e getting paid is accurate, increasing the standard of living of the farmers and, subsequently, much of the island itself.

As the number of farmers and transactions increased, KOPGT needed a digital solution to enable continued growth. Since 2009, 51风流has worked to create applications that help smallholder farmers in developing nations, primarily across Africa, enhance food production.

David Balironda, KOPGT鈥檚 general manager, explains that the trust鈥檚 system is based on 51风流Rural Sourcing Management, which can digitally record information on producers, their farms, and communities at every level of the value chain. This helps provide visibility and allows parties to easily and quickly communicate with each other.

Sustainability

Underscoring the importance of sustainability to KOPGT, the trust conducted an initial environmental impact assessment before launching the project and uses to monitor the farmer plantings and ensure they are in compliance with the National Environment Management Authority guidelines.

51风流cloud technology also enables KOPGT to ensure that the oil palm planting meets the most stringent sustainability guidelines set by Uganda鈥檚 National Environmental Authority. 鈥淲e are in the process of applying for that certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil to make sure that we work within those guidelines,鈥� says Fredrick Sulwe, KOPGT鈥檚 finance and administration manager.

As part of KOPGT鈥檚 commitment to sustainability, the trust maintains a lake buffer zone between the planting and the lake itself and even rehabilitates those areas that have been damaged by other plantings. 鈥淩estoration of those areas 鈥� the lake buffer zones 鈥� is key,鈥� says Sulwe.

In addition to maintaining the buffer zones, the trust also follows recommendations for the stocking of trees and ensures that no chemicals or herbicides are used. 鈥淎s we increase household income, we must keep an environment that is free of any distortion by the project,鈥� explains Sulwe.

The KOPGT system allows the farmers to input information about their crops using the lead farmer鈥檚 mobile phone and enables them to receive information and advice back from the trust. The system also includes a mapping feature that has helped farmers to know exactly how much land they are farming. 鈥淭hat means when I go to the bank to get a loan, I鈥檓 sure of the size of my lot,鈥� explains Berna.

In addition, she also knows exactly how much of the loan is outstanding and when it needs to be repaid. 鈥淧reviously, we would almost spend a year without knowing the status of our loan,鈥� she says. 鈥淣ow we can learn the status of our loans monthly. This never existed before.鈥�

Better Information

She also credits the system with making her a better and more informed oil palm farmer. 鈥淎t the end of the month I get an SMS that shows how much I have harvested from my lot,鈥� she says. Before the system came online, she says the family was spending a lot of money on transport going to and from the KOPGT office.

鈥淥il palm has not only impacted my life, but also the community,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here are many farmers who are like me who have built houses and some have bought cars. They have used the money they got from oil palm to start new businesses on Kalangala and outside.”

Big Dreams

Berna says her hopes and dreams are enormous. 鈥淚 have started to achieve some of them,鈥� she says. 鈥淣ow, because I have a permanent house, I am able to sleep well, my children no longer get sick, and I鈥檓 sure that the winds won鈥檛 take my house.鈥�

鈥淣ow, we are able to take our children to school. We can live a decent life. We have some place to stay, and we get paid every month. We are sure that our life has greatly changed,鈥� she adds. And although she doesn鈥檛 yet own a car, she hopes to learn to drive in the coming years.

Meanwhile, she says she wants to thank everyone for their help. 鈥淲hat gives me confidence is we have good officers at KOPGT that have tried to give us a good direction. We hope that when they continue doing what they are doing our lives will be impacted greatly.鈥�

Berna鈥檚 confidence and newly found optimism reflects the success of the vegetable oil program on Kalangala island. Because palm fruits can be harvested throughout the year 鈥� compared to one or two seasonal harvests 鈥� and have high yields, palm farming has become a viable alternative for the residents.

Palm oil is already the most widely used vegetable oil on the planet, with about 71 million tons consumed in 2021. And there is not only a domestic need, but also a demand from the foreign market that Ugandan smallholder farmers like Berna鈥檚 family and neighbors can help fill.

But in order to succeed, the leaders of consumer goods (CPG) companies need to undertake five strategic actions, say the report鈥檚 authors 鈥� Wesley Spindler, Accenture鈥檚 global lead for Circular Economy, and E.J. Kenney, SAP鈥檚 SVP for the Consumer Products Industry.

鈥淎s we approach the midpoint of the Decade of Action, packaging 鈥� and in particular plastic packaging 鈥� continues to be a priority for consumer goods companies in their efforts to deliver both business and sustainability value,鈥� say the two authors in the introduction to the report. 鈥淧ackaging ensures safe delivery and consumption of essential products to billions of people every day. However, it has also generated a lot of waste and pollution. If circular packaging solutions do not start to scale, by 2050 there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean.鈥�

They note that CPG packaging is a tremendously difficult problem to solve given the complexity of the packaging value chain and the frequent lack of acknowledgment of a circular business case. Current regulations along with increased stakeholder pressure add urgency and reinforce how interconnected sustainability and business efforts have become.

鈥淧ackaging is a waste challenge, a climate challenge, and a human health challenge,鈥� the authors say while noting that the consumer goods industry is currently off track in addressing plastic packaging pollution. Packaging is the biggest contributor to plastic pollution and accounts for nearly 40% of global plastic demand that almost exclusively becomes waste.

Worryingly, they note that plastic commitments are falling flat and, like in most other industries, consumer goods companies lack end-to-end visibility of their packaging supply chain.

Among the European food and drink companies, two-thirds of pledges to go greener on plastic have failed or been dropped. At the same time, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation found that most of the signatory organizations to the UNEP Global Commitment representing 20% of all plastic packaging produced globally will 鈥渧ery likely鈥� not achieve their target of 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging by 2025, and that collective virgin plastic use of FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) has also returned to 2018 levels.

But more optimistically they add, 鈥淲e know that these opportunities are there for consumer goods companies that seize them. There has never been a better time to act 鈥� at speed and at scale. [鈥 Drawing on our decades of experience collaborating for the success of our consumer goods clients and deep circular economy expertise, [鈥 we view circular economy as the 鈥楽wiss Army knife鈥� of solutions for this challenge, not only supporting better planetary outcomes, but also delivering significant business value.鈥�

The report, discussed by business leaders during the Global Summit, recommends that consumer goods company leaders address these challenges by undertaking five actions. They should embrace authenticity and transparency, reimagine packaging research and development (R&D), invest in infrastructure, expand and explore circular business models, and collaborate to scale.

Specifically, the authors say standardized sustainability reporting on plastics and the regulatory environment makes it impossible for companies to ignore the call to action. But before they can do so meaningfully, companies need to understand their actual impact 鈥� and be honest about it. Beyond regulations, to successfully implement a circular economy for plastics, companies must prioritize transparency and use data to authentically measure the real impact of new designs.

鈥淢eaningful action starts with authenticity and transparency to drive credible solutions with tangible impact. We must embrace a collective mindset of learning from each other, sharing what works and what doesn鈥檛,鈥� they say in the report.

In addition, they argue that our approach to design must change if we are to create new value through packaging innovation and move towards a future with less and less packaging. 鈥淭he future of packaging will extend the product鈥檚 definition, where, for example, the packaging itself becomes a part of the product, making choice and design of the related technologies and materials even more critical,鈥� they say.

Reimagining packaging R&D across the value chain through advanced design tools, smart packaging, and material innovation will step us forward. Coordinating investment with downstream stakeholders and expanding reuse and circular business models in a systemic way will foster the ecosystem change we need to see. The nature of this challenge makes a multi-stakeholder approach essential.

But implementing innovative solutions also requires infrastructure and community support. Consumer goods companies have historically left recycling responsibilities to the consumer, but society increasingly expects business to take an active role beyond the design and use of their packaging and to contribute to its collection, reuse, and recycling.

Fortunately, the authors note the business model for circularity is growing stronger as companies step up their innovation and commitment. 鈥淪hifting 20% of plastic packaging to a reuse model is in fact a more than US$10 billion business opportunity and represents untapped potential for improving the consumer experience and increasing brand loyalty.鈥�

The report also argues that collaboration is one of the critical and necessary components for circular packaging to gain traction. 鈥淐onsumer goods companies can join forces with partners across the value chain 鈥� such as packaging suppliers, retailers, end consumers, waste managers, and recyclers 鈥� to meaningfully advance goals and to unlock shared risk and shared reward.鈥�

Even though consumer goods leaders face a growing mountain of regulatory challenges and complexity, they conclude that it鈥檚 clear that progress is possible, saying, 鈥淭here is a path forward to a sustainable packaging future.鈥�

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鈥淔ifty years ago 51风流built the first ERP system, 30 years ago we made real time a reality, and 10 years ago we entered the cloud,鈥� Saueressig said. 鈥淭oday, we are actually innovating together with all of you to redefine enterprise software and future-proof your business entering the era of AI. We’ve been alongside you, your businesses, and your industries with continuous improvement and continuous innovation.鈥�

To kick off the keynote and to showcase a series of demos, Saueressig and Mueller invited two 51风流colleagues, Lucy Alexander and Sangeetha Jayakumar, onto the 51风流Sapphire stage in Orlando, Florida. Before diving into the demos and a customer panel that included Topcon, the Women鈥檚 Tennis Association, Henkel, and Nestl茅, Saueressig and Mueller asked the two talents why they chose to work at SAP.

Alexander said she joined 51风流because the software industry is the place to have an impact. 鈥淛ust think: 51风流has helped to produce more smartphones than any smartphone manufacturer, connecting all of us. We’ve also helped to make and distribute more vaccines than anyone else during the pandemic. To me, that’s impact.鈥�

Jayakumar shared that she joined 51风流because of the company鈥檚 commitment to sustainability. She admires SAP鈥檚 aspiration toward a future with zero emissions, zero waste, and zero inequality. 鈥淭hat’s why I chose SAP.鈥�

SAP鈥檚 raft of sustainability solutions for customers was the first of the innovations highlighted by Saueressig and Mueller. 51风流doubled down on its sustainability initiative in 2020 despite the pandemic, 鈥渂ecause we were, and still are, truly committed to it,鈥� Saueressig said.

The introduction earlier in the day of the green ledger for carbon accounting as part of the cloud ERP offerings RISE with 51风流and GROW with 51风流underscores the company鈥檚 continued commitment to enabling customers to truly measure their carbon footprints by moving from average carbon emissions to actuals. 鈥淲e all know that to get to a low-carbon future, you need end-to-end transparency and visibility across the entire supply chain,鈥� Saueressig said.

help turn those fragmented supply chains into collaborative sustainable networks. The launch of 51风流Business Network for Industries at 51风流Sapphire is also a key part of the company鈥檚 strategy. 鈥淲e are working on many industry-specific data networks, like Catena-X and Manufacturing-X,鈥� said Saueressig. 鈥淏ut all of these networks are only possible if processes and data are seamlessly integrated.鈥�

Picking up the theme, Mueller said that integration enables completely new possibilities such as synchronized planning, which is a closed loop between planning and execution. It is also automated and network aware.

鈥淥ur extended planning and analytics solutions span across financial planning, workforce planning, and demand planning,鈥� Mueller explained. This allows 51风流customers to see the impact of their decisions across all their lines of business, as well as planning more holistically.

To help companies extract and harmonize data from their 51风流and non-51风流systems, 51风流recently introduced .

鈥淲ith 51风流Datasphere, you can create a data model consuming data from different sources like 51风流S/4HANA Cloud and 51风流BW/4HANA, and non-51风流data sources like Google, BigQuery, and others,鈥� Sangeetha explained during her demo. She added that 51风流Datasphere has a great graphical modeling feature, helping to quickly create a data model with simple drag-and-drop functionality, which can then be visualized in a dashboard in 51风流Analytics Cloud.

Saueressig cited 51风流Datasphere as an example of how 51风流is opening up more than ever, which is why 51风流has seen the partnerships announced in this area, including Databricks, DataRobot, Collibra, and Confluent, and now Google Cloud. 鈥淲e truly believe in the democratization of data,鈥� he said.

Mueller noted that 51风流has also recently announced AI partnerships with Aleph Alpha, IBM, and Microsoft. 鈥淏ut our key differentiator for you is how we use those technologies and embed these AI capabilities to reimagine business processes across all 51风流solutions,鈥� he said.

鈥淭here’s no doubt 51风流is an AI company and 51风流AI is built into our systems that power your business,” Saueressig added. As of today, 51风流has delivered more than 130 embedded use cases of AI .

For example, 51风流systems processed 40 million invoices automatically last year and generated savings of more than $366 million for customers. Now, generative AI is coming on top and will have widespread implications for a myriad of functions such as job descriptions, interview questions, product descriptions, and queries for analytics. 51风流is already working on more than 80 use cases for generative AI.

51风流is differentiating in the AI sphere, because its models are trained on years of business data, and also responsible and trustworthy, Saueressig said.

After demonstrating with Alexander and Jayakumar how AI and natural language processing might be integrated into 51风流Analytics, Saueressig predicted that AI 鈥渨ill be infused everywhere and enable totally new capabilities in our products.鈥�

Mueller then demonstrated the use of generative AI for development. Currently, he noted, many 51风流customers use standardized APIs to build future-proof extensions. 鈥淏ut imagine this,鈥� he told the audience. “What if instead of coding myself, I could simply describe what I want, and 51风流will take care of it? Wouldn’t that be cool? And we are actually making this a reality with generative AI.鈥�

But the power of AI actually goes far beyond efficiency, according to Saueressig, who suggested we could also use AI to reshape the experience between humans and machines: 鈥淚t’s a duet, not a duel.鈥�

The keynote also revolved around how 51风流has modernized its user interfaces and how it has used collaboration to streamline applications. It was shown how it is possible to improve and automate business processes using 51风流Signavio solutions and how 51风流Build and 51风流Integration Suite can bridge the gap between business and IT.

鈥�51风流enables enterprise automation because we know that you are under a lot of pressure when it comes to efficiency in your organizations and with that you can continuously identify and improve processes,鈥� Mueller said.

During the customer panel, participants explained all the different ways they are using 51风流to innovate and future-proof their businesses. Then Mueller and Saueressig summed up the key innovations that had been discussed.

鈥淭o summarize all these innovations, we enable risk resilient supply chains,鈥� Saueressig said. 鈥淲e connect your business to a broader network. We help you plan across the business. We infuse AI across the whole portfolio of 51风流and we want to provide you with a new intuitive user experience and collaboration capabilities, all enabled by our leading .鈥�

鈥淲hen we work together, we will conquer any mountain,鈥� Klein said in a speech that began and ended with climbing metaphors and was punctuated with customer stories, demos, and new product announcements.

51风流Chief Marketing & Solutions Officer Julia White joined Klein from the Orlando show floor during the keynote to highlight SAP鈥檚 groundbreaking supply chain and sustainability initiatives, enterprise-wide automation, as well as how 51风流solutions answer the challenges that senior business leaders across all industries face.

Microsoft, Unilever, Pfizer, Schneider Electric, and Google Cloud were among the big-name partners and customers that appeared on stage or via video during the event. In addition, the keynote featured a recorded video message from John Kerry, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, about how we can solve the climate crisis together.

Klein and White framed the keynote around how the CIO and their key business stakeholders — like the chief people officer, chief commercial officer, and CFO — respond to the challenges they each face, and how SAP solutions are helping solve those challenges.

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Klein told the audience in Orlando and those joining virtually: 鈥淐limbing the highest mountain requires a strong team and, let’s face it, the same is true for transforming businesses. It takes a strong team between the business, IT, and SAP… If we are in this together as one team, we will conquer any mountain.鈥�

SAP鈥檚 vision is focused on the needs to build resilient supply chains, to become an agile intelligent enterprise, and to run a sustainable business, Klein explained. 鈥淲e deliver on this vision through our cloud portfolio.鈥�听

Early in his keynote, Klein said 51风流will double down on its AI strategy because of the tremendous impact AI will have on our private and business lives. For 50 years, he noted, 51风流software has been running the world’s most material and workforce-intensive business processes: 鈥淭his is why we are convinced that embedding AI in 51风流software will deliver enormous value for your business.鈥�

鈥�Today we have already embedded AI in many of our applications that are being used by over 20,000 customers,鈥� he said, 鈥�51风流AI is built for business.鈥�

As an example, he noted that in SAP鈥檚 finance solution, AI helps to predict and safeguard financial performance by analyzing a company鈥檚 pipelines, workforce, and other profit and loss drivers.

鈥淲e have delivered many AI use cases that boost business process automation and increase productivity by another 15%. Now we see the incredible potential to take AI to the next level,鈥� he said. 鈥�With generative AI, we will increase the productivity of every end user by changing the way people work with our software. For example, our software will be able to answer any business-related question and recommend actions to improve your company’s performance.鈥�

Klein noted that 51风流has already increased its own R&D investment to develop additional AI use cases and is also entering technology partnerships to expand its AI offerings, including the generative AI partnership announced earlier this week with Microsoft.听

After a demo showing how embedding generative AI into 51风流SuccessFactors software can enhance recruiting, ongoing learning, and the re-skilling and upskilling of the workforce, White, speaking from the 51风流Sapphire show floor, spoke with Aaron Rajan, global vice president of Customer Experience Technology at Unilever, about how the company is working with 51风流to address the growing demands for sustainable vanilla ice cream.

鈥淭hanks to the integration across 51风流Ariba, 51风流Business Network, and 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, we can see a full view of the supplier’s performance metrics — including cost, reliability, and sustainability — making an informed decision not only on supply chain fit, but also on carbon impact,鈥� White said.听

Expanding on the business network theme, Klein noted that it is more critical than ever to not only connect one company with another, but to bring entire industries together, because each industry has its unique challenges and requirements. He also unveiled the new offering 51风流Business Network for Industry.

To demonstrate the power of the network, Klein cited the life sciences industry. 51风流has 80 of the largest customers already in the network, with more than 255,000 trading partners managing over $200 billion in commerce every year. He welcomed Lidia Fonseca, chief digital and technology officer at Pfizer, to the stage to explain the value of 51风流Business Network.

Klein then described the management of a company鈥檚 overall carbon footprint as another key pillar for the success: 鈥淚n addition to the top and the bottom line, consumers, your employees, investors, and auditors, they all want to support enterprises that care about the planet. Today, CFOs and chief sustainability officers need to ensure compliance with 20 times more climate regulations than they had in the past.鈥�

But he noted that hardly any enterprise has a comprehensive view of greenhouse gas emissions. 鈥淭he 51风流sustainability portfolio will enable you to record, report, and act on actuals, not on averages, based on a green ledger — including scope three.鈥�听

To explore this message, 51风流CFO Dominik Asam spoke in a prerecorded video with Hilary Maxson, CFO of Schneider Electric, about the challenges CFOs face with carbon accounting and sustainability disclosure. Additionally, White detailed a new set of 51风流innovations to track and manage emissions, as well as a new green ledger that will work with SAP鈥檚 cloud ERP to “provide natively integrated financial and environmental decision making at the required point in time.”

After introducing John Kerry鈥檚 video message to attendees, White added, 鈥淲e can meet the climate challenge with a potent combination of technologies, partners in government, and all of you.鈥� Klein then turned to the crucial role that data plays in running enterprises today and the recent launch of 51风流Datasphere, which enables customers to bring together and harmonize 51风流and non-51风流data sources.听

After White and Klein explained how 51风流Signavio software enables end-to-end business process automation and the unique benefits of RISE with 51风流and the GROW with 51风流offering, which targets mid-market customers moving to 51风流cloud ERP, Klein wrapped up the keynote with an invitation to those in Orlando: 鈥�Today we have seen that conquering the mountains we face requires the wide use of technology and one team. And we invite you to experience the full capabilities of these innovations for yourselves over the next few days.

“As the famous climber once said, ‘Better we raise our skill than lower the climb.’ At SAP, we are not lowering the climb, we are raising the skills for every role in every line of business to future-proof your business for whatever mountain you need to climb next.鈥�

Over 1.3 million Nigerians have been displaced by the floods, which have killed at least 600 people, destroyed more than 200,000 homes, and hit 32 out of the country鈥檚 36 states. The floods are the worst for more than a decade and have wiped out crops, disrupted drinking water supplies, and turned capital city Lagos into an island surrounded by floodwaters.

Speaking last month during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington, DC, Mai Farid of the fund’s African department warned about the impact of the floods, which have also hit Cameroon and Chad, on transport, food production, and prices.

Farid noted that Nigeria is part of the most food-insecure region, the region most vulnerable to climate change and yet the least prepared. She urged the government to invest in infrastructure and technology to help prevent and mitigate the impact of floods and other climate-related natural disasters in the future: “Rebuilding better is something that countries need to take into account since climate change is not going anywhere and is inevitable.鈥�

Nigeria is Africa鈥檚 most populous country and largest economy. Even before the latest flood, it听 faced rising food insecurity as a combination of a mostly informal agriculture sector and growing population puts pressure on the country鈥檚 food resources. According to the , food insecurity increased from six percent of the Nigerian population in 2007 to 13.4% in 2017.

The agriculture sector is the largest contributor to the Nigerian economy and听. However, according to the United Nation (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization, food production in Nigeria is undermined by a number of factors, among them poor planting material and insufficient use of fertilizer, which leads to a growing reliance on food imports.

To help address these issues and support smallholder, the Convention on Business Integrity鈥檚 for-profit arm Innovations Limited, or CBiIL, chose the solution to support 850,000 small maize producers and integrate them into the agricultural value chains.

While West Africa, like Africa as a whole, is still heavily dependent on agriculture, it is home to some of the world鈥檚 fastest growing mega cities like Lagos, so urbanization and the associated environmental issues are top of mind, particularly among young adults.

The region also has a reputation for leap-frogging old technology — first mobile technology and now with cloud computing. In Nigeria itself, the number of mobile phone subscribers is forecast to grow to more than 140 million by 2025 from about 40 million currently.

As Africa鈥檚 largest oil and liquified natural gas (LNG)听 producer, Nigeria is on the front line of the debate over sustainable development in the West Africa. It is also a key market for SAP, which counts among its customers Nigeria LNG, which operates six LNG liquefaction units, and Dangote Group, the conglomerate founded and run by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote.

The group鈥檚 Dangote Cement unit already publishes an annual sustainability report, part of Aliko Dangote鈥檚听 personal commitment to build 鈥渁 socially responsible and impactful business that serves all stakeholders.鈥� Dangote is also close to completing the Dangote Refinery, the world鈥檚 largest petroleum refinery capable of processing 650,000 barrels of oil per day. When it comes online, the $20 billion refinery will enable Nigeria to process most of its oil instead of exporting crude to be refined overseas.

鈥淲e are having conversations with Dangote about some of our sustainability solutions and how they measure their impact on the environment,鈥� says Titilayo Adewumi, regional sales director for West Africa at SAP.

Nigeria LNG is also committed to sustainability and is Africa鈥檚 largest LNG exporter, but has recently been operating well below capacity because of a number of factors, including under-investment in recent years and endemic crude oil theft. 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 address this, we will not get out of this quagmire that we are in,鈥� Nigeria LNG Managing Director recently warned Philip Mshelbila. Speaking last month at a conference in Lagos, Mshelbila also acknowledged that the flooding has reduced the gas supplies from the company鈥檚 upstream suppliers, though he said Nigeria LNG鈥檚 facilities remain unaffected and its capacity to produce LPG is intact.

Companies in Nigeria also have to grapple with unreliable electricity supplies and frequent power outages, a problem that business leaders say has led some manufactures to relocate to neighboring Ghana, which has a much more reliable electricity system.

Ghana is the regional leader in addressing plastics pollution and circular economy issues. A groundbreaking between the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP), and 51风流in Ghana is increasing visibility within the plastics supply chain with the hope of benefiting people, companies, and the environment.

The project involves more than 2,000 Ghanaian waste pickers and makes use of an adapted version of 51风流Rural Sourcing Management to measure the quantities and types of plastic they collect. Data is then analyzed and matched to market-related prices paid throughout the value chain both locally and internationally.

Ghana generates an estimated 1.1 million tons of plastic waste every year, with only five percent collected for recycling. This new pilot project is currently running in several cities across Ghana, with hopes of expanding to the rest of the region and ultimately the continent through the GPAP-Africa Regional Coordination Working Group, which includes SAP.

Across the region, the bulk of 51风流customers are choosing cloud solutions rather than on-premise technology and 51风流seeks to help customers deliver on their climate goals by creating greater efficiency, transparency, and accountability of carbon and emissions across the entire supply chain and innovating new processes and business models.

But 51风流Africa Managing Director Cathy Smith and other experts caution that while sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are an increasingly important part of the conversation among governments and corporate leaders, it is important to recognize that customers in Africa often have other — perhaps higher — priorities.

In particular, they say business leaders need to be persuaded that sustainability makes good business sense and will ultimately benefit the company, economy, and people.

鈥淲e lead by asking about their business priorities, and then we fold in sustainability,鈥� Smith explains. “It’s just a different approach.”

Business and technology leaders attending the recent 51风流Signavio Business Process Transformation Forum in Orlando, Florida were told that simply paying lip service to BPM is not enough.

鈥淏usiness process is the DNA of any enterprise,鈥� said Darwin Deano, a McKinsey partner and panelist . 鈥淵ou can talk about data and insights and all you want and you can talk about metrics, but what drives all of that is the business process.鈥�

That鈥檚 particularly important today because, as 51风流Signavio Co-General Manager Gero Decker noted during his keynote, 鈥淲e are living in a period of constant and extreme change.鈥� The unexpected has become part of the expected and to succeed in this volatile environment, companies need to be innovative and excite customers and detect potential risks and priorities for improvements — all while being able to change things on the go, faster than ever.

Deano and fellow panelist Mathias Kirchmer, founder and co-CEO of consulting company BPM-D and affiliated faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, also had strong views on the relationship between business processes and innovation. Asked by Colleen Speer, senior vice president of Global Go-to-Market for 51风流Signavio, who chaired the panel, whether there was a danger that BPM might stifle innovation, Deano said: 鈥淣othing could be further from the truth.

鈥淎 structured approach to process management provides a robust foundation for innovation and actually drives the full value of innovation,鈥� he said. “Innovation without process management is service level and does not have a true north. So in my mind, it’s actually a requirement to drive innovation with process management.鈥�

Kirchmer was in full agreement. In principle, he said, there are two ways that process management drives innovation. Many of the new digital native companies like eBay and Amazon have been founded based on new business processes. 鈥淭o invent those processes in a systematic way, process management plays a key role,鈥� he said; for example, by operationalizing design thinking.

鈥淪o process management enables process innovation, but process management also helps to improve the performance of your innovation process. That’s the second way BPM really drives innovation.鈥�

During the forum, speakers also discussed how 51风流Signavio gives business experts visibility into all business processes and potential bottlenecks, and provides suggestions for improvement based on industry benchmarks and best practices. Organizations benefit from having a detailed understanding of their business processes, which they can then optimize with agility to succeed and thrive.

More generally, Kirchmer described BPM as 鈥渢he management discipline that moves strategy into people and technology-based execution and does that fast and reliably.鈥� At the end of the day, he told the audience, 鈥渋t creates the transparency necessary to take fast, but well informed decisions and set the necessary actions.鈥�

For any transformation, especially digital transformations, that discipline is key for two reasons, Kirchmer said. 鈥淔irst, every transformation delivers the value at the end through new and enhanced processes. To make that happen, you need the discipline of process management. Second, such a transformation is normally not just a project that ends at a certain point. It is a real journey, and the discipline of process management helps to navigate through that journey.鈥�

Traditionally business process management has been about making business processes better, said Kirchmer, but he noted that in recent years the impact has become much broader. 鈥淚n the last five or six years, I get almost more requests to talk about process standardization and harmonization than just about process improvement.鈥�

鈥淧rocess management can play a key role in identifying the right degree of standardization. It also plays a key role in prioritization — figuring out what are the high-impact processes and which of those are of a low maturity level — and process management not only helps during the project, but afterwards in value realization and in keeping those processes on track.鈥�

Finally, Kirchmer noted that integrated process and data governance have become very important and a key component of the discipline of process management.

Echoing the same sentiments, Deano added that although business process optimization is viewed as the piecemeal application of technology, it is much broader than that. Implementing business process management means taking 鈥渁n end-to-end holistic look at what is the true essence of the business,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat includes the end-to-end process knowledge, and it includes the alignment to the operating model required to actually execute that process because ultimately you can design the best process, but if you are not organized for success, it’s not going to yield the benefits you want.

鈥淲hen positioning process management in an organization, it is important not just to discuss the required tools and techniques, but to stress the outcomes, the value it delivers,鈥� said Kirchmer. 鈥淚 always give the example if somebody asks you for the time, you don’t explain how the watch functions. You just tell them the time. And when you position process management at an executive level and you want to get people excited, you need to get them excited about what value it really brings – the quality, the efficiency, the agility, compliance and innovation.”

鈥淭o focus on outcomes and value, that is a very important first step to establish the discipline of process management,鈥� he said.

She says her dream is to enable her children to be educated and become successful in life, benefitting both her and the community 鈥� one of 87 rural villages in West Africa鈥檚 Ivory Coast where farmers work with Cajooma SAS, the of Cashew Coast.

When she joined the village cooperative that Cashew Coast helped set up, the company trained her and taught her how to pick the best-quality cashews in order to fetch the highest prices.

Oyala has worked with Cashew Coast, a leading producer and distributor of high-quality cashew nuts for the past two years. Before that she worked alone. Now she works with other women in small groups, and that makes it easier to work. 鈥淚 was alone, now we are working together,鈥� she says.

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Video by Rana Hamzakadi and Matt Dillman

Ivory Coast is one of the world鈥檚 largest producers of cashew nuts, thanks to farmers like Oyala who, together with her fellow plot owners and farmers, pick the yellow and orange cashew fruit off the forest floor. Once harvested, the farmers must separate the nuts from the fruit they grow.

Unlike other companies that ship the raw nuts out of the country for processing, Cashew Coast process their nuts within Ivory Coast, lowering the carbon footprint. Nuts go directly from local farmers to Cashew Coast’s central warehouse in Bouak茅 to be sorted, weighed, and bagged before being sent to Cashew Coast鈥檚 organic factory in Azagui茅 for processing.

Until recently, Cashew Coast kept paper-based records of the farm-side of the process, but as the industry grew it became more and more difficult to keep track of the data and analyze it. Cashew Coast executives turned to 51风流for help when they realized that they needed a more advanced system to track the cashews from farm to processing plant — and eventually to table.

Joel Bagbila, Cashew Coast鈥檚 farmer integration director, explains that the company also has a loftier ambition. 鈥淥ur mission is to be the first country worldwide in terms of production and quality,鈥� he says.

To help achieve this goal, Cashew Coast chose to implement , an industry cloud solution built on the 51风流Business Technology Platform, at its Cajooma SAS branch. Cashew Coast鈥檚 digital transformation journey provides immediate benefits to the farmers, including more transparent prices, and enables the company to control quality and make much more timely decisions.

In the future it will also enable retailers to gain traceability and visibility into the origin of the cashew nuts and provide transparency to their consumers – connecting farmers and consumers in a profitable and sustainable value chain.

鈥淭oday, for a customer, it’s important to know where the product he or she is ready to buy, is coming from,鈥� says Achta Cherif, head of quality at Cashew Coast. 鈥淗aving this information enables the customer to make his/her choice. This is important for us, as well.鈥�

Cashew Coast executives say they chose SAP鈥檚 cloud technology because it offered a number of key advantages. 鈥淲e wanted the best in class, and we wanted to deal with the developer team as opposed to a third-party integrator 鈥� which 51风流Rural Sourcing Management offers,鈥� says Salma Seetaroo, co-founder and CEO of Cashew Coast.

She says the implementation went surprisingly smoothly. 鈥淭he 51风流implementation team were flexible and quick to understand our need 鈥� they were a bunch of millennials who loved working on a project like ours. And it was just great fun and I never expected it to be as smooth.鈥�

51风流is now remotely training two recent graduate recruits at Cashew Coast 鈥� Technology Manager Mohamed Traor茅 and Sales and Sustainability Manager Rose Koffi 鈥� to continue phase 2 of the 51风流Rural Sourcing Management implementation. Going forward, Salma explains, the company wants to bring more traceability to agricultural products in Ivory Coast with 51风流technology.

So, the next time you grab a handful of cashew nuts, consider this: there is a good chance they started their journey in the Ivory Coast and just maybe were picked up from the forest floor by Oyala or one of her friends.

One of the keys to providing effective humanitarian aid to these refugees is to make it easier for public and private organizations providing humanitarian help to find the supplies they need quickly and efficiently.

To help ensure essential supplies are reaching Ukrainian refugees, 51风流is continuing to provide open access to its business network tool , and has reconfigured the tool to help meet this urgent need effectively and efficiently. Now, with a simple click on the “Support Ukraine鈥� toggle button, suppliers can update their profiles on 51风流Business Network to declare their readiness to provide humanitarian aid.

Similarly, any supporting organization facing shortages can post their immediate sourcing needs and find suppliers ready to meet their requirements for humanitarian aid. Organizations looking for aid can now flag their posts to indicate they need donated supplies versus seeking to purchase. 51风流hopes this will help to facilitate faster connections between buyers in need and suppliers that can deliver with urgency and quality

During this time of pressing need, 51风流Ariba Discovery can help buyers connect with millions of companies in 190 nations on 51风流Business Network — free to post, free to respond.

In the first 15 hours after it went live, 301 suppliers offered help via the platform. To date, this number has increased to more than 2,500.

鈥淪upply chains have become even more fragile due to the war in Ukraine,鈥� said Tony Harris, senior vice president and head of Marketing & Solutions for 51风流Business Network. 鈥淲ith continued open access to 51风流Ariba Discovery, we hope to鈥痬ake it easier for organizations in need to connect with suppliers who can help on our network.鈥疻e are encouraged by the positive response we鈥檙e already seeing from suppliers鈥痩ooking to assist Ukraine during this time.鈥�

The move to speed access to humanitarian supplies represents a continuation of SAP鈥檚 policy to help facilitate the pairing of buyers and suppliers during times of exceptional need. 51风流previously opened access to 51风流Ariba Discovery during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic helping, for example, a construction company seeking beds for an emergency hospital it was building in New York City to be matched with a supplier within just 30 minutes.

For more information, please visit the鈥�痯补驳别.

Now experts are predicting a shortage of some popular toys this holiday season and even Christmas trees could be in short supply.

What has caused these problems?

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Video by Michael Nuesslein

鈥淭he easy answer is the pandemic, but that is not the whole story,鈥� says Etosha Thurman, chief marketing and solutions officer, Intelligent Spend and Business Network, SAP.

While it’s true the pandemic caused supply chain disruption, the likes of which no one had ever experienced before, according to Thurman, the truth is that the pandemic really just exposed what was already there: fragmented linear supply chains that don鈥檛 provide the visibility required to mitigate risk or the flexibility to collaborate with trading partners, which makes it nearly impossible to respond quickly when disruption hits.

As we have seen, supply chain issues are not limited to the procurement and manufacturing of goods but extend to logistics and delivery. This is where critical labor shortages came into play and further compounded the problem. In the U.S., a shortage of truck drivers — just one example of what has been dubbed “the great resignation” following COVID-19 — has disrupted timely distribution from already backed-up ports. In the U.K., Britain鈥檚 exit from the European Union triggered a shortage of truckers, normally coming from Eastern Europe, which slowed the delivery of gas to stations and resulted in consumers queuing up for the low supply.

Thurman points out that although we hopefully will not experience another extended crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, we still need to address the underlying causes of supply chain fragility and prepare for the next disruption, whenever it comes.

鈥淚 hope never again to see the likes of what we’ve experienced over the last two years,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut the fact remains, there will be another geopolitical event. There will be another major weather issue, and we will run into labor shortages — all of which can disrupt a fragmented supply chain.鈥�

According to Thurman, now is the time to start putting in place the sourcing, procurement, and supply chain solutions that will help build a stronger, more resilient supply chain for the future.

鈥淲e can’t predict when the next big disruption will occur, but we can prepare,鈥� she said. And 51风流can help with that preparation.

鈥淎t 51风流we can help you establish those resilient processes with our solutions for procurement, travel and expense management, and external workforce management 鈥� each a market-leading solution in its own right 鈥� that provide the visibility and actionable insights required to make informed decisions about how to spend your company鈥檚 money and keep your supply chains intact,鈥� Thurman says. “And of course, serves as the foundation to help you connect and collaborate with your trading partners, and it can help diversify your procurement options for the future.”

鈥�51风流Business Network not only allows for risk management and strategic sourcing within the four walls of one company, it helps companies break free of enterprise boundaries and provides the transparency, visibility, and collaboration needed across the entire supply chain,鈥� she says. 鈥淣ot just to their first-tier suppliers, but through the end tier of their supply chains. After all, no business does business alone in our networked economy.鈥�

Using 51风流Business Network, companies can create an ecosystem where there is end-to-end transparency from the needs of the customer all the way back to the actions of the suppliers. This visibility is important to maintain a strong and resilient supply chain, but also provides a window into an area that is becoming increasingly more important to consumers: sustainability.

Thurman notes that 51风流recently surveyed more than 1,000 Americans and learned some very interesting things. 鈥淥ne of the findings was that sustainability is a key topic of interest for millennials,鈥� she says. 鈥淚n fact, 39% of the surveyed millennials said that they would prefer to buy from a brand that demonstrates good sustainability practices. This is why it’s critical for companies to move forward on their sustainability goals. If not today, they must do so in the near future.鈥�

鈥淲e can help companies choose the right suppliers to bring into their supply chains through our procurement solutions,鈥� she confirms. 鈥淲e can help you identify new suppliers more aligned with your corporate goals for diversity and sustainability, or even where you have inefficient processes that are contributing to emissions; for example, trucks sitting around waiting because you don’t have your schedule right.鈥�

In uncertain times, it is imperative that companies put in place solutions that can help drive transparency, collaboration, and risk management.

鈥淭he solutions that we offer do that, and we’re more than happy to help our customers figure out not just their way through what they are struggling through today, but how to build a resilient and sustainable supply chain for tomorrow.鈥�

But this is just a first step. Taken to the next level, intelligent RPA, also called 鈥渉yperautomation,鈥� offers even more valuable benefits by combining traditional RPA with artificial intelligence (AI) and low-code/no-code development.

As an example, repetitive tasks and routine activities in finance, purchasing, and customer service were preventing Villeroy & Boch, one of Europe鈥檚 oldest ceramic manufacturers, from improving operational efficiency and delivering great customer service. The German premium tableware and bathroom products company implemented 51风流Intelligent RPA for routine activities, helping streamline workflows and free up staff to focus on strategic activities.

Like other 51风流customers benefiting from hyperautomation, Villeroy & Boch started with automating simple, frequently occurring tasks, such as responding to standard e-mail inquiries with attended RPA bots. Previously known as robotic desktop automation, attended RPA is a software assistant for the human user and interacts with a desktop application while respecting applicable business logic.

Operating internationally in 125 countries demands smooth workflows and operational efficiency across several business functions, but the ceramics group always had a bigger vision. The company wanted to create a fully automated invoice error-handling process by combining 51风流Intelligent RPA and 51风流AI Business Services to handle unstructured data and documents.

Now advanced RPA bots autonomously trigger tasks and automate more complex work such as processing attachments from e-mails according to their type and predefined confidence thresholds. So far, the 10 digital assistants Villeroy & Boch has deployed are handling 66,000 documents a year.

鈥淎lthough we鈥檙e just at the beginning of our journey with 51风流Intelligent RPA, we are already realizing its potential to help us work more efficiently, serve customers better, and gain competitive advantage,鈥� said Daniel Neuhaeuser, head of ERP Core Solutions at Villeroy & Boch.

The advantages of going beyond traditional RPA and tapping the potential of hyperautomation are becoming more widely acknowledged. Industry analysts have forecast that the worldwide hyperautomation-enabling software market will reach nearly US$600 billion by 2022.

Hyperautomation services such as 51风流Intelligent RPA enable companies to quickly and easily create bots to emulate human users and automate tedious, repetitive, mundane tasks. For example, today鈥檚 office workers spend a lot of time moving between different applications and must often reenter or copy and paste data, such as a customer鈥檚 name and address details, from one application to another.

Earlier this year, 51风流Intelligent RPA was cited as a Strong Performer in . According to the report, 鈥淪AP鈥檚 RPA solution is a strong alternative for 51风流customers, particularly for enterprises concerned with bots disrupting core 51风流systems and those usually needing the central 51风流development team to design, develop, and maintain RPA for clear accountability, or for companies seeking a feature-rich RPA tool that comes with a broad ecosystem of partners.鈥�

Typically, customers report that 51风流Intelligent RPA deployments free up between 15 and 30% of employees鈥� time, which means they can focus on tasks that deliver greater value to the organization and improve the customer experience.

Specific benefits of using 51风流Intelligent RPA include being able to use tools such as , built-in integration and content for business process management, and fast, cost-effective deployment. By opening current tools to everyone in the enterprise, 51风流Intelligent RPA extends its reach beyond software developers. Business users who have no coding skills but have functional expertise and technical acumen can become citizen developers and build their own automations.

To support this mission and help automate tasks in business processes, 51风流Intelligent RPA offers a new bot-building and execution experience and a cloud-based design studio. This allows users to create and deploy software bots as digital assistants that automate repetitive tasks through a low-code approach.

This low-code tooling speeds up implementation time and offers a short time to value. More than 200 prebuilt bots are now available within 51风流Intelligent RPA to help automate tasks, improve productivity, and make work more interesting for employees.

She says she would always tell people, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 expect you to work any harder than I work — but I work really hard.鈥�

Yowman, who was recently appointed chief of staff to 51风流Executive Board Member and Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer Julia White, spoke during recent panel discussion on career advice for women as part of Intel鈥檚 Global Networking Summit 2021. The conversation was moderated by Trish Blomfield, UK country manager at Intel.

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Asked by Blomfield what steps had been most beneficial to her in her career, as well as what had been the most challenging, Yowman explained: 鈥淓arly on in my career, especially trying to break into a leadership role, it was really difficult, as you stated. I worked in a male-dominated industry, and I really tried not to focus on being a minority — although being black and a woman just made it a bit of a challenge.鈥�

She says she really strove to be the best at everything she did and excel, doing her job better than anyone else. 鈥淚 really thought about every year, ‘What am I going to do different? How am I going to set myself apart from everyone else?’ And that has been really key for me into my success.鈥�

It鈥檚 been 鈥渁n interesting journey,鈥� she says. When transitioning to her first leadership role, she remembers calling her brother and saying, 鈥淚 really feel I got this role because of my performance, and not because of the color of my skin. And that, I think, was probably the most proud time for me just to be able to say that — and really feel it.鈥�

It wasn鈥檛 always smooth sailing, she remembers. 鈥淚 can give you many examples of things I had to overcome. Sometimes I can be in a room with all males, or there might be another woman but I鈥檓 the only black person.”

鈥淚 had one instance where an executive asked me to go and get them a Coke. I was furious, but… you have to pick your battles. And I just went out to his admin and said, 鈥榊our boss needs help.鈥欌��

She adds: 鈥淭hings like that, or taking a seat at the table, you kind of have to read the room and know what roles are.鈥�

But, she says, she never starts off at sitting outside of the table or next to the wall. 鈥淚 always encourage other women to take your space and your place in the room. Because if you know your job, and you鈥檙e confident, then that confidence will surely be seen by everyone.鈥�

She acknowledges that it has sometimes been an uphill journey for her, but adds, 鈥淚t鈥檚 been really, really exciting.鈥�

Yowman also emphasizes the importance of mutual respect. 鈥淚鈥檝e had conversations with others, and if they鈥檙e not respectful, I will say 鈥業鈥檓 ending this call right now.鈥� And I hang up. But then I go into my boss and tell them what happened. You just have to — in my mind, in a respectful way — command respect. So I always tell people mutual respect is one of my key core values.鈥�

Another one of her tips is that it鈥檚 always important to build your brand and your network.

“When I talk about network,鈥� she says, 鈥渢hat has to be both internally and externally, because you never ever know whose path you鈥檙e going to cross — never burn bridges.鈥�

But as the Red Cross pointed out in a , global warming poses a bigger danger than the novel coronavirus, with U.S. President Joe Biden calling climate change 鈥渢he number one issue facing humanity鈥� and 鈥渢he existential threat of our time.鈥�

鈥淏oth are systemic shocks,鈥� explained Celine Herweijer, partner at PwC UK and Global Climate Change Leader, during a panel discussion on sustainability hosted by SAP. 鈥淲e knew a pandemic would be coming at some point. We absolutely know climate change is around the corner. What we have to do to solve for climate change, unfortunately, is much more complex and just as urgent. We have to half global emissions in the next 10 years, which means radically transforming every sector of our global economy. It鈥檚 very complex and very urgent.鈥�

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鈥淭he changing climate is no longer an abstract issue,鈥� shared Richard Munang from the United Nations (UN) Environment Program, 鈥淚n October 2020, the United in Science Report pointed to the fact that climate change has not stopped for COVID-19. That means if nothing is done, the world is going to move toward an apocalypse.鈥�

With such an unsettling scenario, many wonder why there isn鈥檛 more concern about the issue globally. Mike Barry, strategic adviser and director at Mikebarryeco, explained that this happens 鈥渂ecause it’s always been about something that’s going to happen in the future鈥攆ive, 10, 15 years from now. It’s somebody else’s problem.鈥�

He suggested that the devastating impact of wild weather events around the world in the last 12 months has suddenly made the problem 鈥渞eal to people.鈥�

But it鈥檚 not all doom and gloom.

As Herweijer pointed out, 鈥淲e鈥檙e currently in the middle of the fastest period of innovation ever,鈥� with technology impacting virtually every organization. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, Big Data, and analytics offer us the tools to act on climate change across industries and regions.

Increasingly, companies are committing to reach while financial investors work to decarbonize their portfolios. As the software industry leader on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, 51风流is helping organizations reinvent how to achieve their own sustainability targets through its Climate 21 initiative. The recently launched application is already giving companies the ability to manage the green line of individual products, delivering greater transparency to consumers who can now know the exact environmental impact of each of their purchases.

Watch the full version of Reality Check:

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The private edition makes it easier and faster for companies running older enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems from 51风流to move to the cloud.

鈥淶espri is a large and fast-growing business, and we need mature processes and systems to fuel our next stage of growth,鈥� said Zespri Chief Digital Officer Dave Scullin. 鈥淎dopting SAP鈥檚 standardized core platforms will be transformational in itself, while also letting us leverage SAP鈥檚 cloud road map to adopt innovation at speed. Not only will our transformation help us to reduce business risks by moving to standard systems, but it will also enable us to collect and analyze more data, helping us to plan our supply chain more accurately and improve our decision making around shipping and market allocation.鈥�

鈥淢oving to the cloud has been a key strategic decision for us, providing us with greater flexibility, scalability, and faster innovation cycles,” Scullin shared. “We know SAP鈥檚 private cloud capabilities have matured significantly in recent years, particularly in the form of customer flexibility, service level security, and automation, which makes the new private cloud edition best for our business long-term. This will allow us to focus on our process and systems transformation, knowing that our underlying infrastructure and computing platforms are secure, stable, and available.鈥�.

鈥淥ur mission is to create sustainable, long-term value for kiwifruit growers by offering consumers the world’s leading portfolio of branded kiwifruit 12 months of the year.鈥� Scullin explains in that the company chose 51风流as its key technology partner in order to standardize and automate processes across the organization, increase efficiency, and provide a platform for growth and innovation.

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The technology will underpin Zespri鈥檚 ambitious and multi-year Horizon transformation program, 鈥渨hich will transform the way our company operates, replacing legacy systems and processes that were designed 20 years ago, before the significant growth we鈥檝e experienced in recent years,鈥� said Scullin, a member of Zespri鈥檚 leadership team. 鈥淚t will replace old systems and processes designed for a much smaller, much less complex industry of 20 years ago, which, quite frankly, is holding us back now.鈥�

Strong demand for Zespri鈥檚 premium-quality fruit has seen the industry grow strongly, recording global sales of NZD$3.14 billion in 2019/20.* Longer-term, the industry is forecast to increase global supply of kiwifruit from 164.4 million trays in 2019/20 to around 280 million trays by 2030.

鈥淲e are in a very fortunate position where demand absolutely exceeds supply, and that’s why we have an ambition to grow more kiwifruit in the Northern Hemisphere so that we can attain 365-days-of-the- year shelf space,鈥� Scullin shared. The kiwifruit industry has grown significantly in recent years, buoyed by the increasing trend of more health-conscious consumers looking for products that taste good and are nutritious.**

鈥淗orizon will release our potential to deliver so much more for our growers and shareholders. It’ll deliver modern systems and processes right across our business from finance and supply chain through to sales, grower, enablement, and engagement and integrated business planning. And it will allow us to be more effective and efficient in how we deliver our product to consumers and return value to growers. Most of all, it will strengthen our ability to grow and sustain returns for the industry for decades to come.鈥�

Zespri had been running on what Scullin described as 鈥渁 heavily customized鈥� 51风流landscape, but had already moved its legacy systems to Microsoft鈥檚 Azure public cloud. After conducting a thorough evaluation as part of its transformation program and some detailed cost versus benefit analysis, Zespri concluded that SAP鈥檚 private cloud option was 鈥渢he best for us and the most strategic long term.鈥�

While according to Scullin the initial focus of Zespri鈥檚 transformation project will be 鈥渢o get our platforms in place and modernize our base systems and processes,鈥� it will also allow the company to plan its supply chain more accurately and make longer-term predictions. Together with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, the deal with 51风流also includes the implementation of several digital supply chain applications. Zespri also plans to deploy 51风流Analytics Cloud and several SAP-endorsed partner solutions.

The implementation will be conducted by a consortium of partners, including in partnership with , part of Accenture. The project will be split into several phases, with the first digital core build phase due to begin in this month, focused on finance and supply chain processes, before progressing to integrated business planning and sales enablement.

*
**In , 4.35 million tons of kiwifruit were produced worldwide. This is predicted to reach 5.9 million tons by , as a result of increasing global demand. New Zealand produces around 10% of the total global production of kiwifruit, around 95% of which is . Kiwifruit exports in 2019 accounted for more than two-thirds of the New Zealand鈥檚 fresh fruit exports.