51风流supports businesses globally with a powerful commerce solution fit for the future. At a time when commerce trends are evolving faster than ever and customer demands continue to rise, remains a reliable foundation for agility, speed, and stability.

Businesses across industries are using the solution to boost profitability and achieve sustainable growth. Carhartt, an iconic brand crafting durable, premium workwear since 1889, uses 51风流Commerce Cloud to create an omnichannel e-commerce presence that matches the brand鈥檚 legacy of quality and accessibility. As Carhartt continues to expand its reach and transforms from workwear leader to fashion icon, the brand can exceed customer expectations.

鈥淐arhartt鈥檚 job is to get products into the hands of hardworking folks, when and how they want them. 51风流Commerce Cloud helps us do just that. We needed a solution that could stand up to task during the busiest times of the year,鈥� said Donavan Marchywka, director of Digital Solutions for Carhartt Inc. 鈥�51风流Commerce Cloud holds up from an infrastructure and performance standpoint. The solution reacts to traffic so customers can connect with our products. When we transformed our e-commerce experience on 51风流Commerce Cloud, not only did we get the benefits of this new technology, but we also got the chance to rethink the design of our site鈥攁nd do it right.鈥�

In addition to Carhartt, notable B2C brands and household names from Nestl茅 to use 51风流Commerce Cloud to stay ahead of the competition in increasingly saturated and competitive markets. B2B leaders such as and HORSCH keep industries moving by using the solution to stabilize and scale their e-commerce marketplaces.

Startups and innovators setting out to create a more sustainable future 鈥� like MVV Enamic and 鈥� are using it to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) and new technologies as they emerge.

Even public sector and government organizations, including , are creating standout experiences with 51风流Commerce Cloud.

These brands join others, such as  , , , and , that rely on 51风流Commerce Cloud to drive profitable growth for their businesses.

51风流Commerce Cloud is part of the portfolio. The combination of integrated solutions spanning commerce, marketing, sales, and service empowers businesses to connect with their customers in the moments that matter most. The 51风流Customer Experience portfolio also turns AI innovations into real business outcomes with intelligent tools that employees, customers, and other users are using every day.

To learn more about SAP鈥檚 position as a Leader and see in-depth analysis of the digital commerce landscape from Gartner, read the .

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer for 51风流Customer Experience.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce, Mike Lowndes, Sandy Shen, Jason Daigler, Aditya Vasudevan, 6 November, 2024.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
51风流was recognized as 51风流Hybris in 2014, 2016, and 2017.

While we have more exciting innovations to share, we鈥檝e dedicated this event to celebrating our customers鈥� achievements.

AI Meets CX: Personalized, Engaging Experiences

In a fast-paced market, delivering the right message at the right time is crucial. When AI meets CX, businesses can create personalized, engaging experiences at every touchpoint. But these seamless experiences require a blend of people, processes, and technology, supported by integrated data.

Intelligent Customer Journeys with Business AI

At , Christian Klein, CEO and member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE, emphasized the transformation of customer experience through business AI, moving from reactive to proactive engagement and AI-driven insights. Companies like the San Jose Sharks are leveraging AI to drive personalized experiences and exceptional customer value.

San Jose Sharks: MVP Experiences

The San Jose Sharks are embracing digitalization and AI to create MVP experiences throughout the customer journey. By integrating vast amounts of data from various sources such as hockey games, concerts, food, and merchandising, they form a holistic view of their customers. The Sharks鈥� use of 51风流CX solutions, including 51风流Emarsys Customer Engagement, 51风流Sales Cloud, 51风流CX AI Toolkit, 51风流Customer Data Platform, and 51风流Customer Data Cloud, significantly enhanced customer engagement. This strategic approach led to impressive results, with season membership renewal rates increasing to 87% and open rates soaring from 26% to 80%.

Online Metals: AI as a Game Changer

Greg Raece, president of Online Metals, believes that AI will revolutionize the company鈥檚 sales approach. With a diverse customer base ranging from hobbyists to Fortune 500 companies, Online Metals is constantly evolving to meet emerging trends and ensure customers receive the right materials quickly and hassle-free. Raece firmly believes that AI will change the way Online Metals sells to customers. To better engage customers and enhance its online merchandising and sales strategies, Online Metals has joined forces with SAP. Using 51风流Commerce Cloud and 51风流Emarsys Customer Enagement, it successfully increased conversions, average order value, and website traffic.

Unleash Potential with a Harmonized Suite

Captivating customer experiences require visibility into the back office, front office, and everywhere in between. Companies like Universal Destinations & Experiences benefit from the seamless integration of 51风流CX solutions with existing ERP systems, helping to enhance overall customer experience.

Universal Destinations & Experiences: Omnichannel Excellence

For Universal Destinations & Experiences, making people happy is priority number one.
When planning its new resort in Beijing, China, Universal wanted to focus on the full guest journey 鈥� before, during, and after their visit. It needed a scalable platform with true omnichannel capabilities to support its diverse business, including theme parks, food, and retail. By leveraging 51风流S/4HANA with 51风流Commerce Cloud, Universal is creating a seamless and immersive experience for millions of guests, allowing them to live out their movie dreams.

Nokia: Elevating Wireless Technology

Nokia, once known for its iconic phones, now leads in telecommunications innovation and is partnering with NASA to further advance wireless technology. To ensure efficiency and accuracy in delivering complex solutions, Nokia digitized its order management processes. By integrating 51风流S/4HANA with 51风流Commerce Cloud and 51风流Order Management Services, Nokia achieved faster deliveries, precise invoicing, and seamless billing, securing a competitive edge and driving ongoing success.

MACO Group: Efficient Sales Transformation

With thousands of global customers and 25,000 products associated with 40,000 components, door and window seller MACO Group has a wealth of data. The construction industry has been disrupted by global events, prompting MACO to digitize its operations for more efficient and effective sales. MACO鈥檚 transformation involved combining its 51风流S/4HANA and CRM capabilities with 51风流Sales Cloud, enabling it to move faster and with greater accuracy.

New Strategic Partnerships

51风流CX solutions continue to help add value and bring business AI to life through innovative collaboration and integration. At 51风流CX LIVE in 2024, we announced two new partnerships with Gainsight and ChannelEngine.

By integrating 51风流Sales Cloud with Gainsight, companies can unify data and intelligence for a comprehensive customer view and a seamless journey. With human-first AI capabilities, automation, and standardized workflows, Gainsight and 51风流customers can dedicate more time to clients and less to administrative tasks. Learn more.

The integration between ChannelEngine and 51风流Order Management Services can enable merchants to increase revenue and profitability by automating and optimizing third-party marketplace operations. 51风流users can now effortlessly activate over 950 new sales channels and expand into global markets. Learn more.

A Future-Ready CX with SAP

51风流customers are rapidly leveraging AI-powered solutions to create superior customer experiences, improve operational efficiency, and drive business growth. By integrating 51风流into their operations, they are driving innovation and achieving measurable success. 

Our approach is simple yet powerful: connected, insightful, adaptive, and industry-tailored. By prioritizing responsible innovation, especially in handling customer data and interactions, we can ensure our AI solutions are built on trust, privacy, ethics, and security. I鈥檓 proud that 51风流is integral to our customers鈥� achievements, and the 51风流CX team remains committed to delivering products and features that drive outcomes and delightful customer experiences.

I invite you to view the and .

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer for 51风流Industries and Customer Experience.

That is why 51风流is always developing new partnerships and integrations to continue providing value to CX customers. 

The integration between 51风流Order Management Services and ChannelEngine, a global leader in marketplace integration and management software, is the next step in this journey.

By leveraging 51风流Order Management Services, a central hub for unified customer transactions, and incorporating AI-enhanced integrations, ChannelEngine is enabling merchants to augment the order and inventory management process for third-party marketplace selling. This enables merchants to automate and optimize third-party marketplace operations, increasing their revenue and profitability. 

What does this mean for 51风流customers?

鈥淥ur direct integration allows 51风流Order Management Services users to seamlessly activate over 950 new sales channels and reach international markets,鈥� said Jorrit Steinz, CEO of ChannelEngine. 鈥淏y incorporating AI-driven automation into our platform, we鈥檝e taken a pivotal step toward simplifying global unified e-commerce. This collaboration enables merchants to harness the immense potential of third-party online marketplaces, driving efficiency and scaling opportunities while capitalizing on the built-in trust and vast customer base of these platforms.鈥� 

By having a centralized view of e-commerce operations across first- and third-party channels through reporting, analytics, and insights into sales performance and marketplace KPIs, merchants can target consumers with precision and drive customer loyalty. Additionally, this integration enables merchants to streamline their e-commerce operations, accelerate time-to-market, and participate in a broader range of marketplaces. 

Analysts also understand this need to align inventory management and marketplace connectivity due to an increasingly fragmented e-commerce environment.

鈥淭he fusion of order management technology with third-party marketplace integration solutions marks a strategic move for enterprises seeking to optimize operational efficiency and expand their market presence,鈥� explained Heather Hershey, Research Director for IDC. 鈥淭his approach enables businesses to manage complex sales channels while leveraging the advantages of AI-driven insights to better meet customer demands.鈥� 

The ChannelEngine marketplace integration platform , the online marketplace for 51风流and partner offerings.

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product Officer of 51风流CX and Industries.

As a leader in customer success and product experience software, Gainsight enables 51风流customers to align sales and customer success efforts, delivering a seamless customer experience that boosts retention and drives revenue growth.

By integrating 51风流Sales Cloud and Gainsight Customer Success, organizations can orchestrate connected customer journeys, leverage AI-powered automation, standardize workflows, and enhance strategic account planning, among other benefits. 

This partnership seeks to redefine and enhance enterprise customer success strategies while reinforcing SAP鈥檚 commitment to intelligent CX.

To develop an effective customer program, organizations need the capability to integrate relevant data and intelligence. With a composable, plug-and-play framework approach in 51风流Sales Cloud, organizations can seamlessly access and integrate Gainsight data within the 51风流Sales Cloud solution, harmonized with the data and intelligence.  

What does this partnership mean from Gainsight鈥檚 perspective?

“Gainsight has helped more than 2,000 companies, including many of the world鈥檚 top brands across industries, transform their operations and prioritize customer retention and growth,” said Chuck Ganapathi, COO and President at Gainsight. “Now, by delivering Gainsight鈥檚 unique human-first AI capabilities to 51风流Sales Cloud, we鈥檙e empowering our joint customers to spend less time on administrative work and more time focusing on their clients. And this is just the beginning 鈥� we鈥檙e looking forward to deepening our collaboration with 51风流and driving even more innovation together.” 

The integration offers comprehensive insights into the customer journey, accessible to both sales and customer success teams within a single platform. A 360-degree customer view along with real-time data analysis and automated workflows and playbooks enable teams to proactively act on customer risks and expansion opportunities. It empowers the sales team to enhance and expedite the sales cycle, while enabling the customer success team to expand post-sale engagement strategies.  

It鈥檚 also important to myself and my team to have a pulse check on the market, collaborating and validating with our user community, partners and industry analysts.

鈥淐ustomer success is a strategy that requires data, intelligence and analytics to be successful,鈥� explained Liz Miller, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. 鈥�51风流and Gainsight are bridging the gaps that can form across the customer, revenue, and success ecosystem by intentionally bringing success data together with market intelligence to accelerate decision velocity and action. This partnership is focused on centering success on the customer by expanding the scope and scale of intelligence where sellers and successful leaders work.鈥�  

To put this all into context, let鈥檚 say a manufacturing company wants to increase customer retention and capture untapped revenue opportunities. Through this partnership, customer success managers can develop and align tailored customer goals and success plans with customized engagement and support strategies, expanding upsell and cross-sell opportunities. At the same time, sales reps can utilize in-depth data, such as customer satisfaction levels, and product usage patterns to refine and improve ongoing and future sales cycles.   

The 51风流and Gainsight integration .

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product Officer of 51风流CX and Industries.

Businesses are looking at the transformative power of business AI to help them adapt to rapid market changes, grow customer loyalty and profitability, and get tangible outcomes. Yet, it can be challenging for business leaders to separate the hype from reality and we at 51风流Customer Experience (CX) remain committed to helping. We showcased customer stories with some of the biggest brands in the world that have transformed their customer experiences using our products. We are riding a wave of momentum, having introduced an impressive 600 new innovations to our customers in the last year.

At SAP, we take a holistic and integrated approach to customer experience with our composable and scalable solutions. We align people, processes, and technology across the customer journey to help enhance profitability and shareholder value while ensuring an exceptional customer experience. Our solutions are based on the four pillars of and built with the highest standards of trust, privacy, AI ethics, and security. We create a comprehensive and ethical foundation for customer-centric CX with measurable business results.

The four pillars of intelligent CX are:

• Connected by design, seamlessly uniting operational and experience data and processes, helping you deliver delightful holistic experiences that span back and front office while safeguarding your TCO
• Insightful by enabling you to rapidly turn your most critical asset data into proactive and contextual insights that drive real business outcomes 鈥� intelligent CX helps you start on your AI journey today with meaningful generative AI capabilities infused across the entire solution portfolio
• Adaptive by allowing you to experiment with agility through our hybrid composability approach by extending SAP鈥檚 core capabilities with a plethora of carefully curated, pre-integrated, and certified partner solutions, helping take the guesswork out of these crucial decisions
• Industry-tailored by applying deep industry context, experience, and knowledge of over 25 industries 鈥� coupled with our rich, curated partner ecosystem, 51风流CX solutions can support end-to-end blueprints that are tailored to the unique needs of your industry and its customers

With these pillars, we have been hard at work bringing innovative features to our customers. Here鈥檚 a closer look at some of them.

Enrich the Customer Experience for Maximized Loyalty and Interaction Value

AI Shopping Assistant

Transform your B2B and B2C storefronts with SAP’s new AI shopping assistant. This cutting-edge technology can act as a shopper’s personal product expert, uncovering subtle details and complex information often hidden in user manuals or specifications through natural conversation. By engaging with shoppers on your storefront, it helps identify their specific needs and can offer detailed recommendations and insights to make it easy for them to find the right product.

Agility and Experimentation for Enterprise Merchants in 51风流Commerce Cloud

Enterprise merchants have historically struggled to balance agility and compliance in commerce. These new capabilities can enable them to be more innovative and agile while still experiencing the reliability that they have come to expect from .

Conversational Messaging

Marketing teams can now engage customers with conversational messaging. They can send customized one-way messages, automated responses, and engage in two-way interactions with customers on their preferred chat application.

Rev Up Productivity with AI-Driven Tools

Enterprise Service Management

Organizations can now break down operational silos, curb redundant processes, and automate tasks to serve their internal and external customers in more effective, efficient, and personalized ways.

AI Image Creation

Commerce and marketing teams can now easily create engaging and personalized product images, using natural language to produce new product photos or make seamless edits to existing images, including changing or completely removing backgrounds. As a result, their product visuals can better reflect their brand’s identity, enhance the customer experience, and reduce costs.

AI Expert Recommendations

Sales, service, and commerce teams can quickly find the right subject-matter experts to answer customer queries and concerns. Rather than sifting through e-mails, notes, team messages, and org charts, CX teams can now easily type questions using natural language and receive recommendations on who within their organizations is best equipped to provide insights and answers.

AI Segment and Content Generation

Marketing teams can now easily create, copy, or insert new content from the catalog. Additionally, they can generate simple, understandable descriptions for existing segments or create new segments using natural language prompts.

Grow Profitably with Generative AI Innovation

AI for 51风流Sales Cloud

Empower your sales team with AI capabilities that can anticipate, automate, and personalize customer experiences.

Predictive Forecasting

Predictive forecasting can give CROs and sales executives a more accurate view of sales performance and revenue forecasting by using AI to predict the likelihood of deals closing across the entire business portfolio.

Predictive Product Recommendation

Predictive product recommendations can empower sales teams with insights into what are the right products to pitch to customers.

AI Account Summary and Lead Booster

AI-based account summary and lead booster insights use both internal and external sources to help provide sales teams with the news, background, and information they need to have informed prospect outreach and ongoing deal management.

AI Order Insights

AI order insights from help surface order information from 51风流ERP in a highly consumable way in the platform sales teams use every day, so they can be prepared to answer customer questions quickly and efficiently.

Custom Generative AI Tools and Data Sources in 51风流CX AI Toolkit

Enhance your customer experience with AI customized for your business. Leverage your CX data to create, customize, and deploy secure and trusted AI tools that help generate relevant content aligned with your business needs. Furthermore, integrate your own knowledge base and data sources to power generative answering for sales, service, and commerce teams. Don’t be limited by pre-built solutions 鈥� build AI that reflects your unique customer journey.

The innovations we unveiled at 51风流Sapphire are a testament to our commitment to drive tangible business outcomes and bring out your best customer experience. These innovations are available now or will be available in H2 2024. In addition, we have many more exciting offerings in the pipeline. Brace yourself for an exciting journey ahead with our next-gen CX solutions and stay tuned for more developments on the horizon!

Find out more about these innovations .

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer for 51风流Industries and Customer Experience.

How can I increase sales without raising overhead? How can I create year-round stability for sourcing, inventory, restocking, and order management? And how can I build better omnichannel brand connections in a competitive market where听?

Yet, with AI-enabled advances opening a world of possibilities for operational efficiencies and hyper-personalized, real-time, omnichannel customer experiences, the future of retail is anything but bleak!听

AI is set to level up the retail landscape. Retailers that embrace AI will be the first to achieve higher sales and better brand connections — now and in the future. Much of this adoption will be driven by the need to resonate with savvy consumers who want to buy from brands that share their values and offer experiences that blend seamlessly into their online and IRL (“in real life”) lifestyles.

The strategic use of AI — infused with operational, customer, and third-party data — can help retailers deliver experiences that genuinely emanate from and fit snugly into their customers鈥� everyday lifestyles.听听

At SAP, we use business AI to help companies optimize business processes, drive profitability, and boost customer loyalty. How can AI help retailers accomplish all that? Here are a few challenges we鈥檒l helping retailers solve at听.听听

Driving Profitability with AI-Powered Operations听

It goes without saying: If the customer can鈥檛 find the right product, there is no sale. Poor product discovery can result from the complexity of managing product catalogs, which leads to inaccuracies, poor recommendations, and reduced conversion rates. Inconsistent product tagging and inaccurate descriptions, which are often handled manually by key account or merchandising managers, can ensure products are hidden beyond customers鈥� reach.听听

AI can alleviate these headaches and streamline product catalog management, improving product data accuracy and delivering a more personalized shopping experience to boot. The 51风流CX AI Toolkit is a single generative AI layer powered by data from across 51风流products. Built on proprietary AI models and fine-tuned large language models (LLMs), it surfaces in e-commerce features in 51风流Commerce Cloud. The toolkit renders catalog management challenges painless with:听

• AI Product Tagging: The 51风流CX AI Toolkit analyzes catalog images and text to tag products within a catalog automatically. The tagging system ensures that each product is appropriately categorized and labeled, reducing errors and inconsistencies.听
• AI Product Descriptions: The toolkit leverages AI to generate personalized and compelling product descriptions. By analyzing product attributes, it can automatically create product descriptions that resonate with customers and provide the details for more informed purchasing decisions, enhancing customer experience and increasing sales.听
• Bulk Editing: Bulk editing of product tags and descriptions allows the quick and efficient update of large catalogs, ensuring that customers are presented with relevant and complementary products. Automating these time-consuming tasks frees catalog managers for higher-value work.听

Optimizing Operations with AI-Informed Logistics 

Getting products to customers necessitates having the right products in the right amounts at the right time. Issues like cost-to-ship, delivery timelines, pick-and-pack expenses, and capacity management can turn into perennial roadblocks that lower efficiency for inventory and sourcing management. Big challenges include consistently managing stock levels for cost efficiency, simulating sourcing strategies for sustainability and margin improvement, and delivering the best solutions to enhance customer satisfaction.

One example of this difficult balancing act is the need for retailers to optimize the return process while proactively managing orders.听听

AI can play an invaluable role in efficiently managing inventory and sourcing by tailoring sourcing strategies. In 51风流Order Management Services, AI is integrated to do just that, using key performance indicators (KPIs) such as cost-to-ship, delivery timelines, and pick-and-pack expenses. With target value, significance weight, and optional constraint for each KPI, retailers can uncover the most effective sourcing strategy and simulate single orders based on these strategies.听听

Beyond inventory and sourcing, AI can improve predictive order management and streamline the return process, enhancing overall efficiency and customer satisfaction. 

Meanwhile, the proliferation of channels makes mastering omnichannel advertising and sales a daunting challenge, but if retailers are not advertising where customers are, there鈥檚 no chance of making a brand connection. Fortunately, retailers can increase their omnichannel excellence with targeted ad solutions such as TikTok and LinkedIn integrations for digital ads听from 51风流Emarsys Customer Engagement.

However strong your omnichannel game is, the opportunity to strengthen brand loyalty and drive repeat purchases drops severely when distribution problems prevent timely delivery. If, for example, a customer cannot get听those听specific shoes from their “For You Page” (FYP) in time for a big event, there will be no sale.听听

For distribution centers, balancing conflict goals such as reducing logistic costs and managing supply chain constraints and supplier restrictions can make achieving efficient fulfillment with optimal order quantities and minimal manual intervention feel out of reach. Enter the power of AI to solve complex constraints at multiple levels and ensure retailers can get products to customers with sustainable business practices and high profit margins. 

AI-infused 51风流Predictive Replenishment enhances distribution center ordering by automating and optimizing order quantities. This includes analyzing demands from all channels, supply chain constraints, and business goals to determine the most cost-effective order quantities. The solution consumes machine learning-based demand forecasts of related 51风流solutions. These AI capabilities help manage demand volatility and are integrated with existing 51风流solutions for improved fulfillment efficiency. 51风流Predictive Replenishment integrates with industry cloud solutions such as 51风流Order and Delivery Scheduling, the future 51风流Predictive Demand Planning, and 51风流S/4HANA.

Boosting Loyalty with Sustainable, AI-Infused Recommerce听听

Increasingly, consumers are seeking to minimize their environmental impact and connect with conscientious brands. The need to build this brand awareness and consumer goodwill has many retailers looking to recommerce as a new business model that drives revenue and customer loyalty.

With recommerce, consumers can quickly and easily connect the dots between buying secondhand products from brands and saving money, reducing waste, and improving their overall carbon footprint. Trade-in programs that allow consumers to return their used goods in exchange for incentives also enable retailers to create closer, long-term customer relationships.听听

Such a unique opportunity, of course, comes with challenges. How do you ensure used products are inspected, matched to catalog items, cleaned, repaired, and priced based on their condition? What about the potential necessity of manual data entry to capture the details of unique items, which can introduce errors? Crucially, how can you increase sales and reduce overhead costs while running a recommerce business?听听

In some ways, these are challenges reminiscent of a typical supply chain process and its challenges that business AI from 51风流is uniquely qualified to solve thanks to 51风流Recommerce. For this reason, 51风流Recommerce will be embedding AI across the solution, enabling retailers to run an intelligent and sustainable business that increases profitability, enhances brand value, attracts new customers, and promotes more sustainable consumption.听听

At NRF 2024, 51风流will show how AI is becoming the competitive edge retailers need to grow intelligently. AI-driven insights for more efficient omnichannel fulfillment decisions, optimized assortments, personalized recommendations, and resilient and sustainable supply chains will empower organizations that adopt AI to make the right decisions and seamlessly scale.

I鈥檓 proud to say that 51风流has been offering AI-infused capabilities for years, with more industry-leading innovation on the way.听

, where we鈥檒l be sharing how embracing relevant, reliable, and responsible AI helps businesses look toward the future with confidence.听

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer of Industries and Customer Experience at SAP.

In the 51风流Customer Experience organization, we focus on our deep industry knowledge and vast customer data to devise AI strategies. These strategies are based on :

• Relevant: Make agile decisions, unlock valuable insights with data aligned with business outcomes, and automate tasks
• Reliable: Use AI that is trained on your industry and company data, driven by 51风流process expertise, to tirelessly satisfy and surpass customer expectations
• Responsible: Run responsible AI built on leading ethics and data privacy standards throughout our customer engagement process

Using these principles, we are building and bringing AI innovations to market in two ways for our customers.

First, we are developing portfolio-wide AI capabilities that can be accessed everywhere by business teams through a common interface, including a standalone app and Joule. These capabilities, built on top of proprietary AI models and fine-tuned large language models (LLMs), leverage SAP鈥檚 experiential and operational data as well as third-party data. The result is proactive, contextual, and AI-powered insights from across the enterprise, which help organizations optimize their business processes. These features will be available for purchase as a 鈥減ackage鈥� with the ability to use only what you need.

Second, we鈥檙e making our current products 鈥� 51风流Sales Cloud, 51风流Service Cloud, 51风流Commerce Cloud, 51风流Emarsys Customer Engagement, and 51风流Customer Data Platform solutions 鈥� even more valuable by natively embedding new AI features. These features will be available within the products.

New Portfolio-Wide AI Capabilities

Supercharge Catalog Management and Product Discovery with AI

With CX AI models, commerce managers can spend significantly less time on catalog enrichment and maintenance. Product attributes can be automatically extracted from images and textual descriptions, enriching product catalogs. Product descriptions can be automatically generated and published to a commerce storefront for an engaging purchasing experience. And image-based semantic search can help users easily discover new and existing products.

These capabilities (available December 2023) will result in better product discovery, produce personalized recommendations, reduce time spent on repetitive data entry, and help increase cart sizes at checkout.

Automate Labor-Intensive Tasks with Curated Role-Based AI Tools

Service, sales, and commerce teams now have access to job-specific AI tools to automate time-consuming and repetitive tasks. Most enterprise tools can write generative AI-powered content. The 51风流Customer Experience portfolio now offers localized AI agents to bring business context with hyper-relevant content. 

For example, when a customer issue arises, AI swoops in to create an overview of the situation and provide remediation guidance, for increased efficiency and a healthier bottom line (available December 2023).

Retrieve Answers in Natural Language with Proactive AI

Sales and service teams will benefit from CX AI models that automatically detect questions and suggest responses.

This goes beyond generative search. The 51风流Customer Experience portfolio now proactively detects questions and retrieves answers in natural language. The answers are derived from business data, including data in CRM, various communication channels, various document formats, and knowledge articles. CX AI models powering these capabilities are trustworthy because they transparently provide the sources from which answers are derived.

These capabilities will proactively identify and answer customer questions within conversations to free up sales and service teams to focus on more value-adding tasks (available December 2023).

Surface Customer Profile Intelligence in Context

With AI-generated customer profiles powered by real-time data from 51风流Customer Data Platform, teams can effortlessly dive into customer preferences and deliver a more tailored and relevant experience.

The power of intelligent customer profiles and insights is fully realized when they are personalized in natural language and surface contextually, prompted in CX applications. The 51风流Customer Experience portfolio uniquely delivers this value through native data connectivity across 51风流S/4HANA and CX in 51风流Customer Data Platform.

This means the ability to equip sales representatives to know when to offer the right discount and incentive to close a deal based on the total lifetime value of the customer (available December 2023).

New Embedded AI Capabilities

In addition to developing AI capabilities that extend across the 51风流Customer Experience portfolio, we鈥檙e also embedding throughout our solutions AI that has the ability to do the following things.

Create Personalized Content Powered by Generative AI

Marketers can now use the new generative AI capabilities in 51风流Emarsys Customer Engagement to create compelling content, such as subject lines and content blocks. In addition, with new AI capabilities like semantic search, they can quickly discover new products that deliver the right message to the right audience. For example, marketers can search for a specific keyword or a generic description, such as 鈥渋tems that are new in stock鈥� or 鈥渂est-selling products in <a specific product category>.鈥�

The new subject line and content block generation allows marketers to leverage generative AI to create targeted, compelling email content that produces profitable personalization (beta available first quarter of 2024, with general availability planned for soon after).

Generate Instant, Context-Aware Email Responses with Embedded Generative AI

Sales and service users already benefit from automatically generated email summaries and responses. Now, these features are supercharged with generative AI to be more contextual and relevant.

Relevant and accurate summaries are extracted from publicly available information and 51风流business data. With this natural language summary of contacts, accounts, opportunities, and cases, users can effortlessly sift through information and identify what is relevant. Email response recommendations are automatically generated based on the most recent communications with a customer, allowing sales and service representatives to engage with customers naturally and effectively (incrementally delivered in the 51风流Sales Cloud and 51风流Service Cloud releases).

Fortify Customer Identity and Access Management with AI

CIOs and security officers understand how crucial it is to secure their customer鈥檚 digital identity, footprint, and assets.

The latest enhancement to the 51风流Customer Identity and Access Management solution is an AI risk-based authentication capability. This feature is designed to fortify end-user identity data and provide an intelligent shield against potential threats across all our digital platforms and brands. 

With a unified customer view and consent profile, end users can confidently navigate real-time engagements, knowing that their data remains secure and private (available now with additional enhancements planned for second quarter of 2024).

These are just a few innovations the CX team is working on. The next announcements I am very excited about are AI capabilities in the new 51风流Enterprise Service Management solution.

The shape, pace, and extent of AI transformation will vary from one industry to another, while remaining compliant with local and global regulations. We strive to build our products with relevant, reliable, and responsible AI that goes beyond buzzword-laden ambiguity.

Using this AI, we at 51风流CX are committed to continually providing industry-tailored, connected, insightful, and adaptive products that will serve as a powerful toolkit in your digital transformation journey.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates!

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer of Industries and Customer Experience at SAP.

Intelligent customer experience (CX) made its grand debut at this year鈥檚 to an enthusiastic crowd of customers, partners, reporters, and analysts.

Even before seeing the audience鈥檚 excitement at my keynote product demo, I knew we were bringing something special to the stage because intelligent CX is rooted in unique industry needs, connected across departments and technology systems, fueled by insightful data, and adaptive to meet the changing needs of customers and businesses. It also infuses connected operational and contextual data from across the entire enterprise with AI insights to support a seamless customer experience.

While we鈥檝e been exploring and offering AI-driven solutions at 51风流for years, I鈥檓 delighted to see the interest in this technology spike with all the recent buzz around . Even more galvanizing for me is seeing the excitement grow among businesses like , the world鈥檚 premier jewelry and accessories brand, which is tapping into the power of AI to create deeper connections with its customers.

鈥淎I is undoubtedly a value driver for customers and companies, helping to elevate personalization at the highest level,鈥� said Dr. Lea Sonderegger, CIO and chief digital officer at Swarovski. 鈥淭hanks to sophisticated algorithms, we can now better understand our customers as never before, anticipate their needs, and, recently, provide a human-like conversational interaction.鈥�

Overall, while there is a clear business benefit for consumers to share data, the real question is: “What鈥檚 in it for them?”

Striking a Mutually Beneficial Balance for Data Sharing

Without data 鈥� the right data, and enough of it 鈥� all the AI in the world will not amount to one single meaningful insight that can help brands create the personalized experiences needed to drive business growth, provide value to consumers, and build customer loyalty.

Yet the sort of rich data that empowers industries such as retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) to harness the capabilities of AI relies on the goodwill of customers to share their data. And not every customer is willing to give it up.

Nearly half of consumers (46%) are wary of the positive role AI plays in their retail experiences, of more than 10,000 consumers in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Germany by , SAP鈥檚 omnichannel customer engagement platform.

While these consumers are apprehensive about how brands use their data, they still want to benefit from the convenience, value, and brand connection that comes from sharing it with companies. Respondents would be more likely to purchase from a brand that offers personalized extras (62%), personalized recommendations (63%), loyalty programs (72%), and discount codes (77%). Further, 76% percent of global consumers surveyed prefer personalized marketing communications from brands and 73% want to know that a brand 鈥済ets them鈥� as a person.

These results highlight how consumer assumptions and fears regarding data sharing and AI may conflict with their desires for more individuated, value-driven experiences. Retailers can, and must, help customers make the connection between sharing data and reaping the benefits of its use.

鈥淲e currently leverage data and AI to provide personalized product recommendations on our website and in our newsletters and also in the store through our clienteling services to enhance the brand and shopping experience of our queens, our customers,鈥� Sonderegger shared.

People are typically more amenable to sharing their data when it provides direct value — in savings, efficiency, and stronger connections with brands. But transparency is critical to building the much-needed trust between a customer and a brand. Sharing how data is being used anytime a customer creates an account, signs up for marketing communications, or agrees to data sharing reassures customers that their data is being treated securely and compliantly.

Retailers that can provide this transparency and direct value will enjoy the kind of widespread brand loyalty that comes from more personalized, value-oriented interactions, which can be the key to giving customers the brand experiences they truly want, when they want it, and where they want it.

Unlocking Customer Experience with AI

The enable retailers to personalize these curated experiences. Customers can tap into AI-tailored touchpoints whether on the couch, the beach, in-transit, or in-store.

Across the suite, 51风流CX combines trusted data and responsible AI to unlock the customer experience. Creating personalized customer experiences is a challenging and time-consuming task, but essential to achieve high customer satisfaction. 51风流Digital Assistant for CX, for example, provides marketers and sellers with holistic insights and recommendations, and automatically generates personalized product content and interactions. The benefits for companies include increased sales conversions, improved customer experience from personalized interactions and product content, and up to 鈧�300,000 in expected savings for average 51风流Service Cloud customers.

The portfolio also unlocks the value of intelligent CX with AI with:

• Intelligent recommendations and a seamless customer experience based on insights from commerce, sales, and service data
• More customer-centric decision-making from a single source of unified data coupled with real-time insights via 51风流Customer Data Platform
• Hitch-free, personalized, real-time service and support with 51风流Service Cloud based on integrated operational and customer data
• Guided selling enabled by intelligent recommendations, opportunity insights, and real-time contextual data, with generative AI-personalized messaging

From better demand forecasting to higher customer satisfaction, AI promises transformative advantages for all industries. estimates the economic value of generative AI for the retail and consumer packaged goods industries alone at $400 to $660 billion a year. I

鈥檓 proud to say that we鈥檙e already helping our customers anticipate and rise to their customers鈥� expectations with embedded AI that is relevant, reliable, and responsible — but this is just the beginning. Business AI continues to evolve, and we鈥檒l continue to anticipate consumer expectations, driving strong business outcomes, and taking customer experience from simply AI-powered to AI-empowered.

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer for 51风流Industry & Customer Experience.

When Tchibo worked with 51风流to develop the NFT Launchpad, it wasn鈥檛 simply 鈥渟tirring the pot.鈥� Tchibo鈥檚 innovation-driven DNA and SAP鈥檚 50-year history of tackling business challenges with the best of leading-edge technology was the perfect pairing to help unlock the potential of Web3.

The result was the NFT Launchpad, which allows users to mint, administer, and manage Web3-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in a Web2-friendly application. The lighthouse project was capped off by the premier launch of a Tchibo NFT collection dubbed 鈥淭chibo Royalty Club.鈥� Using the NFT Launchpad, Tchibo minted 1,000 unique NFTs on the Polygon blockchain. To get an NFT, collectors entered their e-mail addresses on the Tchibo Royalty Club鈥檚 NFT Launchpad page. After receiving a link by e-mail, recipients were able to claim and view their NFTs on the launchpad or transfer them to their digital wallets. 鈥淕olden鈥� NFTs were redeemable for prizes like Tchibo coffee cans and Lapressa-branded pens.

I鈥檓 so proud of the results and the significance of this collaboration. Because it combines the best functionalities of Web2 and Web3, NFT Launchpad lowers the barriers for companies and collectors alike to get in on the Web3 revolution. For context, the Internet we鈥檝e come to know over the past quarter century is Web2. Web2 technology drove the democratization of the Internet, allowing users to contribute and interact with content. Web3 decentralizes the Internet, making transactions more secure and verifiable by using a distributed blockchain network to validate those transactions. Web3 also allows companies to take advantage of the new digital consumer asset class based on blockchain technology and smart contracts that includes NFTs, tokens, and more.

The project also revealed a compelling array of applications perfectly suited to the rising challenge of meeting customer expectations. Among the most pressing concerns for all retailers today is capturing an ever-fractured share of consumer loyalty. More than ever, engaging customers while remaining profitable increases the urgency for companies to transform the customer experience. Fortunately, the capabilities of Web3 suggest a bounty of use cases.

From loyalty programs to digital twins, NFTs can help increase brand loyalty, engagement, and revenue. Crucially, Web3 can also propel companies on their digital transformations, keeping their brands relevant even for digitally sophisticated Gen Z and Alphas as well as the generations of consumers beyond. As marketing and loyalty tools, NFTs can be issued as brand rewards, promotional or exclusive collectors鈥� items, and advertising with which younger consumers are likely to engage. Digital twins, for example, are unique ways for companies to engage, interact, and build relationships with audiences.

Digital twins are digital representations of physical objects. NFTs of digital twins, used as promotional items, invitations, passes to special events such as exclusive sales, or redemptions for discounts and physical goods, can be low-cost entries into the Web3 universe. As sales or service tools, digital twins also present excellent possibilities for improving the customer experience post-purchase. Imagine the next time your car鈥檚 engine light comes on. Instead of driving it to the repair shop, you share a digital twin that a mechanic can use to virtually investigate and diagnose the problem. You can bet if I鈥檓 getting consistently reliable service without leaving my home, I鈥檓 a repeat customer.

Internally, companies can also use NFTs as POAPs (Proof of Attendance Protocol) to boost employee engagement. Tchibo has issued POAPs to increase engagement in trainings, while 51风流has a similar program that allows in-house tech talk attendees to collect NFTs.

From marketing to commerce to service applications and more, it鈥檚 evident that Web3 has great potential to unlock key drivers of success 鈥� engagement, revenue, loyalty, and digital transformation 鈥� in the new digital landscape.

NFTs as Sustainable Swag

The NFT Launchpad holds a further benefit that speaks to changing consumer and business values. With no production, packaging, or shipping, NFTs can make a claim to sustainability that rises when coupled with the more energy efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. POS uses about as much energy as a Google search. Minting an NFT on Polygon, as the team did,鈥痷ses only , amounting to one-forty-four-thousandth of the carbon footprint required to mint an NFT on a proof-of-work (PoW) network.

How proof-of-stake so vastly outperforms proof-of-work in energy efficiency comes down to the way transactions get validated.

• Proof-of-work, used by networks like Bitcoin, involves miners solving complex mathematical problems to validate transactions and create new blocks. This process is energy intensive, requiring a substantial amount of computational power, as every miner in the network performs these computations in a race to mine the block and win the block reward.鈥疧nce the first miner finishes the computation, all other miners stop processing the block and move on to the next block of transactions.鈥疶he process repeats itself, using significant amounts of energy in the process.
• Proof-of-stake networks, on the other hand, are more energy-efficient. In PoS, validators are chosen to create new blocks based on the amount of cryptocurrency they hold and are willing to “stake” as collateral, which they lose if other validators determine the block was maliciously processed. Since only a single node in the network creates the block, no complex, energy-intensive, simultaneous processing is performed. PoS consumes significantly less energy than PoW, making it a more sustainable option for blockchain networks.

Further, NFTs have a longer lifespan than physical goods, as they can be stored, transferred, and traded without degradation in quality.

Alpha Release of NFT Management Solution by SAP

This year at 51风流Sapphire, 51风流introduced its alpha release of the non-fungible token management solution, an enterprise-ready, no-code, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for creating, managing, distributing, and claiming Web3 digital assets. Via the solution鈥檚 dashboard, companies can create NFT collections and campaigns and administer and distribute NFTs to customers. NFT collection and campaign managers can configure the experience of NFT claimants by customizing benefits linked to NFTs, adding destination links, and more.

I couldn鈥檛 be more excited to be testing the alpha release with our partners at Tchibo. I鈥檓 also excited to share a preview with you. Scan the QR code to receive a limited edition, custom NFT from the alpha release of the NFT management solution by SAP. NFTs will be distributed to the first 50 people to claim one of these cool, sustainable, custom digital artworks.

With heartfelt thanks to Tchibo, I鈥檓 looking forward to our next innovation project. Tchibo鈥檚 German slogan, 鈥淛ede Woche eine neue Welt鈥� means 鈥淓very week is a new world.鈥� It refers to the changing selection of goods, refreshed weekly, in its stores. This sentiment also rings true for business technology, and I鈥檓 excited to see what鈥檚 next for Tchibo and Web3.

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief operating officer of 51风流Industry & Customer Experience.

This is understandable, given the volatile and unpredictable nature of today鈥檚 marketplace. Multiple external pressures — global inflation, stringent trade regulations, supply chain disruptions, and the reality of well informed and tech-savvy consumers with virtually endless options — are making it increasingly difficult to protect profit margins.

Against this backdrop, direct-to-consumer (D2C) selling through digital channels has become the strategic linchpin for protecting profitability across multiple industries. Well executed digital sales channels allow companies to establish direct, lasting relationships with consumers while still maintaining their core modern trade business models and existing partner and channel landscapes. Many small business-to-business (B2B) organizations, in fact, started as native D2C brands, and now larger brands are following suit and adding D2C channels to meet growing consumer expectations.

Adding further complexity is the fact that changing consumer expectations are redefining all aspects of the retail journey. From choosing the right sales channels to sustainable sourcing to easy returns and responsible re-merchandising, retailers are looking for flexible solutions to delight customers and increase profitability without finding themselves in 鈥渙ne-size-only” business models.

The Devil Is in the D2C Details; Fantastic Data Is the Key

As early digital-native adopters such as Allbirds, Dollar Shave Club, and Zappos learned, D2C success does not end at setting up a webshop and mastering direct marketing. It requires a much more expansive strategy and truly knowing your customers so you can meet their evolving needs with new levels of convenience, no matter how they choose to interact with your brand. It is also vital to understand consumers鈥� behaviors and propensity to abandon brands for reasons that may seem trivial on the surface, and that only begin to make sense in the aggregate.

These same vanguard niche brands also learned that the key to achieving a winning D2C strategy lay in building a technology stack capable of reliably and responsibly gathering data to gain actionable insights across the entire customer life cycle, and using that data to enhance every customer interaction, as well as to optimize business processes across the entire organization.

Despite the accelerating growth of D2C as a share of the overall commerce market, many consumer products companies have optimized their processes and IT landscapes for the modern trade model, where the primary route to market was through retail. This means they often lack the infrastructure and corporate culture needed to achieve a true end-to-end, data-driven strategy, as well as the elevated customer experience it can deliver.

We can define this kind of strategy along five essential elements:

• Value proposition: Offering the right product, on the right channel, for the right price, at minimal introductory risk and cost
• Marketing: Acquiring and engaging consumers to convert them to loyal, direct customers while respecting and protecting their personal data and privacy
• Direct sales channel: Enabling new D2C business models and embedding e-commerce capabilities across the entire customer life cycle
• Fulfillment and post-purchase: Delivering products at scale and on time while reducing costs per transaction, and mastering processes across the fulfillment value chain, including intelligent returns
• Analysis and insights: Using consumer insights to quickly iterate products, services, and experiences through a unified consumer data framework with consistent and compliant data governance; in essence, enabling a data-driven 鈥渇eedback loop鈥� that increases in value and effectiveness over time

There is also the essential modern go-to-market approach that goes far beyond e-commerce and mailing lists. Beyond e-commerce and selling into traditional brick and mortar department store chains, mom-and-pop stores, specialty retailers, restaurants and bars, salons, and more, engaging multiple business-to-consumer (B2C) marketplaces, such as Amazon, Alibaba, and Etsy, may also be necessary. Social network marketplaces, with their attendant social influencers on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, continue to grow as popular sales channels. For all these reasons, the right technology partner is essential to ensuring an organization is ready to compete and win in this ever-evolving marketplace.

This end-to-end data strategy and the valuable insights it offers can only come from a provider that can connect data from back-end, enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to front-end end, customer experience and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.

As the world鈥檚 foremost ERP solution provider, with 50 years of experience in industry-specific business process technology, 51风流is in a unique position to help customers connect all of these elements across their business landscapes. From sourcing and procurement to product development and manufacturing to customer engagement and commerce to driving every route to market — our vision is to help every organization become more adaptive and insightful through industry-led solutions that scale with a business, even as the business model evolves.

To empower the modern D2C business for lasting success, 51风流offers the ultimate combination of industry expertise, next-generation architecture, and global scale.

The cloud-based 51风流portfolio of enterprise-grade are consistently recognized as market leaders by top analysts such as Gartner, Forrester, and IDC — for good reason. For example, SAP鈥檚 new approach to composability in digital commerce enables taking advantage of modular cloud software solutions without sacrificing the scale, performance, and reliability of our core commerce platform. This enables a business to move fast on its own terms no matter where it is on its digital transformation journey, so it can evolve at the pace of its customers.

And now, 51风流is committed to taking a true industry-led approach to solving our clients鈥� biggest challenges and empowering them to launch and run the world鈥檚 most innovative brands.

provides a wealth of industry-focused solutions, built by 51风流and partners, based on (51风流BTP), and deeply integrated with the 51风流S/4HANA Cloud and 51风流Business Network. These solutions enable users to take advantage of the latest innovations relevant to their industry to help efficiently optimize, extend, and transform core business processes to meet the market with confidence. For , 51风流offers more than 40 industry cloud solutions, more than 15 SAP-built solutions, and more than 350 solutions across our vast partner ecosystem. Our are just as extensive.

Be ready to amaze your customers and be ready for anything the future holds, with 51风流as your partner in innovation and profitable growth.

Today鈥檚 brands know that amid so much change and competition, they must evolve quickly or get left behind. Future-proofing a business means having the tools to change and scale in a complex, uncertain environment. Intelligent CX from 51风流is designed to future proof a business so it can be amazing every time for its customers. Our solutions are:

• Industry-tailored, to meet the most critical needs of an industry and customers
• Connected, with deep integrations that connect back-office ERP data to customer interactions
• Insightful, to enable understanding customers and making the best decisions for the business
• Adaptive, with composable architecture and a vast partner ecosystem in order to build the solution needed now and move fast in the future

Of the 100 biggest companies in the world, 99 run 51风流software, representing 87% of total global commerce. Our global presence and scale, industry know-how, and commitment to continuous innovation make 51风流the best choice for any organization that wants to build a best-in-class, direct-to-consumer business in a complex global marketplace and improve people鈥檚 lives — one great experience at a time.

Future-Proof听 Your D2C Business Through Intelligent CX

Those attending , either virtually or onsite, will have the chance to hear our exciting line up of keynote speakers and talk with 51风流experts, partners, and customers, as well as peers from across industries to learn what鈥檚 happening in established and developing markets around the globe. .

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer for 51风流Industries & Customer Experience.

51风流Customer Experience helps businesses achieve this balance. We provide a customer experience (CX) ecosystem that connects every part of their organization — from the front office to the back office — so they can be amazing at every customer engagement. We also deliver insights powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and end-to-end processes that simplify operations and make the business more adaptable.

This mission is especially vital for B2B sales. Legacy customer relationship management (CRM) software has become a significant hindrance in our modern, mobile, and always-on marketplace. Built on business-oriented process governance and in-person, siloed relationships between buyers and account executives, yesterday鈥檚 CRM cannot deliver the highly personalized digital experience that people expect today. It has not kept pace with the rate of change experienced by buyers and sellers.

That is why we are excited to announce the innovations powering 51风流Sales Cloud. With increased agility, intelligence, and scalability, our solution can transform routine sales tactics into holistic sales strategies. It provides the right mix of helpful guidance, self-service, and agile business operations to enable companies to maximize customer lifetime value.

Need for Change

Just how much B2B sales have changed is made clear in a , in association with SAP. Seventy-two percent of the respondents said their B2B sales strategies have undergone moderate or significant change over the past two years.

As millennials and Gen Z enter the workforce, buyer demands are changing rapidly. This new demographic wants more autonomy in their purchasing journeys. They want digitally enabled sales interactions, and they involve more decision-makers in the process. These trends are consistent across industries and regions.

On the selling side, teams are now more geographically dispersed, largely thanks to the pandemic and remote work. In addition, turnover, which has always been a problem, has increased. While stress has risen and operations have become overly complicated, plenty of job opportunities are available. These trends highlight three crucial challenges:

• Speeding time-to-value as new sellers are hired
• Providing efficient and effective ways for team collaboration
• Simplifying operations to strengthen loyalty from the existing sales force

Navigating the New Era of B2B Sales

Leading companies are pursuing three key objectives to deal with these trends and challenges.

First, they want to create continuity in the buying experience by linking each engagement and interaction. This continuity is powered by data from the entire organization, including front office engagement 鈥� marketing, commerce, and service 鈥� and back-end business processes such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain, and inventory data. By using this data to surface insights, sellers can enhance their understanding of each customer and deliver the dynamic, connected journeys that win repeat business.

Secondly, they are making selling easier and faster. Sellers get the tools and technologies to do their jobs, quickly overcome complexities, engage with buyers across digital and in-person channels, and easily navigate selling journeys.

This enables sellers to focus on high-value/high-win and strategic opportunities and to put time into making sure these deals succeed. If they can spend their time selling rather than navigating antiquated technology, they will do a much better job.

Lastly, they are looking to future-proof and accelerate their operations at any scale. This requires a system that is not only high-performing and reliable, but also connected to every part of the organization and easy to adapt when circumstances change. This point is crucial: dealing with the speed and scale of unexpected change has tested many organizations鈥� mettle in the last three years.

At the same time, usability matters; after all, B2B sellers are also consumers. Their experiences with tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, and Google shape their expectations of how their systems should work — lightning fast and intuitive.

鈥淐ustomer expectations are shifting rapidly. They are demanding more — more flexibility, more control, more channels, and more sustainable business practices. With the help of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data, and analytics, we are creating new opportunities for the entire sales team so they can make every interaction a personalized customer experience and can deliver the value this new generation of customers expects at every touchpoint.鈥�

– Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive
Board of 51风流SE, Product Engineering

Intelligent Selling Made Simple

SAP鈥檚 goal is to help organizations of all sizes and industries run profitable businesses and continuously adapt. Recent innovations in will help B2B sales organizations do exactly that. Because it is a composable solution, it enables companies to:

• Reimagine the way they engage with business customers to build better, faster sales experiences at scale with always-on availability
• Increase business agility and flexibility with an API-first, microservices-enabled technology approach
• Scale with ease while creating highly differentiated customer experiences that can easily be extended with composable apps

51风流Sales Cloud now creates understanding through insight so companies can effectively connect with customers and capitalize on emerging trends. It uses data-driven intelligence to provide a focus on high-value business, eliminating noise and guiding sellers to more effective courses of action. And it removes barriers to help unify and grow global sales operations. Together, these qualities speed up the sales process and help sellers meet buyers on the customer鈥檚 preferred terms.

Intelligent selling should do two simple things: create great experiences for buyers and sellers, and help companies grow. The companies that make intelligent selling a reality will be able to deal with challenges faster than their rivals. They are the companies whose sales operations will cope with rapid change and customer demands. And they are the companies whose customers and employees will stay loyal for the long term.

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer for 51风流Customer Experience.