Over 200 years later, we still face issues with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In fact, many of the most critical challenges we face today are actually evolutions of the same challenges we faced over the last few years. Human resources (HR) leaders must understand how these challenges are creating the next normal, but also assess and determine how technology can accelerate HR transformation.

The Hybrid Era

2022 is the year to construct policies, practices, and norms around the permanent hybrid workplace moving forward. HR leaders must expand their conversations around hybrid work to consider reconfiguring job roles, modifying schedules and locations, and determining when an external workforce is the best route to take for staffing.

51风流provides the components needed for a successful total workforce management strategy. With 51风流solutions, organizations can source, engage, and actively manage external workers. In addition, can surface key tasks and insights, providing an intuitive experience that is personalized for each role and individual.

Learning and Internal Mobility

Organizations continue to struggle to get employees to own their development. It is critical for HR leaders to widely communicate what skills and roles are important priorities for the business, provide content and experiences to address these areas, and reward and recognize employee learning and development.

can offer everyone 鈥� whether they are in an office, at home, or deskless 鈥� visibility into development opportunities that are meaningful and relevant to the individual and important to the business. The can help you identify gaps and future needs and then align the right workforce learning and development to address those gaps.

Intelligent Technologies

Concerns are growing with the rise of newer, more intelligent employee monitoring technologies for hybrid and remote work, but intelligent technologies for data-driven decision-making are still considered fundamental. HR leaders will need to effectively communicate to help employees understand these tools: their purpose, their value, and how and where personal data is used.

With intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning embedded across 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, you can offer prescriptive guidance on a wide range of strategic areas. For example, personalized learning recommendations use machine learning algorithms based on employee profile information, learning activity, history, and more. 听By connecting this unique learning experience to personal development and growth, you can help everyone understand the benefit of using these intelligent technologies.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

DEI continues to remain important in 2022, but with the rise of hybrid and remote work organizations must monitor how flexible work models impact DEI efforts. Involving DEI leadership in the creation and evaluation of hybrid work policies will be critical to ensure such opportunities are equitable.

With calibration decisions, you can analyze historical data and surface important information to managers that may have been overlooked in hybrid and remote settings. This guidance helps managers make informed talent decisions and ensure equitable treatment. Also, the writing assistant in can guide performance feedback that is equitable and actionable, regardless of employee demographic characteristics.

Employee Experience

Organizations are improving employee experiences by balancing policies that benefit the entire workforce with practices that meet each employee鈥檚 unique needs. Personalizing the employee experience can include linking learning and development with personal career goals, matching employees with internal jobs or gigs based on their interests or areas of expertise, and assessing the working style compatibility of team members.

Employee experience management solutions help organizations continuously listen to employees and take insight-based action to improve employee experiences and engagement. Organizations can capture employee sentiment directly within the flow of work by triggering embedded feedback opportunities in moments that matter.

Well-Being

Supporting holistic well-being will be foundational to people sustainability efforts. New policies and practices that emphasize employee well-being 鈥� such as four-day work weeks, comprehensive benefits, competitive wages, and development support 鈥� will become more widespread and serve as a tool for engagement, attraction, and retention.

can provide the first touch point with a potential employee. Articulating how your organization prioritizes well-being on your career site is key to attracting and retaining key talent.

The Race for Talent

The workforce is demanding more of their current organization and, if they don鈥檛 receive it, is increasingly proving they will find it elsewhere. Organizations must develop strategies to reengage their employees who are unhappy and disengaged with individualized development plans and internal mobility opportunities.

With unified talent solutions, you can enable everyone to share more about who they are 鈥� their strengths, aspirations, and preferences 鈥� so you can match people with meaningful work and build stronger, more dynamic teams. With this whole self approach and intelligent recommendations for employee development and growth, you can align people with purpose and drive the adaptability needed for better business outcomes.

Leadership

People management now requires leading hybrid and remote teams, which comprises setting expectations for flexible work, assessing performance virtually, and creating and maintaining a positive culture in a dispersed team, to name a few. Regardless of team member location, management is becoming more 鈥渉uman-centered鈥� and emotionally supportive. These new skills will require organizations to rethink how they select, promote, and retain people managers.

With , you can automate repeatable tasks to give managers more time for employee development, coaching and giving feedback to team members, and interacting with the team. You can identify new required competencies for performance assessments and selection of new managers.

For the complete insights and recommendations, read the . .

Susie Thomas, PHR is global director of Solution Marketing at 51风流SuccessFactors.
Lauren Park is a research scientist for Growth and Insights at 51风流SuccessFactors.

IoT-based sensors capture the temperature and other critical parameters of products in real time, using machine learning and AI algorithms to automatically send alerts about risk anomalies so people can take corrective action and head off damages.

鈥淥ur vision is to make supply chains more holistically intelligent for greater reliability and resiliency,鈥� said Adarsh Kumar, co-founder and CEO of Tagbox. 鈥淥rganizations have full visibility into shipment risks like shocks, temperature changes, tampering, or pilferage at any point along the supply chain. Our technology shares that data to the cloud, sends shipment risk alerts to relevant stakeholders, and logs data into the ERP system. People can immediately see when something鈥檚 gone wrong and take fast action.鈥�

Most Tagbox customers are located in India, but the startup is gaining traction with organizations in other parts of Asia-Pacific, including Singapore.

Automated Triggers for Quality Control

Traditional supply chain quality management was typically one dimensional and tracked shipment risk post-delivery. In contrast, Tagbox鈥檚 technology monitors products at every step of the journey with small battery-powered sensors attached to product packaging by individual SKU, box, or pallet. Hosted on , the tool uses 51风流Internet of Things (51风流IoT) and is integrated with . Data sharing includes product or order information with designated employees in order management, transportation and logistics, quality parameters, warehouse and inventory metrics, and first to last mile delivery.

For example, after downloading a mobile app, a delivery person driving a refrigerated truck transporting medication would be alerted to temperature changes in the vehicle and receive recommended actions to prevent spoilage.

鈥淧eople can immediately intervene when they鈥檙e notified of a temperature change or other risk, while managers can spot systemic issues and address those,鈥� said Kumar. 鈥淩eports reveal patterns, such as where temperature excursions happen regularly. The company may decide to improve product packaging or select different transportation routes.鈥�

One pharmaceutical customer saved thousands of dollars by reducing post-delivery assessment times by up to 72 hours. Having collected real-time data throughout the shipping process, the company eliminated time-consuming reports after delivery.

Business Growth from 51风流Partnership

Kumar credited his company鈥檚 recent growth partly to his team鈥檚 experience at 51风流Startup Studio, an accelerator program at for early- and growth-stage tech startups.

鈥淥ur IoT sensors collect and send data to supply chain, 51风流IoT, and other 51风流ERP systems that provide the business context for product shipments and locations, making this an ideal partnership,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e accelerated our time-to-market because 51风流experts have provided us with industry-specific opportunity guidance and introductions to a wide range of 51风流customers.鈥�

Data Fuels Insights to Action

While pharmaceutical companies are obvious candidates for fully traceable quality control of vaccine and other medicine cold chains, numerous industries can also benefit from real-time insights. These include food and beverage companies and consumer electronics. One e-commerce grocery company using Tagbox improved its cold chain temperature compliance while reducing missing inventory rates by 20%.

鈥淭hey have end-to-end traceability of real-time temperatures for products like meats and dairy products from warehouse to consumer,鈥� said Kumar. 鈥淭hey can track what percentage of orders were delivered at the right temperatures, cascading to employee performance metrics and training, as well as infrastructure and other supply chain decisions.鈥�

Appliance, home electronic, and glass manufacturers have also found benefits from Tagbox when it comes to product damage prevention during transport.

鈥淎ny combination of factors can damage fragile goods on the road, whether it鈥檚 bad driving and accidents or because products weren鈥檛 packaged or loaded properly,鈥� said Kumar. 鈥淲ith our sensors, companies can see precisely what kind of shock happened and when it occurred. Our algorithms translate the data into meaningful metrics such as if the product was in freefall, turned upside down, tilted, or unsecured. In the moment, they can repack the item, adjust the temperature, and keep going without damage.鈥�

Turning Data into Business Value

Kumar, Saumitra Singh, and Sameer Singh co-founded Tagbox, drawing from 25 years of collective experience in IoT, data analytics, AI, and integrated circuit and chip design.

鈥淲e realized that despite all the talk about IoT as a data generator, there wasn鈥檛 enough focus on using that data for concrete business decisions,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e wanted to tackle supply chain inefficiencies and product quality control for high-value, fragile goods traveling across cold chains. There are so many diversification opportunities in B2B operations using IoT and machine learning.鈥�

Kumar said future international expansion plans for Tagbox included the United States, providing dynamic intelligence for supply chains worldwide, long after the pandemic recedes.

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Based on current research, servitization appears to be an effective antidote against the ease of product switching. McKinsey & Company that while margins on new product sales are typically 10%, aftermarket service margins average 25%.

What Is Servitization?

Servitization is a strategy that product-oriented companies use to enhance and differentiate their competitiveness by integrating services into their overall business model. This shift can be seen on a continuum in which producing and selling products is coupled with a focus on adding services to the offering and ultimately integrating them. Very quickly, customer value moves from owning and using the product to capturing value with the product while services are perceived as a cost factor.

While this concept is not new, widespread 鈥� such as , , and 鈥� is fueling this approach to break into new markets and fulfill underserved customer needs. More recent product-service may include bundled support services, consumption or pay-for-use, and outcome-based services.

An earlier form of servitization emerged in 1962 when pioneered its famous 鈥淧ower by the Hour鈥� engine maintenance service concept. This model allowed airlines to pay for the time spent maintaining and replacing their aircraft engine. As technology advanced, sensors were incorporated for engine-condition monitoring and predictive maintenance services.

A few decades later, tire manufacturer Michelin redefined the service-oriented model to help trucking companies reduce fuel consumption. Payment for the service is based on achieving predefined fuel consumption targets, tracked through telematics and IoT, and assessed in real time with data analytics.

Many more companies have followed Rolls-Royce鈥檚 and Michelin鈥檚 example, including , , and . It is noted that in all cases, IT 鈥� specifically IoT and 鈥� in enabling product-service servitization.

Over time, this approach has become a critical component of manufacturers鈥� growth strategies. In fact, a of 60 European industrial manufacturing firms reported that servitization increases average growth margin from services delivered ranging between 15% and 35%. Another found that the 10% total returns to shareholders (TRS) achieved by servitization champions significantly exceeded the -1% median TRS of their peers. And in the spirit of these findings, Professor Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, servitization as one of the megatrends that will shape the future of business and society.

How to Turn Servitization Into a Revenue Generator

Regardless of the advantages servitization offers, many businesses still question how to best recognize and adopt appropriate service options that deliver the best value to the customer. Some of the challenges encountered include culture change, competency adoption, process, system creation, and commercialization.

In many ways, a transformation journey toward servitization includes four fundamental maturity stages:

• Splintered: The organization struggles under a myriad of silos that lead to disjointed, manual processes. Legacy, fragmented enterprise resource planning (ERP) environments provide little or no visibility on operational performance. The business model is on pure product, with challenges to profitability.
• Side car: The organization has standardized the two chunks of the value chain 鈥� back and front desk 鈥� but keeps them separated. Since efficiency is critical at this stage, few add-on services are delivered, field services are based on basic mobile capabilities, and IoT stacks are only proofs of concept.
• Joined up: Front- and back-office flows are integrated bidirectionally and leverage advanced technologies, such as IoT, to feed core systems with real-time data. In some cases, edge capabilities bring coordinated autonomy to local sites, a suite of digital services are made fully available, and business model enhancements including pay-as-you-use and outcome-based contracts are actively explored.
• Borderless: Processes start and end outside the organization and operations, while technology enables different elements of the value chain to connect. Co-creation, data-sharing, and collaboration with customers, suppliers, partners from other sectors, and even competitors are part of the business model.

After demonstrating the importance of servitization during existing economic conditions and business performance, appropriate servitization concepts steadily replace the status quo, closing the gap between strategic intent and realized goals.

A critical part of progressing servitization maturity is transforming the business culture to encourage leaders and employees to of services from add-ons or giveaways to a valued part of the business model.

According to Guido Schlief, senior vice president and head of Services in Middle and Eastern Europe at SAP, 鈥淥ur observation is that customers increasingly expect business outcomes from their suppliers 鈥� outcome-based services are a clear industry trend.鈥�

Successfully embracing this shift can have a significant effect on the of a servitized business. Deep insights into customer needs are required to design value-added services that are valuable from the market perspective, not from the supplier side. For example, although monitoring of equipment condition has limited value to the customer, equipment availability directly impacts the customer experience.

Product companies must also consider a servitization model that shifts upfront transactional sales and payments to long-term contracts with perpetual payments, enabling customer-centric relationship building. demands an effective services organization, resembling a professional services firm containing the right processes, tools, and personnel who possess specialized skills. Although service personnel typically more than manufacturing personnel, the investment can help , such as lack of knowledge in systematic transformation and the ability to make required changes, in gaining the full benefit of servitization.

Over time, the transformation into a servitization model can be assessed to help ensure it satisfies the core needs of the business: financial, internal, customers, innovation, and learning. For example, pure financial measures 鈥� such as service revenue growth or services market share 鈥� can be evaluated alongside a proposed a balanced scorecard to provide a comprehensive view on servitization performance^听(See Figure 1).

Get Ready: Servitization Is Here to Stay

As customers gain less interest in the shiny new functionalities of new products and pay more attention to the outcomes they achieve, all signs point to the growing importance of services as a competitive differentiator.

But remember, servitization is more than a pure vertical integration of the business model and goes far beyond add-on or giveaway services. In essence, it is a strategic transformation that spans across most business silos, requiring alignment between the business and IT and between the front and back office of the supplier.

And if approached appropriately, the new business model can open new sources of revenue and bring a fundamental shift from a reactive break-fix mentality to proactive outcome-based services.

Frits Verhoef is head of Business Transformation Services CXO Advisory, Middle and Eastern Europe, at SAP.

Innovations such as data center virtualization and cloud computing relieved some of the burden created by these older networking technologies. But now a new technology, software-defined networks (SDNs), is simplifying and streamlining networking.

SDN technology abstracts the network functionality, separating it from physical hardware 鈥� and decoupling the data plane from the control plane. Enterprises can use the centralized control plane to make decisions and set policies, and they can do it at scale. The hardware acts as the data plane that responds to any changes made to the control plane. By making the infrastructure more elastic, SDNs help companies gain new agility and flexibility in their networks.

SDN can also virtualize network functions, relieving the need for purpose-built hardware. In the past, companies purchased different devices needed to deliver networking functionality 鈥� routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, and the like. With SDN, the network is now software- based, so these functions can be delivered virtually. You can also use software to increase capacity or introduce new functionality.

This software-based technology improves network agility and flexibility. If you need another router to meet today鈥檚 traffic demand, you can create one virtually.

If you don鈥檛 need it tomorrow, you can remove it. Enterprises can rapidly respond to changes in market demand or customer requirements. SDN supports innovation in a way that static networks cannot.

The possibilities for SDN technology range from simple additions to an existing network to more complex configurations and new architectures. Many companies begin by adding intelligent, application-aware routing, followed by network function virtualization, automation features, and network self-healing capabilities.

Advanced SDN Capabilities

In the past, networks did not differentiate between applications and handled them all equally. Today鈥檚 enterprises have hundreds or thousands of applications. Some are more critical than others to the success of the business.

Perhaps a videoconferencing application is exceptionally important to C-level executives. Maybe finance needs the highest possible throughput each month when closing the books. Or a manufacturer wants instant insight into customer demand or supplier commitments, especially in advance of peak sales periods. SDN technology allows you to prioritize and differentiate each application.

In addition, SDN technology allows you to ensure consistent, predictable application performance 鈥� regardless of geography or user demand. Important applications are given high priority. When demand is high, the technology moves less critical programs to alternate paths. As a result, users always get the desired application experience.

Network telemetry offers real-time insights into how the network is performing, so applications can more intelligently use available resources. This prevents organizations from overbuilding capacity and helps companies maximize the value of their current IT in order to ensure optimal performance of the network.

Programmable SDNs offer automation tools you can use to change policies. IT administrators can make an adjustment 鈥� for example, increasing throughput for a customer-facing medication ordering Web site during a pandemic. When an administrator changes the policy at the central location, the SDN technology uses orchestration to populate the change automatically throughout the network.

Administrators can also define 鈥� with far more granularity and at scale 鈥� network service levels received by different users and user groups. With this contextual awareness, networks can be programmed to provide the highest quality service to certain applications, organizational VIPs, or user groups 鈥� consistently and specifically as needed.

In truth, IT administrators could have made these changes before SDN. But the manual effort would have been time-consuming. And changes could not be made at scale. With today鈥檚 SDN technology, administrators can change performance levels, evaluate new network data, and change them back again 鈥� quickly and with minimal effort.

Context-aware SDN technologies can also help network administrators respond to new demands, such as a change in data traffic patterns. In case of merger or acquisition activity, you can use SDN technology to integrate with the new organization鈥檚 network. During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, organizations who had deployed SDN have been able to quickly adjust to new traffic patterns and network requirements resulting from work- from-home mandates. Because the network layer is programmable, administrators can make changes within hours. And automated SDN technologies can execute the revisions in moments, without any manual intervention.

The Role of 5G

5G networking technology is intrinsically connected with SDN technology. Verizon is using millimeter wave technology for our 5G network, which is tailor-made for applications that require more and more bandwidth. We鈥檝e been building our own SDNs for years to enable the ultrawideband 5G networks we are deploying. SDN technology gives us the flexibility to quickly repurpose 10 GB to 100 GB of bandwidth to cell towers as traffic patterns change.

Combining 5G with a mobile edge compute (MEC) platform takes SDN technology to the next level. MEC combines an ultrawideband network with cloud services to allow enterprises to develop large-scale, latency- sensitive applications at the edge. It also puts compute power closer to the end user and allows applications to respond much more quickly, often in near-real time.

In a mature SDN environment where automation is deployed, SDN technology running on 5G and MEC can help you make decisions quickly. Picture a manufacturing company that employs cognitive video of the shop floor. SDN allows operators to see a product defect and take action quickly 鈥� such as shutting down an assembly line. The elastic environment includes automation that reacts to environmental changes and makes decisions, with learning capabilities that change the application or fix whatever is broken, all in near-real time.

Automated Improvement

One of the most satisfying parts of my job is seeing how clients deploy SDN technologies to create a platform for innovation. For example, one retail company is now better able to adjust to unpredictable demand.

Traditionally, in a demand spike, sales rise for specific items and personnel check the warehouse for more inventory. If inventory is not in the warehouse, they might contact supply chain partners to see when a new shipment could be sent, making a lag in product stocking common.

SDN-enabled technology, coupled with integrated inventory management, has considerably shortened restocking intervals. Without human intervention, the application requests shipments of the product to the store. If the demand is high in other locations, the application takes steps to make sure inventory is replenished where it is needed.

These functions are built into the process workflow. SDN can even touch the logistics process, sending instructions on which products to load onto the delivery trucks. With this automated dissemination of knowledge, the supply chain can be significantly shortened, perhaps by days or even hours. Retailers can better respond to demand spikes, keeping shelves stocked. Thanks to SDN, integrated applications, and automation, retailers can pride themselves on having the inventory they need.

Risks and Rewards

Deploying SDN is not without risks.

As with any new technology, misconfiguration is possible for those who pursue complex deployments without adequate training. While SDN offers benefits that may encourage some enterprises to be reactive and take quick action, they must consider second-order and third-order consequences of their changes. We tell our clients to deploy SDN in an intentional way. Companies must look beyond a technology-only focus and think about the end-to-end workflow that SDN may provide for them.

Now that the network is essentially software-based, care must be taken to protect dynamic and evolving threat surfaces. It鈥檚 important to embed a zero-trust security model into the architecture from day one, rather than bolting it on later.

Expert services can help companies ensure they avoid common pitfalls. I tell clients: Do your homework. Test the technology and examine end-to-end process workflows. Don鈥檛 just follow the hype.

Professional services can be a good investment, helping you through the selection, implementation, and tuning processes. Choose experienced providers, who can give you the expertise needed to integrate SDN technology with the applications for maximum benefit. Although you may be able to make SDN work, without expertise you won鈥檛 realize the full potential of the technology.

About Horizons by SAP

Horizons by 51风流is a future-focused journal where forward thinkers in the global tech ecosystem share perspectives on how technologies and business trends will impact 51风流customers in the future. The 2020 issue of Horizons by 51风流focuses on Context-Aware IT, with contributors from SAP, Microsoft, Verizon, Mozilla, and more. To learn and read more, visit听.

Read more 51风流by Horizons stories on the 51风流News Center.

Debika Bhattacharya is vice president of Global Solutions for the Verizon Business Group at Verizon Communications Inc.

Times have changed, and with them, so has the approach to data privacy. New regulations pivot on the notion that data belongs to individuals, not the enterprises that collect it. Instead of just masking or hiding the data, companies need to provide fundamental data accountability to their employees and customers.

But how can enterprises be accountable for data when they don鈥檛 know what they have, where it is, who it belongs to, where it鈥檚 been, or where it鈥檚 going? To meet today鈥檚 mandates and user expectations, companies need to completely rethink data protection.

Personal Information, Defined

Data privacy is a game changer. Until recently, though, it was very low on the list of enterprise priorities 鈥� even for chief information security officers, CIOs, and board members.

The breach regulations that were introduced over a decade ago were based on the idea of protecting personally identifiable information (PII). PII is defined as highly identifiable information and data that can be uniquely correlated with an individual, such as a Social Security number or a credit card number.

Data privacy is different. It requires companies to take responsibility for the collection of data that belongs to an individual 鈥� a concept known as personal information (PI).

The trouble is that PI is not necessarily highly identifiable. Here鈥檚 an example: a birthdate is one date in the 365-day calendar. That鈥檚 not highly identifiable. A GPS location is a point on the globe. Again, not highly identifiable. An eight-digit string of numbers could refer to many things.

But when these bits of data are in a different context, they can be highly personal and thus qualify as PI. If the birthdate is mine, or the GPS location was collected as part of my mobile session, or if the string of digits is my password to an application, it鈥檚 all highly personal and highly confidential. When data such as an IP address, cookie, session key, date, gender, birthdate, password, or location is about me, that is PI.

Preliminary Data Identification Processes

New privacy regulations require companies to find and protect PI. The European Union鈥檚 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), implemented in May 2018, and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which came into effect January 1, 2020, are two high-profile examples of PI legislation. More than 20 other U.S. states have privacy-related draft bills and there is talk of a federal law.

With this legislative push, companies can no longer ignore the need to protect data privacy. Decision-makers need to get acquainted with the implications of these laws and identify compliance gaps.

Most organizations begin by revising their data identification and classification processes. They look for ways to find and identify data manually, because that seems like the simplest approach. Then they implement policies to reduce the scope of things that fall under their responsibility. The majority of companies are still at this point in the data privacy process.

Before long, however, organizations realize that the ROI is so unattractive and the accuracy of these processes is so poor that they need to replace manual efforts with automated approaches.

The only way to identify PI is to use context to determine whether data is personal. That requires a completely new way to examine and assess data. That鈥檚 where innovative new technologies come in.

Context-Sensitive Technologies

New purpose-built PI technologies address these privacy-centric data discovery and data intelligence use cases. The solutions bring data science, machine learning, and advanced data insight to the challenges of data privacy, helping enterprises safeguard and steward data by finding it and learning its context. The solutions also help companies track and govern their customer data at scale, which is important when dealing with huge and growing volumes of data.

New enterprise data intelligence technologies work with different IT systems, applications, and products 鈥� on-premise or in the cloud 鈥� to discover PI. Using context, it automatically finds hidden information and relation- ships among data to identify PI and inventory it by data subject and residency. Advanced solutions use dozens of parameters to score the data and then build a map of the data and its flows, which is especially important for tracking ephemeral data assets.

This data privacy technology is basically the IT version of accounting standards like GAAP. Before GAAP, there was no standardized way of tracking deposits and withdrawals in financial institutions. The introduction of standards helped banks identify funds and report information in a standard way 鈥� allowing any analyst or observer to understand the health of the business.

With data, organizations traditionally collected information from individuals, but what happened to it afterwards was unclear. With no GAAP-like standards, it was up to the enterprise to determine how or whether the data was protected, tracked, or reported.

Now people say that 鈥淒ata is the new oil,鈥� or 鈥淒ata is the new currency of the digital enterprise.” New data privacy regulations recognize data鈥檚 increasing importance. But they also demand that organizations reconsider data and how they protect it.

To be compliant, companies must know where they got their data, who can access that data, and whose data they have. They need insight into where they stored the data and who they shared it with. And if they are sharing data, enterprises need to know why they are sharing it and whether they have the permission of the data owners to do so. The answers to these questions not only help companies meet these compliance requirements but also get a handle on their most important assets.

Opportunity for New Business Value

The way enterprises understand, process, and protect their data influences the type of consent management functionality they offer users. Until recently, gaining user consent was a matter of asking users 鈥� repeatedly 鈥� to agree to allow their data to be collected and used. These repetitive pop-ups and interruptions can be overwhelming for users.

Fortunately, regulations like CCPA make it easier for users to opt out of data collection by inverting the power dynamic. Instead of a long series of radio buttons requesting unlimited rights to data, new consent management features allow individuals to quickly and easily refuse to allow organizations to resell or reuse their data. The responsibility then falls to each enterprise to ensure there is no violation of the user鈥檚 opt-out request.

Yet meeting this challenge requires companies to gain more granular insight than has been available previously. Enterprises need to know where all of a person鈥檚 data is throughout the data lifecycle 鈥� whether it resides in files, data warehouses, data lakes, business solutions, mail applications, or messaging apps, to name just a few possibilities. Then they need to be able to disambiguate the information, knowing when an eight-digit numeric string is just a sequence of numbers and when it is a password. Also important is the ability to find contextual PI and connect it to an individual, which requires understanding of data both at a single point in time and as it evolves over time.

All of this information is critical to meeting new PI compliance requirements. More importantly, it can help companies get more value from their data assets. With the proper context, organizations can know where customer data is 鈥� across multiple countries, languages, and businesses. Essentially, they鈥檒l have a much richer understanding of the crown jewels of the organization.

With that understanding, not only is there an opportunity to do better 鈥� in terms of revenue and profitability 鈥� but enterprises can more effectively protect their assets. Context-enabled insight allows companies to reduce data duplicates and rationalize the infrastructure needed to support the data. It also helps identify the right time to consolidate servers or migrate data to the cloud.

What鈥檚 more, a complete inventory of the data can help companies identify potential vulnerabilities, areas of exposure, and potential for non-compliance. They can also better safeguard data, get more value from it, and reduce overall costs. And that鈥檚 value that today鈥檚 businesses cannot resist.

About Horizons by SAP

Horizons by 51风流is a future-focused journal where forward thinkers in the global tech ecosystem share perspectives on how technologies and business trends will impact 51风流customers in the future. The 2020 issue of Horizons by 51风流focuses on Context-Aware IT, with contributors from SAP, Microsoft, Verizon, Mozilla, and more. To learn and read more, visit听.

Read more 51风流by Horizons stories on the 51风流News Center.

Dimitri Sirota is CEO of BigID.

These are the questions that CEOs as well as heads of Research & Development and Engineering ask every day.

A recent report by听听and听听clearly demonstrates that the most successful companies听break down silos,听both across departmental and company boundaries. They do this to听innovate consistently, design higher-quality products through collaboration, and听streamline processes听to bring them to market faster.

Bridging the Gap Between Engineering and Supply Chain

When asked about the biggest limits to performance for engineering teams, 鈥渟ilos within the company鈥� was the top pain point. In fact, the process to 鈥渉and over to manufacturing鈥� was deemed the most desirable feature that the respondents looked for in a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution.

But it is not simply a case of improving the handover to manufacturing. In his book Product Lifecycle Management: 21st Century Paradigm for Product Realization, author John Stark writes, 鈥淥n average, 80 percent of a product鈥檚 cost is defined during development even though more than 80 percent of its life is beyond the factory gate.鈥�

Improving collaboration across the end-to-end supply chain — from design through manufacturing and logistics, and during the operation of the product by customers — can have huge business value.

Innovation Starts by Knowing What to Innovate

The demand to innovate consistently and design higher-quality products and bring them to market faster is a constant in competitive industries.

To do this well requires information from across the supply chain.

• Manufacturing can tell you the quality of the designed products and the performance of the equipment manufacturing it.
• Supply chain can identify problems with supplying certain materials or using certain partners from availability, sustainability, and capability perspectives.
• Smart products and assets can share information about how products perform when used by customers. How are they being used and for how long? Are they operating in a sustainable way with regard to emissions? When will they break down? Which parts or components wear down earlier than expected?
• Customer input can come from many sources. Capturing the voice of the customer means capturing data both structured (orders, forecasts, and customer service information) and unstructured (sentiment analysis, social media, and market research).

Digital Thread to Digital Transformation

In a digital age, the key to innovation is information. To capture real-time, accurate information across a product鈥檚 life cycle requires a digital thread from design to decommission, including information such as:

• How it was designed
• How it should have been and was manufactured
• How it was used
• When it needs maintenance
• How often it was maintained
• What the customer thought of the product and how they would improve on it

This digital thread must be leveraged by all constituents, from the customer to the purchasing team to the maintenance team and back to the engineering team to use the insight to identify improvements to designs as well as create new features and even entirely new innovations.

It Takes Collaboration and Integration

Enabling this digital thread between engineering and business takes more than collaboration between teams. It requires end-to-end integration of business processes and the systems involved.

Far too often, companies have been left to their own devices when it comes to connecting engineering systems with business systems. Some managed it with a lot of manual effort in re-entering data in both systems. This 鈥渂iological integration鈥� is often cited as the number one source of errors. Many companies built their own point-to-point integrations. Typically, these highly customized integrations have limited capabilities, are difficult and costly to maintain, and do not include feedback loops. And then there are companies that chose the integration tool from either an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendor, a PLM software vendor, or a systems integrator. Again, due to restricted and limited openness, these solutions were not perfect but probably the best thing available at the time.

Dream Team to Accelerate Innovation, Collaboration, and Transformation

51风流and Siemens have announced a partnership to combine their expertise in product life cycle, supply chain, service, and asset management to deliver new innovations, drive business models that remove silos, and accelerate industrial transformation.

Customers will be able to form a true digital thread integrating all virtual models and simulations of a product or asset with real-time business information, feedback, and performance data over the entire life cycle, from design to decommission. The result: real-time innovation in an ever-changing market landscape to:

• Bring products to market to faster by collapsing supply and development times
• Curate customer sentiment for new product design
• Leverage sensor data to improve design and maximize performance
• Create a more ethically- and environmentally-conscious product development cycle

To learn more about the partnership, read the news: 鈥�Siemens and 51风流Join Forces to Accelerate Industrial Transformation.鈥�

Richard Howells is vice president of Thought Leadership and Awareness for 51风流Digital Supply Chain.

• Together, industry leaders Siemens and 51风流will deliver integrated end-to-end software solutions across product lifecycle, supply chain and asset management.
• Partnership leverages expertise and technology of both companies to provide a true digital thread that helps enterprises eliminate process and information siloes, drives digitalization and delivers a comprehensive solution for the 4th industrial revolution (Industry 4.0).
• 51风流will offer Siemens鈥� Teamcenter software as the core foundation for product data management. Siemens will offer 51风流Intelligent Asset Management solutions and 51风流Portfolio and Project Management applications to maximize business value for customers over the entire product and service lifecycle and enable new collaborative processes between manufacturers and operators.

Through this agreement, both 51风流and Siemens will be able to complement and integrate their respective offerings in order to offer customers the first truly integrated and enhanced solutions for product lifecycle management (PLM), supply chain, service and asset management. This will enable customers to form a true digital thread integrating all virtual models and simulations of a product or asset with real-time business information, feedback and performance data over the entire lifecycle.

“Digital transformation will be critical for the manufacturing industries to increase productivity, flexibility and accelerate innovation, so companies must come together in new ways to enable the digital enterprise,鈥� said , Member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO of . 鈥淭his exciting collaboration between two industry leaders is about more than just interoperability and interfaces; it is about creating a truly integrated digital thread that unites product and asset lifecycle management with the business that enables customers to optimize production of products.鈥�

Silos between engineering and business have existed in enterprises for decades. This new partnership will help customers to break down these siloes so manufacturers, product design teams and service managers have the information needed to quickly create and manage customer-centric product and service offerings.

鈥淎s manufacturers design and deliver smarter products and assets, access to real-time business information across networks is critical to bring new and improved innovations to market faster,鈥� said , member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE and responsible for 51风流Product Engineering. 鈥淏ringing together expertise from 51风流and Siemens to offer Industry 4.0-enabled business processes allows enterprises to create a digital thread for the entire product and asset lifecycle. With this end-to-end solution, teams across the business network can efficiently work together to design and deliver innovative products productively, profitably and sustainably.鈥�

Going forward, both 51风流and Siemens will be able to offer new solutions that combine their technologies in order to help companies shorten time to market by leveraging enabled data using intelligent assets and products. This will also give organizations the benefit of incorporating customer insights into product development through a comprehensive solution, from product design to service and asset management. As a first step in the partnership, 51风流will offer 听software as the core foundation for product lifecycle collaboration and data management and Siemens will offer and software to maximize the business value for manufacturers and operators across networks. Both companies will collaborate to develop applications from an end-to-end lifecycle perspective to help customers achieve a seamless digital thread that improves overall business performance.

鈥淐ombining Siemens鈥� Teamcenter and 51风流S/4HANA software provides companies an end-to-end process capability from product design to decommission,鈥� said , Senior VP of Industry Research at IDC. 鈥淭he IT benefits of pre-integration of PLM, ERP, asset management and supply chain applications and the business benefits from having a more resilient response to changing market demand make this a compelling consideration for companies seeking a competitive advantage in the digital economy.鈥�

For more information on Siemens Digital Industries Software and the Xcelerator portfolio of software and services, visit or follow us on , , and . Siemens Digital Industries Software 鈥� Where today meets tomorrow.

For more information, visit the 51风流News Center and follow 51风流on Twitter at .

Siemens Digital Industries (DI) is an innovation leader in automation and digitalization. Closely collaborating with partners and customers, DI drives the digital transformation in the process and discrete industries. With its Digital Enterprise portfolio, DI provides companies of all sizes with an end-to-end set of products, solutions and services to integrate and digitalize the entire value chain. Optimized for the specific needs of each industry, DI鈥檚 unique portfolio supports customers to achieve greater productivity and flexibility. DI is constantly adding innovations to its portfolio to integrate cutting-edge future technologies. Siemens Digital Industries has its global headquarters in Nuremberg, Germany, and has around 76,000 employees internationally.

Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for more than 170听years. The company is active around the globe, focusing on the areas of power generation and distribution, intelligent infrastructure for buildings and distributed energy systems, and automation and digitalization in the process and manufacturing industries. Through the separately managed company Siemens Mobility, a leading supplier of smart mobility solutions for rail and road transport, Siemens is shaping the world market for passenger and freight services. Due to its majority stakes in the publicly listed companies Siemens Healthineers AG and Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Siemens is also a world-leading supplier of medical technology and digital healthcare services as well as environmentally friendly solutions for onshore and offshore wind power generation. In fiscal 2019, which ended on September听30, 2019, Siemens generated revenue of 鈧�86.8听billion and net income of 鈧�5.6听billion. At the end of September 2019, the company had around 385,000 employees worldwide. Further information is available on the Internet at .

About SAP

As the Experience Company powered by the Intelligent Enterprise, 51风流is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77 percent of the world鈥檚 transaction revenue touches an 51风流system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers鈥� businesses into intelligent enterprises. 51风流helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want 鈥� without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 440,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees and thought leaders, 51风流helps the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. For more information, visit .

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Yet ethics is an important issue for today鈥檚 decision-makers 鈥� one that must be handled with extreme care. The rampant growth of artificial intelligence and other intelligent technologies in businesses makes ethics more than a philosophical question. Ethics is now a form of risk management that savvy businesses cannot ignore.

Look no further than the news to see how ethical scandals and problems can become a heavy economic burden for affected companies. Enterprises such as Enron, Siemens, and Volkswagen learned the hard way that poor ethics can negatively affect the bottom line. Beyond the fines were reputational damage, lower sales, and, in some cases, bankruptcy.

By properly managing ethical risks, companies can improve their overall risk management. Like most operational issues of this magnitude, however, it is not a task that can be the sole responsibility of individuals. Although you might want 鈥渉onest鈥� employees in your organization, that鈥檚 not enough. Ethics and integrity must be hardwired into your organization. Enterprises must develop organizational guidelines and standards that lay out in fine detail which behaviors are desired and encouraged and which are unacceptable 鈥� or even grounds for dismissal and potential legal action.

Balanced Perspective

With intelligent technologies such as AI embedded in business processes, the types of ethical risk grow. We know from surveys and other forms of social sentiment that people are skeptical about the use of these technologies. They wonder whether algorithms have been programmed to reflect inherent biases, and they worry about issues such as data privacy, security, and hackers.

The technology itself is something of a black box to most people 鈥� even those who are highly technical. Our institute has seen many cases where the results of AI processes are not always intelligible, even to their programmers. And most executives have little to no knowledge of AI ethics.

To address these knowledge gaps, experts have developed a number of high-level, abstract principles for AI ethics. Although these efforts are quite valuable, it鈥檚 time for enterprises to adopt more concrete guidance. We need to share the details of how these technologies work 鈥� and affect enterprise ethics 鈥� with engineers, programmers, and businesspeople.

In the research groups at our Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, we always include representatives from the technical side and the ethics or social science side to work together on creating tangible, actionable ethical guidelines for certain AI systems 鈥� such as those that might be used in the financial sector or healthcare.

Many executives have asked what they need to do to ensure that ethics are appropriately considered in their organizations. They want to know whether they should create new departments or positions that would be responsible for ethics. It鈥檚 difficult to know the correct answer for every enterprise.

Most importantly, enterprises must focus on integrating ethics into their AI development teams. After that, it may be helpful to have new people or new competencies that can work with developers to better understand the ethical impacts of technologies like AI.

Opportunities Ahead

As intelligent systems begin to deliver more detailed information faster than ever, work will change for employees. AI promises to accelerate many processes, even while processing larger volumes of data. With these new efficiencies, workers will spend less time assessing information and more time taking action.

The technology may lead to reductions in staffing for some corporate functions. For example, companies in industries such as insurance or banking may require fewer analysts. This does not mean that there will be a time when there is no work left for humans to do, however.

Instead, there will be an increased focus on the interfaces between workers and AI systems. Our institute has assigned a research group to work on this topic because we feel it will become increasingly important. Often AI systems do not sufficiently consider the preferences of workers who are collaborating with the technology. Developers must design intelligent technologies that can adapt more flexibly to what people want and need.

Communication interfaces present another challenge for AI and employee interaction. In the healthcare sector, for example, how should the technology communicate patient results in a way that supports the organization鈥檚 ethical standards? In HR, some companies are already using AI technologies to assess the re虂sume虂s of job applicants and reduce the pool of people to be interviewed.

These applications present certain ethical risks 鈥� but there are also opportunities. For example, although we know that autonomous driving applications come with dangers, it鈥檚 not often acknowledged that they can be programmed to significantly reduce the number of accidents and the damage to people and property as compared with human drivers. That鈥檚 an ethical goal we can achieve through technology.

In healthcare, the introduction of new technologies can save lives and reduce suffering. Telemedicine and robotic surgeries are two examples of how the practice of medicine can be made more ethically positive. Humans make many errors because they rely on gut feelings or indulge in irrational behavior. In some areas, AI could equip us to make better decisions and take steps that would help people 鈥� if we embed the right ethical rules.

Ethical by Design

Technology that is ethically positive by design is an evolving concept. We need to build ethics into the code, and that鈥檚 doable. But there are other aspects that should be considered. In machine learning, for example, we need to consider how training data is selected.

There have been many examples of AI that was biased because a company used only the data already collected. We can correct this by developing more sensitivity to this issue. Some applications may need to add more data. Or they could include some kind of artificial data on which to train algorithms. This is something that will be a huge issue for companies in the future.

In addition, the responsibility for ensuring that information is accurate, current, and well-governed is shifting. In many parts of the world, laws hold individual drivers responsible when a vehicle crashes. That will have to change. If the vehicle is autonomous, the driver is no longer responsible 鈥� the vehicle manufacturer or software vendor is.

From the worker perspective, the technology and the data also must be trustworthy, which can happen only when the right interfaces are designed between humans and technology. When people are faced with a kind of black box that delivers output, it does not engender essential trust. Think of the drivers who receive but then ignore directions from a GPS because they assume they know their roads better. As a general rule, the system is better informed. But you have to trust it first to realize the anticipated value.

Regulatory frameworks may help us make the transition to more ethically positive and humane intelligent technologies 鈥� but those will happen on different timelines for different applications. For autonomous driving, there are already some well-crafted proposals for regulation. In other cases, such as financial services and healthcare, we need more work before we can create useful regulations.

But we need to be careful not to put the technology at risk with regulations that are too strict or too early. Ethics can help industries develop the right rules at the appropriate time. Groups such as the International Telecommunications Union, a specialized agency of the United Nations, are already working on international standards for AI, creating a foundation for building these new technologies.

To deliver the desired results, intelligent technologies need to consider the human implications of their use. As I like to tell my students, 鈥淎I cannot fly without ethics.鈥� As business and technology leaders recognize this truth, they can begin to address ethical issues from the start of their technology initiatives 鈥� reducing the risk of later problems.

About Horizons by SAP

Horizons by 51风流is a future-focused journal where forward thinkers in the global tech ecosystem share perspectives on how technologies and business trends will impact 51风流customers in the future. The 2020 issue of Horizons by 51风流focuses on Context-Aware IT, with contributors from SAP, Microsoft, Verizon, Mozilla, and more. To learn and read more, visit听.

Read more 51风流by Horizons stories on the 51风流News Center.

Christoph L眉tge is director of the Institute of Ethics in Artificial Intelligence at the Technical University of Munich.

Years ago, when I worked as a software developer, I had the opportunity to find out. As I watched from behind a one-way mirror, a highly satisfied customer sat down at the computer and used the application I鈥檇 helped create. What I saw shocked me. Our customer was interacting with the user interface in a completely different way than I鈥檇 intended. He used only about 30 percent of the features I鈥檇 designed听鈥斕齛nd he used those inefficiently.

Clearly, we didn鈥檛 have enough insight into the user experience to improve it. We had designed business processes and incorporated them into the software. Our customers changed their internal processes to meet our standards. Although we refined the user interface over time to become more friendly and intuitive, we never knew how users really worked within the software.

Experience management solutions offer a good starting point for collecting this information. These solutions allow developers to ask users how they feel about the software and collect sentiment data that helps vendors improve the user experience.

But we need to take this effort a step further. What if software could sense a person, understanding a user鈥檚 activity or intentions without having to ask those questions? Instead of predicting the types of questions we would like to ask the user and then expecting the user to respond to those prompts, we could just measure what the user is doing at various points during the software interaction.

That鈥檚 how user behavior mining works. Software tracks the interaction between the user and the application interface. After capturing that data, it analyzes or 鈥渕ines鈥� it to determine how each person uses the software. We can map the captured interactions to the business objects to understand how a business process is executed through the user interface.

The insight delivered by this analysis can help us predict which steps the user might take next. It also highlights any tasks that are difficult to perform and provides guidance on whether the user interface should be modified to create a better experience.

For example, imagine a user who creates 20 or 30 product orders per day. If the user repeatedly changes the year value for each order, user behavior mining would indicate this and trigger the system to predefine the year value for this user. The application could also learn that this user never uses certain fields and it could hide those fields on the user鈥檚 display to reduce the complexity.

Deeper User Knowledge

User behavior mining offers tremendous potential. Current technology allows us to understand where a user clicks, but we don鈥檛 yet know the meaning of those clicks听鈥斕齩r the overall interaction path.

We know that the way software developers design processes and the way people use them is quite different. If we can capture the behavior and then use tools to translate that data into understanding, we could intuit what a user wants to do. We can develop software that matches user needs and automatically delivers a customized user experience听鈥斕齛bsent any bias from the software vendor about the 鈥渞ight鈥� way to perform a task.

Innovative technology can help. For example, what if we include biometrics in user behavior mining? Whether we use a camera, motion tracking, or a sensor measuring the user鈥檚 blood pressure, the interface between human and machine could be eye-opening. Not only could we track where a user clicks within the software, but we could also correlate those clicks with user stress levels.

This insight could help us learn whether the application actually serves the process preferred by the user or if the user has just developed a work-around to use the software. Perhaps the way the user is doing the task is actually cumbersome, but the software offers no better way to do it.

That鈥檚 not something that users often tell us. Sometimes they think it鈥檚 not an issue worth raising with the vendor. Often they just make adjustments and keep using the software. If we could use tools to sense how users feel, we could identify problems and refine processes to better them.

Although user behavior mining is still in its earliest stages, our group focused on new ventures and technologies is already working with it in productive use cases.

The Spotlight by 51风流solution analyzes system usage logs in just a few minutes听鈥斕齱ith no installation or implementation required. It then calculates the amount of effort required to perform any business processes running through an 51风流solution, identifying candidates for automation. By augmenting back-end data with data collected through user behavior mining, the solution will eventually provide insight into the user journey through the application.

Data Privacy Challenges Ahead

One important consideration in the application of user behavior mining is the issue of data privacy. Obviously, the data we collect is very personal and must be protected.

At SAP, we anonymize all user data immediately upon collection. The software clusters data into patterns that are not user-specific.

For our early use cases, this form of data anonymization works well. As the software becomes more able to personalize its approach to unique users, we may need to focus more on the nonanonymized data of individual users. It鈥檚 not clear yet how software vendors can strike a balance between personalized offerings and data privacy.

I do know one thing, however. We need to deal with the human ethics around this from the very beginning听鈥斕齨ot after a problem arises and we are sitting in a lawyer鈥檚 office. We must understand which behaviors act in favor of humans. It鈥檚 not enough to approach this strictly from the technology perspective.

There is no one right answer when it comes to ethics. With technology, there is always a trade-off between what you give and what you get. If I use Web mapping services, for example, I gain location intelligence and targeted advertising, but I pay with data about my behavior. We all know this. As humans, we can decide whether we are ready to share data about ourselves.

Vendors also have a choice: we can hide this reality about data privacy or we can be fully transparent.

My recommendation is that we should be completely transparent about which data we collect, what we do with the data, and how we treat the data. If we are open about what we are doing, people will trust us to make good decisions on their behalf, without misusing their data or taking advantage of it. Creating an exceptional user experience is valuable, but only if users remain in control of their data.

About Horizons by SAP

Horizons by 51风流is a future-focused journal where forward thinkers in the global tech ecosystem share perspectives on how technologies and business trends will impact 51风流customers in the future. The 2020 issue of Horizons by 51风流focuses on Context-Aware IT, with contributors from SAP, Microsoft, Verizon, Mozilla, and more. To learn and read more, visit听.

Read more 51风流by Horizons stories on the 51风流News Center.

Torsten Zube is vice president and head of 51风流Cloud Platform Business Services at 51风流SE.

Demand on global supply chains has undeniably reached a whole new level over the last few months. Between the mechanisms used to trigger production and the relationships needed to deliver finished products, people are keenly aware of the complexity and delicate nature of this complex, highly connected business function.

Demand patterns are highly volatile, surging and bottoming out at a moment鈥檚 notice. This reality is leaving supply chain leaders feeling the pressure to find better ways to accommodate drastic and sudden fluctuations. But when even the simplest products comprise components from a wide variety of sources from around the world, this take can be overwhelming without access to the right intelligent tools.

Managing Highly Volatile Demand听

The increasing speed and volatility of demand magnify the importance of trusted relationships between employees, suppliers, logistics, production operations and customers. When one party changes, the rest of the value chain must adjust just as quickly to ensure its integrity as a highly connected and dynamic supply chain.

While legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems help streamline and optimize internal operations, the technology is often ill-equipped to keep up with massive volumes of data being captured and the speed at which change happens.

It is now imperative to optimize network-based interactions with participants in critical processes, such as procurement, contingent labor and talent management, integrated business planning, and asset management. By uniting all these systems into an intelligent ERP, such as 51风流S/4HANA, acting as a single source of data intelligence, supply chains can detect patterns early, orchestrate processes, and implement resource modifications as needed.

Synchronizing Supply Chains on a Global Scale

During times of global change, companies often form third-party supply chain partnerships, such as outsourced manufacturers, logistics providers, and design and research consultants. These arrangements can become increasingly complicated as businesses rely on their software systems more to help ensure all parts of the extended value chain run smoothly.

When elements of the product life cycle are orchestrated to take advantage of core competencies, resources, and cost advantages, businesses can benefit from advanced planning techniques from 51风流S/4HANA. For example, predictive material requirements planning considers real-time capacity and material availability and provides detailed demand forecasts to help meet current and expected customer needs.

Achieving Differentiation Through Trusted Delivery

In uncertain times, customers place an extraordinarily high premium on brands that fulfill their promises consistently. This quality is the goal of a resilient supply chain.

Interconnected and reliant on deeply connected, real-time data and capabilities integrated in 51风流S/4HANA, supply chain operations can quickly adapt to changing needs successfully. This approach is particularly useful when proper contingencies are built into the system鈥檚 workflow, such as alternative vendors, designs, and logistics providers, to fulfill the need.

Responding with Speed and Individualization

A fundamental part of establishing customer trust is providing products that meet unique needs. Such individualization requires a level of manufacturing and operational automation that has been adopted by leading companies over the last ten years and is now embedded into the 51风流S/4HANA architecture.

51风流S/4HANA helps manage product variants with greater ease, providing accurate availability to promise and synchronizing internal and external supply chain partners through deep connectivity to business networks. By moving to Industry 4.0 with integrated Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities, businesses can automate orchestration and calibration across supply chain operations and processes with 51风流S/4HANA at the core of the IT landscape.

Transforming Global Supply Chains to Take Charge of Change

In these challenging times, supply chains are at the forefront of digital transformation, and those companies that can build the new engine will seize the opportunity for growth and emerge stronger than ever.

By using 51风流S/4HANA to focus on core competencies, build greater customer intimacy, and drive internal operational excellence, businesses will design and produce personalized products in novel ways to fulfill customer needs. More importantly, they increase trust across the entire value chain, proving themselves as partners committed to helping their customers differentiate themselves.

Read more in the 鈥�Building Resilience Against Business Turbulence鈥� series.

Discover how your business can provide the supply chain resiliency you need to navigate through turbulent times and plan for whatever comes next. Read the Harvard Business Review article, 鈥�,鈥� and explore the intelligent ERP, .

David Sweetman is senior director of Cloud Global Marketing at SAP.

It is not the brightest star at the firmament, but you can always find it right at the end of the Little Dipper鈥檚 handle. For centuries, Polaris has guided travelers across land and sea, long before modern navigation tools and GPS became available. Polaris is 鈥渁lways visible,鈥� as described by the Macedonian writer Joannes Stobaeus in the 5th century AD.听 Aligned with the earth’s axis, the North Star鈥檚 steady presence gives a sense of direction as the universe circles around it.

For companies, the universe revolves around customer satisfaction. Customer success is the ultimate destination. But reaching and maintaining happy customers in a volatile business environment is not an easy journey to embark on.

In , published earlier this year, chief executive officers (CEOs) expressed that they encountered a high level of uncertainty on their path forward. Among the top 15 perceived threats were the speed of technological change and changing consumer behaviors.

To succeed in any type of business climate, companies need the ability to change course, adapt, and reinvent. This is where services-driven technology innovation comes in. It can turn challenges into opportunities. Companies are already using technological change to their advantage. The survey results also show that CEOs are doubling down on the use of technology more than they have in previous years and including intelligent automation and cloud-enabled tech services to achieve operational efficiencies. They rely on technology to create memorable customer experiences and thereby higher brand loyalty. The digital experience remains a key driver for business transformation according to the .

Services offer companies a beacon 鈥� their very own North Star 鈥� to drive digital business transformation and achieve customer success in calm and rough waters. Here is how.

Adapting Business and Operating Models in Times of Need

Every challenge is an opportunity to drive positive change. Services help companies to weather recurring seasonal changes and unpredictable events such as natural disasters and the impact of COVID-19.

Millions of consumers sheltering at home worldwide have turned to online and mobile services for shopping, entertainment, fitness, and education. It prompted a massive switch to direct-to-consumer and business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce and service models across industries that limit in-person interaction. Retailers turned stores into storage and distribution centers to support their move to online sales. They also looked at new types of products and services they could sell to customers digitally, such as bundling products or offering new types of customizations.

The article by Michael Wade and Heidi Bjerkan includes a fascinating example of how Nike turned the shutdown of more than 5,000 of its stores across China into an opportunity to engage with Chinese consumers digitally by offering at-home workouts. This boosted the company鈥檚 online sales so successfully that Nike kept the home workout as a service when stores began to reopen. As a result, Nike鈥檚 digital business reached and the company created a road map to navigate the impact of COVID-19 in other countries.

Identify Innovation Opportunities for Long-Term Success

As countries gradually re-open, companies can use services to continuously adapt their business and customer engagement models to the new reality. One of the biggest takeaways for companies will be to find new ways of doing business and infuse the learnings from the past months into their future business strategies.

One industry that could boost its adoption rate is telemedicine. According to the latest on consumer behavior, 50 percent of the growth in physical and mental telemedicine offerings are currently coming from new users. As people become more used to consulting medical professionals online out of necessity, an opportunity has arisen to continue and expand the use of digital health services in the future and offer access to basic healthcare services such as consultations, digital check-ups, and prescriptions from the convenience of the home.

Across all industries, the move to a virtual work and operating environment has also accelerated the emergence of a remote customer support and services model. To stay socially connected in times where people are physically apart, customer service and support has become a lifeline for businesses and their customers. For example, while remote services delivery existed before the global pandemic, the off-site delivery model now has become the new gold standard for customer service and support. Essential businesses services need to enhance off-site working environments and remote collaboration in the front and back office, supply chain, finance, and essential operations via a 100 percent off-site model.

Creating Modular Services Offerings

Additionally, services will become more personalized. If you ever bought a large Lego set, you have experienced the multitude of possibilities to build your very own creations. However, you may not need all the pieces in your set for what you want to build.

The same principle applies for services. Companies have access to an entire spectrum of services to protect their operations and drive customer success. These services can be used on a modular basis, depending on their specific needs. This starts with services that cover rudimentary needs, such as general safeguarding, to highly individualized and more complex high-touch services.

Like the North Star, services can act as a beacon for companies to stay on course for customer success. They allow companies to harness the power of technology to reimagine their future and adapt to change.

Some of the biggest lessons that companies have learned over the past months are being able to change fast and to embrace change as an opportunity. Even our current North Star will be succeeded by a different star due to the motion of the earth. If I were to live another 4000 years, I would look for Gamma Cephei in those clear nights. However, the need for a North Star will remain the same in life and business. Regardless of what the future brings, digital services will continue to steer companies鈥� business transformation journeys as their North Star by keeping customer experience at the center of their universe.

Shane Paladin is president of Services at SAP.

Decisions come in many packages, ranging from informed or gut-driven to actionable or avoidable. But at the end of the day, they all lead to consequences that will impact the future.

We are seeing this natural law of decision-making unfold as people try to make sense of this recent pandemic. For decades, scientists and healthcare advocates have warned national governments, industries, and citizens about the risk of a pathogen spreading at a voracious speed that would be difficult to contain in one area. Unfortunately, after years of inaction, COVID-19 caught the world by surprise 鈥� and within days, people鈥檚 lives and economic conditions altered in nearly every corner of the world.

Now, we are facing a new era that will never resemble the experiences we knew before the pandemic. Shopping behaviors have become more purposeful as customers value basic commodities and their health over luxury items. Meanwhile, executives face significant challenges as they reopen their offices, operational facilities, and stores in ways that ensure employee safety and health and compliance with strict regulations without sacrificing optimal cash flow and customer value.

Every choice that businesses make right now is consequential for not only themselves but also the customers buying their offerings, the communities surrounding them, and a global population indirectly impacted by them. And pulling together readily available, trusted data from various sources into a central platform 鈥� such as 51风流HANA or 51风流Digital Boardroom 鈥� can help companies better position themselves to provide the outcomes and care people expect and need.

Simplified Approach to Data Migration

For many businesses, a frustrating aspect of navigating today鈥檚 economic environment is the inability to improve, scale, and pivot operations fast enough to mitigate risk and respond to the unexpected. Sure, some companies have achieved noteworthy success. But for the majority, new customer behaviors, supplier dynamics, remote employees, and regulations can prove troublesome, leading to missed opportunities for moving products, strengthening brand loyalty, and protecting revenue growth.

The only way to resolve such an inefficient and unsustainable business strategy is to reconsider and increase data value and integrity. According to the IDC study, 鈥�,鈥� this approach supports efficient data migration to a core of intelligence 鈥� enabled by听51风流S/4HANA and 51风流SuccessFactors software for example 鈥� that drives more cost-effective operations.

IDC calculated that study participants using the will achieve, on average:

• 303% return on investment (ROI) over three years
• 38% lower data migration costs
• US$3.45 million in average annual benefits
• Eight-month payback period

鈥淏y using solution extensions, such as 51风流Advanced Data Migration, data migration becomes more than just a one-time event,鈥� stated Stewart Bond, director of Data Integration and Intelligence Software Research at IDC. 鈥淥rganizations can accelerate the migration process while minimizing unplanned downtime 鈥� and establish a foundation for an expanded role and significance of data in the organization. This foundation of intelligence about data provides data-driven decision makers with a deeper understanding of what each data type means, how to store and access it, and which business scenarios need it.鈥�

Five Benefits of Advanced Data Migration

After closer analysis, IDC found that the quantitative advantages of using 51风流Advanced Data Migration were achieved when the application optimized the use of existing business-critical 51风流solutions through five fundamental improvements.

1. Access to cleaner data with increased automation

A sophisticated toolset and management process help keep data clean, reducing the need for manual work and triggering advanced alerts to warn of potential issues before downstream problems emerge.听Manual spreadsheets are replaced with automated project execution management, including tasks, roles, and project details for both business users and migration developers.

2. Improved data migration and governance

A repeatable and predictable process accelerates data migration, while cross-functional process integration helps optimize and govern data quality and value. In return, migration assets 鈥� such as designs for target data and information about the decisions involved 鈥� can be reused in downstream projects.

3. Enhanced business agility

While data migration is typically a future-focused project, it also provides immediate ROI. Businesses can move forward with enhanced agility and at an optimized cost. Furthermore, centralizing real-time data in a central platform keeps organizations aligned and streamlined with automated processes and reporting analytics.

4. Data evolution enablement

In a marketplace that relentlessly evolves, businesses cannot afford to run on static data. A paradigm that builds logic on live logic enables companies to acquire the flexibility and agility necessary to gain a resilient edge in responsiveness.

5. The potential to do more with the same resources

Thanks to machine learning, businesses can automate processes and capture and share expertise, context, and data insights. Doing so provides valuable input and assets that can be reused for future initiatives while breaking down siloed information to unlock institutional knowledge and an understanding of how data advances strategic goals.

Rise Above Uncertainty With the Right Data

It is clear that the recent pandemic is impacting every industry on a scale that is nothing less than surprising. Many long-established brands are struggling to the point of bankruptcy. Some brands are experiencing surging demand due to a sudden shift in customer behavior and priorities. Meanwhile, newer competitors are developing niche business models to take over for industry players that cannot keep up or are losing traction.

Addressing this level of volatility and uncertainty requires much more than pre-pandemic technology infrastructure. Businesses need data of high quality and integrity, which can only be supported by a fast, agile, and governed structure on an ongoing basis 鈥� everything that 51风流Advanced Data Migration is designed to provide.

To learn how 51风流customers are benefiting from this solution, attend the IDC webinar, 鈥�,鈥� on June 30, 2020, at 11:00 a.m. ET.

Explore the calculated cost savings and business benefits of 51风流Advanced Data Migration by Syniti by reading the IDC Business Value white paper, 鈥�The Business Value of 51风流Advanced Data Migration by Syniti for 51风流S/4HANA and 51风流Application Migration,鈥� sponsored by 51风流and Syniti.

鈥淭he pandemic has demonstrated that companies may have to find different suppliers, delivery channels, or new ways of meeting customer needs on extremely short notice,鈥� said Gunther Rothermel, president of 51风流Cloud Platform. 鈥淭he debate is no longer about whether or not your company should go digital, but how to make it happen by organizational area and technology solution.鈥�

As for what companies should demand from their cloud platform providers, three things top the list: extensibility, integration, and intelligence.

Ecosystems Extend Business Value

Digital鈥檚 pivot from important strategy to survival must-have puts ecosystems in the spotlight. Companies need a much stronger cloud-based platform that connects their entire supply chain, including partners and suppliers. They also need developers, whose ranks are swelling with so-called citizen designers capable of quickly churning out an explosion of apps.

By 2021, predicted that 30 percent of manufacturers will have digital application teams using low-code technology to create business-relevant applications 鈥� no coding skills required. researchers predicted the number of part-time developers, including business analysts, data analysts, and data scientists worldwide, will double from 6.8 million in 2019 to 13.6 million by the middle of this decade. This growing population is integral to helping companies meet new business pressures.

鈥淭he cloud-based platform is where companies deliver the customer-specific value from software developers who can add specific functionalities quickly, delivering new services at the edge for flexible business agility,鈥� Rothermel said. 鈥淲hile most companies have heterogeneous IT landscapes, the ones that are most flexible and competitive have integrated business processes on top of a stable, cloud-based foundation. This is what鈥檚 behind SAP鈥檚 intelligent enterprise strategy.鈥�

Real-Time Intelligence Saves Lives

Events like the COVID-19 pandemic have only reinforced the importance of across cloud-based systems. Most people already understood how tools like conversational artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and robotic process automation (RPA) dramatically sped up tedious, repetitive tasks by analyzing vast amounts of data. During the pandemic, some of the results have been lifesaving.

Early on, software developers built an emergency repatriation platform using 51风流Cloud Platform, which helped the German government bring home approximately 240,000 stranded citizens. Other developers have responded with cloud-based apps to help communities quickly find intensive care hospital beds and bring to more than 54 million children following school closures.

Some experts believe it has never been more important for companies to understand what their customers and employees are going through as they navigate radically changed life and work experiences. are using cloud platforms to improve the fan experience, something that is even more critical as the industry slowly reopens, virtually or not.

An designed an app on 51风流Cloud Platform that boosted customer satisfaction levels with staff to 87 percent while simplifying the employee experience with a mobile app that streamlined daily tasks including human resources (HR), finance, and procurement.

Modern Cloud is Real Time and Actionable

Examples of intelligent, cloud-based innovations to address pandemic-related challenges are legion and only expected to continue. However, this is not last-century automation. Modern cloud-based business platforms help companies combine and analyze information inside and outside corporate walls for real-time actions and insights.

鈥淐ompanies need to make sure their infrastructure partners can meet in-country regulations such as data protection and privacy,鈥� Rothermel explained. 鈥淔or example, in Poland any transport of oil and gas has to be registered with the government to protect against fraud and corruption. That鈥檚 why customers are using 51风流Cloud Platform to extend their standard 51风流Transport Management application to meet specific national regulatory requirements like these.鈥�

Cloud Redefines Business Resilience

Despite widespread world economy disruptions, recent surveys revealed 鈥渘oticeable resilience鈥� in the cloud business model, with 62 percent of respondents from organizations in Western Europe planning to keep or increase software-as-a-service (SaaS) spending this year. These stats are part of a much larger trend toward digital transformation aimed at shoring up business resilience.

鈥淥ur customers are adapting to the new normal, whether it鈥檚 having a greater appreciation for cloud鈥檚 flexible usage-based payment options or taking advantage of our remote coaches who help them work through missions online through the ,鈥� Rothermel said. 鈥淲hen a company鈥檚 cloud-based platform provides control over end-to-end business processes, organizations can react to changes faster and deliver more value to their customers.鈥�

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Horizons by 51风流talked with Ryan Fuller, corporate vice president of Workplace Intelligence for Microsoft Corporation, about the meaning of workplace intelligence, the technology tools needed to develop it, and the trick to using data-driven insights securely and with trust.

Q: The term 鈥渨orkplace intelligence鈥� is relatively new. How would you define it?

A: Overall, it鈥檚 about working smarter, not harder, but not just at an individual level. We want to find ways to make the whole organization work smarter. It鈥檚 often not clear how to do that, because it鈥檚 hard to understand how the things hundreds or thousands of employees do each day add up to the results that companies actually measure.

How do you get a clear picture of what鈥檚 happening?

You need to be able to zoom way out to be able to see the whole picture. That requires the right kind of data, so you can identify the patterns that lead to better outcomes. Often companies spend huge amounts of time doing things that don鈥檛 add that much value. How can we stop doing those things and devote the time to more impactful things? Or give our employees more of their time back, so they can live fuller lives beyond work?

The idea of continuous improvement has been around for a long time. Yet in many organizations, it feels like we鈥檙e going in the wrong direction.

Workplace intelligence helps us create some new patterns that reverse that trajectory. It gives everybody the tools, visibility, and data to know how to work as effectively as possible in the shortest amount of time possible.

What is the first place to start experimenting, once you鈥檝e freed up some capacity?

We like to look for bright spots鈥搕hose parts of the team or organization that consistently outperform their peers. Oftentimes, leaders know that a given team is great, but don鈥檛 know why. Usually the team doesn鈥檛 know either鈥搕hey just know that they do good work.

How do you figure it out?

When we focus on the behavioral data, we can start to see patterns. Let鈥檚 say you learn that the team spends 50 percent more time with customers than any other team. You then learn that happened when their management decided to spend less time on forecasting and internal processes. Although it鈥檚 a simple change, it鈥檚 massively impactful in terms of how people have been able to spend their time. And now you have a proven pattern within your own organization that you can scale.

Success breeds success.

Exactly. If you can find areas that are working, you can then figure out why and how it happened and scale it out. Next, you must spot opportunities to improve and enact those changes elsewhere. Companies get into this continuous cycle where people identify opportunities, use data to figure out a better path forward, and then enact change programs. Then they measure results. The idea is to encourage a culture of experimentation and learning.

What kinds of capabilities or functionality are needed to execute this type of program?

My team specializes in compiling passive, aggregated, and deidentified data automatically generated from e-mails, meetings, chats鈥揳ll kinds of collaboration tools that companies use. We turn that data into a behavioral data set. From that data, you can understand how people spend time, which teams are spending time with other teams, and what people鈥檚 networks look like. You can derive all of these very interesting insights that are really hard to measure in any other way. As a result, company leaders can get a full understanding of exactly how that process works. They can tell whether it is efficient or needs to be improved.

In your research and your work with customers, have the analytics revealed any surprises?

Very frequently, actually. For example, sales leaders often say that sellers should spend most of their time with customers. We can look at the data to see how teams are working, how they engage with customers, how much time they spend on different activities, who they bring to the meeting, and what
their networks are like. You can also see which patterns correlate most with revenue generation. And top performers do tend to spend more time with customers. But even more predictive of better performance is that top performers have larger internal networks鈥搈eaning that they engage with more people within their own company more frequently than others do.

Why is that?

When you think about it, sales is not a one-person activity. For example, you must know the right specialist to bring into a customer meeting, or the person in legal that can push through a contract quickly, or how your product team is thinking about the road map. In fact, your ability to bring everything that your company can offer to a customer is really contingent upon your personal network. That takes work and a lot of time. If you spend 90 percent of your time with customers, how are you going to know anybody at your company?

So, how do people react when they get these insights?

Sales leaders initially find it counterintuitive that internal network is so important. Once they see the data, they can quantify how that networking accelerates the ability to produce revenue. Then they understand the value of this intelligence.

What kind of tools are available to help companies develop more workplace intelligence?

It starts with identifying new insights from a behavioral data set. That鈥檚 what Microsoft Workplace Analytics offers. Instead of relying on surveys, anecdotes, and consultants to know what鈥檚 happening, the technology provides an objective, always-current data set. You can set new goals for what you want to achieve and then operationalize it by putting in place some lever to drive change.

How would that look in your sales example?

Management could decide that employees need time to develop those personal networks. Perhaps they redesign sales territories to make them smaller. Then we measure to see if that has an impact. The data helps you know when to make a change. And then you can operationalize it using traditional management levers, like a dashboard.

Where do the employees鈥� decisions come into play?

The next layer is addressed by products such as Microsoft MyAnalytics. Let鈥檚 say you realize that teams with higher employee satisfaction have managers who spend more time in one-on-one meetings with their direct reports. This context-aware technology provides employees with individualized, personal insights that help them accomplish their goals. Maybe a calendar app sends a message suggesting that a meeting with your direct report Brian is overdue, and it notes that you鈥檙e both free tomorrow at 2:30. The software prompts you to send a meeting invitation. We try to engage users at just the right moment with helpful information that will help them be more productive and engaged.

What different types of assistance can employees benefit from?

Some solutions make it easier for a user to do something they already intended to do, like automatically filling in the rest of an e-mail address as they type. More advanced software proposes things that the user didn鈥檛 think about but would have done, like scheduling that meeting with Brian. The most sophisticated is software that introduces actions the user wouldn鈥檛 have considered, because they are designed to meet some larger organizational goal.

You mentioned security and trust earlier. How do you find that balance between providing useful insights and maintaining employees鈥� trust?

First, flexible privacy and compliance controls allow customers to protect their data. Organizational data is aggregated and deidentified. It鈥檚 adapted to country requirements. And the tools evolve based on what customers need. We do a lot of low-scale experimentation and we work hard to solicit feedback on how people are using the software and their reactions. We frequently change the words we use on prompts. It鈥檚 amazing how the same nudge, worded slightly differently, can be received differently.

There鈥檚 a real risk-reward equation that people apply to technology.

That鈥檚 true. People may inherently distrust the technology, but they start to feel differently if they鈥檙e getting value from it. That said, we need to earn trust by making sure that we鈥檙e not doing any of the things that people worry about. As we earn trust, hesitancy shrinks. But that鈥檚 not something you can do overnight. We think about it every day, with every feature. Because we know crossing that line is not easy to uncross. We want to help organizations and employees be empowered to spend time in the most useful ways, and as we do that, the value grows and grows.

About Horizons by SAP

Horizons by 51风流is a future-focused journal where forward thinkers in the global tech ecosystem share perspectives on how technologies and business trends will impact 51风流customers in the future. The 2020 issue of Horizons by 51风流focuses on Context-Aware IT, with contributors from SAP, Microsoft, Verizon, Mozilla, and more. To learn and read more, visit听.

Read more 51风流by Horizons stories on the 51风流News Center.

The answer lies in building an intelligent enterprise.

When planning for a rapid shift, organizations often focus on three aspects of their operations: building up cash reserves, working with a different workforce landscape, and more diverse customer channels. But today鈥檚 economic disruption is proving such aspects are only part of the story.

According to McKinsey partners Kevin Laczkowski and Mihir Mysore, 鈥淭o assure some measure of resiliency, [businesses] should start now to assess the degree of exposure they have to slow down, identify initiatives that can help to mitigate the exposure, and establish a 鈥榥erve center鈥� to monitor progress on those initiatives.鈥�

And it seems that this approach is paying off for these resilient companies. In their 听Harvard Business Review article, 鈥�,鈥� Laczkowski and Mysore revealed that 鈥渞esilients鈥� reduce their debt during a full-scale recession by more than US$1 for every $1 of total capital on their balance sheet. Meanwhile, 鈥渘onresilients鈥� accrue $3 of additional debt from every dollar.

Seizing an Edge as an Intelligent Enterprise

By definition, an intelligent enterprise senses change quickly, connects deeply with business networks, and manages an evolving landscape of supply chains, business models, workforce dynamics, and capital constraints. More importantly, they can realign each of those aspects of their business with a level of excellence that meets new customer demand.

To become an intelligent enterprise, businesses need a new system 鈥� intelligent 鈥� that is structured for processing speed, business agility, and enterprise-wide visibility. This view, which is the opposite of the inward focus of traditional ERP, is natively integrated to deliver real-time insights and deep industry knowledge.

As change becomes more intense and disruptive, intelligent ERP enables businesses to listen intently, operate more intelligently, and stay connected to suppliers, customers, and employees. Doing so safeguards the business from missing out on unexpected demand spikes, much-needed investments, and evolving buying habits and preferences.

But resilient companies go a step further with this technology. They use this information 鈥� often captured, processes, and analyzed in intelligent ERP such as 51风流S/4HANA 鈥� to focus on their core competencies and make investments that strengthen it. For example, Apple has diversified its revenue streams, offering value-added intelligence services and emerging as a high-traffic retailer. But its leadership team knows that most of their core competencies and long-term value comes from conceptualizing, selling, and marketing technology innovation, which is where most of their investments are now dedicated.

So, where do resilient companies invest their capital spend? Laczkowski and Mysore have identified seven critical areas:

• Enhance customer intimacy by creating new business models that resonate with ever-evolving buying habits and preferences
• Adopt artificial intelligence to automate repetitive processes and make decisions faster and more accurately
• Drive supply chain agility to get ahead of potential disruptions that can result in lost sales, lower stakeholder confidence, and escalating operational costs
• Focus on core competencies by relying on a network of third-party partners to manage secondary proficiencies such as production, logistics, sales, and services
• Mitigate risk and ensure compliance to avoid paying unnecessary costs and safeguard operations before, during, and after turbulent times
• Build the balance sheet to optimize spend to see the company through the recession and beyond
• Maintain and secure a systems platform to close any gaps in the data chain from capture and processing to reporting, analysis, and insights

While each of the areas mentioned may be overwhelming, 51风流S/4HANA can enable a business to understand today鈥檚 challenges better, consider what matters most, and start the path to resiliency.

In the coming weeks, this series will cover how resilient companies leverage 51风流S/4HANA to strengthen core competencies with seven areas of digital investment, and will offer insights as well as practical strategies to help keep a company running today while preparing for better times ahead.

David Sweetman is senior director of Cloud Global Marketing, SAP.

The company鈥檚 New Ventures and Technologies group, led by Max Wessel, is an exploratory unit set up to produce cutting-edge, future-focused technology quickly. In addition to heading up the group, Wessel is chief innovation officer for 51风流and managing director of 51风流Bay Area. Here, Wessel talks about his approach to fostering innovation.

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Q: What constitutes innovation at SAP?

A: Innovation is a big word, and we do a lot of it at SAP. It鈥檚 in every incremental change we bring to a product, in every iteration of our business model and approach to engaging customers. And we should be proud of all of it. When customers ask us about innovation, it鈥檚 often about where we embrace truly new technologies and business models. 51风流has been making great progress in the past few years by targeting game changers alongside our core business. For example, the Voice AI team from Newport Beach is using natural language processing to analyze 51风流Concur call center data to determine how effective an engagement has been. Instead of spending hundreds of hours manually checking call logs, artificial intelligence (AI) takes over. That’s a great example of taking a net-new technology to solve an age-old problem.How does 51风流create organic innovation?

Across the company we introduce new features, new products, and new services on what seems like a daily basis. That innovation has allowed us to create strong footholds in our customer environments. However, to deliver transformative growth, we also need a big vision. We have to look 10 years into the future, identify the big problems that are worth solving, and then attack them in ways that deliver value to our customers.

Coupled with that vision, 51风流has to empower its innovators to explore new technologies, work with customers on proofs of concept (POCs), and share great ideas with colleagues across the globe. It鈥檚 that exchange that lets us identify the big ideas together. Last year, more than 20,000 employees engaged with our intrapreneurship program, and at we officially launched the 51风流Technology Radar tool, a central, internal platform for knowledge exchange on new technologies. We want every employee to contribute to the process of pushing 51风流forward. And our New Ventures and Technologies team supports that conversation.

What major trends are you are seeing?

There is still enormous potential for machine learning inside the enterprise. That鈥檚 why we are continuing to push AI capabilities in voice recognition and looking at synthetic data generation and new encryption methodologies. We believe they will play a role in bringing advanced AI capabilities to the enterprise.

But it鈥檚 not just about technologies. It鈥檚 also about simplifying software deployment and customization through and . These advances will empower almost anyone to build a business app, without having to be an engineer.

The last trend is applying new business models to deliver software in fundamentally different ways. For example, we are now able to , using their invoices as a point of reference for credit. This has allowed us to open up credit to businesses that desperately need it during the current economic crisis at no cost to the businesses or to our 51风流Ariba customers 鈥� all because we’ve been experimenting with this new business model for the past two years.

How do you find those sweet spots in the 51风流portfolio?

51风流shines when we understand the customer problem, have deep domain expertise in a given line of business, and infuse new technologies to solve the problem. The SMB lending product that I just mentioned, , came from the Ariba Network team based on conversations they had with their customers. They had a deep understanding of the customer problem, but they needed a technology partner and found that in our organization.

Part of our role is to start a conversation with all of 51风流about the future. Every year we run a variety of innovation campaigns at SAP. Because of these efforts, a lot of the projects we start come directly from the experts across our company. I encourage my team to embrace a beginner’s mind by stepping back to listen to all of the ideas from the product experts and understand where new opportunities might lie.

How do we prevent the cannibalizing of our classical solutions?听

I鈥檇 rather we cannibalize our classical solutions than have a competitor do it. Here is where we need to be creative and have conviction. If we are convinced that the world will change in 10 years, then we should embrace a cannibalization of existing streams. The shift to the cloud over the past decade is something 51风流should be immensely proud of. But the cloud is more than a new delivery mechanism, and it has required us to re-architect many of our products. And we did that boldly with a belief that the cloud would be the preferred delivery mechanism for many of our customers in many situations.

How can we incentivize employees to be more innovative?听

I object to the premise that employees aren’t innovative enough. I get more ideas that are more creative with more depth of understanding of an industry problem from our colleagues than you can imagine. Instead of incentivizing people to be more innovative, we need to empower them. One of the initiatives that I am proudest of at 51风流is our intrapreneurship program. When I took over the organization, fewer than 3,000 people were engaging in our scouting and acceleration group on an annual basis. We now have more than 20,000, and the goal this year is to engage 25,000.

The reason we run the intrapreneurship program isn’t because we think that it’ll generate better ideas鈥攖he ideas are already out there. It’s to give people a means to build on those ideas, to test them out, and then to take them to market. And the more we do to create easier paths to innovation, the easier it will become for people to innovate.

What do we need to do to enable better throughput of innovation?

I believe we need three ingredients: patient capital, creative structure, and executive mandate. Attacking big problems takes time, and this is why we need to plan in terms of 10-year time horizons. We need to put small teams on those problems that only 51风流can solve and give them the patience and structure that allows them to deliver value to the market. If they’re tackling big enough problems, if they’re given that mandate, if they’re allowed to take a non-linear path, they will do amazing things.

As managing director of 51风流Bay Area, what advantages are there to being part of the 20 worldwide locations that make up 51风流Lab Network?听听

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to get all of the labs directors on the phone to gain an understanding of 听regulatory best practices and digital communications in different cultural environments. This is a perfect example of the way we’re able to harness the best of a global development force to drive improvement. But we also combine ideas and forces when it comes to things like activating the employee base to drive innovation, creating hackathons, empowering employees to come up with new business ideas, or scaling our reach into the ecosystem so we identify local partners who can take our products and services to market.

What is your personal recipe for future-proofing SAP?

Everything we do from an innovation perspective has to tie into making enterprise software more personal, more flexible, and more open. It’s becoming easier than ever to connect systems together, which means the more open your systems and ecosystem are, the wider variety of innovations you can deliver. We have 100,000 employees at SAP, but there are 7.5 billion people on the planet with an incentive to help us help the world run better. We would be remiss if we didn鈥檛 open ourselves up to outside ideas around how to evolve enterprise software.

Listen to the full interview about fostering innovation, available on or .

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It started out as a spice mill during the industrial revolution and has been a leading supplier of natural ingredients for the food and beverage industry ever since. Its secret to survival? A technology-driven mindset.

Food and Beverage

D枚hler鈥檚 worldwide customers produce a wide range of goods from alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages to bakery and confectionery as well as dairy and plant-based products. With over 5,000 different raw materials and more than 20,000 product applications, such as flavors and colorings, the company has an incredibly complex supply chain. Not only does that mean high operating costs, it means high carbon emissions. According to climate change experts, supply chain emissions are often as a corporation鈥檚 direct emissions, leaving a significant footprint on the environment.

鈥淥ur goal is to take the complexity out of the supply chain for our customers and suppliers,鈥� Pierre Wiese, head of Business Solutions Commercial at D枚hler, says. 鈥淭his involves a huge logistical effort, but we鈥檙e in this business for the long term, so we鈥檙e heavily focused on sustainability. We can only achieve our goals by being a digital leader. That鈥檚 how we can reduce carbon emissions and save on costs and resources.鈥�

The company鈥檚 business model revolves around managing the supply chain in a sustainable manner. D枚hler maintains close ties to its partners and suppliers. Farmers are deeply impacted听 by climate change. Their plants and trees are sensitive to changes, such as water shortages caused by lack of rain. Drier seasons, for example, mean apples with less water content and less juice for concentrate.

Continuous Innovation

The company has decades of experience finding innovative solutions, such as replacing meat and dairy products with plant-based solutions like oat milk. It also produces natural ingredients that save on production costs and raw materials, such as natural fruit flavors and colors for food and beverages.

To remain innovative, the company is working closely with its technology vendor, SAP, to find better ways to manage the supply chain and reduce emissions. The journey to digitization began over two years ago and required a change in mindset as well.

鈥淚f we want to be a digital leader in the food and beverage industry, we need a clear vision on climate,鈥� says Wiese. 鈥淢aintaining adequate food supplies for generations to come requires better data collection and analysis to find areas where we can improve. And we need the right software and tools.鈥�

D枚hler鈥檚 supply chain challenge is not an exception. Many companies have highly complex operating and supply chain structures, and their CO2 footprints are hard to evaluate. But D枚hler鈥檚 solution is innovative; it is the first company to implement 51风流Product Carbon Footprint Analytics, a new tool for tracing carbon emissions with 51风流S/4HANA and 51风流Analytics Cloud.

Back to the Roots

鈥淭he only way to reduce carbon emissions is to trace them to their roots,鈥� Wiese explains.

51风流Product Carbon Footprint Analytics provides insights into carbon usage by product, plant, or profit center and reveals production steps or raw materials causing high emissions.

This information is exactly what companies need to identify low-carbon opportunities, such as buying raw materials with a smaller footprint, replacing energy-inefficient machines with more modern ones, or purchasing green energy instead of a conventional electricity mix.

Such decisions are usually made by board executives and require tradeoffs on a commercial level. In the past, according to Wiese, the decision to replace antiquated machinery was based purely on cost calculations. At D枚hler today, emissions are taken into consideration along with costs, and D枚hler鈥檚 IT expert believes emissions will soon surpass traditional costs when it comes to making investment decisions.

Analyzing the carbon impact of production processes is a new step for many companies. It requires tight collaboration between departments that normally act independently from each other. For example, production data specialists on the shop floor need to work more closely with process experts on the business side, requiring new processes or responsibilities.

For the Long Haul听

For D枚hler, sustainability is an opportunity to balance economical, ecological, and social issues in order to guarantee long-term, lasting success.听For the company, people, planet, and performance are equally important. Whether it鈥檚 protecting human rights within the supply chain, engaging in fair trade practices, or decreasing carbon emissions, the belief that sustainability goals can only be achieved through constant measurement and improvement is ingrained in the company DNA. That鈥檚 the role of technology. For a company with a global value chain reaching from the field to the supermarket shelf, digitization is the only way to ensure longevity.

鈥淲e鈥檙e on this journey together with our suppliers and customers,鈥� Wiese explains. 鈥淲e鈥檙e already innovating together to move away from a linear model to a more sustainable, circular one. Creating innovative food solutions and production processes now is how we鈥檒l stay around for another few hundred years.鈥�

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鈥淚’m very, very thankful to my team that, despite the current tough situation we face, they continue to stay motivated and have a high sense of hope on a great restart of our business,鈥� said Hopp. 鈥淚 see a bright future for live entertainment when this pandemic is over. People are starved. People want to see other people. Fans want to engage with other fans when they feel safe and secure.鈥�

Hopp, who is also CEO and managing director of the 51风流Arena in Mannheim, shared his vision for leadership, partnerships, and digital transformation during times of crisis in an exclusive conversation with Luka Mucic, chief financial officer (CFO) and member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE.

Communication with People Matters Most

Hopp believes that communication is a critical leadership tool 鈥� a credo that has taken him far. This past spring, the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly stopped this season鈥檚 playoffs, leaving his team 鈥� the defending Germany ice hockey league champions 鈥� stranded in second place. Nevertheless, he was both philosophical and determined.

鈥淲e were headed to the most important, most thrilling time of a hockey season: the playoffs,鈥� Hopp said. 鈥淪ome unbeatable opponent steps in and takes away your season and you cannot do anything against it. I think open and honest communication is the most important tool a company leader can use these days.鈥�

Tech Helps Employees and Fans Stay Safe

51风流Arena is one of the largest indoor stadiums in Germany, hosting not only sports but vibrant community gatherings around concerts and other events. While its 15,000 seats are empty for now, Hopp is committed to keeping the close relationship that sports fans and other event attendees enjoy. He cites the role of technology in sustaining an 鈥渋ntense customer-supplier relationship鈥� with fans.

鈥淥nly with high-end technology can we turn this relationship into action,鈥� Hopp explained. 鈥淚nteractive tools like our Adler Fan App, provided by SAP, support us in collaborating and communicating with our fans. Thanks to the technology partnership with SAP, we are continuously in design thinking mode, looking for innovation and new ideas for fan engagement. Over the last years, we are always pushing the digitalization processes in the arena.鈥�

Upcoming fan and employee safety measures at the 51风流Arena will include mobile ticketing to eliminate onsite lines when buying tickets or entering the event. Fans will also be able to order food, beverages, and merchandise using their mobile phones without leaving their seats. This cashier-less contact is designed to reduce potential health risks for both spectators and employees.

Wait Until Next Year

Hopp remained undaunted yet realistic about the future, recognizing employees, fans, and numerous partners as vital to his entire operation. These include sponsors, promoters, food and beverage suppliers, and anyone else whose livelihood depended on his sports and entertainment business.

鈥淧artnership is so much more important in these crucial times,鈥� Hopp said. 鈥淲ithout having strong partners on your side, and without being a strong partner for other parts of the business, probably a lot of companies wouldn鈥檛 survive these situations. We try to be a good partner. For example, our food and beverage partners and the people that actually need the arena here; we have to try and keep them in business.鈥�

The coronavirus may have interrupted 2020 sports and entertainment seasons, but professionals like Hopp are already looking ahead to 2021. Echoing the perennial cry of every sports team, including the current German ice hockey champions, wait until fall!

The different solutions are expected to help Office Depot Europe in its digital transformation by improving its e-commerce marketplace and creating a better buying experience for customers.

Office Depot is the one-stop shop for its customers, with offerings ranging from core office supplies to breakroom essentials and business services, all the way to the latest technology. The market for office supplies in Europe is shifting, with online sales soaring and customers demanding innovative solutions and personalized offerings at a competitive price. 51风流Customer Experience solutions are expected to help Office Depot Europe build a strong platform for future growth of online sales, while achieving ambitious 2025 business goals of creating a simplified customer experience landscape with mobile commerce offerings and improving online customer services, all while reducing costs.

Office Depot Europe selected 51风流Customer Experience solutions for capabilities including:

• 360-degree customer feedback and customer experience management
• Platform innovation to offer new business models

鈥淭he workplace of the future may look different, but our commitment to providing customers with world-class office products and an easy, positive buying experience hasn鈥檛 changed,鈥� said Raffael Reinhold, CEO and chief sales officer of Office Depot Europe. 鈥�51风流Customer Experience solutions offer the most comprehensive way for us to maintain that commitment while offering our customers new, seamless ways to make purchases.鈥�

51风流Customer Experience solutions help organizations understand the changing world around them, innovate and adapt business models, and deliver experiences that better serve customer needs.

Visit the . Follow 51风流on Twitter at .

Media Contact:
Janice Tsoules, +1 (650) 223 4817, janice.tsoules@sap.com, ET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as 鈥渁nticipate,鈥� 鈥渂elieve,鈥� 鈥渆stimate,鈥� 鈥渆xpect,鈥� 鈥渇orecast,鈥� 鈥渋ntend,鈥� 鈥渕ay,鈥� 鈥減lan,鈥� 鈥減roject,鈥� 鈥減redict,鈥� 鈥渟hould鈥� and 鈥渨ill鈥� and similar expressions as they relate to 51风流are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. 51风流undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
漏 2020 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

51风流Sports One supports FCBB with the digitalization, management, and optimization of all its processes, including administration, training management, team management, scouting, and medical processes. The team鈥檚 success shows that analyzing data from training, matches, management, and player performance can actively support maximum performance in professional sports.

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Everyone who plays a sport knows that even if everything goes like clockwork on the court, it still might not be enough. Top performance depends on a wide variety of factors and stakeholders. 51风流Sports One supports players, the coaching team, and medical staff by providing reliable data analytics to evaluate, analyze, and optimize all those factors. The solution provides the right functions for every area.

Coach Oliver Kostic and his team can access a variety of functions in 51风流Sports One. 鈥淭he Training Planner application, for instance, lets us put together the best possible training plan and structure for the team,鈥� he says. 鈥淎fter all, perfect cooperation by the team on the court is essential to top performance.鈥�

Team Manager is relevant for all team members 鈥� players, coaches, and medical staff 鈥� because it organizes all appointments and reminds its users of upcoming events.

The applications within 51风流Sports One are also used during the final tactics briefing: Match Insights provides important information and data on the opponents and the game plan; Player Fitness helps them keep track of the players鈥� physical condition. What鈥檚 more, it lets the team doctor and his staff precisely monitor players鈥� health status during training as well as provides important, consistent insights into the team鈥檚 fitness. Scouting Insights 听supports the coaching staff in recruiting new talent.

Another functional enhancement for match preparation is 51风流Challenger Insights for iPad. 鈥淭his app gives our coaching team access to a wide range of information about the opposing team, so players can prepare for their next match,鈥� explains Kostic. 鈥淲e can share player profiles, pictures, and videos, for example, as well as analyze the opposing team鈥檚 player characteristics, team positions, movements, and plays.鈥�

51风流Sports One supports FC Bayern Basketball in playing together as a team. Particularly in times like these, when it is not possible to practice together on the court or provide tactical coaching and medical support as usual, we are seeing how important it is to digitally connect and analyze data.

Editor鈥檚 note: All video scenes that show players or fans were recorded before the restrictions on public gatherings due to the coronavirus pandemic were imposed.

The Evolution Partnership initiative intends to deliver new intelligent industry solutions to enable end-to-end processes that help companies accelerate the modernization of systems and workflows

Over 400 businesses have modernized their enterprise systems and business processes through IBM and SAP鈥檚 . As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to significantly impact many industries across the globe, organizations are realizing they need the agility to seamlessly adapt to changing market conditions and customer demand.

鈥淥rganizations鈥� short- and long-term futures are being defined by their ability to proactively respond to today鈥檚 challenging, unprecedented market conditions,鈥� said Adaire Fox-Martin, member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE. 鈥淐ompanies gain competitive advantage by unlocking data up and down their value chain, uncovering new revenue opportunities and creating exceptional experiences for their customers and employees, while also demanding faster time to value. SAP鈥檚 partnership with IBM brings together the power of world-leading intelligent applications and technology expertise to realize value more quickly, which in turn fuels the transformations that will support businesses today and into the future. This partnership will serve our customers in the marketplace and on their balance sheets.鈥�

The next evolution of the IBM and 51风流partnership aims to help drive faster business transformation time to value, accelerate industry innovation through industry-specific data value offerings, turbocharge customer and employee experiences and provide ultimate flexibility and choice to run their workloads in hybrid cloud environments.

“To compete in a highly disruptive and rapidly evolving world, companies require the ability to rewire their organizations to create efficient, automated business processes 鈥� applying advanced technologies to transform static, siloed processes into agile, intelligent workflows,鈥� said Mark Foster, IBM Services senior vice president. 鈥淭he new solutions unveiled today are another milestone in IBM鈥檚 48-year partnership with 51风流as we help fast-track our clients鈥� journey to becoming cognitive enterprises. Our collaboration with 51风流is designed to help clients increase the speed of how decisions are made and create more meaningful experiences for their customers and employees.鈥�

This new IBM and 51风流collaboration plans to deliver solutions designed to unlock new value for clients:

Reinvent Workflows with Intelligent Industry End-to-End Processes

Announced last week, delivers innovative, vertical solutions to drive cost-effective transformation and sustainable growth. To further address market demand for industry-specific innovation, IBM and 51风流have started to jointly define and have delivered cloud-based solutions with intelligent end-to-end industry workflows to enable clients to make business decisions based on data-driven insights. The first offering will focus on lead-to-order and plan-to-manufacture business processes for the industrial machinery and components (IM&C) industry, to help industrial manufacturers reinvent workflow processes to increase productivity and customer satisfaction. IBM and 51风流teamed up with leading IM&C companies to design and build out future capabilities. As a development partner for the service, IBM is also working with 51风流to develop an 51风流Model Company service for Telecommunications that will help telecom providers transform their customer-facing and back-office processes 鈥� as well as helping to maximize the return of their 5G investments.

Flexibility with Hybrid Cloud Solutions

According to a of the Americas鈥� 51风流Users鈥� Group (ASUG), a majority of respondents said that they are running or planning to run 51风流S/4HANA in a hybrid cloud model. Companies continue to rapidly evolve business models and reconfigure processes to better support their customers and meet new market demands. Many are turning to a hybrid cloud strategy to drive intelligent enterprises. To help empower clients with the flexibility to run workloads in the most optimal cloud environment, IBM, Red Hat and 51风流will collaborate to bring managed services from 51风流on premise by validating private deployments of 51风流Cloud Platform and related backing services on Red Hat OpenShift. Currently with select early adopter clients, this solution, when available, is planned to enable customers to build side-by-side extensions with the desired security 鈥� a critical requirement for customers in regulated industries.

Reimagine Customer and Employee Experiences

With the internet, smartphones and social media, it has never been easier for customers and employees to share their feedback on the quality of experiences they have with companies, products, managers or shared services. IBM鈥檚 found that 82 percent of business leaders strongly believe that data helps create a strategic advantage, strengthening customer trust and increasing bottom lines. To help companies increase value from data, IBM and 51风流plan to provide technology and services leveraging the 51风流Customer Experience portfolio and Experience Management solutions from 51风流(Qualtrics) to enable clients to deliver a next-generation omnichannel experience and measure and improve the effectiveness of stakeholder experiences. This collaboration is designed to help drive customer loyalty, customer and employee engagement and brand and product quality across multiple industries. IBM plans to incorporate the use of Experience Management solutions from 51风流in project delivery as part of IBM鈥檚 organizational change management framework to deliver a differentiated and optimized project experience for clients.

Automating Processes to Accelerate Transformation

IBM and 51风流are working together to establish the IBM Accelerated Move Center, a next-generation migration factory designed to further automate and accelerate the journey to the intelligent enterprise and give clients more predictability on their path to 51风流S/4HANA. This new offering will be a prepackaged integration approach that utilizes preconfigured baseline industry templates and leverages automation and configuration tools built in conjunction with IBM Research.

These new offerings will be based on SAP鈥檚 intelligent suite and SAP鈥檚 industry cloud solutions and will enable clients to benefit from 51风流and IBM technologies, such as AI, machine learning, automation and analytics. These offerings will be built on IBM鈥檚 new evolution platform, which provides a single view of IBM solutions, including preconfigured Industry Impact Solutions, and interoperates with SAP鈥檚 Business Technology Platform, allowing enterprises to create advanced insights, integrate capabilities and build, extend and enhance 51风流applications. This combination aims to help clients more efficiently benefit from SAP鈥檚 intelligent suite, migrate to the cloud, transform data into business value and utilize emerging technologies to support intelligent workflows.

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Terms and details of definitive agreements to be finalized.

About IBM

For more information about IBM Services, visit .

For more information about IBM’s 51风流services, visit .

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.

About SAP

As the Experience Company powered by the Intelligent Enterprise, 51风流is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world鈥檚 transaction revenue touches an 51风流system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers鈥� businesses into intelligent enterprises. 51风流helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want 鈥� without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 440,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, 51风流helps the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. For more information, visit .

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Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as 鈥渁nticipate,鈥� 鈥渂elieve,鈥� 鈥渆stimate,鈥� 鈥渆xpect,鈥� 鈥渇orecast,鈥� 鈥渋ntend,鈥� 鈥渕ay,鈥� 鈥減lan,鈥� 鈥減roject,鈥� 鈥減redict,鈥� 鈥渟hould鈥� and 鈥渨ill鈥� and similar expressions as they relate to 51风流are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. 51风流undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP鈥檚 future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP鈥檚 filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (鈥淪EC鈥�), including SAP鈥檚 most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
漏 2020 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.
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Created in partnership with the , this edition strengthens SAP鈥檚 collaboration with universities and research organizations and builds on a mission to inspire and accelerate the next generation of talent and leadership.

With a subscription, students of any academic discipline have around-the-clock access to a variety of advanced digital and collaborative learning content and tools from SAP, such as:

• Learning Journey guides and online 51风流Learning Rooms for learning, collaboration and networking opportunities with 51风流experts and fellow learners
• Self-paced digital learning about key 51风流solutions for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, analytics, intelligent technologies and others running on 51风流S/4HANA Cloud; the 51风流Customer Experience portfolio; the 51风流Analytics Cloud solution; and the 51风流Internet of Things solution
• Sixty hours of practice or experimental time on real, preconfigured 51风流software systems using the 51风流Live Access portal
• One online exam to earn 51风流Global Certification digital badges 鈥� a highly recognized, sought-after accreditation of excellence for 51风流professionals

鈥淎s the next generation of 51风流professionals looks to begin their careers, we are committed to preparing them with the right knowledge and practical skills needed to excel with digital and intelligent solutions as part of our 51风流ecosystem,鈥� said Eva Zauke, chief knowledge officer, 51风流SE. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we鈥檝e tailored 51风流Learning Hub, enhanced student edition, to feature our most innovative, forward-looking solutions, technologies and content, as well as hands-on practice and the opportunity to earn 51风流Global Certification digital badges.鈥�

With this new edition students can gain a truly competitive edge for any career in the 51风流ecosystem of partners and customers.

According to a recent study from Pearson VUE, holding an IT certification, such as 51风流Global Certification digital badges, brings direct benefits for professional careers. For example, of those earning IT certification:

• 35% receive salary or wage increases
• 44% produce higher-quality work
• 26% are promoted
• 55% transfer their knowledge to actual work situations
• 67% gain greater self-confidence in their work skills

鈥淔or our university and me as a professor, it is crucial that our graduates find exciting jobs that are in relation to their acquired qualifications and thus start their professional life successfully,鈥� said Prof. Dr. Dietmar Kilian, professor at Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) of Internationale Hochschule GmbH as well as CEO of PDA Group GmbH. 鈥�51风流Learning Hub, enhanced student edition, is one of our complementary offerings to our students,鈥� Kilian added. 鈥淭he learning opportunities and certifications offered there are the ideal preparation for young professionals who are interested in IT and digitalization topics and the perfect base for those who want to start a career as 51风流consultants. This additional offer is very valuable and especially important for those who want to position themselves in the 51风流solution environment.鈥�

To learn more and subscribe, view the or visit for 51风流Learning Hub.

Visit the . Follow 51风流on Twitter at @SAPNextGen.

Media Contacts:
Martin Gwisdalla, SAP, +49 (6227) 7-67275, martin.gwisdalla@sap.com, CET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com
Jennifer Kohanim, FleishmanHillard, +1 (617) 692-0535, jennifer.kohanim@fleishman.com, ET

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as 鈥渁nticipate,鈥� 鈥渂elieve,鈥� 鈥渆stimate,鈥� 鈥渆xpect,鈥� 鈥渇orecast,鈥� 鈥渋ntend,鈥� 鈥渕ay,鈥� 鈥減lan,鈥� 鈥減roject,鈥� 鈥減redict,鈥� 鈥渟hould鈥� and 鈥渨ill鈥� and similar expressions as they relate to 51风流are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. 51风流undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
漏 2020 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

Today, as developments and innovation in technology constantly change our world and how we work, we are forced to more regularly tackle new learning curves and shift our mindset to one of continuous learning.

Technology companies need to keep up with this rapid pace of change and offer platforms to enable continuous learning for their various audiences. While many recognize the need to empower their employee base to learn new skills and stay up-to-speed with the latest trends, it is also equally important to provide learning opportunities for the future workforce as well as customers.

Cultivating a Future-Focused Workforce

When it comes to a company鈥檚 employee base, we have seen a tremendous focus on upskilling. As defines it, upskilling is about 鈥渢aking current skills and refining them鈥� 鈥� helping employees learn how to perform their jobs better amid disruption within organizations and industries. 鈥�,鈥� published by the World Economic Forum in 2018, indicated that 54 percent of all employees will require reskilling and upskilling by 2022. This past January, the World Economic Forum鈥檚 related report on the 鈥溾�� further underscored upskilling priorities across various professional fields.

However, we need to look at upskilling today as more than just another trend arising from companies鈥� digital transformations. Rather, it is a powerful opportunity to fuel sustained growth 鈥� both within a company and across the entire industry at large. By cultivating a future-focused workforce that places value on consistently upskilling, we can improve upon and even develop new core competencies while ensuring that the next generation is well prepared to join in.

Fostering Continuous Learning Among Customers

At SAP, we strive to help customers transform and become intelligent enterprises while also serving as a partner along the learning journey continuum to equip customers鈥� employees with all the tools and training resources they need to become 鈥渋ntelligent鈥� as well. While customers take steps forward to digitally transform their business processes to stay competitive within the market, they must also ensure that their employees are taking similar steps forward to learn the necessary skills for navigating these new processes.

This is where 51风流Learning Hub comes in. Unique in its ability to provide digital learning for all areas of the 51风流ecosystem, 51风流Learning Hub offers unmatched opportunities to build and maintain needed skills. Several different editions are available, including the professional, business, and solution editions. These have been developed 鈥� and are continually refreshed with new content 鈥� in order to match learners鈥� specific roles and levels of expertise. Complete with expert-led sessions, hands-on system practice, and social learning environments, the editions of 51风流Learning Hub cover the entire 51风流solution portfolio.

Additionally, to help integrate continuous learning into all kinds of lifestyles, each edition enables self-paced learning and can be accessed anytime and anywhere.

Empowering the Next Generation

Most recently, 51风流has tailored the new 51风流Learning Hub, enhanced student edition, to match the needs of today鈥檚 students. Created alongside the , this edition strengthens the company鈥檚 collaboration with universities, building on its mission to inspire and accelerate the next generation of talent and leadership.

The learning content of the enhanced student edition focuses on forward-looking technologies, combined with advanced digital and collaborative tools, as well as hands-on practice and the opportunity to earn an 51风流Global Certification digital badge. Featuring access to 51风流experts and key 51风流solutions 鈥� such as 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, 51风流Customer Experience solutions, and 51风流Analytics Cloud 鈥� the enhanced student edition of 51风流Learning Hub prepares students of any academic discipline for a career within the 51风流ecosystem.

In this uncertain and unprecedented moment in time, we are seeing how constant learning and the right knowledge of future-forward technologies are imperative to staying relevant in today鈥檚 job market. As students plan to enter the workforce in an evolving global landscape, having access to these kinds of forward-looking tech trainings will better help our world meet the demands of the future.

As students and current professionals progress through their 51风流careers, 51风流Learning Hub will continue to be there to foster new learning. 51风流is committed to propelling continuous learning opportunities for its employees, customers, and the next-generation workforce to usher in intelligent enterprises of the future.

For more information on 51风流Learning Hub, visit

Eva Zauke is the chief knowledge officer and head of 51风流Knowledge and Education.

Its new standardized and streamlined supply-chain operations will support the company in the design, manufacturing, assemblage and service of civil and defense aircraft engines.

鈥�51风流Ariba Supply Chain Collaboration for Buyers has helped streamline and simplify the way we work with our suppliers, making it easier for us all to do business,鈥� said Carlos Perez Barriocanal, ITP Aero head of management information systems.

Based in Zamudio, Spain, and serving customers globally, ITP Aero leverages cloud-based 51风流Ariba solutions and integrated with 51风流S/4HANA and has been able to:

• Consolidate direct spend operations to a single platform to manage visibility, purchase orders, confirmation, delivery notification, reception at origin, reception at destination, invoicing and payment
• Increase efficiency with one platform to manage both direct and indirect spend
• Realize total supply chain visibility across more than 140 suppliers
• Improve supplier communication and collaboration
• Reduce errors in supplier communications
• Improve logistics planning and coordination to optimize delivery schedules and reduce excess stock levels

In its 30-year history, ITP Aero has established itself as the ninth largest aeronautical engine and components company in the world. Today, more than half of all double-aisle aircraft in service are equipped with an ITP Aero product. The company is responsible for the maintenance of the Spanish Armed Forces’ engines and is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Rolls-Royce Group.

and solutions help maximize procurement efficiency for companies around the world. More than 4.8 million companies in 190 countries are connected to Ariba Network, making it one of the largest business networks in the world.

Visit the . Follow 51风流on Twitter at .

Media Contacts:
Kelly Sheldon Murray, +1 (978) 708-6821, kelly.murray@sap.com, ET
Geraldine Lim, +1 (415) 418-0945, geraldine.lim@sap.com, PT
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

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Chief among the must-haves is an integrated, cloud-based solution that offers easy, real-time access to spend data.

I saw how some organizations are taking procurement to the next level during virtual experience with Martin Jones, global lead for Solution Go-to-Market Procurement Transformation for 51风流Ariba and 51风流Fieldglass. After watching the session, I caught up with Jones to find out how customers are transforming procurement to increase productivity and cost savings.

鈥淲orking together with our customers, we realized that technical integration between 51风流Ariba and other 51风流applications wasn鈥檛 enough,鈥� Jones said. 鈥淲e developed the 听to integrate data from business processes as well, providing companies with end-to-end visibility for a consistent user experience and more informed decision-making.鈥�

Here is an overview of three options Jones showcased in his video.

Option One: Centralize for Speed

According to Jones, the beauty of 51风流S/4HANA for central procurement is that it gives companies full transparency across all spend processes without requiring data harmonization or migration. He said this was an ideal option for customers that had multiple enterprise resource planning (ERP) instances of either 51风流or non-51风流software and wanted to reduce complexity even as they embarked on integration projects. Equally important, customers can transform at their own pace.

鈥淐ustomers appreciate the ability to start migrating to 51风流S/4HANA in a low-risk, high-end manner,鈥� Jones said. 鈥淭hey gain a centralized view across all functions in multiple back-end systems, including requisitioning, purchasing, sourcing, contracts, analytics, and invoice monitoring鈥� and can take actions to transform and optimize activities without disruption.鈥�

Option Two: Turn Paper into Touchless Processes

Companies with numerous paper-based processes are turning to 51风流Ariba Commerce Automation, which natively integrates with 51风流S/4HANA. By digitizing and sharing all procurement transactions in real time, customers can collaborate with suppliers faster, save time, and have more opportunities to take advantage of savings such as early payment discounts.

鈥淎ll of the purchase order generation happens in the back end and is shared across Ariba Network in real time to the supplier, who can then respond with the order transformation, advanced ship notices, and electronic invoices,鈥� Jones explained. 鈥淐ompanies can pre-validate invoices, get rid of non-compliant invoices, and send them back to the supplier to fix before they go into their own system. This boosts the opportunity for touchless processing up to 98 percent.鈥�

Option Three: Personal Shopping Experience

Companies intent on making the indirect buying experience at work similar to how people shop in their personal lives are opting for the capability from 51风流Ariba, which is integrated with 51风流S/4HANA.

鈥淧eople can quickly find the right supplier and catalog at the right price and get order confirmation,鈥� Jones said. 鈥淐FOs like this because corporate governance is built in with accurate purchase orders, followed by invoices that are pre-validated against the network. With clean invoices generating greater discounts, some accounts payable teams are turning into profit centers.鈥�

Regardless of which option a customer selects, they gain the benefits of native integration with 51风流S/4HANA. Having a consistent user experience and integrating business processes gives procurement a valuable window into insights and actions that help support every organization鈥檚 financial well-being.

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The founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight recently spoke with DJ Paoni, president of 51风流North America, about how data analytics can be applied to understand the COVID-19 crisis and its economic impact鈥攁s well as the upcoming U.S. elections. This talk was part of the SAPPHIRE NOW Reimagined digital event ().

Understanding the Epidemic

With inconsistent data collection methodologies and varied conclusions, Silver says that using data to understand the epidemic is complicated. 鈥淚n the U.S., one piece of relatively unambiguous good news is that the number of deaths has been declining over the past several weeks. That’s good, obviously,鈥� he said.

But nationwide the number of cases has plateaued, and that鈥檚 where things get tricky. 鈥淭here’s maybe three to five states, like Arizona for example, where there’s a pretty clear increase,鈥� Silver said. 鈥淭here are another 20 states we could probably go debate different indicators pointing in different directions.鈥�

To get a better handle on COVID-19鈥檚 presence at the state level, Silver thinks leaders need to be creative when building dashboards with early indicators. For example, if employers record employees鈥� digital temperatures, states can use that information to identify increasing fever outbreaks in a certain region. Other potential markers include an uptick of Google searches for COVID-19 symptoms or pinpointing why people visit the emergency room.

But data quality remains an issue. There can be a lag time in collecting data of up to two weeks鈥攁nd every state has different systems for collecting information from its many counties and hospitals.

To help separate the 鈥渘oise鈥� from real data points, Silver recommends that states adopt streamlined and consistent methods to track indicators, gather data, and interpret the numbers. Without that, he says, 鈥淎ny conclusions you might draw might potentially be way off.鈥�

Additionally, authorities need to spend more time cleaning data sets. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 really 90 percent of the work. If you鈥檙e building from a faulty foundation, then you begin to have problems,鈥� he said.

Forecasting the Economy

With 40 million Americans out of work and the stock market fluctuating daily, there鈥檚 no clear consensus on what the future holds for the economy. According to Silver, it鈥檚 difficult to accurately forecast the economy because 鈥淲e鈥檙e flying blind.鈥� Reliable economic data spans the period from World War II onward, long after the 1919

Spanish Influenza epidemic鈥� the only modern correlate from a public health perspective.

To help predict the long-, mid- and short-term economic effects, Silver says it鈥檚 important to consider new metrics and models. 鈥淯sually I’m the guy who would say, 鈥楬ey, 98 percent of the time, trust your model.鈥� But if you haven’t trained the model on data that involves a pandemic, then that model might not be terribly useful really, and may even mislead you.鈥�

For example, Silver reports that researchers are using dinner reservation metrics from apps like OpenTable as a proxy to understand how people are returning to normal activities. Some economists also track how many people take commercial flights now compared with March and April.

Predicting the Election

Predicting the election results in November will be particularly challenging. 鈥淭he economy is both fluctuating a lot and highly uncertain, which is going to add uncertainty and volatility to the outcome,鈥� Silver said. 鈥淵ou can imagine a world in which you do have a V-shape recovery. You can imagine a world where the second wave hits and things get very bad again in the fall.鈥�

Silver points out that as states shift to voting by mail, it may delay results鈥攁s could potential litigation.

Moving forward, as sports start to open up, Silver will apply his statistical models to see how the pandemic impacts players and game outcomes. He has already discovered with no fans, there鈥檚 no advantage to playing at home versus away. But we鈥檒l need to wait until the ninth inning for other insights.

51风流is taking the following concrete steps toward social justice and equality:

1. Acknowledging the pain and grief of 51风流employees impacted by the situation and offering opportunities to address the emotions, as well as access to grief counselors. On June 4, 51风流North America President DJ Paoni and 51风流Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Judith Williams hosted a town hall to acknowledge the pain and grief of 51风流employees, and to offer access to grief counselors. During the event, a diverse group of employees graciously shared their concern and experiences with racial injustice.

2. Executing on its strategy to further increase diversity in the workforce and ensure that every 51风流employee has access to the same development opportunities. 51风流has set a new goal to double the representation of African American talent in the U.S. over the next three years. SAP鈥檚 focus is to better reflect the diversity of society and the customers it serves. 51风流will continue to partner with organizations that develop a qualified talent pipeline from communities currently underrepresented in the technology industry, like African Americans.

3. Doubling down on its existing commitment to education and economic development, in addition to adding direct support for social justice reform through the , among others.

4. Growing its pro bono economic development programs to strengthen Black-owned businesses and social enterprises by providing them with access to know-how and expertise from 51风流employees. 51风流has also introduced a new program, called “Spotlight Black Businesses,” to assist small, Black-owned businesses that have been impacted by COVID-19 and protests caused by social unrest. Through the new program, the company plans to allocate time on its social media channels and launch a website to raise awareness for these businesses.

5. Partnering with , the world’s largest movement of action takers and impact makers dedicated to ending extreme poverty by 2030. calls on citizens, business, government, and the social sector to tackle the enormous injustices the world is facing due to COVID-19 and racial unrest. 51风流has pledged its financial support alongside other global corporations to end COVID-19, end injustice, and fight for the world we want. A number of these commitments will be announced during the summit and the concert on Saturday, June 27.

6. Joining the 鈥溾�� effort. 51风流will suspend all paid advertisements across Facebook and Instagram until the company signals a significant, action-driven commitment to combating the spread of hate speech and racism on its platforms. In order for real, meaningful change to occur, we must recognize, acknowledge and address our own role in the systems that perpetuate systemic racism.

In addition to these focused efforts to improve diversity and inclusion internally and support social justice reform and Black communities globally, 51风流will work closely with other business leaders to drive meaningful change to help the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives.

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Call to Action

Join 51风流and Global Citizen live from home on June 27 and support SAP鈥檚 commitment to helping the world run better and improving people鈥檚 lives.

The Global Citizen Concert will air on broadcasters across the globe, including ARD, Canal+ Group, RTVE in Europe; Bell Media, CBC, Citytv, and Global TV, in Canada; NBC and iHeartMedia in the U.S.; Grupo Globo in Brazil; MultiChoice Group and SABC in Africa; Fuji TV and Star India in Asia; and Channel Nine in Australia. The concert will also be streamed on global platforms, including Apple, Brut, Roku, Insight TV, TIDAL, Twitch, Twitter, Yahoo!, and YouTube. Additional broadcasters include BAR脟A TV, Bloomberg Television, Fundaci贸n Azteca, Mediacorp, MSNBC, MTV, SiriusXM, Sony Channel Latin America, and Turner Latin America. Check local listings for start times.

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To adapt more readily to dynamic market conditions, businesses need technology that is simpler, less complex, and more flexible. At the core of this new approach is a focus on enterprise software applications.

Most organizations have hundreds of applications, and some use thousands. That seems like a huge management challenge, and yet the complexity continues to grow. In fact, the number of applications we build and roll out in the next five years is expected to be greater than the volume we鈥檝e deployed in the last 40 years.

In the past, applications conformed to the available infrastructure. Companies designed their networks, administrators racked up the servers, and developers wrote code to those specifications. Everyone knew how to run, manage, and secure those types of networks.

Today, that certainty is gone. The current explosion of applications is largely based on cloud technologies built on containers and microservices. They are designed to meet new and changing business requirements, but they don鈥檛 necessarily conform to any particular infrastructure. As a result, all of the principles, guidelines, and processes need to change.

This is where software intelligence and context-aware IT infrastructures can help. Building context awareness and intelligence into the infrastructure can drive powerful new efficiencies that help organizations work more productively, maximize the advantages of all of their applications, and protect their networks.

Rising Application Complexity

Many companies are hurriedly migrating to the cloud. One retailer anticipated huge volumes of bursty traffic from its Web site during the year-end holidays. Rather than building new on-premise infrastructure, the company planned to relieve some of the pressure by moving certain applications and workloads to the cloud.

Because the retailer didn鈥檛 consider the context of the entire sales application universe, things started to go wrong. Customers began to make Web inquiries, but the now cloud-based application lacked connectivity with the supply chain applications. Requests couldn鈥檛 consider order backlogs.

The retailer needed to consider the context of how sales processes affected other parts of the business, such as supply chain and enterprise resource planning. Without the right interactions with related back-end processes, the cloud-based application couldn鈥檛 efficiently handle the order volume. In hybrid environments, enterprises must leverage context and intelligence to create efficient processes.

There鈥檚 one more significant issue. Companies with hybrid infrastructures are experiencing unprecedented levels of security breaches. Often companies try to apply the same security framework to hybrid environments that they used for their client-server infrastructures. Unfortunately, these security approaches cannot scale effectively in hybrid environments.

Yet the explosion of applications is creating huge volumes of data鈥搃n some cases, billions of data signals each day. It鈥檚 impossible for organizations to manually sort through so many signals, so they begin to filter them. Often filtering is insufficient to identify and isolate real threats.

Instead, enterprises need to create security intrinsically, deploying a security posture across applications and data that scales in native cloud environments. By assessing behavioral patterns in the application context, the enterprise can apply intelligence to threat response鈥揾elping companies reduce attacks by 90 percent or more.

Application Abstraction for Cloud Deployments

VMware has been tackling the challenges of data center infrastructure complexity for 20 years. As an early virtualization leader, we abstracted compute hardware and fabrics. Now we are guiding companies through new challenges in their application landscape.

Often our clients deploy cloud-based enterprise applications that fit their business needs, almost with- out regard for where the software executes. As a result, most companies run an average of four to five clouds, including hyperscalers such as Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. This creates infrastructure-wide management and maintenance issues. More of the enterprise data resides outside of the data center, creating worries about how it can be secured. And employees want to access all of these applications, often from their own devices 鈥� requiring companies to support a wide variety of end points and mobile platforms.

By building cloud-based applications in this environment, many companies commit themselves to certain infra- structure choices. Imagine that a developer chooses a particular application programming interface (API) and uses it to quickly write an application. The solution is up and running quickly, which is great. But that API might only run on Google Cloud Platform or AWS.

To address this, VMware developed the same kind of abstraction layer for application development that we created two decades ago for hardware and data centers. By abstracting the build and run component of these modern applications, our technology allows enterprises to pick a onetime run platform and run the application in the data center, on the public cloud, or in a hybrid environment.

The virtualization technology, which is part of the VMware Tanzu portfolio of products, allows companies to build new cloud-native applications, modernize existing software, manage cloud-native applications and microservices, and operate infrastructure that serves all of the applications across any cloud.

Role-based access allows administrators to view the infrastructure, set up storage, create networks, and assign resources. DevOps team members can define workspaces, name spaces, and application clusters. The tool brings administrators and developers together so they can work efficiently and in pursuit of the same goals.

Application developers benefit from accelerated work- flows because the technology provides a consistent dashboard, exposes the right APIs, and offers useful tool sets. The technology also offers an automated blueprint to developers and reuses valuable code from a catalog of custom-developed software and cloud-native services.

Data center administrators gain value from technology, such as a lifecycle manager that automates the processing of operating system and application patches. Using machine learning, the solution tracks all levels of patches and deploys them automatically. Back-end intelligence helps the data center become largely self-driven鈥揻reeing administrators for more valuable work.

To bring the solution to market, we partnered with all of the main cloud vendors鈥搃ncluding key hyperscalers and 4,000 service providers鈥搕o create a consistent infrastructure and operation platform that scales across all clouds. Partners run the VMware stack within their data centers. Our stack virtualizes and automates all of the networking and storage, not just compute resources, allowing us to provide intelligent, context-aware infrastructure as a service.

One client, a larger insurance company, used this new technology to migrate 300 applications from its internal data center to a public cloud. Originally the company estimated three months of labor for each application migration, or 900 labor-months at a cost of approximately US$1 million per application. Using VMware solutions, the company migrated all 300 applications in just a few months鈥揳nd at less than five percent of the original budget.

Intrinsic Security

Virtualized technologies can also improve a company鈥檚 infrastructure security. Three years ago, VMware identified a problem that鈥檚 common to many enterprises: we had more than 100 security tools and they could not scale. With each new threat, it seemed we deployed an additional product. No one wanted to remove any of these tools, for fear that it might expose us to a security breach.

Using our own technology to create intrinsic security, we were able to reduce our collection of 100 security tools to just a dozen in two years. By building security into the key control points鈥搒uch as networks, end points, identities, access, and users鈥搘e converted breach-sensitive areas into points of control. If those applications and data move to different clouds or become decomposed into container microservices for modern applications, we can still retain that security posture.

The security solutions understand the intent of an application and know when its operational state is positive. Using network intelligence to assess patterns, we can look for behavioral changes from the ideal state and respond to those鈥搃nstead of chasing potentially bad behaviors. Because all of the security tools communicate, we can see unwanted network activity and block it. In addition, the solution can automatically remediate problem areas. By abstracting, automating, and unifying our security posture, the technology delivers security built on intelligence and context awareness.

User Experience Benefits

End users get a uniform workflow experience, no matter which device or operating system they choose. Single sign-on and a wide selection of productivity tools allow employees to work smarter, thanks to contextualized workflows that make it easy for applications to share information. At VMware, integration between our meeting, scheduling, and navigation software helps me move quickly and efficiently from one meeting room to another on our 100-acre campus.

The technology has also helped me streamline employee approvals for members of my team. Intelligent workflows consolidate all of my approvals and let me approve or decline a request from one location. Together, these intelligent applications reduce complexity and save me about one day of every workweek. That鈥檚 value that no enterprise wants to live without.

About Horizons by 51风流

Horizons by 51风流is a future-focused journal where forward thinkers in the global tech ecosystem share perspectives on how technologies and business trends will impact 51风流customers in the future. The 2020 issue of Horizons by 51风流focuses on Context-Aware IT, with contributors from SAP, Microsoft, Verizon, Mozilla, and more. To learn and read more, visit .

Read more 51风流by Horizons stories on the 51风流News Center.

Muneyb Minhazuddin is vice president of Solutions and Product Marketing at VMware Inc.

The current extraordinary circumstances and the uncertain outlook ahead are underlining the imperative to leverage the full power of integrated solutions designed to help businesses operate in the 鈥渘ew now.鈥�

Only enterprises that leverage these solutions will survive and thrive in fast-changing environments, react rapidly to new realities, and make bold decisions with insight-based confidence and integrity.

SAP’s Business Technology Platform is a portfolio of integrated solutions that accelerate the transformation of data into business value. It includes database and data management, application development, integration, and analytics technologies that extend from premise to cloud.

This platform forms the foundation of a flexible enterprise strategy. In conjunction with 51风流and other applications, it provides the critical capabilities that drive resilience to the present turbulent conditions and powers agile innovation for the unpredictable environment ahead.

In response to customers鈥� needs at this time, we have designed three solution packages to help enterprises leverage the power of the Business Technology Platform and achieve the three core competencies of a modern and flexible enterprise: engagement, insight, and automation.

Engagement

Like many enterprises around the globe, 51风流has had to pivot to home working. We currently have 95 percent of our 100,000 people working at home, doing a brilliant job of keeping our 440,000 customers鈥� businesses running smoothly. They are able to do this not just because of our technology, but because they are committed to helping customers succeed.

One of the ways to maintain employee engagement at a time like this is to communicate well with people. Organizations need to show empathy to people鈥檚 situations and keep them well informed. Giving employees access to information on a self-service basis and personalized experience leaves them feeling confident to do their job.

Our is an employee communication app created using technology from 51风流and Qualtrics to provide employees with accurate real-time facts on COVID-19 as well as guidance on how to cope with the pandemic. The application enables users to collate information from trustworthy sources like the World Health Organization and combine it with specific country data, local government guidance, and their own company policies.

Users can input data about their personal situation to be guided to relevant advice. A conversational artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot makes access to the information intuitive and natural. Analytics allow the enterprise to monitor employee sentiment and manage engagement.

Zuellig Pharma got up and running with the app in just two weeks and are using it to provide essential information to their global workforce 24/7, helping them stay safe and productive.

Insight

The next core competence enterprises need is the ability to bring intelligent insight together for rapid response and forward planning. There are two building blocks of this capability: platform and apps.

There is no way an organization can react adequately to fast change if it has a bunch of loosely coupled line-of-business solutions built on different data models. The way to become an agile enterprise is to use modular apps on top of a global platform.

Cloud apps from 51风流adopt a single data model to power integrated business processes without the need for expensive third-party integration, and APIs enable partners to connect to non-51风流applications across hybrid landscapes. This is how an enterprise gets the real-time 360-degree insight it needs to make the right decisions.

One group for whom this is particularly challenging at present is retailers, which are currently struggling to reconfigure their business operations for a post-pandemic consumer paradigm.

This particular package uses the solutions within the Business Technology Platform along with a pre-packaged retail industry dashboard to help retailers harness all relevant information for insight-driven decision-making. It offers them a holistic view of their businesses and allows them to model the impact of further changes in operational constraints, supply chains, and consumer behaviour. Likewise, the solutions can be implemented for other businesses such as banks, real estate firms, and hospitality that are restructuring operations for business continuity.

In an even more critical use case, Parkland Hospital is using 51风流Analytics Cloud powered by 51风流HANA to provide true situational awareness to its ER department, giving real-time insight into patient volumes, bed utilization, and pod assignment.

Automation

Innovations with AI will soon be powering the automation of 60 percent of enterprise operational processes. Huge parts of the value chain can already be managed remotely, mitigating the impact of lockdowns.

AI is increasing the intelligence of operational processes by providing alerts and recommendations. One example is flagging up shortcomings in supply chains to COOs, or helping CFOs tweak their tactics in the light of real-time market insight.

Across all industries, AI-powered automation is freeing employees from low-value, repetitive tasks, empowering them to apply their skills to more interesting, higher-value work. Machine learning is helping organizations identify new trends in data so they can adapt and automate their business processes for maximum impact.

from 51风流can help to automate, enhance, and adapt business processes to changing demand. 51风流Intelligent Robotic Process Automation, 51风流Intelligent Business Process Management, and 51风流Conversational AI services together put digital process automation to work, freeing people to create innovative responses to these challenging times.

One public sector customer is using an intelligent bot from 51风流to process short-term allowance requests, which surged from 10,000 to 30,000 due to COVID-19. As a result, the company is processing cases 20-times faster than before. The solution has cut manual effort by up to 90 percent and it paid for itself within a month.

Success Together

SAP鈥檚 Business Technology Platform is empowering organizations in all industries across the globe to reinvent themselves as flexible enterprises.

As Susan Ferrier, group executive for People and Culture at National Australia Bank, one of our customers, : 鈥淲e鈥檝e seen this whole crisis unfold across our complete footprint around the world and it鈥檚 really been a time for reinvention 鈥� of the way we work, the way we connect, and of how our business model works. We got 85 percent of our workforce working at home in two weeks and we鈥檝e had to stand up a new way of communicating with employees. We鈥檙e pushing the situation as an opportunity to upskill and reskill through digital learning, especially using the skills inventory that sits in [SAP] SuccessFactors.鈥�

This is a powerful example of how enterprises using the Business Technology Platform can turn the world鈥檚 biggest challenges into our most significant opportunities.

Right now, we鈥檙e offering solution packages that help you leverage the power of SAP鈥檚 Business Technology Platform. Learn more about .

Irfan Khan is president of 51风流Platform & Technology.

鈥淎 refugee is someone who survived and who can create the future.鈥�

鈥揂mela Koluder

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), education and work in the MENA region will determine the livelihoods of more than 300 million people along with driving growth and development for generations to come. However, the current reality in the job market is economically unsustainable.

Batoul Husseini is the director of Government Affairs for the Middle East North and and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) lead for MENA at SAP. She is both ambitious and innovative, a digital inclusion trailblazer.

Husseini is responsible for the strategic development of the company鈥檚 government relations activities, promoting both technological transformation in the public sector and the positive role played by digital technologies in addressing economic and societal challenges around the world.

Husseini launched Refugee Code Week in 2016 at the World Humanitarian Summit. It is now known as Digital Skills for Today, a CSR collaboration among SAP, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Injaz Al Arab, ReBootKamp, and Re:Coded. While providing digital skills and training for refugees and youths, Digital Skills for Today also strives to train local nationals to meet the current market demand for skilled professionals in听information and communications technology (ICT), the fastest-growing sector of the economy.

鈥淭he initiative took off,鈥� she says. 鈥淒uring my visits to host coding workshops at different refugee camps, I saw how little things can be everything and beauty can be created from nothing. People used art to normalize the desert-like environment, they painted nature and water scenes on camp fences, and discarded bottles were repurposed as flowerpots. Nothing was taken for granted.鈥�

Digital Skills for Today addresses several critical regional challenges, including youth unemployment, inadequate workforce readiness, social injustice, and a lack of digital skills training. It provides training for youth as they rebuild their lives with tolerance, courage, and perseverance.

鈥淓specially in and around conflict zones, youth often face limited employment prospects and an inadequate or non-existent education system,鈥� Husseini explains. 鈥淭he initiative directly improves quality of life for beneficiaries by providing in-demand skills for the 21st century job market. Furthermore, it has valuable social outcomes, decreasing unemployment rates in marginalized populations and providing long-term opportunities for digital innovation and entrepreneurship.鈥�

The program is also about helping young people, including refugees, leapfrog their situation through intensive code training that leads to job placement. This is why 51风流works with and to turn literacy into expertise and expertise into employment.

鈥淭he initiative has introduced coding to over 45,000 young refugees and nationals across 14 countries since it was launched in 2016,鈥� Husseini adds. 鈥淢ore than 900 graduates have found gainful employment in Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq. Bringing about new skills and expertise in conflict-affected areas is essential to the development and reconstruction of those regions. We aim to reveal the many potential coding heroes that only lack the opportunity to improve their lives and build their own future. Our hands-on learning material and training sessions allow quick insertion into the workforce, thus shaping an entire generation of tech-savvy professionals.鈥�

Passionate about communications and language, Husseini speaks Arabic, English, and Dutch, and has a master鈥檚 degree in international business along with holding various qualifications in economics, business administration and computer information systems.

Her work with refugees has only cemented her desire to utilize digital platforms to make a difference. In recognition of her goal to increase ICT awareness both locally and globally, Husseini was named听the World Summit Awards special ambassador to Asia and she works closely with the organization to achieve its mission: promoting the world鈥檚 best e-content and innovative ICT applications and ultimately contributing to a true knowledge society.

鈥淭oday, I have a deep appreciation that everything I have is a privilege and I could lose it through no fault of my own,鈥� she shares. 鈥淕rowing up in Syria, I learned the importance of standing up for others and felt compelled to make a bigger impact. 51风流provided me with this opportunity, and for this year I鈥檓 excited to announce our virtual volunteering opportunities for staff, where they can provide expert skills and guidance to our NGOs and partners on the ground.鈥�

In closing, Husseini adds, 鈥淲orld Refugee Day is an incredibly significant day. Together with our partners, we can raise empathy, mobilize action, showcase solidarity, and create inclusion for minority groups — all to ultimately improve people鈥檚 lives and make the world run better.鈥�

For information about Digital Skills for Today, visit .