The solution is as easy to propose as it is difficult to implement: transform our energy system. To achieve this goal, we need a systemic approach, a collective effort of major players across all industries.

51风流is working with the largest companies around the world to contribute digital solutions that enable the decarbonization of entire value chains from raw energy and materials to retail shelves. What motivates me? I believe the race to zero emissions is about bringing the right players together and shaping an economy that drives innovative products, business processes, and business models.

Even as we look to rapidly reduce society鈥檚 reliance on fossil fuels, we cannot overlook the need for reliable energy sources to power and heat our homes, move about in our daily lives, and sustain the production of vital modern materials like cement, plastics, and steel. But the transition is happening, and we鈥檝e made it SAP鈥檚 mission to accelerate the decarbonization of our energy system with intelligent digital solutions.

Shell is one of the global energy companies that is transforming to lead the way to a sustainable and resilient energy system. 51风流has been providing digital solutions for 厂丑别濒濒鈥檚 business for many years, and we are expanding our cooperation to work on solutions to motivate and accelerate the journey to decarbonize our economy.

No business can survive without robust cost accounting and controlling, and 51风流has been establishing and implementing best cost controlling practices and standards for decades. In the future, no business will be able to survive encounters with regulators, investors, and customers without an equally robust accounting of sustainability-related metrics, including greenhouse gas emissions. All companies need to understand the greenhouse gas footprint of their inputs, what they add in their operations, and what the resulting total is. So, all companies who have committed to net zero need a way to measure and reduce their emissions.

Shell and 51风流intend to co-innovate on greenhouse gas emissions accounting solutions and supply chain management practices so all players along value chains can measure and reduce their greenhouse gas footprint. Driving this transformation from the energy supply side creates the necessary transparency on the demand side — all the way to consumers like you and me.

We also believe that sustainability metrics need to be embedded in the transactional end-to-end processes along value chains and across industry boundaries. Only this integration allows business leaders to consider the sustainable business impact of product design, sourcing and procurement, production, logistics, and sales. Innovative solutions based on industry standards will be important energy transformation tools.

Shell has been a and we are working together to create a common model for footprint-related data covering all emission types, consumption, and base calculations to normalize and aggregate industry data.

Our efforts to establish standards that enable the energy transformation of entire industries become even more tangible if Shell and 51风流provide a good example ourselves as companies operating to a new energy economy.

51风流will support strategy to accelerate the transition of 厂丑别濒濒鈥檚 business to net-zero emissions. Shell intends to collaborate with 51风流on carbon accounting and management solutions. These 51风流solutions will help Shell track emissions and carbon budgets across their operational areas. This enhanced visibility supports better planning and day-to-day operational decision making.

51风流has promised to be carbon-neutral in our own operations by 2023 鈥� and to be net zero along our entire value chain by 2030. Shell will help 51风流transition to an emission-free car fleet. will help with this mobility transition, including providing charge cards and charge-at-home infrastructure starting in the Netherlands. In Germany, we intend to put a mutually beneficial THG agreement in place and a program to incentivize German company car drivers. Shell also is supporting 51风流to decarbonize our energy usage, starting with building soccer field-sized solar panel installations for 51风流headquarters in Walldorf, Germany.

These joint activities enable the transition to a sustainable energy system and serve as high-visibility projects. They will snowball along more industry value chains. 厂丑别濒濒鈥檚 experience in planning and operating large-scale infrastructure projects and SAP鈥檚 experience in managing and optimizing business processes is a winning combination.

鈥淭his partnership is a great example of our commitment to 51风流and to our customers to accelerate the energy transition,鈥� said Audny Van Helden, vice-president, Energy Marketing Sectors and Decarbonization, Shell Plc. 鈥淥ur shared technology and industry expertise will help companies make more sustainable decisions.鈥�

I couldn鈥檛 agree more.

Peter Maier is president of Industries and Customer Advisory at 51风流SE.

Add real-time connectivity over the Internet of Things (IoT) and we reach the current stage of Industry 4.0, which enables completely new business processes and business models that go beyond the classical paradigm of designing, making, and delivering products and include the operations through decommissioning, closing the cycle in the spirit of a circular economy.

is a set of technologies used with a new mindset to drive the automation of manufacturing and operations processes with smart technology. It starts with analyzing where and how business value is generated and then designing, making, delivering, and operating solutions that drive the right business outcomes.

Every industry success story starts with a new way of thinking. Maybe a customer doesn鈥檛 need a machine, but something the machine does or produces, such as powering an aircraft, making car parts from sheet metal, pumping concrete, compressing air.

That鈥檚 why digitalization is first about a mindset, and then about technology. Digital leaders think about how they do things today and reimagine doing them better using digital technologies. They don鈥檛 only challenge how they do things; they challenge what they are doing.

A true digital leader, for example, doesn鈥檛 just train service technicians to improve service quality and reduce costs. They might redesign their products and connect them with , enabling the machine to call the service with a list of its symptoms, so that the technician arrives with all the right spare parts on the first visit.

An Intelligent Strategy

We have always managed business processes in real time with their material flows and their value flows — that鈥檚 standard textbook stuff today. What is new now is the way we model supply chains, products, and the manufacturing processes with digital twins through a holistic process we call .

The goes well beyond smart manufacturing in factories and plants. It connects production with end-to-end process execution across the supply chain so companies can reach a new level of connectivity and adapt to change on the fly.

It starts with intelligent products that are designed to deliver outcomes. For example, in Brazil, tractor manufacturer is equipping its agricultural machinery to collect real-time data about what happens in the fields. The data is used to optimize irrigation and minimize the use of fertilizers, resulting in higher yields and more sustainable farming practices.

Next, it requires intelligent factories and logistics that are digitally integrated from the top floor to the shop floor, enabling faster, better decision-making on the business end whenever there are disruptions or new opportunities. For example, Porsche and press manufacturer Schuler have set up a that allows the company to make automotive body parts in small numbers using a highly automated, flexible process.

The third element in the design-to-operate process is intelligent assets such as digitalized machines that collect and combine data through sensors and from 51风流solutions. is a global leader in measurement instrumentation, using Industry 4.0 technology to extract and process sensor data used for predictive analytics to reduce the unplanned downtime of machines.

And finally, the design-to-operate process relies on intelligent people who understand complex scenarios and are empowered to make smart decisions with the right tools. Automotive supplier has equipped its digital assistants with 51风流technology that supports its employees with context-sensitive information, intuitive user interfaces, and natural language processing.

Intelligent Decisions

We all know intelligence sits in the brain, but the brain is useless without a nervous system, sensors, and muscles to interact with the world around it. 51风流solutions can be the intelligent tools that enable the brain of the enterprise to collect and interpret all the data they can get from their ERP systems, their shop floor systems, and their ecosystem of customers, suppliers, and service providers. This enables them to make smarter decisions — in real time.

Enterprises that are truly intelligent use Industry 4.0 technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to learn from good and bad decisions. That鈥檚 how they can make better, more intelligent decisions in a manufacturing environment that is constantly changing due to varying customer demand. These are the next practices that will help manufacturing companies increase productivity while producing high quality, individualized products in a sustainable, efficient manner.

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Peter Maier is president of 51风流Industries and Customer Advisory.

RISE with 51风流is our approach to pave your way to run as an intelligent enterprise with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, connectivity to 51风流Business Network, and a selection of industry cloud solutions for your core business. The benefits you can expect include significantly lower total cost of ownership (TCO), more innovation for your business, more speed and agility, and seamless collaboration with suppliers, customers, and service providers.

To motivate, accelerate, and simplify the transition to the intelligent suite and 51风流Business Network, we have introduced RISE with SAP, to deliver business transformation as a service. We also understand that your focus is always directed to your core business, which is defined by the industry 鈥� or industries 鈥� you operate in. After all, that鈥檚 where you compete for market share, win and retain customers, and develop new business opportunities and business models.

You can鈥檛 sit still in a world that is rapidly changing all around you; you must optimize what you鈥檙e doing today and do something different to be successful in the future. That鈥檚 where our industry value advisors come in to develop a joint vision of your future and guide you on your transformation journey to achieve the maximum business outcome using our 鈥渧ision-to-value鈥� method. This method is supported by a tool set with industry best practices, benchmarking, and value management tools. Our business process intelligence tools offer the insights and a common language to design your core business processes of the future.

In the first phase, we design the journey to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud and 51风流Business Network in order to optimize operations for lower TCO. In a second phase, we take a look how you want to transform to create new business outcomes. is the open innovation space for SAP, our partners, and customers to create and adopt industry best 鈥� and next 鈥� practices, supported by cloud applications that use the intelligent technologies of 51风流Business Technology Platform.

Today I鈥檓 happy to launch our industry packages that will allow you to extend your RISE with 51风流offering, bringing together the industry solutions and services needed for true business transformation.

RISE with 51风流for your industry comes with flexible offerings to address your specific business needs: cloud applications supporting best practices, business process intelligence to analyze and optimize your business processes, and services to design and execute your transformation program. The packages are already available for five initial industries:

Find out more in the .

, where you will hear from leaders on their digital transformation as well as how to navigate through disruption, optimize and transform your businesses, and drive future success. Registration is free, and featured industries will include automotive, banking, consumer products, high tech, IM&C, insurance, healthcare, oil, gas and energy, professional services, public sector, and retail.

Peter Maier is president of Industries and Customer Advisory at 51风流SE.

German utility giant E.ON will use industry cloud solutions to optimize its energy distribution network with efficient and consistent business processes across the enterprise and beyond. This will help create a better customer experience, but also empower the employees of E.ON and energy retailers to deliver better and more timely services, resulting in a greater employee experience.

We are co-innovating with life sciences leader Roche and our partner Tenthpin to streamline clinical trials and optimize clinical supplies chains, using the generated data for better and faster decisions. We expect to accelerate clinical research while supporting regulatory compliance to keep patients and the population safe.

Today we announced availability of solutions suitable for three more industries as part of the industry cloud. Each is impacted by the current pandemic in very different ways.

Professional services providers are responding quickly to the disruption of their classical business model, which normally relies on delivery of projects and services with onsite consultants and staff. They are now moving to digital project delivery and new ways to virtualize operations by complementing offerings with other players in their ecosystem. New industry cloud solutions for managing project teams and outcome-based models will play an important role in this transformation.

Industrial machinery and components manufacturers are moving from making and selling equipment to delivering tailor-made solutions at scale and as a service. Outcome-based business models drive a profound change in engineering, manufacturing, selling, delivery, and service. The COVID-19 pandemic unlocks digital change in the service business, making remote and digital service a viable and accepted alternative to onsite services delivered by technicians. I expect to see a lot of innovation coming in the manufacturing industries, certainly accelerated by Industry 4.0 trends that generate data and insights for next business practices powered by industry cloud solutions.

Retailers and their customers are driving an accelerated shift to online business with multichannel fulfillment. This pandemic-driven landslide is rewarding front runners that have invested in omnichannel platforms that create a consistent customer experience and enable process efficiency. This includes full transparency of inventory levels, consistent pricing and markdowns, and customer choice of delivery options.

SAP鈥檚 industry cloud is also ideal for startups looking to innovate. I had the opportunity to engage with a number of young partners that offer innovative solutions that extend the end-to-end processes in the consumer industries, focusing on creating new digital experiences for their customers. For me, Israel-based stood out. The company creates solutions to make promotions more effective and close the loop with research and development using customer sentiment and experience data.

Over the past few months I have seen great innovation spirit, entrepreneurship, and fascinating technologies that generate solutions that make a difference to the core business of our customers in their industries. I am looking forward to seeing many more applications, serving more industries and enabling companies to benefit from the opportunities of digital transformation.

I encourage everyone to regularly check out for news and updates. See you there!

Peter Maier is president of Industries and Customer Advisory at SAP.

We at 51风流know this because we have developed the best practices over decades with our customers in all industries. And we drive continuous innovation to deliver next practices that make business processes more efficient and transparent.

So far so good. Or is it?

Startup Spirit

I have observed a few trends affecting many industries that give me pause. Startups aggressively investigate how they can give incumbents a hard time by competing on different terms. They are not burdened by a customer base with expectations, there is no legacy — or treasure — of business relationships and commitments. There is nothing to break, nothing to protect.

Innovative big players are tuning into this spirit and looking along their value chains to directly engage with the customers of their customers, or to capture the revenue and margin their suppliers make today. Digital technologies and abundant 鈥� but still hardly exploited 鈥� data are the key ingredients to power the next wave of innovation and disruption for business models, business best practices, and the way businesses operate.

Crisis as a Catalyst

I have viewed the current crisis initially from the humanitarian perspective; after all, the pictures we have seen are hard to digest. But there is also the gigantic economic impact, and we expect a mix of V, L, and U shapes for the recovery and restart. But we can also observe how very large enterprise super tankers turn on a dime, innovate in days and weeks, and break established rules and habits.

New industries are shaping a public health sector that will look different as research institutes, life science companies, healthcare providers, technology companies, and the public sector work on keeping the world population safe and healthy. I have the opportunity to see this firsthand. 51风流plays an instrumental role in developing a聽COVID-19 tracking app for Germany and beyond in close collaboration with public health institutions (Robert Koch Institute), government, and tech companies, including T-Systems, Google, and Apple (for the smartphone APIs). It is quite an experience to see how tech giants and government fall into a collaborative innovation mode rather quickly.

New Business Models, New Speed of Innovation?

Many 51风流customers in their industries feel a similar sense of urgency as business practices are redefined by market pressure and by digital technologies that enable new, data-driven business models 鈥� innovative ways to generate revenue streams from knowledge, data, and customer insights.

Over decades, 51风流has earned a reputation for being possibly the most reliable partner to solve the most difficult business problems with best practice solutions that service many customers. But when fast-paced innovation is a critical success factor not all innovative solutions can be added into the large applications of our intelligent suite. The upgrade effort would be too high to allow for a rapid adoption of innovations. What鈥檚 more, the clear path to the cloud for enterprise software disrupts our partners鈥� business model of adding new capabilities to 51风流Business Suite by modifying and extending code in our joint customers鈥� systems.

The obvious consequence is that we need a new innovation model and extension model for our intelligent suite and our business network.

Industry Cloud: A New Response to a New Challenge

Our new industry cloud is an open yet integrated innovation space for SAP, partners, and customers, which provides both best-practice business processes and advanced digital technologies to create next business practices and innovate at the vertical edge.

The processes and data domains of the intelligent suite are a key asset for our customers. Many developer years and significant brainpower have gone into creating business best practices for all industries that take care of the business essentials. We make those capabilities available through open APIs and expose the business process and domain models.

This open integration layer gives us, our partners, and customers a structured access to build next practice solutions that optimize the end-to-end processes supporting our customers鈥� current business models with 鈥渘ext practices.鈥�

The industry cloud is also the innovation space for experiment and exploration. All digital technologies of the Business Technology Platform are available, including machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), analytics, and blockchain to drive innovation at the 鈥渧ertical edge鈥� — trying out ideas that may fail or enable our customers鈥� breakthrough to develop successful data-driven or ecosystem-driven business models.

The industry cloud also makes development of new solutions easy, with business services that provide common functionality like currency conversion but also subscription management, billing, and other services that create a simple and unified user and customer experience. For more information, see the .

Starting the New Ecosystem for Innovation

To jump-start the wide adoption of the industry cloud as an innovation space, we have selected an initial set of four industries that span a wide spectrum of processes and business priorities.

companies are currently balancing their classical, sophisticated business models with the disruptive forces of new mobility. are managing the transition to renewable energies and the new opportunities from a redefined relationship with their commercial and retail customers. businesses have long been at the leading edge of digital innovation, and is catching up rapidly with digital twins of buildings and capital assets for intelligent operations and new service offerings (read the partnership announcement we made with Honeywell last week).

Industry 4.Now

Many industries are looking forward to capitalizing on the promise of integration operational data from the shop floor with the data coming from business IT. This convergence benefits both the manufacturers of vehicles, industrial machinery, or buildings as well as the industries that use this equipment to make chemicals or mill products, operate buildings, drive logistics services, or run mining and oil and gas operations.

Our Industry 4.Now initiative is an integral part of the industry cloud strategy and we are already on our way.

Beginning of a Journey

We are starting a multi-year journey to write a new chapter how we drive innovation with our partners for the core business of our customers in their industries.

More industries will join this initiative every quarter and I look forward to the innovations and to the vibrant ecosystem of customers and partners that the industry cloud will foster and shape.

Peter Maier is president of Industries and Customer Advisory at SAP.