As one of the first customers, petZEBA AG聽implemented the new solution as a sales recording app to support its daily sales operations and聽capture orders by voice command, find retailers and customers via GPS, process orders automatically, and get real-time CRM updates.聽Since its implementation, this new intelligent solution saved the petZEBA sales teams significant time and enabled a 25% increase in customer visits.

Pet Food Expert petZEBA Is Shaping the Future

Founded in 2006, is a family-run company with headquarters in Alberswil, Switzerland. The company sells high-quality food and nutritional supplements for dogs, cats, and horses throughout Switzerland. The company also supports and supplies numerous pet shops, animal shelters, veterinarians, breeders, depots, and end users. In 2017, petZEBA established its first subsidiary, petZEBA International GmbH, in Germany.

With its passion to drive change and lead the way in shaping the future, petZEBA AG showcases its commitment through adopting and unlocking new potential. The introduction of the AGIL AI.Sales app is just another step on its innovation path, helping optimize sales processes.

About the New AGIL AI.Sales App

With the rise of new intelligent solutions powered by AI and generative AI, 51风流AppHaus Network partner AGILITA created its first AI solution known as the , which aims to make sales processes seamless and intelligent. To make it a fully user-centric product, the AGILITA team developed and created it along the proven 51风流AppHaus human-centered approach to innovation, using the as the guiding process.

Designed to simplify and accelerate sales processes, the AGIL AI.Sales app not only helps save time but it can also maximize revenue by preparing data-driven decisions. The app supports businesses with intelligent customer visit briefings and sales opportunities, utilizing advanced algorithms to make accurate predictions and help optimize the sales process. What鈥檚 more, by reducing manual effort, it offers businesses automated sales processes and increased efficiency. Lastly, the app provides centralized data management so that all relevant information is in one place, easily accessible, and clearly presented.

How AGIL AI.Sales Transformed petZEBA鈥檚 Sales Processes

The AGIL AI.Sales solution was successfully implemented for petZEBA AG sales teams to optimize their processes. Sales representatives can now easily record meeting sessions with customers, enter orders by voice command, and track customer orders from the past and estimate them for the future. Additionally, there鈥檚 geolocation embedded in the app that helps find customers in the area based on location, availability, and how close or far they are located for easy and sustainable commuting.

Additional benefits included:

• Time savings leading to a 25% increase in customer visits done by sales teams
• Orders captured by voice command and automatically processed
• Support for recording customer meetings and proposing next steps
• Full integration providing real-time customer relationship management updates
• Accurate, timely, and contextually relevant information.

Seamless Integration of AGIL AI.Sales

Building on 51风流BTP, the AGIL AI.Sales app seamlessly leverages different 51风流AI solutions such as 51风流AI Core, generative AI hub, and 51风流HANA Cloud vector engine, which provides a powerful synergy that helps enhance performance and functionality. This integrated solution enables the AGIL AI.Sales app to deliver superior performance, enabling users to receive accurate, timely, and contextually relevant information.

Thomas Neuhaus, head of Digital Experience at AGILITA AG, says: 鈥淥ur AGILITA team is very happy to see the benefits brought about by AGIL AI.Sales in the case of our customer petZEBA. Their sales team uses the app successfully and could already experience measurable improvements and benefits. It helped them simplify and accelerate sales processes. Our team is especially proud of the measured 25% increase in customer visits since its implementation. This was made possible by significant time savings and intelligent sales planning. Thanks a lot to the petZEBA team for the great collaboration! We look forward to seeing them progressing further on their future-oriented journey.鈥�

Priscilla Darfour is a working student at 51风流AppHaus Network.

51风流AppHaus locations are customer-facing sites that represent the next step in SAP鈥檚 evolution of innovating with customers by putting the human experience first. The first 51风流AppHaus was established in 2013. Today, the network is 23-strong across the globe, including three SAP-driven and 19 partner-driven locations.  

At the heart of is the belief that innovation requires a multidisciplinary team, a creative environment, and a human-centered approach to ensure innovation meets real-world needs. This combines design thinking and architecture thinking to make sure solutions are experientially desirable, technologically feasible, and financially viable. In short, the three success ingredients are people, process, and place.

鈥淭he award-winning human-centric approach to innovation that we and selected 51风流partners apply in customer engagements creates significantly higher business outcomes,鈥� states Birgit Fien-Schmalzbauer, global head of the 51风流AppHaus Partner Network. 鈥淚nvolving end users, IT, and the business of the customer in a systematic way, for example, leads to higher user satisfaction and less training effort for newly introduced solutions. It supports customers in leveraging the opportunities brought about by the newest technologies, such as 51风流Business AI, even in the short term.鈥�

The next growth region for extending 51风流AppHaus Network will be North America. The high demand for human-centric customer engagements led to the decision to further expand the reach of the current network representation in North America consisting of three locations:

• , currently under renovation
• , Canada, partner-run
• , U.S., partner-run

鈥淐ustomers in North America, like our customers in other regions, are looking for support to keep up with changing market environments and state-of-the-art technologies along their business transformation journey,” states Thorsten Leiduck, global head of 51风流Business Technology Platform Ecosystem at SAP. “The services offered by partner members of 51风流AppHaus Network provide our clients with the benefits of a human-centered innovation approach that leverages the power of 51风流Business Technology Platform. Customers gain a significant competitive advantage by embracing a culture of innovation and improving their business processes through 51风流technologies.鈥�

鈥淥ur partners are qualified and trained in our innovation approach and can therefore enable customers to leverage 51风流Business Technology Platform for their best benefit,鈥� adds Carlos Estala Velasco, regional lead of 51风流AppHaus Partner Network Americas, SAP. 鈥淚 am looking forward to continuing to drive the Americas chapter of 51风流AppHaus Network and expanding innovation opportunities for our regional customers.鈥�

Interested partners are invited to apply. To do so, visit and choose 鈥淕et in Contact鈥� to request the submission template or more information.聽Submissions are open until April 30, 2024.

Svenja Mueller is program manager for 51风流AppHaus Network.

With years of experience in conducting innovation projects with customers, the global 51风流AppHaus team has developed extensive expertise in identifying customers鈥� and end users鈥� needs, translating them into UX designs, and finally delivering the solution and helping drive adoption of 51风流products and technologies. Together with other customer-focused 51风流teams, the 51风流AppHaus team has consolidated years of expertise and innovation work with customers into , an approach that combines design thinking, design doing, and architecture thinking methods. What started with design thinking methods has since evolved into an extensive , a universal innovation guide accessible to everyone.

From Five Locations to a Global Community

There are currently five 51风流AppHaus locations in Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, Palo Alto, and Seoul. But 51风流did not stop here. To extend SAP鈥檚 reach across the globe, the company started to leverage the successful concept with 51风流partners in selected regions becoming members of 51风流AppHaus Network. As of September 2022, this global network is a community of more than 20 innovation teams from handpicked 51风流partners and 51风流itself. All help ensure that, with 51风流Business Technology Platform, innovation gets into the hands of people. The innovative solutions build upon existing 51风流standard solutions such as , 51风流ERP, , and more.

51风流AppHaus Network works along a human-centered approach to innovation, which has encouraged numerous 51风流partners to join the community. The close relationships between the network members allow them to benefit from shared know-how, ideas, and mutual enablement. These values are also what motivated the newest additions, Flexso and AGILITA, to become part of 51风流AppHaus Network.

Flexso and 51风流Join Forces

Flexso is a full-service 51风流partner located in Antwerp, Belgium, that implements smart, powerful 51风流solutions for a wide range of lines of business. Flexso is known for its digital innovation and extensive experience with 51风流BTP.

To build a close relationship with SAP, Flexso hosted a workshop with colleagues from 51风流AppHaus Heidelberg as well as the Belgian 51风流market unit. During an interactive workshop in Flexso鈥檚 new innovation space, the user experience and technology experts had the opportunity to express their needs and ideas. Together, 51风流and Flexso aim to provide 51风流customers in Belgium with the full 51风流AppHaus experience and seamless support within their transformation towards intelligent enterprises. This workshop was an important first step to lay the groundwork for joint projects and the mutual mission to give 51风流customers sufficient support throughout the entire innovation journey.

鈥淒uring the interactive session, we identified several needs in the 51风流customer life cycle. These needs referred to a creative workshop space and a highly skilled UX and 51风流technology expert team, such as Flexso, that could help 51风流and all local customers,鈥� said Tobias Gollwitzer, customer design engagement manager at 51风流AppHaus Heidelberg. 鈥淭his format is a shared best practice for our 51风流AppHaus Network to intensify the local collaboration in different regions.鈥�

AGILITA: The Latest Addition to 51风流AppHaus Network

With over 10 years of cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) experience, AGILITA lives agility and innovation to bring customers solutions with passion and responsibility. Located in Zurich, Switzerland, AGILITA joined 51风流AppHaus Network in January 2022 and is known for its 鈥榠nnovation as a service鈥� offering powered by 51风流Business Technology Platform.

To provide its partners and customers with an environment that helps unfold their creativity, AGILITA recently inaugurated its new 51风流AppHaus space in May 2022. The team hosted an opening event with guests from 51风流AppHaus and 51风流Switzerland.

The event kicked off with opening speeches given by AGILITA CEO Sandra Voeller, 51风流Switzerland COO Sabrina Storck, and Global Head of 51风流AppHaus Partner Network Birgit Fien-Schmalzbauer. After Thomas Neuhaus, head of Digital Transformation at AGILITA, offered insights into the different design thinking phases, each attendee could join one of the in-depth sessions about SAP鈥檚 human-centered approach to innovation and demonstrations of a live implementation of 51风流BTP. The multifaceted setup of the opening event allowed partners and customers to get to know each other, exchange valuable knowledge, and learn more about AGILITA and 51风流AppHaus Network. After this inspiring opening event, Storck was convinced that the AGILITA 51风流AppHaus space 鈥渋s going to become the innovation hub of Switzerland.鈥�

A Look into the Future

Since its beginnings in 2013, 51风流AppHaus Network has been continuously growing and working together virtually. Only recently, in June 2022, partners from all over the world met at 51风流AppHaus Heidelberg for an on-site meetup to intensify their collaboration and share best practices. The event provided the chance to meet each other in person, work on developing new methods for customer workshops, define and align mutual goals, and set a course for a successful future.

鈥淪ince we established 51风流AppHaus Network, our partners and teams have done an amazing job to prove, through many inspiring customer success stories, that human-centered innovation creates faster business value and outcomes for our customers using 51风流Business Technology Platform. SAP鈥檚 initiative to offer helps support and accelerate the move to the cloud,鈥� said Andreas Hauser, SVP of 51风流AppHaus Network.

22 Members 鈥� And Counting

Looking at all the great experiences so far it comes as no surprise that there will be more partners joining the network soon. With partners currently on four continents, 51风流AppHaus Network is eager to continue its journey around the world. In fact, scouting for new partners in Africa and Latin America has begun, with the aim of finding candidates that enhance the value of the network and carry forward the joint mission of making innovation real. Stay tuned for the next steps in the evolution of 51风流AppHaus Network.

鈥淲e are excited to make new connections, continue to grow the community, and work together with 51风流partners globally,鈥� said Fien-Schmalzbauer.

Julia Jakob is part of T&I Communications for 51风流AppHaus.

What wine corresponds to which persona? At the 51风流AppHaus Network meetup, the partners didn鈥檛 just learn about the latest developments in 51风流software and innovation, they also learned a thing or two about wine. Coming off an intensive first day, the participants were treated to a special program highlight: a light-hearted wine tasting in which they were able to continue networking in a more informal atmosphere. Here they learned, for example, that the “Spaetburgunder” (pinot noir) best embodied the traits of 51风流Business Technology Platform: high quality, reliable, versatile, and scalable.

Developing Innovative Solutions Together

Currently spanning five SAP聽AppHaus locations and 17 locations run by partners, 聽continues to grow worldwide, united by a common goal: to make innovative solutions for SAP聽Business Technology Platform a reality while keeping the primary focus on the end user. To that end, all 51风流AppHaus members follow SAP鈥檚 .

Purely virtual collaboration was the name of the game for most over the last three years, and it was no different for this global network. And although collaboration proved quite successful despite the physical distance, the growing number of members and the need to truly 鈥渋dentify鈥� with the network eventually made meeting in person a necessity. Together, they wanted to work hand in hand on the strategy for the future 鈥� true to SAP鈥檚 vision to help the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives.

Birgit Fien-Schmalzbauer, global head of SAP聽AppHaus Network, was overjoyed to welcome delegations from almost all global 51风流AppHaus Network members to SAP聽AppHaus Heidelberg: 鈥淲e worked very hard in preparing this meetup, developed the content together, and worked on three new workshop formats that were tested by all partners for future rollout to our customers. As a result, we were really able to make the most of these three days with all the participants. Our goal was to create lasting value for the entire SAP聽AppHaus Network, intensify our relationships, and start new initiatives.鈥�

Teamwork as the Deciding Factor

In her keynote, 51风流T&I Chief Operating Officer Anja Schneider gave the attendees a strategy overview of (SAP聽BTP) 鈥� the technological foundation for the intelligent, sustainable enterprise. 鈥淐lose collaboration with our partners is crucial to realizing the full potential of SAP聽BTP and ensuring our customers鈥� success,鈥� she emphasized before going on to present the concept of聽.

Helping her make the abstract more tangible was wine enthusiast Edda Mann, program manager in SAP鈥檚 use case factory initiative. Mann offered every participant a wine tasting and explained, through analogy, why an 鈥淥berkircher Collection O Ros茅,鈥� for instance, was the perfect example of a 聽on SAP聽BTP. For not only was the wine in question a聽best seller, it鈥檚 also a聽best adopter! A further highlight of the event was Glenn Gonzalez, CTO, SAP聽Germany, with his visionary take on SAP鈥檚 sustainable solutions and the vital role the company plays when it comes to sustainability in the global context.

Looking back, Andreas Hauser, senior vice president of SAP聽AppHaus Network, sums up the event: 鈥淭hanks to the meetup, our joint work with 51风流customers and our global innovation activities with SAP聽Business Technology Platform have evolved to an entirely new level. Parts of the new workshop formats we evaluated for the areas of sustainability, innovation, and communication have already been incorporated into the publicly available . And I am particularly pleased that network partners have now entered into some collaboration projects between themselves as well.鈥�

Recognizing their achievement, the two companies recently received an 51风流Innovation Award in the Business Transformation Champion category for their Intelligent Infrastructure Control Center (IICC).

鈥淚t鈥檚 a well-known problem throughout the construction industry that money being funneled in there is hard to track,鈥� , head of Keytree鈥檚 Design and Innovation team, explains. Huge infrastructure projects across the UK are often government-sponsored and have great budgets, but due to a lack of ability to provide data insights, the specifics of where the budget is going often remains unclear.

The construction industry is no stranger to innovation. But if an innovative process is being introduced on one construction site 鈥� for example, a new bridge is being prefabricated and then put together on-site 鈥� it is often not possible to leverage that innovation across a wide infrastructure program with many building sites because the necessary insights are missing.

鈥淎 lot of processes and data is often held on paper or to be found in the heads of on-site engineers with 20 or 30 years of experience rather than in systems,鈥� Clements explains. By tackling this problem, 51风流and Keytree helped position Costain, which is using 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), at the forefront of innovation in the construction industry.

The 51风流AppHaus Partner Network

鈥�, director of Research and Innovation at Costain, wanted Costain to differentiate itself from competitors in the construction industry,鈥� Clements says. Together with SAP, Costain approached Keytree as a potential tech partner that could help position them within their industry as an innovation leader.

The three companies used 51风流AppHaus London for workshops and meetings to work out the basics and apply design thinking methodology to the problem. 鈥淲e conduct our own sessions and workshops independently, but we work closely with the team from regarding the best approach to the methodology,鈥� explains , director of User Experience for Keytree.

鈥淲hen the original 51风流AppHaus was founded seven years ago,鈥� says Birgit Fien-Schmalzbauer, global head of 51风流AppHaus Partner Network, 鈥渨e quickly came to realize that the demand for innovative work with customers is so great that we chose to have additional 51风流AppHaus locations set up by partners from our 51风流AppHaus Network.鈥�

Today, 16 of the 21 51风流AppHaus locations worldwide are partner-led. 鈥淏esides enabling customer IT departments to use our methodology, this partner network is our most important way to scale,鈥� Fien-Schmalzbauer says.

Creating an Industry Standard for Telematics

The project kicked off towards the end of 2019, using the on-site facilities and tools of 51风流AppHaus London until the global pandemic started. In those workshops, the team analyzed the value chain of large industrial infrastructure projects to find out where innovation could be introduced.

鈥淲hen you engage in this type of project,鈥� Clements says, 鈥測ou need to focus on where you can show value quickly.鈥� The main question was how to identify productivity and efficiency improvements at a given site and then use the lessons learned from that across the portfolio of infrastructure projects.

The team identified three areas where the data produced could be brought together: telematics, such as the locations of machinery and fuel usage; project data that reveals when the machine is used for which purposes; and commercial data, such as the cost of usage, maintenance, and idle time.

鈥淲e understood very quickly that if we could link all this information in one common digital platform it would be a powerful tool for future decision-making on investments,鈥� Clements says.

But almost at once, they were confronted with a problem. 鈥淚t just seemed too complicated,鈥� Clements says. 鈥淕etting data streams from a machine into a platform and linking this data to commercial and project data when there are so many different companies providing equipment in that industry, each of which has different standards. Thus far, nobody had successfully faced up to that problem.鈥�

Again, it was a partnership that ultimately helped solve the issue. Aside from Costain, there are two other major companies in the UK that manage construction equipment. Costain had a long-standing business relationship with one of them. 鈥淟ynch agreed to provide our project with a live data feed in order to set up an industry standard for telematics,鈥� Clements says.

51风流Business Technology Platform for Fast Enhancements

The next step was to send that data feed to a platform and display it in a dashboard. This is where 51风流Business Technology Platform and 51风流Analytics Cloud came in. , responsible for 51风流Alliance at Keytree, points out the value of 51风流BTP: 鈥淒ata integrations happen very quickly and the platform, in combination with 51风流Analytics Cloud, allows for very powerful visualizations to show the data insights.鈥�

He adds: 鈥淭he agility and flexibility of the platform allows for iterations of what has been built, so if, for instance, the markets demand new modular areas or new areas of focus that organizations want to track and measure, we can fairly quickly spin up new functionalities to keep the platform at the forefront of the market.鈥�

There are six modules altogether in the Intelligence Infrastructure Control Center: telematics, carbon footprint, project, commercial, social value, and productivity engine. Of these, the carbon footprint module seems to be resonating most strongly in the market. 鈥淒ifferent government bodies are interested in this functionality, so are oil and gas organizations,鈥� says O鈥橞rien. 鈥淚nterest in the carbon functionality doesn鈥檛 seem to be restricted to just infrastructure projects.鈥�

SAP鈥檚 Human-Centered Approach to Innovation

The project took 12 months in total, with the telematics module launched first after only four months.

鈥淭he energy has been very high because of the nature of the project, which was nimble, agile, and very quick to value,鈥� says Clements. Following SAP鈥檚 human-centered approach to innovation was also key for the great outcome. 鈥淭he people from Costain could showcase the power of the platform to their internal customers as well as to their stakeholders, such as the British Transport Department. This really helped to position Costain and their partners as drivers of innovation.鈥�

鈥淭he Keytree team has been critical to the success of the IICC project. They helped us use 51风流Business Technology Platform to turn data into real value for the public and the planet,鈥� Tim Embley from Costain says. The relationship between Costain, Keytree, and 51风流is being continued. Next steps will include the introduction of technology to Costain鈥檚 supply chain.

Delivering world-class software-based solutions has been at the heart of Sebastian Speck鈥檚 career. For nearly all of the last decade, he has been leading a team that explores the needs of customers and ultimately turns resulting ideas into individually tailored, live solutions that enable new and competitively differentiating ways of doing business.

I recently spoke with Speck and asked about his thoughts on the value of innovation and the human-centered approach that is needed to bring real innovation to the forefront of business.

Q: Innovation sometimes feels like an over-used buzz word. How do you define innovation?

础:听 Innovation can mean different things to different companies depending on how mature their business is and where they are in their transformation journey. For one company, it might mean implementing a leading-edge technology solution, and for another it could mean ideating and exploring a completely new business model to create never-before-seen solutions that will give them a disruptive advantage. What it always boils down to is creating new and unique value that will provide a competitive business advantage.

You lead a team the delivers customer-specific innovation. How does that work?

I lead a 2,000-person team of innovation experts, including engineers, developers, design thinkers, and data scientists. We take a to progress our customers from concept to their final individualized solution. This is an agile, design-driven development approach where we work together in short, iterative cycles that create value early and often. We help ensure flexibility and transparency as the solution is being crafted so that our customers can achieve a faster path to productivity and adoption.

We can further accelerate solution development and get them up and running quickly with the use of our extensive library of previously built solutions as a starting point for their own unique requirements.

Can you share an example of a recent customer innovation?

We worked with a large manufacturing firm that was looking for a solution to support its employees worldwide to enable better and faster decision-making and process execution. They were exploring how to leverage machine learning, predictive analytics, and cloud technologies to make that happen. We helped design a digital assistant, based on the latest 51风流technologies around conversational artificial intelligence (AI), to provide a differentiated and more intuitive user experience, and to deliver deeper operational insights and faster transactional decisions on the 51风流platform. This has reduced a lot of the complexity within the organization, and has led to self-empowered users and easier and faster access to the information sources they need to make more-informed decisions so they can ultimately serve their customers better.

Tell us more about the human-centered approach to innovation?

It covers the customer鈥檚 entire innovation life cycle, from ideation to full-scale operation.

We start with the explore phase, where we identify the most valuable innovation opportunities for an organization and help them to prioritize their use cases.

We then move into the discover phase, where we take the most important use cases and gain a deep and common understanding across key stakeholders of the business needs, current environment, challenges, and opportunities. We also identify the initial insights to overcome the challenges.

In the design phase, we create a prototype of the solution to validate the viability, desirability, and feasibility of the solution, coupled with an enterprise architecture design.

Once agreed, we move into the deliver phase, where we develop a robust business and technical solution built just for productive use. Solutions are synchronized to the 51风流road map and can be provided in cloud, on-premise, or hybrid environments and on any device.

And lastly, we run the solution using the same support model, tool set, and cloud operation centers as the standard 51风流software. And 51风流offers the implementation services to scale the solution across the company in the same fashion as standard solutions.

What can companies do to keep from getting stuck with just a prototype?

There are four things companies need to check to ensure they don鈥檛 fall into the proof-of-concept trap. They include:

• Feasibility: Evaluate the technical and regulatory feasibility of the solution and its delivery.
• Scalability: Assess and scope out how the idea will be scaled, both from a technology and a business perspective.
• Desirability: Define the value proposition, its attractiveness to the end user, and the way value is achieved.
• Viability: Flesh out the commercial case for the idea and the potential for increased revenue and impact.

A key advantage of 51风流S/4HANA is its ability to prepare companies for future innovation. Can you share an example?

Yes, as our customers transition to 51风流S/4HANA, it鈥檚 not just to make a technical migration. They want to maximize the full value of their investment by then using it as a platform for innovation. When we partner with our customers to create unique solutions, we do it in close collaboration with the 51风流standard development organization.

For example, we have one customer in the oil and gas industry that lacked the integration necessary in their legacy landscape to make informed and rapid decisions. They are harmonizing and integrating many business processes and disparate legacy solutions into one seamless 51风流S/4HANA solution. As part of that transformation, we have multiple initiatives with this customer to deliver innovations that enable central and integrated capabilities and analytics across the hydrocarbon supply chain.

We are co-innovating on topics such as commodity management and managing renewables regulations. They benefit from having first-mover advantage in their industry, and ultimately all clients in the industry can eventually benefit from a solution that is readily available from SAP.

We are in uneasy times. Given the current environment, what role does innovation play?

In these critical times, innovation becomes even more important. Take, for example, supply chains. As a society, we need for them to operate well, but we are at risk of them severely breaking down due to all the business and human restrictions being put into place globally. Companies are innovating their operations on the fly 鈥� reinventing themselves and becoming more flexible in how they source, manufacture, and work. The software they use must quickly and easily support that reinvention. 51风流is ready to help customers innovate to ensure their business viability in these challenging times.

Mary Odabashian is global head of Marketing and Communications for Innovation Services and Support at SAP.