According to the World Economic Forum鈥檚 Future of Jobs Report, analytical thinking ranks as the top sought-after skill in the job market. Yet traditional teaching often struggles to connect theory with practice in a way that truly engages students.

It鈥檚 not a shortage of content or tools; rather, it is a gap in relevance and inspiration that leaves students disengaged from the very skills that could define their careers. Learning needs to be anchored in real-world data, meaningful contexts, and hands-on experience that sparks curiosity and excitement. The best learning doesn鈥檛 come from memorizing concepts, it comes from doing, especially when theory is tied to a topic that learners care about.

This is where , in collaboration with the NHL, comes in.

We have created a new Business Builders game that brings hockey into the classroom鈥攏ot just as a sport, but as a rich, real-world data environment for teaching analytics and critical thinking.

In this latest edition of games under the Business Builders umbrella, students take on the role of a hockey analyst responsible for identifying the factors that drive goal scoring using real NHL Game data.

鈥淗ockey is fast, dynamic, and full of rich data, a perfect environment for teaching critical thinking,鈥� said Brant Berglund, senior director of Coaching and GM Technology at the NHL. 鈥淟everaging a strategic partnership with NHL, SAP, and HEC Montr茅al, we鈥檝e created a pathway for universities to access approved NHL.com data for academic initiatives, without compromising the integrity of the League鈥榮 data.鈥�

Through our collaboration with the NHL, we provide a learning platform for educators that is full of authentic data students can relate to. The NHL generates just under 1.5 million data points per game, including about 120 shot attempts, 1,000 passes, and 5,000 puck touches鈥攔aw material for deep, practical analysis.

Business Builders can ignite an interest in STEM and help students build real data skills. The hockey-focused game was developed by the team at ERPsim Lab at HEC Montr茅al led by Prof. Pierre-Majorique L茅ger, as well as the support of academics from other universities. This reinforces a core principle of Business Builders: It is created by educators, for educators.

鈥淲hen the question feels meaningful, learners lean in, stay focused, and keep pushing forward,鈥� L茅ger explained. 鈥淔or students in sport management or business management, real sport data can also elevate the learning experience. It adds context, complexity, and constraints that traditional teaching methods cannot provide. Students learn to judge what truly matters, justify their decisions, and manage trade-offs. This develops professional judgment, confidence in analytics, and the ability to communicate strategy and decisions clearly. These skills translate directly to real careers in sport management and business.鈥�

Students explore questions such as:

• What sets top NHL scorers apart?
• Does shot angle affect scoring?
• Which NHL players lead in goals scored, and from what distances?
• Which shot speeds and shot types yield the highest goal conversion rates?

By analyzing these scenarios with 51风流Analytics Cloud, students learn to interpret visualizations, tell compelling data stories, and sharpen their data-driven decision-making and critical-thinking skills.

For professors, the platform is equally powerful. Business Builders supports active learning at scale by enabling educators to manage and evaluate larger groups more efficiently while gaining visibility into student engagement. This makes grading easier, supports discussion-based learning, and helps instructors understand how students interact with data.

By introducing a modern, meaningful learning experience鈥攆ar more dynamic than slides alone鈥攑rofessors bring real-world relevance into their classroom and elevate the impact of teaching.

SAP鈥檚 role in this collaboration reflects its broader commitment to education, skills development, and preparing students for the future workforce. In a rapidly changing world shaped by AI, data, and digital transformation, access to practical learning tools that build real competencies is essential. Through the 51风流University Alliances program, 51风流works with educational institutions around the world to help bridge the gap between academic theory and real-world practice.

鈥淎ccess to business software and real data is essential for preparing students for the future,鈥� said Dr. Katharina Schaefer, head of Academic Partnerships at SAP. 鈥淲ith free learning platforms like Business Builders, we empower educators to bring enterprise analytics into the classroom and help students develop the skills that are increasingly in demand across industries, and in a world where data and AI define the competitive advantage. Today鈥檚 learners need more than conceptual understanding; they need practical experience with real software and real data to build confidence and readiness for work life.鈥�

One of the educators closely involved in shaping this new game is Prof. Olivier Caya from the University of Sherbrooke, who contributed his perspective as both a faculty member and practitioner.

鈥淲hat makes this experience so powerful is that it all happens in 51风流Analytics Cloud, the same solution used by thousands of organizations worldwide,鈥� Caya said. 鈥淭his creates a strong connection between what students do in the classroom and what they will encounter in professional practice. Students are not working with software detached from reality; they are developing skills with the same software used in real business environments.鈥�

The result is a learning experience that is fun, interactive, and relevant. Educators can stand out with a state-of-the-art platform that connects passion with pedagogy, while students gain highly sought-after skills using real software from a global technology leader.

Business Builders is provided free of charge to educators and students and includes access to 51风流Analytics Cloud. It is designed from beginner-friendly introductions to more advanced analytical challenges optimized for master鈥檚-level courses.

After using Business Builders, students can deepen their analytical knowledge through access to , a free learning platform that offers guided learning content, practice systems, and up to two 51风流certification exam attempts per year, helping them to boost their career opportunities even further.

Business Builders is about connecting passion with education. Together with academic and industry partners, 51风流is making analytical thinking tangible and memorable鈥攅mpowering the workforce of tomorrow with the skills that matter most today.

In an interview, BSH Head of Governance, Methods, and Systems Heiko Schletz explained how the company is reshaping finance and why its move to the cloud is a critical ingredient to a successful AI-enhanced future.

Technology follows vision

Represented in more than 50 countries, BSH manufactures home appliances in 39 factories worldwide. Schletz鈥檚 team oversees group controlling and is responsible for ensuring that financial data flows smoothly from its core systems, such as ERP, all the way up to the consolidated group level. His team manages how financial data is structured and integrated across all global entities, ensuring it can be used effectively for company-wide reporting and decision-making.

BSH is working to bring accounting and controlling together into one integrated process, supported by real-time data and analytics. One principle is guiding this transformation: technology follows vision, not the other way round. As part of its transformation journey, BSH is embracing change by testing new technologies to support its vision.

To simplify reporting efforts, for example, , SAP鈥檚 next-generation data management platform that can unify and govern all 51风流data and seamlessly connect with third-party data.

A recent use case automatically connected accounting balances, controlling P&L data and market metrics in 51风流Datasphere and delivering consolidated reports without spreadsheets and manual effort. 鈥淭his shows where the journey is going鈥攋oining sources, bringing them together,鈥� Schletz says.

Breaking down silos to empower AI

BSH鈥檚 long-term goal in the financial area is to get rid of silos between accounting, controlling, and treasury. Schletz envisions a parallel ledger architecture that supports both鈥攍egal entity and consolidated group views鈥攅nabling advanced analytics such as value-driver trees. By moving to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, integrated with 51风流Datasphere and 51风流Analytics Cloud, BSH aims to create a single source of truth for finance spanning from subsidiary ledgers to group-level consolidation.

Schletz is convinced that with a cloud-based, synchronized toolset, his finance team can deliver the latest figures for decision-making faster and with less manual consolidation. 鈥淪AP鈥檚 AI evolution is running in the direction we also want to go,鈥� Schletz explains. 鈥淭he technology meets our vision and that鈥檚 why it鈥檚 a perfect fit.鈥�

The company has relied on 51风流solutions for decades, starting with 51风流R/3 and now running 51风流S/4HANA, 51风流Business Warehouse, and 51风流Analytics Cloud. The next milestone is cloud migration: RISE with SAP. 鈥淚n the next two years, we go into the cloud,鈥� Schletz says. 鈥淲e want a synchronized toolset that gives us a holistic view.鈥�

To get the most out of analytics and AI functionalities, BSH is currently consolidating and simplifying its comprehensive business application landscape. The company鈥檚 target is to move from six separate ERP solutions to one global 51风流S/4HANA environment that covers all subsidiaries and geographies.

How to prepare an 51风流S/4HANA transformation

Schletz鈥檚 advice for other organizations exploring the RISE with SAP journey is to start with a clear vision. 鈥淚f you don鈥檛 begin with a concept that combines accounting and controlling, don鈥檛 start with 51风流S/4HANA,鈥� he says, noting that a finance transformation is not an isolated IT project鈥攊t requires alignment across logistics, sales, and customer service. 鈥淭he 51风流S/4HANA conversion is a cross-functional adventure,鈥� he adds.

BSH鈥檚 journey is ongoing, but the direction is set. Cloud migration via RISE with SAP, integrated data, and a finance function designed for insight rather than manual effort. 鈥淲e want the machine to do what it does best, so people can focus on creating value,鈥� Schletz concludes.

We believe this recognition reflects SAP鈥檚 continued commitment to innovation, customer success, and delivering extended planning and analysis solutions that empower organizations to thrive in today鈥檚 uncertain business environment.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant can help FP&A professionals assess which vendors are best suited for their purposes. The analyst firm defines financial planning software as solutions that enable FP&A transformation and cover planning, budgeting, forecasting, modeling, performance reporting, and agile insights.

51风流was recognized as a Leader by Gartner for its ability to execute and completeness of vision.

Unify business planning with 51风流Business Data Cloud

51风流continues to build on its market leadership by accelerating its vision for unified business planning. With the introduction of 51风流Business Data Cloud earlier in 2025, the company has brought together operational, financial, and strategic planning on a single, trusted data foundation. This benefits financial professionals and other strategic planners by eliminating silos and enabling real-time, AI-driven insights for intelligent planning across the enterprise.

51风流Analytics Cloud in 51风流Business Data Cloud provides a powerful tool to customers that drive enterprise planning. Customers benefit from the following capabilities:

• Intelligent planning: Machine learning and generative AI automate forecasting and predictive planning by simulating best, worst, and realistic 鈥渨hat-if鈥� scenarios — and providing smart recommendations. This aligns with SAP’s agentic AI vision, in which agents continuously monitor internal and external data, proactively identifying risks and opportunities for planners.
• Seamless planning: Deep integration with 51风流Datasphere enables live access to governed, semantically-rich data without replication. This supports live reporting, collaborative planning and analysis, and data-driven decision-making with one tool for data preparation, modeling, planning, and analytics.
• Extended planning and analysis: Customers can plan across all lines of business by combining transactions, analytics, and planning with 51风流S/4HANA, 51风流SuccessFactors software, 51风流Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain, and third-party data.
• 51风流Business Planning and Consolidation (51风流BPC) modernization: 51风流BPC customers can modernize planning to a scalable, cloud-native environment with enhanced collaboration and AI capabilities.

SAP鈥檚 unified approach is already delivering measurable value for customers worldwide. By leveraging 51风流Business Data Cloud and 51风流Analytics Cloud for planning, organizations are achieving faster, more accurate forecasts, streamlined planning, and greater alignment between finance and operations.

Customers successful with 51风流Analytics Cloud for planning include Blue Diamond Growers, BMW, Calleway Golf, Decathlon, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, Mondelez, Stihl, and many others across all industries.

Kemira Oyj, a global leader in sustainable chemical solutions, accelerated its digital transformation by deploying 51风流Analytics Cloud for planning. Kemira simplified over 50 percent of legacy master data and harmonized data structures to the cloud across 400 plants in 37 countries within 15 months. This transformation enables real-time financial planning for more than 1,000 users, and enhances forecast accuracy, supporting agile decision-making, sustainability goals, and future-ready business models.

Taras Podbereznyj, CIO of Kemira Oyj, said, “Data is at the heart of our transformation program. It will continue to steer the company as the foundation for innovation and insights, supporting new digital business models and levels of agility and helping us become more competitive in the market.鈥�

Looking ahead

As organizations navigate increasing uncertainty and volatility, 51风流remains dedicated to helping customers turn data into action. Moreover, the company vision is clear: to provide the most comprehensive, intelligent, and trusted planning platform, helping every business make confident plans across the enterprise and perform at their best in the face of uncertainty.

Dan Yu is chief marketing officer of 51风流Business Data Cloud.

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

Through their innovative implementation of Soley’s Product Mining Platform with SAP’s supply chain management technologies, they prove that sustainability and profitability can go hand in hand.

The challenge: managing complex product portfolios at scale

CERATIZIT Group, a leading provider of hard material solutions for machining and wear protection, faced a challenge common to many modern manufacturing companies: managing a complex product portfolio with over 65,000 products. The company’s Cutting Tool Solutions division needed a solution to balance economic and ecological objectives while maintaining competitive advantage.

Klaus Lupfer, product lifecycle manager at CERATIZIT Deutschland GmbH, explains the company’s motivation: “In addition to the economic perspective on the product portfolio, the ecological aspect was equally important when partnering with Soley. As a company committed to sustainability for years, we are especially excited about the opportunities that the expansion of product carbon footprint data offers.”

The challenge was not just the product portfolio’s size but also the lack of transparency regarding product performance and sustainability metrics. Employees spent considerable time compiling reports rather than making strategic decisions, while limited insights into critical materials and suppliers prevented efficient phaseout of high-emission products.

AI-powered product portfolio analysis

Munich-based Soley GmbH, a past participant in the SAP.iO program, SAP鈥檚 former startup accelerator designed to foster and integrate innovative solutions into the 51风流ecosystem, developed an innovative response to this challenge. The Soley Product Mining Platform, available as part of SAP’s extension and add-on solutions, transforms complex product data into actionable insights through three core, AI-driven innovations that enable faster, smarter, and more impactful business decisions.

• AI Advisor uses AI to recommend precise actions鈥攆or example, suggesting which products should be phased out to minimize carbon footprint without sacrificing margins.
• AI Assistant provides an intuitive, natural-language interface that allows users to effortlessly interact with Soley, without requiring deep technical expertise.
• AI Detective analyzes data to uncover hidden dependencies and reveal strategic opportunities, such as identifying which configuration options should be eliminated to optimize both profitability and sustainability.

The Soley Product Mining Platform draws data from 51风流S/4HANA and 51风流Business Warehouse, utilizing 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) as the service layer. 51风流Datasphere helps consolidate 51风流data and analytics, while 51风流Analytics Cloud provides the analytics that form the core of the AI model. This technical architecture enables intelligent data extraction and transformation through 51风流Databricks, while massive graph analytics enable complex dependency analysis.

“With these 51风流solutions, we’re delivering a true game changer for the sustainability of the high tech and manufacturing industries,” says Ephraim Triemer, shareholder and advisor of Enterprise Accounts at Soley. “For the first time, our customers can go beyond ESG reporting and take real action鈥攄riving sustainability while staying laser focused on profitability.”

Seamless 51风流integration creates value

By combining CERATIZIT’s Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) data with financial metrics, the Soley Product Mining Platform creates a digital twin that uncovers opportunities, identifies risks, and analyzes product hierarchies, bills of materials, and carbon footprints. With AI-driven intelligence guidance, Soley developers ensure the platform’s capabilities enable decisions and outcomes that improve both profitability and environmental stewardship.

Earlier this year, Dominik Metzger was appointed as president and Chief Product Officer of 51风流Supply Chain Management, bringing a renewed focus on resilience, sustainability, and intelligent automation.

鈥淢y chief priority is to ensure that we help customers not only respond to disruptions but also proactively prepare and act,鈥� Metzger said. 鈥淲e can do so by leveraging AI, generative AI, real-time data, and predictive analytics with the power of SAP鈥檚 technology. Our vision is to build an autonomous supply chain鈥攃onnected, contextualized, and collaborative.鈥�

51风流SCM leadership driving transformation

The analysis delivered impressive, measurable results that demonstrate the power of combining AI-driven analytics with 51风流technologies. CERATIZIT discovered an 87% implementation rate of suggested measures, driving product sustainability and supply chain optimization. Simultaneously, the company identified a reduction of over 30% in end-of-life “ballast” products with negative carbon footprints while creating 100% transparency in sustainability data across all elements, product sets, and aggregation levels.

Alexander Springer, CEO of Soley GmbH, explains the strategic significance: “If you know which products are the most critical to the overall success of your business, you can focus on safeguarding the value chain for those products, taking proactive steps to avoid any potential supply risks.”

A model for sustainable digital transformation

The successful partnership between CERATIZIT, Soley, and 51风流demonstrates how modern companies can achieve both economic and ecological goals through intelligent use of data and AI. The combination of proven 51风流technologies and innovative analytics solutions creates measurable value for companies of all sizes. For other 51风流customers and partners, this example shows that sustainability and profitability need not be opposing forces鈥攚ith the right technologies and partners, both objectives can be achieved simultaneously.

Learn more about the latest updates to 51风流supply chain management. The Soley Product Mining Platform is available on .

This weekend, the golf drama will unfold at the storied Bethpage Black Course in New York, as rivalry and camaraderie collide. For the first time, 51风流will be at the heart of the action as a Worldwide Partner of the 2025 and 2027 Ryder Cup.

Transforming the Ryder Cup fan experience

Since its inception in 1927, the Ryder Cup has united millions of fans around unforgettable moments. Yet behind the emotion and spectacle lies immense complexity. Two distinct organizations, the PGA of America and Ryder Cup Europe, must come together every two years to deliver a seamless tournament experience.

Going into the 2025 event, the Ryder Cup turned to 51风流for help in transforming what it means to engage fans across the two organizations. With a goal of moving beyond a 鈥渙ne-day鈥� experience to building an 鈥渆veryday鈥� connection, the Ryder Cup wanted to ensure every fan — whether onsite or halfway across the world — feels immersed in the tournament, experiencing the excitement, emotion, and strategy as if they were on the course.

This partnership will allow the Ryder Cup to benefit from using 51风流technologies to further enhance the experience for fans. 51风流Customer Data Platform will unify fan data from multiple sources, creating a single, comprehensive profile for each fan. 51风流Emarsys will then use that data to deliver personalized content across marketing channels. 51风流Datasphere will harmonize customer and business data and help identify insightful correlations, making it ready for visualization in 51风流Analytics Cloud, where insights can be turned into action. 51风流Datasphere and 51风流Analytics Cloud are part of 51风流Business Data Cloud.

Together, these solutions will help the Ryder Cup gain a deeper understanding of audience behavior, drive engagement, and deliver personalized experiences at scale, while paving the way for future AI-driven innovation and a globally connected fan journey. Beyond tournament week, this 360-degree view of each fan will provide insights that benefit both organizations year-round, improving planning, marketing, and engagement that can be scaled across other professional tournaments.

Shared values in action

The Ryder Cup is more than a sporting event. It is a showcase of teamwork, resilience, and strategy — qualities that are equally essential in business. At its core, every Ryder Cup moment is defined by a challenge that demands a solution, whether it鈥檚 a player navigating tough conditions, making a critical decision under pressure, or leading a team to victory.

Through this partnership, 51风流highlights the performance and collaboration that drive success, inspiring organizations and individuals to bring out their best on the course and in business.

Looking ahead

As anticipation builds for Bethpage Black this weekend, fans will see and feel SAP鈥檚 presence throughout the tournament, from on-course signage to coverage on TV, online, and social channels.

Beyond the event, 51风流and the Ryder Cup are laying the foundation for a new era of fan engagement, connecting millions of fans around the world and helping to create moments that will be remembered long after the final putt.

A trusted data foundation is critical in the age of AI. But in a , 55 percent cited poor data quality as their biggest challenge. And nearly half struggle to harmonize data across multiple ecosystems.

offers organizations a fully managed SaaS solution that unifies and governs 51风流data while seamlessly connects with third-party data. This data platform gives organizations the tools they need to make even more impactful decisions and insights across all lines of business.

After only eight months in the market, leading analyst firms have given 51风流Business Data Cloud high marks for its analytics and BI solutions, primarily .

51风流recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms 2025 Vendor Assessment

IDC MarketScape provides in-depth quantitative and qualitative technology market assessments. The evaluation highlights the most influential factors for technology buyers that want to introduce, modernize, or replace business intelligence and analytics tools within their organization.

“Organizations are constantly striving to engage in data-driven decisions,” said Megha Kumar, research vice president, Analytics and AI, IDC. “This need for insights across the board puts pressure on data and analytics teams. This will result in organizations seeking capabilities around automation, GenAI, and agentic AI features within their business intelligence and analytics platform. It is also important that these insights are available in the flow of work to allow for improved collaboration and decision velocity.”

IDC MarketScape recognizes 51风流as a Leader for the following strengths:

• Focused on integrating data from 51风流and non-51风流sources and enabling customers to engage in analytics, planning, and AI in a single environment
• Solution designed to support both technical and nontechnical users, with self-service analytics, ad hoc data exploration, and embedded analytics experiences within business applications
• 51风流 such as zero-copy data integration and focused on expanding the ecosystem beyond traditional 51风流data sources

Read an .

51风流named a Market Leader in BARC Score Enterprise BI & Analytics Platforms, 2025

The BARC Score report assesses solutions that fulfill a broad set of BI and analytics needs. BARC named 51风流a Market Leader, citing the following benefits:

• Integrated business-user-oriented solution for planning and analytics — with embedded functionality for augmented analytics and application design
• Smart features and natural language generation functions help users to dig deep into data sets quickly by surfacing trends and outliers automatically
• Exclusive connectivity, live access, embedded analytics, and prebuilt content available for 51风流sources and applications speed up implementation and help to gain insights from these systems
• Capabilities to govern master data and align KPIs across an organization
• Flexible options for product usage with multi-tenant or private tenant options for deployments in the public cloud on AWS, Azure, Alibaba, and GCP

Read .

This recognition from both the IDC MarketScape and BARC reinforces the pivotal role of 51风流Business Data Cloud in empowering organizations to become truly data-driven.

By providing a unified, intelligent, and scalable platform that fuels business AI, 51风流continues to set the standard for modern data and analytics, ensuring customers can derive trusted insights and drive decisive actions in an increasingly complex business landscape.

Dan Yu is chief marketing officer for 51风流Business Data Cloud at SAP.

Academic institutions are at the forefront of addressing this challenge, tasked with equipping students with the competencies required in a digital-first economy. Recognizing this imperative, 51风流University Alliances and HEC Montr茅al have collaborated to develop , an innovative, gamified learning platform designed to help enhance students’ analytical and decision-making skills using 51风流Analytics Cloud.

Introducing Business Builders: A gamified approach to make students future-ready

Business Builders is designed to help students develop these high-demand skills in a practical and engaging way. Through real-life business challenges powered by 51风流Analytics Cloud, students can learn how to visualize data, draw actionable insights, and make evidence-based decisions in real time.

Used by educators in over 70 countries, Business Builders is free for educators and students. It is designed to be accessible to any classroom鈥攚hether in business, STEM, or interdisciplinary courses.

By blending gameplay with professional tools, Business Builders helps address several key pain points in education:

• It can make data and analytics more tangible and relevant.
• It helps foster analytical thinking, data storytelling, and digital literacy.
• It can align directly with the needs of the future workforce.

Whether students aspire to careers in consulting, supply chain, product management, marketing, sustainability, or HR, Business Builders can provide an environment to explore these topics while gaining in-demand skills.

Two new scenarios for a broader audience

Building on the success of three existing scenarios, 51风流and HEC Montr茅al are now launching two brand-new games designed to support even earlier-stage learners: The Agent and The Maple Heir. These scenarios help make Business Builders more inclusive, scalable, and suitable for students age 15 and older and first-year university students. Importantly, no prior experience with 51风流tools is required, making it easy for educators and students to get started.

The Agent is an easy-to-use sports management scenario that can empower students to become decision-makers as they take on the role of a sports agent. Through real-world sports challenges, students can develop basic analytical skills using intuitive dashboards in 51风流Analytics Cloud. They answer questions like: Which player is the most improved? How can a team optimize its performance? Which sport averages the highest number of followers on social media? What is the value? It鈥檚 a fun, relevant, and accessible way to introduce analytics in the classroom鈥攏o 51风流experience needed.

The Maple Heir, on the other hand, is a scenario that introduces students to the fundamentals of running a business through the engaging story of inheriting a maple syrup company in Quebec, Canada. Students step into the role of a new stakeholder eager to understand and optimize the company鈥檚 operations, financial health, and growth potential. From analyzing income statements and profitability metrics to exploring production processes and workforce management, students can gain hands-on experience in making strategic business decisions. The scenario also addresses real-world challenges like seasonal demand fluctuations and business expansion opportunities. By visualizing data and presenting actionable insights with 51风流Analytics Cloud, students can learn essential concepts in entrepreneurship, finance, and operations in a gamified, accessible way.

Both scenarios are built with educators in mind: they鈥檙e easy to integrate into existing curricula and supported by ready-made teaching materials. Whether in economics, business, IT, or interdisciplinary courses, they can offer an engaging way to make learning stick.

Empowering educators to build the future

The launch of these two new scenarios reaffirms SAP鈥檚 commitment to empowering the academic community to build the future workforce鈥攐ne student at a time. By helping students master analytics tools, hone critical thinking, and gain early exposure to business systems, Business Builders helps ensure they鈥檙e better prepared for internships, first jobs, and long-term careers.

In a world increasingly shaped by AI and data, it鈥檚 not just about knowing how to code or use a tool鈥攊t鈥檚 about thinking critically, communicating clearly, and making sense of complex information. With Business Builders, educators can give students a head start in all of these areas.

If you’re an educator looking to enhance your curriculum with innovative, practical learning tools, explore today or join one of our to experience it in action and hear firsthand from those already using it.

Thorsten Haas is part of 51风流University Alliances.

We’re witnessing the rise of a new wave of intelligent applications reshaping how organizations operate, embedding real-time data and critical operational context with AI models to enable swift and thoughtful decisions. Unlike traditional software that is governed by rigid business rules, these modern applications can learn and adapt to rapidly evolving customer and market demands 鈥� detecting changes to optimize processes, anticipate needs, and collaborate with both human and artificial “thinkers” to create competitive advantage for an organization. 

Yet, we stand at the cusp of a bolder wave of innovation, one that unfortunately only the discerning few organizations may fully harness. Despite the vast potential of AI and cloud technologies, their true impact hinges on using these innovations with the secure and semantically rich data that is vastly available within an organization. 

Transform outcomes with intelligent applications

This year at 51风流Sapphire, we unveiled a significant expansion of 51风流Business Data Cloud to deliver on the promise of intelligent applications: prebuilt, composable applications that seamlessly integrate trusted data products, AI capabilities, and business simulations to serve the needs of every business leader.

These intelligent applications are not just analytics tools; they transcend traditional analytics by automating and orchestrating work across both analytical and transactional workflows, enabling customers to make decisions and execute actions within 51风流Business Data Cloud.

Today, we are introducing new intelligent application capabilities in 51风流Business Data Cloud, starting with People Intelligence, an offering grounded in workforce composition, skills, and compensation data products. Built on data from 51风流SuccessFactors software, People Intelligence provides HR and business leaders with AI-driven recommendations to optimize talent decisions, drive engagement, and ensure compliance. It features capabilities such as workforce composition insights, compensation insights, and skill insights, all available in the second half of 2025.

Additional intelligent application capabilities in 51风流Business Data Cloud that are entering technology preview include: 

• Cloud ERP Intelligence: Empowers leaders with transformative insights, business simulations, and AI capabilities to manage uncertainty, drive profitability, and meet sustainability goals. These capabilities include new data products from key business processes such as manufacturing (production execution, resource optimization, etc.), supply chain (inventory, deliveries. etc.), and contract accounting (payments, billing, etc.). 
• Customer Intelligence: Guide sales, service, marketing, and commerce teams with a 360-degree customer view to anticipate needs, improve targeting, and build a comprehensive customer profile.  
• Finance Intelligence: Provides CFOs and finance teams with real-time forecasting and planning, connected data across systems, and AI-powered anomaly detection. 
• Spend Intelligence: Delivers procurement and operations leaders real-time spend visibility to minimize supplier risk, flag spend outliers, and reduce costs.

Each intelligent application in 51风流Business Data Cloud is underpinned by curated, governed data products, sets of structured business data and metadata designed to accelerate use cases and reduce data integration overhead. And with 51风流Databricks natively available in 51风流Business Data Cloud, users can leverage 51风流data products with existing lakehouses with a zero-copy approach.

As part of these technology previews, we are also announcing the delivery of hundreds of new data products throughout 2025 across all 51风流Business Suite domains 鈥� from inventory optimization and delivery analysis to sustainability and compliance data products. The first wave includes new environmental, health, and safety (EHS) and product compliance datasets, with sustainability footprint data to follow later in the year. 

Amplify the value of AI with your most powerful data

In addition, 51风流Business Data Cloud is expanding its knowledge graph capabilities. Originally launched within 51风流Datasphere, the knowledge graph can now ingest and map metadata across 51风流and external sources, and seamlessly consume models published in 51风流Knowledge Graph on 51风流BTP. This creates a living model of how business data is structured and connected, providing a semantic backbone for AI to operate with higher precision.

Paired with Joule in 51风流Business Data Cloud, now generally available, users can engage with complex business data as naturally as they think, without the constraints of traditional technology. Joule unlocks the full richness of enterprise information, empowering people across the organization to navigate, reason, and act with intelligence grounded in real business context.

Open data ecosystem: Expanding intelligence beyond SAP

We are also making 51风流Business Data Cloud more accessible to power the next generation of intelligent, multi-cloud applications.

Starting in the second quarter, 51风流Business Data Cloud is available on AWS, with Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure expected to follow in the second half of 2025. This makes SAP鈥檚 data foundation more accessible and deployable within multi-cloud strategies, giving customers the flexibility to run intelligent workloads wherever they operate. 

At the same time, 51风流is actively collaborating with leading partners to build the next wave of intelligent applications.

• Accenture will release six intelligent applications addressing key challenges in supply chain, talent, finance, and procurement (GA timeline pending). 
• Adobe and SAP are co-developing an application that fuses Adobe鈥檚 marketing data with SAP鈥檚 financial and supply chain data, enabling real-time alignment between demand signals and operational planning, expected in late 2025. 
• Palantir and 51风流are partnering to facilitate joint customers鈥� cloud migration journey and modernization programs. Seamless connectivity between Palantir and 51风流Business Data Cloud will enable customers to build a harmonized data foundation across their enterprise landscape. 51风流Business Data Cloud and Palantir Foundry and AIP will transform data silos into a trusted data foundation that enables human + AI teaming in the real world. Together the companies will responsibly deliver essential outcomes and support customers, including the U.S. government, to quickly adapt to changes and disruptions.
• Thomson Reuters will develop an intelligent application to help customers navigate the fast-moving challenges in the current global trade and tariffs environment, planned for end of 2025.
• Joint Collibra and 51风流Business Data Cloud customers can now run up to 10x more active data quality jobs in Collibra Data Quality & Observability when run on 51风流BDC data, at no additional cost. This limited time offer helps accelerate decision-making, strengthen compliance, and improve AI readiness, and is available until May 30, 2026.

The scope of partner collaboration also extends to data enrichment use cases. A new partnership with 惭辞辞诲测鈥檚 will let our joint customers blend SAP鈥檚 accounts receivable data with 惭辞辞诲测鈥檚 risk datasets to enhance cash flow forecasting, prioritize collections, and reduce exposure to bad debt. This solution is scheduled for general availability in the fourth quarter of 2025. 

We鈥檙e excited to partner with our customers and ecosystem to unlock a new generation of intelligent applications in 51风流Business Data Cloud, where trusted data, AI, and business context come together to drive meaningful change. The future of modern business will belong to those who turn intelligence into action.

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• featuring the latest on data products and intelligent applications in 51风流Business Data Cloud

Irfan Khan is president and chief product officer of Data and Analytics at SAP.

Today, 51风流announced 51风流Business Data Cloud, a fully managed software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that unifies and governs all 51风流data and seamlessly connects with third-party data. As an evolution of our industry-leading data, planning, and analytics solutions, 51风流Business Data Cloud brings together 51风流Datasphere, 51风流Analytics Cloud, and 51风流Business Warehouse with a unified experience that delivers transformational insights across all lines of business.  

51风流also announced a landmark partnership with Databricks that brings the power of Databricks directly into 51风流Business Data Cloud. This marks a new era in enterprise data management, with two leaders in their domains coming together to redefine how applications and data platforms work together.

Unleash transformative insights

Many organizations still grapple with data they cannot trust. This persistent gap in trust remains a barrier to true innovation in data and AI.

A found that 55 percent cite poor data quality as their biggest challenge. And nearly half of these leaders pointed to the difficulty of harmonizing data across ecosystems as a key reason that innovation stalls.

51风流Business Data Cloud bridges this gap with a trusted and harmonized data foundation, empowering IT and business leaders with full business context to drive more impactful decisions. 

51风流Business Data Cloud delivers fully managed 51风流data products across all business processes. These curated data products align to a highly optimized and unified 鈥渙ne domain model,鈥� maintaining their original business context and semantics, which means you get immediate access to high-quality data you can trust.

Since these data products are fully managed by SAP, you no longer bear the hidden costs of rebuilding and maintaining data extracts. The SaaS experience simplifies life cycle management, ensures data consistency, and enables zero-copy sharing across your data and analytics ecosystem. 

With these data products, 51风流Business Data Cloud delivers a suite of pre-built analytical applications that help you uncover hidden insights and fast-track decision-making. These “insight apps” are fully managed and incorporate pre-defined metrics, AI models, and planning capabilities, simplifying how you connect and integrate every part of your business.

This accelerates use cases aligned with your most important business functions, including ERP, spend, supply chain, HR, customer experience, and finance.

Every organization needs a pulse on its most important resources. With insight apps, you can use preconfigured packages already connected to your business data, such as working capital, to gain a 360-degree view of your organization鈥檚 financial health with real-time visibility into cash flow and profitability.

Connect all your data 

51风流Business Data Cloud connects all your data by leveraging business data fabric principles, making it easier to discover, share, govern, and model your data. It includes 51风流Databricks as a first-party data service, bringing the power of Databricks directly in 51风流Business Data Cloud.

• Business semantics: Use 51风流Datasphere to discover, share, and model the same trusted data across existing platforms without costly data extraction. Build a powerful knowledge graph of all your data, preserving its business metadata and semantics, so your data is easily searchable and actionable. For existing 51风流Datasphere customers, your investments remain fully supported鈥攚ith no disruptions鈥攁nd all 51风流Datasphere capabilities will natively be available in 51风流Business Data Cloud. 
• Data engineering and machine learning/AI: 51风流Databricks empowers every data professional to accelerate AI models and generative AI apps on their business data. Native capabilities like Delta Sharing harmonize 51风流data products with existing lakehouses bi-directionally. By integrating all your data with a zero-copy approach, you can apply advanced AI and machine learning models to finance use cases, like predicting the payment date on open receivables.
• 51风流Business Warehouse modernization: 51风流Business Data Cloud gives on-premise 51风流Business Warehouse customers a flexible path to the cloud. With native integration to 51风流Business Warehouse, easily access your data as a data product with the object store via Delta Share鈥攕implifying your modernization journey and maximizing your 51风流Business Warehouse investment.
• Analytics and planning: 51风流Business Data Cloud brings analytics and planning together in one solution, enabling you to go from insights to actions instantly. Automate reporting, simulate possible business outcomes with AI, and unify your financial, supply chain, and operational planning鈥攁ll in a connected view.

鈥�51风流Business Data Cloud will help us unlock the value of our data and drive innovation across our business. Its semantically rich data products and deep Databricks integration will connect and enhance our existing data products, ensuring long-term adaptability. Trusted, business-ready data will empower users to model scenarios and leverage AI insights, building a sustainable and flexible future for our data ecosystems.鈥� 

Markus Hartmann, Corporate Vice President, Head of Business Technology, Henkel

Foster reliable AI 

The rapid growth of agentic AI requires organizations to first have the right data foundation. 51风流Business Data Cloud brings together all your data to ensure agentic AI is built on accurate, trusted data with business context.

Joule, SAP鈥檚 generative AI copilot, is deeply integrated with 51风流Business Data Cloud. The knowledge graph in 51风流Business Data Cloud connects your data, metadata, and business processes, enabling AI agents, Joule, and large language models (LLMs) to understand your data within the context of its relationships.

This mapping creates clear data links, making insights more reliable for users and applications. Training AI agents and Joule on business knowledge and context drives increased productivity. For instance, users can use AI to complete cross-functional tasks, uncover insights, and summarize critical information across the business鈥攚ithout heavy reliance on IT support. This empowers the usage of AI to automate complex analytics and planning tasks, such as risk assessment, forecasting, and other advanced scenario simulations.

51风流Business Data Cloud ecosystem 

At the core, 51风流Business Data Cloud is built to prioritize openness and customer choice. To simplify your data landscape, 51风流Business Data Cloud supports an open data ecosystem. It integrates natively with leading data and AI partners like Collibra, Confluent, and DataRobot. And it doesn’t stop there; we鈥檒l announce new strategic partnerships in the coming weeks and months to further expand the open data ecosystem. 

Supported by our large partner ecosystem, we鈥檝e made it easier to unleash transformative insights from all your data. We have partners with deep business process and industry domain expertise that are building insight apps on 51风流Business Data Cloud.
 
From data enrichment to data activation, partner insight apps build on top of the data products and the core services 51风流Business Data Cloud provides. We鈥檙e thrilled to announce our first partner apps with Accenture, DataRobot, Spendscape by McKinsey, PwC, EY, Deloitte, and Capgemini. 

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Irfan Khan is president and chief product officer for 51风流Data and Analytics at SAP.

A recent survey reported that cognitive skills, such as creative thinking, analytical thinking, and technology literacy, a type of critical thinking skill, are forecast to be the most sought-after employee skills by 2027.

Collaboration between academia and industry is essential to deliver these skills at speed to students. That鈥檚 why the has been forging partnerships with educational institutions for 25 years, with more than 2,800 institutions currently working with 51风流to educate tomorrow鈥檚 talent with 51风流skills.

One of these partners is , a prestigious, internationally recognized business school with a long history of creating innovative learning approaches to equip students with 51风流skills.

Two decades ago, HEC Montr茅al pioneered , a revolutionary and hugely successful educational tool immersing students in a real-life business scenario within SAP. Today, an estimated 30,000 students a year learn with ERPsim.

In an interview, Professor Pierre-Majorique L茅ger of HEC Montr茅al talked about the latest collaboration between HEC Montr茅al and SAP: Business Builders, the next generation of 51风流gamified learning.

Business Builders: Game On with 51风流Analytics Cloud

Business Builders is a gamified learning tool that can develop STEM skills and helps students sharpen their analytical, critical, and creative thinking skills using the solution.

Professor L茅ger says educators are caught up in the generative AI tsunami and need to 鈥渞ethink a new pedagogical approach for students to develop data analytics and data literacy skills while at the same time recognizing that ChatGPT, for example, makes it super easy for students to circumvent doing the tasks themselves.鈥�

Business Builders is one solution to that problem.

The game can be played either face-to-face or in virtual teaching sessions, either synchronously in a single session or over several sessions.

Students find themselves in one of three scenarios in a fast-paced, competitive game with interactive, realistic learning scenarios. There is no chance of resorting to ChatGPT or a similar AI tool to win. Instead, students must demonstrate data-driven decision-making skills and apply visualization techniques to make informed decisions.

In each game, students take on roles such as marketing or product researcher, financial analyst, or supply chain analyst. Each game has multiple stages, with subsequent stages demanding greater skills and knowledge.

The stages comprise 10 business questions targeting different levels of skills and knowledge. The business questions are designed for students with little or no data analytics skills as well as those with more advanced data visualization and manipulation skills.

As part of the game, students use 51风流Analytics Cloud to visually analyze the data and identify the best graphical representations to answer the questions.

Real-Life Problems with Realistic Data

The game uses vast synthetic data sets to make the business decision-making process as authentic as possible. 鈥淭he notion of synthetic data is important,鈥� Professor L茅ger explains, 鈥渂ecause sometimes reality is too complex to bring into the classroom and does not serve the pedagogical process. Based on experience with ERPsim, creating a realistic synthetic data set that is as close as possible to reality is the best way to go.鈥�

Business Builders currently offers three game scenarios offering a diverse range of real-life problems that students can solve using 51风流Analytics Cloud: environmental, social, and governance; supply chain resilience; and international expansion.

According to HEC Montr茅al, the most-played scenario to date is supply chain resilience. This scenario involves a real-life problem where the Panama Canal gets shut down due to climate change, affecting the shipment of holiday gifts from Southeast Asia to the United States. Students are tasked with deciding how to reroute the containers and prioritize products to minimize the impact of this event.

A Win-Win for Students, Educators, and Employers

鈥淚t is the challenge of our generation of professors faced with generative AI to come up with a novel way to teach students about data analytics,鈥� Professor L茅ger says. 鈥淲e have found a way of using gamification to engage students in leveraging what they know about analytics and mathematics to become business builders. Using data to get insights and solving problems on the best technology that exists 鈥� 51风流Analytics Cloud. And the best thing of all, it鈥檚 free for lecturers and their students around the world.鈥�

To guide students through the game scenario questions and help optimize the learning experience, educators have access to tailor-made training materials. Instead of taking a hit-and-miss approach with the data and platform features, these tailor-made training materials help lecturers deepen the learning experience. Students can understand how insights are uncovered and how to make informed business decisions based on analysis of data sets and data visualizations.

51风流has also created a handbook about the basic concepts of data visualization and storytelling in 51风流Analytics Cloud. Available in a slide-deck format, educators can refer to the theoretical aspects while students are getting hands-on practical experience in 51风流Analytics Cloud.

Since its launch in July 2024, more than 300 educational institutions have registered for access to the Business Builders game and an anticipated 2,500 students will use 51风流Analytics Cloud to compete with their peers in the game by the end 2024.

With technology accelerating at an ever-increasing speed, the good news is that educators can register and get up and running with Business Builders free of charge in a just matter of days. Find out how on the website.

In 2024, our customers realized measurable success across various industries by leveraging the wide range of services. From proactive guidance and product expertise to prioritized support and tailored strategies for smooth feature adoption,  has enabled ongoing optimization and innovative technology enhancement to help meet unique business needs.

The results speak for themselves: businesses are achieving greater agility, real-time insights, accelerated growth, and improved user experiences. Let鈥檚 explore how organizations are using 51风流Preferred Success to help drive progress and position themselves for unstoppable growth in 2025 and beyond.

Juniper Networks: Building Financial Resilience and Innovation

, a leader in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven operations, needed to modernize its financial reporting and planning processes to support rapid business expansion. The company gained real-time insights and streamlined data integration by implementing the solution through (51风流BTP), eliminating manual processes for faster, more informed decision-making.

The standard edition of 51风流Preferred Success played a pivotal role in providing critical guidance that helps ensure a smooth implementation by resolving connectivity issues, delivering expert troubleshooting, and enabling a smooth go-live. Post-deployment, Juniper continues to rely on 51风流Preferred Success for guidance on maximizing quarterly updates and adopting new AI-driven features.

鈥淲ith 51风流Preferred Success, we can connect to product experts and have a conversation with them. This helps us better understand the upcoming functionality in a deeper, more applicable way so we can really take advantage of it once the functionality is released,鈥� says Kathleen Kuang, senior process manager, Juniper Networks.

Juniper Networks is now equipped with advanced analytics and proactive support to maintain agility and continuously enhance financial planning, driving resilience and innovation across operations.

Government of Ras Al Khaimah: Advancing a Digital Society

(RAK Government) sought to align its HR organization with the UAE鈥檚 鈥淲e the UAE 2031鈥� vision by transitioning from on-premise software to in the cloud.

To support this initiative, the provided a designated customer success manager and continuous expert guidance throughout the transition. This helped ensure reliable connectivity, a smooth go-live, and ongoing enhancements.

鈥淗aving the support of a designated 51风流customer success manager before, during, and after go-live has helped to make the project a resounding success,鈥� adds Ahmed Abdel Hady Tohamy, technical team lead in the HR Department. This 51风流product specialist also added value in enhancing and improving the quality of the solution.

With the expanded edition, the RAK Government is well-equipped to drive engagement, foster innovation, and build resilience, positioning Ras Al Khaimah as a dynamic, future-focused society in the United Arab Emirates.

Orora Beverage: Maximizing Procurement鈥檚 Strategic Value

, a leader in sustainable packaging solutions, sought to unlock the full potential of its 51风流Ariba solutions. Faced with low adoption of advanced functionalities and a need for continuous training, the company turned to the .

Through personalized training, interactive workshops, and dedicated advisory services, Orora Beverage improved adoption and streamlined procurement processes. High-priority cases were resolved faster, productivity increased, and the company gained immediate access to 51风流expertise for technical adjustments and feature enablement.

鈥淭hanks to the 51风流Preferred Success plan for 51风流Ariba solutions, expanded edition, we鈥檙e more confident and agile in driving best practices in procurement to extract the best value out of our procurement processes,鈥� shares Anoop Thakur, chief procurement officer, Orora Beverage. 鈥淲e get assistance to enable new features, access to experts to handle priority issues, and advice on best practices from functional resources.鈥�

The support has empowered Orora Beverage to enhance procurement strategies, foster agility, and achieve operational excellence.

Looking Ahead to 2025

These success stories demonstrate how 51风流Preferred Success helps companies turn challenges into achievements. Whether optimizing financial planning, driving digital transformation, or enhancing procurement strategies, 51风流Preferred Success remains a trusted partner in helping to navigate complex transformations, achieve impactful outcomes, and pave the way for operational excellence.

As we look ahead to 2025, 51风流Preferred Success will continue to help transform challenges into opportunities, fueling sustainable growth and long-term success despite ongoing market volatility and evolving technological demands.

Andreia Bessa is global program lead for Enterprise Cross Solution Sales at SAP.

51风流Analytics Cloud is the trusted choice for the most mission-critical organizations worldwide, redefining financial planning for enterprises globally by offering clients:

•  95% reduction in time to generate on-demand access to financial metrics
• 10x faster planning cycles via automating up to 70% of data entry points with artificial intelligence (AI)
• Increased simulation and insight generation for better plan accuracy and improved business execution with reduced risk

Unlocking the Power of Extended Planning and Analysis

51风流has long championed the integration of planning, forecasting, and analysis across the enterprise, known as extended planning and analysis. By harmonizing diverse planning functions like supply chain, sales, and finance, 51风流enables its customers to align departments and increase enterprise agility and performance. 51风流customers call this 鈥渁ligning operational planning with financial performance.鈥�

51风流believes that our recognition as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Financial Planning Software highlights our strategic vision and operational excellence. 51风流Analytics Cloud empowers enterprises with unified financial operations and data-driven decisions, driving agility and insight.

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

For more information, visit the .

Daniel Yu is senior vice president of Solution Management and Product Marketing for 51风流Data and Analytics at SAP.

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

From Manual to Machine-Driven Processes

In the past, Equinor had relied on manual processes for decision-making in asset management, but as the company expanded, it began embracing a data-driven approach, using automated dashboards. However, its decision-makers recognized the need for further advancements and envisioned adopting condition-based maintenance (CBM).

This transformation would allow for a more autonomous, machine-led, and data-driven approach to asset management, freeing up valuable internal resources and enabling team members to handle multiple cases simultaneously.

鈥淓quinor wanted to progress from condition monitoring to condition-based maintenance,鈥� Tom Naastad Svennevig, lead engineer at Equinor, explained. 鈥淔or the past eight or nine years, we have operated a monitoring center where a few equipment groups are being monitored by use of home-grown dashboards as well as third-party expert systems. However, as the number of plants onboarded to the center increased, it required more and more resources. We believe that applying condition-based maintenance on equipment where it is possible to connect a remedial action to a degradation mechanism will relieve the resources working in the monitoring center.鈥�

CBM is paradigm shift in asset management, allowing companies to move from traditional calendar-based maintenance schedules to a proactive approach powered by data-driven insights. While traditional maintenance strategies often lead to unplanned downtime, CBM empowers operators make informed decisions based on real-time equipment condition, mitigating disruptions and maximizing asset reliability.

鈥淭he primary purpose of condition-based maintenance for us is to provide confidence for continued safe operation and avoid disruption,鈥� Svennevig added. 鈥淲e believe that several degradation mechanisms we had in the past can be detected automatically, and actions being taken without human intervention.鈥�

Benefits of an Integrated Solution

For Equinor, stood out as a superior choice, offering a range of tangible benefits, particularly, according the Equinor manager: 鈥淚n contrast to third-party solutions that require data migration, 51风流Asset Performance Management seamlessly integrates with existing 51风流systems, eliminating the need for redundant data entry and ensuring data accuracy across all platforms.鈥�

Other benefits that Equinor perceives include:

• Reduced administrative burdens and increased overall efficiency
• Automatic updating of asset information across all relevant components
• Importing equipment condition status from third-party expert systems
• Storing evidence for safe operation and triggering actions for degraded conditions
• Generating notifications based on condition monitoring rules for prompt responses to potential equipment issues
• Seamless ingestion of sensor data from field systems into 51风流Asset Performance Management
• Pre-assigning tasks to maintenance notifications based on asset strategies and failure modes
• Empowering maintenance teams to act swiftly and effectively, minimizing downtime and preventing potential equipment failures Seamless scaling to accommodate additional equipment and assets

Optimizing Asset Status Visualization with 51风流Asset Performance Management

Effectively visualizing asset status is crucial for making timely and well-informed decisions, which is why 51风流Asset Performance Management offers comprehensive dashboarding capabilities through embedded . This allows users to select specific assets or entire fleets for a detailed overview in a centralized view, which enables quick identification of potential issues and facilitates proactive maintenance interventions.

The dashboard utilizes clear, intuitive labels to indicate asset health status, ranging from 鈥渆xcellent鈥� to 鈥渦nacceptable,鈥� which streamlines decision-making. Critical alerts are prominently displayed in orange, immediately grabbing the attention of maintenance personnel, and providing necessary context and guidance, ensuring that timely and appropriate actions are taken.

Additionally, the dashboard seamlessly integrates with Equinor鈥檚 wider 51风流ecosystem, enabling real-time data exchange and integration with existing maintenance processes.

Effective Change Management: Important for CBM Implementation

Equinor has implemented a CBM-driven maintenance approach. CBM is running in production. The job to roll out the solution has started. The process of change management is main focus going forward.

鈥淲e will achieve this through clear leadership commitment, comprehensive communication, a pilot project for proof of concept, streamlined data smoothing for accurate monitoring, role redefinition for CBM management, establishment of KPIs for continuous improvement, and employee empowerment through involvement,鈥� the Equinor manager explained. 鈥淥ur objective is that this will result in transitioning to a proactive maintenance approach for 40% of our equipment and significant reductions in maintenance costs and asset downtime.鈥�

鈥�51风流Asset Performance Management helps us streamlining maintenance processes and facilitating proactive preventive maintenance,鈥� Svennevig concluded.

Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at SAP.

Top image courtesy of Equinor | Ole J酶rgen Bratland 漏 Equinor

ROP is a disease that affects premature babies and impacts India significantly, since the country has more than born premature every year, the highest number in the world. 鈥淎bout 25% to 40% of these babies have a risk of developing ROP,鈥� says Dr. Anand Vinekar, head of the Department of Pediatric Retina at in Bangalore and the founder of , a program working to address the problem of ROP in rural India.

Blindness from ROP is largely preventable if identified and treated within the first weeks of birth. But while the screening itself is not difficult for a trained provider, the challenge of detecting ROP in millions of premature babies is profound. Each preterm infant must be screened multiple times during the critical period, equating to upwards of 20 million exams per year if every preterm baby is screened, Dr. Vinekar says.

The vast distances that many families in India live from hospitals, combined with a critical shortage of specialized doctors, make this a nearly impossible task using current methods. However, KIDROP, CleaVision, and 51风流are using AI to help bridge this gap and offer a lifeline to infants like Hanvith C.

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Hanvith C鈥檚 parents faced the fear that haunts many new parents in India. 鈥淢y father was blind,鈥� his mother shares, voicing a worry rooted in personal history. The prospect of her newborn inheriting blindness was a terrifying thought that led the parents to seek help 鈥� a decision that would alter the course of their child鈥檚 life.

Hanvith C鈥檚 father recounts their fortunate encounter with a KIDROP team at their local hospital. Thanks to this vital outreach effort bringing sophisticated medical screening to India鈥檚 rural communities, Hanvith C was diagnosed with ROP symptoms. But with successful follow-up treatment in Bangalore, his story became one of hope rather than despair.

The KIDROP program is now working to bring these life-changing diagnostic abilities to more underserved areas by training non-physicians to use field imaging cameras to take digital images of babies鈥� eyes. But the resultant thousands of retinal scans that need to be reviewed for signs of ROP creates additional challenges. 鈥淣ow you have plenty of images and no one to read them,鈥� says Dr. Vinekar, explaining the bottleneck in the diagnostic and treatment process.

This is where CleaVision鈥檚 solution, supported by technology 鈥� including (51风流BTP) and the solution 鈥� becomes a game changer. The eye images are uploaded to CleaVision, which automates the identification of retina and blood vessel features and makes a recommendation on whether ROP is present in premature babies. The system then allows doctors to quickly identify and prioritize at-risk children.

鈥淲e are not going to base our entire decision and management on what [the AI] says,鈥� Dr. Vinekar clarifies. 鈥淏ut it鈥檒l help us to triage these images.鈥� This reflects a balanced approach towards leveraging technology while maintaining the primacy of human judgment in critical healthcare decisions.

The impact of AI from 51风流and CleaVision is not just on the technological and medical fronts; it鈥檚 profoundly personal and life-changing. Hanvith C鈥檚 parents emphasize the importance of awareness and early intervention and hope other families benefit from this technology.

Their dreams for Hanvith C鈥檚 future are simple yet profound. 鈥淲e want him to become a doctor, do good, and help other people when he grows up,鈥� his mother says. 鈥淛ust like they helped us at the very beginning of his life.鈥�

The innovative gaming platform is designed to redefine educational experiences and equip students with the skills they need for a successful career start.

To engage with the platform, users need to be enrolled students or active professors. By offering challenges designed to allow students to experience, analyze, and respond to business scenarios in a safe and controlled environment, the platform aims to enhance their analytical, data storytelling, and decision-making skills. The initiative reflects a shared vision for future-ready education, aligning with the World Economic Forum鈥檚 recognition of .

鈥淒ata visualization is one of the most sought-after skills in the current job market, and our gaming platform equips students with a competitive edge,鈥� shared Karina Montilla Edmonds, global head of Academies and 51风流University Alliances at SAP. 鈥淏y merging learning with gaming, we are driving student engagement while building career-relevant skills. It鈥檚 a win-win.鈥�

Gamifying Learning Experience to Shape Future Professionals

Business Builders offers students hands-on experience with 51风流Analytics Cloud through immersive, data-driven business challenges that mimic real-world business scenarios. It welcomes learners at all levels of familiarity with SAP, including those with no prior knowledge of data science and programming.

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Students can engage in three distinct scenarios: sustainability, supply chain resilience, and international business expansion. Each scenario is designed to challenge students in specific areas of business management, including data analytics in the sustainability scenario, logistical complexities in the supply chain resilience scenario, and market analysis and product development in the international business expansion scenario.

In the future, additional scenarios will be added to extend the scope of Business Builders. The aim is for students to learn and apply advanced visualization and data storytelling techniques to gain insights from business data and successfully solve the business challenges.

鈥淎ll business school students, regardless of their specialization, benefit immensely from learning advanced visualization techniques,鈥� said Pierre-Majorique L茅ger, full professor of IT at HEC Montr茅al. “These skills enable them to manage and interpret vast amounts of data, derive meaningful business insights, and make informed decisions effectively.”

The practical experience gained through the business games helps students understand the complex interdependencies of business processes, enhancing the overall educational impact. Additionally, the platform鈥檚 interactive nature and competitive elements, such as classroom and global leaderboards, infuse learning with excitement and a tangible sense of achievement.

The platform offers educators an opportunity to revitalize their curriculum, extending beyond the confines of traditional teaching methods to make learning more hands-on, enjoyable, and relevant. They can integrate current, pressing business issues and trends into their lessons, making education more interesting and directly linked to what students will face in their future jobs.

And by joining a global network of educators using the platform, they can extend the reach and impact of their teaching, further enhancing the educational experience with a wide array of perspectives and expertise from around the world.

Free Access for More Inclusive Education

One of the cornerstones of this initiative is its commitment to inclusivity. By offering the platform free of charge to students, educators, and academic institutions worldwide, 51风流University Alliances and HEC Montr茅al aim to ensure that aspiring leaders — regardless of geographic or socioeconomic barriers — have access to state-of-the-art resources.

This democratization of educational tools is critical for preparing diverse groups of students for what lies ahead, making sure they are ready to hit the ground running in the digital economy and data-centric world.

To find out more about the gaming platform, or visit .

Grounded in an AI ethics framework, 51风流collaborates with partners to create insights from industry-specific data and deep process knowledge, driving exponential value for businesses. By fostering a multi-partner approach, 51风流ensures flexibility and prevents vendor lock-in, empowering customers and partners to navigate the AI landscape effectively. 

As a next step in that journey, 51风流is integrating the Meta Llama 2 and Meta Llama 3 models into the generative AI hub to enable customers to create dashboards based on rich content with Llama qualitative conversational outputs, and to explore use cases built with Meta Llama 3.  

The provides an overview of SAP鈥檚鈥痓usiness AI strategy, highlighting the unparalleled opportunity for the 51风流ecosystem to build an array of solutions with generative AI capabilities and extensions on 51风流BTP.听

51风流Analytics Cloud AI Portfolio Expansion 

51风流will make Joule available in 51风流Analytics Cloud to let planning and analytics users get work done faster and drive better business outcomes in a secure and compliant way. The wide range of capabilities offered by Meta Llama 3 will enable Joule users to get assistance with key activities, including the auto-generation of custom scripts to extend dashboards, as well as delivery of the most accurate scripts directly in 51风流Analytics Cloud.听听

The goal is to integrate generative AI into major workflows of 51风流Analytics Cloud. Transforming these workflows will unlock innovative possibilities for distinct planning and analytics roles that are common in organizations globally. More information on how 51风流Analytics Cloud with Joule will help planning and analytics users get work done more efficiently .听

Availability of Meta Llama 3 on Generative AI Hub 

51风流will make Llama 3 available in Q2 2024 in the generative AI hub in 51风流AI Core given customer interest in Llama 3. The generative AI hub makes it simple to build generative AI use cases for 51风流applications, thanks to its value-adding features around 51风流integration and the ability to orchestrate language model interactions.

Adding Meta Llama 3 to the generative AI hub allows developers in the 51风流ecosystem to leverage its value-adding features. The 70B variant of Meta Llama 3 will be the largest open-source model available on the generative AI hub.听

51风流SuccessFactors Text-to-Image Generation Requirements 

51风流customers are exploring ways to enhance the visual appeal and relevance of images within the 51风流SuccessFactors HCM suite. The current process of curating and uploading images can be time-consuming and costly, often resulting in generic images that only partially cater to specific scenarios while also incurring expenses associated with stock image licensing.

Integrating the latest iteration of Meta’s open-source large language model (LLM) offers numerous benefits. Creative features from models such as Llama 3 come into play in a scenario like this, empowering users to generate custom images that better meet their needs within 51风流SuccessFactors software. Whether it is customizable course content thumbnails and banners for learning, tailored images for assignments in 51风流SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace, unique images for different themes on the home page, or personalized profile and banner images on people profile, the impact will be far reaching.听

By streamlining the image creation process, reducing costs, and ensuring that every image is suited to its context, this feature will undoubtedly improve user engagement and the overall platform experience. 51风流customers should get ready to explore a new world of custom imagery tailored to their exact specifications, sparkling excitement and intrigue among stakeholders.

Walter Sun is senior vice president and global head of AI at 51风流SE.

Across processes and applications, 51风流BTP helps improve operational efficiency, enhance the customer experience, and drive innovation. The latest offers a preview of what the future holds for our customers and partners.

51风流BTP already offers features such as code generation, application logic, data models, and test scripts, enabling businesses to modernize their IT landscapes, streamline their processes, and make more informed decisions through a consistent data foundation. As we continue to embed generative AI across the platform toolbox, 51风流BTP is the trusted business AI platform for SAP-centric landscapes.

Here are some highlights:

• Joule, our AI copilot, will see increasing adoption across 51风流BTP to help provide information and data, give intelligent recommendations, and execute tasks based on natural language interactions. Looking forward, we will extend Joule to empower customers to build their own generative AI agents and skills. 
• We aim to enhance all 51风流BTP services by incorporating additional AI functionalities. Beyond generating code and application logic such as with , , and 51风流BTP for the , this will include managing processes and business rules (), handling integration mappings and flows (), and creating analytical charts and stories ().听
• 51风流HANA Cloud vector engine and the knowledge graph in 51风流Datasphere will help enable customers to better contextualize their input to large language models (LLMs) to achieve high-precision results.
• The set of AI partner offerings accessible in the generative AI hub in 51风流AI Core, which is part of 51风流BTP, will continue to grow. Customers will soon be able to use them in the context of their business process directly. 
• 51风流BTP Cockpit will also include more generative AI capabilities that can simplify the experience around day-to-day administration tasks.

51风流BTP is our secure and reliable engine that helps drive business innovation in organizations. And we will make it available to even more customers in the future: 51风流recently announced a substantial expansion of regional 51风流BTP availability by the end of 2025.

By ensuring access to 51风流BTP in more locations via new data centers, we are empowering more customers and partners around the globe to modernize IT landscapes, streamline business processes, and utilize data for better decision-making. While increasing the footprint of 51风流BTP globally, we are also infusing our platform with AI capabilities.

With global expansion on the horizon and the addition of AI, it’s all set to help businesses run smoother and make smarter decisions. If you’re curious about our strategic direction and what鈥檚 next, I highly recommend taking a look at our latest .

Michael Ameling is executive vice president and chief product officer of 51风流Business Technology Platform.

Gaming is something that keeps inspiring me. I鈥檓 amazed by the speed, accuracy, and level of concentration of professional players. It鈥檚 impressive how this industry has evolved and grown over just a couple of decades.

Team Liquid commands an imposing presence in the esports world, boasting over 160 professional players across more than 15 different games and a staggering fan base of over 10 million followers on various social media platforms. With more than 75 premier events won, Team Liquid is one of the most successful organizations in competitive gaming.

The game with the highest viewership and extensive fandom is League of Legends. Team Liquid successfully competes with their League of Legends team, which recently won the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) 2024 Spring tournament.

In League of Legends, the goal is to create a strong and balanced team consisting of five characters, called “champions,” in order to outplay and outsmart the opponents during the game by being one step ahead of competition.

Teams participate in a pre-game draft process to select champions before a match. This involves banning and picking champions from a pool of 166 choices to create a strong team.

Champions are the in-game figures controlled by each player. Each champion has particular skills and areas in which they excel. Putting the champions together allows the team to play in various strategic directions to win the match.

After choosing five champions (鈥減ick鈥�), each team is also allowed to remove five champions from the pool (鈥渂an鈥�). Those players cannot be picked by either side. This can be utilized to remove specific parts that would otherwise counter a strategy or hinder the other team from playing their favorite style and/or composition.

Esports teams and their analysts need to prepare for the draft process, as it requires knowledge of the opponent’s favorite picks and strategies. Imagine a five-a-side dodgeball match, but before the match begins, the five players from each team draw their champions from a pool of 166 individual champions.

With bi-weekly updates to the game (鈥減atches鈥�), especially affecting the champions as well as indirectly teams practicing and developing new strategies, competitive League of Legends is an ever-changing game. It creates the need to constantly adapt your draft to a new environment, to analyze both your own and the opposing team’s behavior.

Furthermore, the nature of the draft process and the varying strategies of opponents make accurate predictions difficult. Esports teams have only a week to prepare for the game and gather knowledge about the other team鈥檚 favorite champion picks, strengths, and weaknesses.

Previously, Team Liquid coaches prepared draft scenarios based on manual analysis of the opponent team鈥檚 draft behaviors and champion preferences. However, the challenge was that manual analysis is done before the draft, with the best potential pick or ban changes based on the decisions of the other team. Additionally, the sheer number of potential matches to choose from and the different strategies employed by opponent teams make manual draft prediction very difficult.

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51风流Helps Change the Game

What if Team Liquid could analyze in seconds the best choice for upcoming drafts, including picks and bans, while considering more than 6,000 professional esports matches from the past year? What if the analysis would also consider the impact of game patches from the publishers by taking an additional 1.6 million amateur matches into account to assess changes in the power attributes and strengths of the champions? With SAP, this is now a reality.

By using 51风流AI Core to train a generative AI model that takes data from past matches and puts them into context of the upcoming game, Team Liquid gets suggestions of the best draft picks and bans to maximize the chances to win.

The solution is built on 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), and the data is stored in 51风流HANA Cloud to cope with the 1.6 terabyte game data from past games. The result is an intelligent draft bot training, an application that runs on 51风流BTP, visualizes the predictions, and provides Team Liquid with the current winning probability after each pick and ban.

Manual Analysis Is a Thing of the Past

With the AI draft bot, Team Liquid can train for draft situations against any professional team they face in a matter of seconds. This is achieved by incorporating multiple influencing factors based on an unprecedented number of matches. The coaches and players benefit from the opportunity to conduct what-if analyses and derive valuable knowledge from the data to simulate new strategies. This is also reflected in the time saved compared to the previous manual analysis: Team Liquid saves approximately 10,000 hours per year per year with the solutions from SAP.

Relying on 51风流BTP and 51风流HANA Cloud, 51风流Business AI provides Team Liquid with the opportunity to further improve their game by leveraging data to make more informed decisions. Here is where fun and business meet.

This is how the power of business AI is made tangible in a perfect way — not just for gamers.

Philipp Herzig is chief artificial intelligence officer of SAP.

For decades, our partners have leveraged their industry expertise and technological know-how to bring immense value to companies of all sizes. They possess a rare fusion of deep industry insights and technological expertise, which they leverage to guide businesses through the delicate process of modernization while ensuring that the essence of their identity remains intact.

We recently how they鈥檙e helping customers take better advantage of their organization鈥檚 data. Our partners have observed a significant shift in the way data is perceived and utilized. It’s no longer just a byproduct of business operations but a core asset that, when effectively distributed and made accessible, can revolutionize customer experiences and enable a more strategic, company-wide approach to decision-making.

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However, the mere availability of data is not a panacea. The crux of the matter is transforming data into actionable insights. This is where our partners excel, mapping out advanced use cases and facilitating the transition to cutting-edge platforms like 51风流Datasphere and 51风流Analytics Cloud. These solutions can empower organizations to evolve into entities where data is not just present but central to every action and decision.

The practical implications of data are vast and deeply rooted in the operational successes of our clients. AI, for instance, is a frontier rich with potential, but its success is inextricably linked to the quality and accessibility of data. Recognizing this, 51风流partners are investing in building AI capabilities that can not only propel new business functions but also deliver substantial value.

Another key area of focus for our partners is the concept of a business data fabric, which is critical in developing a flexible enterprise architecture. Such an architecture allows for co-innovation and customization of solutions, ensuring that data is not just an afterthought but a driving force in business operations.

The journey toward a data- and AI-centric business model is an ongoing one, marked by evolving needs, emerging challenges, and a relentless pursuit of innovation. The ultimate aim is to convert potential into lasting business success.

The essence of our relationship with our partners is rooted in a shared vision. We are united in our pursuit of discovery, innovation, and improvement as we navigate the future together. Be sure to with our seven strategic partners and discover how the can help your company become a data-driven organization.

Karl Fahrbach is chief partner officer at SAP.

While data may be the fuel powering the engine of AI, it鈥檚 good data that鈥檚 the real game changer. With good data, a company can automate processes — freeing up their people to do the most impactful work — and analyze the most important variables facing their business to create intelligent insights.

That鈥檚 where a datasphere comes in. It makes data more complete and logical by understanding the different relationships within a company鈥檚 data. And that鈥檚 what can truly bring out the best in any business today.

Having a central hub for data is more critical than ever. It allows our customers to better model their business across all 51风流business applications. That鈥檚 exactly why we introduced 51风流Datasphere last year to empower businesses with insights they need 鈥� based on the right data 鈥� in the context of their business. Since then, generative AI has disrupted and simplified even more business processes, and data capture is no different. This week we announced new generative-AI features in 51风流Datasphere that will transform enterprise planning through simplified data landscapes and more-intuitive data interaction.

Why is this important? Because having a unified data view that simplifies the data landscapes while retaining context and logic is what enables businesses to adapt faster to market changes and make better decisions. It鈥檚 also a more efficient way of working. Because while you鈥檙e busy pulling data together, competitors are circling your customers.

I am constantly speaking with our customers about the value of 51风流Datasphere. It鈥檚 a data architecture that harmonizes mission-critical data across an organization. I hear amazing outcomes they鈥檙e able to achieve: from PwC breaking down silos in the different countries where it stores sensitive data so its workforce can access it more efficiently and securely for customers, to the Lufthansa Group taking data from different parts of its operations like aircraft, HR, and procurement, to see how decisions from one could impact the other.听
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With our additional news this week, such as making our generative AI copilot Joule available in 51风流Analytics Cloud and expanding our partnership with Collibra to help our customers meet compliance, privacy, and regulatory requirements related to AI as they evolve, we鈥檙e making it easier to find the right data and use it to drive deeper insights, more efficiencies, faster growth, and more trust in their business.

While PwC and Lufthansa show what鈥檚 possible today with a simplified data fabric, imagine what is about to become possible when you infuse it with the power of generative AI that understands your business 鈥� and then learns from that data. This has the potential to deliver exponential value from your data.

Or think of it this way: years ago, the biggest differentiators for businesses were price, location, products, and services. Today, and especially in the years ahead, it could very well be how effectively a business is training their AI models. That鈥檚 why building the right data fabric is one of the most important investments any business can make today.

It鈥檚 been said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. And in an era where data is being created exponentially, I believe that those businesses that can separate the signal from the noise when it comes to their data will be the ones that invent the future in an AI-first world.

Scott Russell is a member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE.

鈥淐apturing data to make better decisions is an enterprise technology imperative that鈥檚 become increasingly critical as AI 鈥� which relies on quality data 鈥� revolutionizes every aspect of business,鈥� said Juergen Mueller, 51风流Chief Technology Officer and member of the Executive Board. “Our newest 51风流Datasphere innovations, as well as an expanded partnership with Collibra, represent a quantum leap in our ability to help customers drive intelligent business transformations through data.鈥�

At the heart of these announcements is the business data fabric, an architecture that helps ensure data is not just an asset but also the core underpinning of strategic initiatives. The innovations and partnership announced today equip organizations to deliver meaningful data to data consumers 鈥� with business context and logic intact.

“We have decided to leverage 51风流Datasphere for a modern business data fabric architecture in conjunction with our 51风流S/4HANA landscape. It allows us to effectively establish a modern data analytics platform that enables a business self service capability on the basis of trusted data and data models,鈥� said Achim Welter, Senior Director ERP, Digital & IT Strategy, Hershey鈥檚.

Today鈥檚 51风流Datasphere innovations help customers achieve a unified data view that simplifies their data landscapes while retaining context and logic 鈥� enabling them to adapt faster to market changes and make more-efficient decisions. From new copilot and vector database capabilities that help ensure business context remains constant in generative AI outputs to a new knowledge graph that helps uncover insights and patterns in complex data, SAP鈥檚 data innovations help ensure customers have the full power of their data at their fingertips.

Today鈥檚 key innovations include:

Generative-AI Copilot and AI Governance

SAP鈥檚 generative-AI assistant, the copilot, is now coming to the 51风流Analytics Cloud solution to automate the creation and development of reports, dashboards, plans and more. This automation is enabled by the 51风流HANA Cloud vector engine capabilities, which combine the power of large language models with the relevant data of your organization 鈥� helping ensure business context is a constant for generative-AI outputs.

Incorporating generative AI across the business isn鈥檛 possible without trusted and governed data. To provide organizations with a solution to govern the policies, processes and practices of AI, 51风流is announcing an expansion of our partnership with Collibra to integrate Collibra鈥檚 AI Governance with 51风流data assets. This can help provide transparency and accountability for organizations and help ensure regulatory, compliance and privacy policies are met.

Discover Hidden Insights and Patterns with Knowledge Graph

With the new 51风流Datasphere knowledge graph, organizations can discover hidden insights and patterns across their applications and systems. This enables both technical and business users to deeply understand the relationships between data, metadata and business processes, as well as boost the effectiveness of machine learning and large language models.

Unified and Advanced Planning and Analytics

The new 51风流Datasphere integration with 51风流Analytics Cloud offers a single data management system and advanced analytics to power cross-organizational planning. Planners can leverage a single flexible model to break down silos between planning using one tool for data preparation, modeling and planning.

Additionally, business users can use the new compass capability in 51风流Analytics Cloud to realize better outcomes in planning and analytics through data-driven simulation. It enables organizations to run complex simulations using a chat interface to evaluate predictive outcomes and continually adjust controllable variables to find the optimal plan.

This supports customers to transform their planning by unifying financial, operational, supply chain and workforce planning with native connection to 51风流applications and third-party data.

To learn more, please read: Unleashing the Latest 51风流Data and Analytics Innovations.

Visit the 51风流News Center. Follow 51风流at .

About SAP

SAP鈥檚 strategy is to help every business run as an intelligent, sustainable enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software, we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 51风流customers generate 87% of total global commerce. 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 business and public customers across 26 industries globally 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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This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP鈥檚 2023 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
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Read on to learn more about these transformative announcements, which will enable businesses to unlock new potential in the areas of data management, AI-driven planning, and analytics.

Access Insights Wherever Your Data Resides

51风流Datasphere Knowledge Graph

51风流Datasphere knowledge graph will enable organizations to better represent their real-world use of data, leading to more effectively leveraging it for generative AI and better reasoning.

As data is onboarded, transformed, and integrated in 51风流Datasphere, 51风流Datasphere knowledge graph automatically creates an ontology representing the relationships in the data, including the inherent business context from 51风流application sources like 51风流S/4HANA. This is then available to be extended and augmented via an ontology editor to reflect specific attributes within an organization. Finally, the data in 51风流Datasphere is automatically applied to this ontology to create a knowledge graph that allows the data to be processed as a semantic web of relationships, drawing new insights from connections that are otherwise difficult to follow.

These knowledge graphs are better suited for answering complex, often open-ended questions. For example, a marketing manager might ask a question like: 鈥淲hat type of campaign for mountain bikes works best for my highest performing cities with a population over 1 million?鈥�

Knowledge graphs can provide better context to large language models (LLMs) and prevent AI-generated 鈥渉allucinations.鈥� 51风流Datasphere knowledge graph will enable organizations to unleash the power of AI for even the most complex queries.

The effort and cost of manually creating knowledge graphs is typically very high. 51风流Datasphere knowledge graph overcomes this by pre-populating the knowledge graphs using all the valuable content already available in 51风流Datasphere. The knowledge graph can then be used with Joule, SAP鈥檚 generative AI co-pilot, allowing business users to ask both open-ended and specific questions and get instant and well-documented answers. Sign up for a preview of 51风流Datasphere knowledge graph via the link below.

51风流HANA Cloud Vector Engine

With the next release of 51风流HANA Cloud, a vector capability will be added to existing multi-model capabilities, allowing customers to gain value from all relevant types of business data using a single database. The inclusion of a vector engine further enables customers to build that combine the natural intuition of human interaction with powerful machine learning and multi-model processing capabilities.

The vector engine in 51风流HANA Cloud provides the ability to store and compare vectors using SQL. Determining similarity between vectors enables use cases such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), recommendations, classifications, clustering, and more. Key benefits of 51风流HANA Cloud vector engine include:

• Simplify data architecture and security with a single multi-model database with SQL interaction
• Gain new insights by combining spatial, graph, JSON, and relational data with vector queries
• Easily incorporate vector use cases in solutions based on the HANA Cloud ecosystem (clients, Python libraries, CAP, etc.)
• Integrate with open-source community tools such as LangChain via plug-ins

51风流HANA Cloud vector engine is currently in public preview and is planned for general availability in late Q1 2024.

Simplified Consumption of Data Products in 51风流Datasphere

Data products facilitate self-service access to data as a product and enable data sharing across application boundaries. Data consumers need an easy way to explore, understand, and activate the data needed to perform their tasks 鈥� and data providers need an easy way to publish their assets and make them available to data consumers.

51风流is innovating in this space with an improved user experience that drives data sharing at scale. This starts with published data products, whether produced by 51风流line-of-business applications, industry solutions, or third parties, and follows with simple consumption in 51风流Datasphere.

In 51风流Datasphere, customers will find ready access to 51风流and non-51风流data products and easily install them into their 51风流Datasphere instance. The procedure establishes relevant connections and creates the necessary artifacts in 51风流Datasphere without the user having to enter those details. Key to this is making data provisioning easier via metadata, which are described via the Open Resource Directory (ORD) protocol. The experience will be harmonized within 51风流Datasphere by bringing catalog and the data product installation closely together. Visit for the latest updates.

51风流Datasphere Semantic Onboarding Enhancements

Semantic onboarding provides a seamless import of semantically rich objects from 51风流S/4HANA and 51风流BW/4HANA into 51风流Datasphere. Now, we are taking the next step by adding support for 51风流HANA Cloud and 51风流data products through the same unified onboarding experience.

Customers will be able to combine their 51风流HANA Cloud modeling approach with 51风流Datasphere by importing calculation views into the data layer of 51风流Datasphere. This preserves the semantic information such as measures, attributes, hierarchies, aggregations, and currencies/units, while keeping 51风流HANA Cloud and 51风流Datasphere objects in sync — allowing customers to leverage their prior investments in 51风流HANA modeling.

Likewise, semantic onboarding of 51风流data products will enable inheritance of business context from 51风流line-of-business applications and industry solutions. By providing the semantics of the source systems and transferring that into the business data fabric as a foundation, 51风流Datasphere drastically improves the analytic workflow and accelerates and simplifies data-driven insights.

Collibra AI Governance Integration with 51风流Solutions

The 51风流and Collibra partnership enables end-to-end data governance and delivers trusted data to all users across the business data fabric. As more tasks and decisions are automated by AI within critical business processes, the need to extend governance to AI has also become apparent.

The partnership with Collibra is being expanded to address the data and AI governance needs of joint customers via Collibra AI Governance. We will build tailored integrations between Collibra AI Governance and 51风流solutions to connect the data used for AI with the models themselves in a single platform, allowing enterprises to track and manage their AI development efforts.

• Customers will better understand data lineage and metadata of 51风流data that is utilized in AI modeling. With that, users can see what data their AI models were trained on to ensure that the data is accurate and from a trusted source.
• Customers will benefit from a single view to understand what AI models exist in their organization, and what data is being used to power them. AI/machine learning models created with 51风流technology will be registered with the Collibra AI Governance platform.

This extension of the 51风流partnership with Collibra will increase transparency and accountability for organizations, and help ensure that regulatory, compliance, and privacy policies are being met. More importantly, it will build user trust by preventing biased decision-making, inaccurate recommendations, and other risks arising from AI.

Together, 51风流and Collibra will help joint customers address the data and AI governance needs across their organizations. Collibra AI Governance was and is available to interested customers.

51风流Datasphere Confluent Integration

Core to the 51风流data strategy is providing customers with the ability to interoperate with the world鈥檚 leading data and AI vendors through an open data ecosystem. To this end, the newly enhanced Confluent integration enables real-time streaming of data to and from 51风流Datasphere.

First, the outbound capabilities were extended by taking advantage of Confluent鈥檚 proprietary schema registry capabilities. Second, the Confluent schema registry will be used to enable seamless consumption of Confluent data within 51风流Datasphere.

The integration is specifically tailored to Confluent and provides a superior user experience for joint customers. It allows connections on the application level without additional custom application development. The integration is a pre-established replication flow in 51风流Datasphere, which already includes delta and real-time processing natively. This makes the process very efficient as it does not force customers to load all the data at every step, but only when data has changed.

The first integration for data ingestion into Kafka and Confluent is generally available. Additional capabilities for Confluent specific outbound and inbound integration will be generally available at the end of Q1 and Q3, respectively.

Transform Planning with a Business Data Fabric

51风流Analytics Cloud for Planning Deep Integration to 51风流Datasphere

51风流Datasphere and 51风流Analytics Cloud for planning will be more closely integrated to expand the business data fabric to planning use cases. 51风流Analytics Cloud planning models can be deployed into 51风流Datasphere, bringing plan and actuals data together for real-time steering.

Through a reduction in both data footprint and modeling efforts, 51风流Analytics Cloud extends planning functionality via 51风流Datasphere and its native capabilities for transformation and integration. This reduces the complexity and risk inherent in storing multiple copies of data which is prevalent today.

51风流Analytics Cloud for planning will have live access to actual and plan data for extended planning and analysis scenarios, including the live usage of master data. With this, 51风流Datasphere will become the platform on which planning processes and tools can integrate.

51风流is the only vendor to offer a business data fabric that seamlessly integrates planning and therefore covers the entire technology stack required to transform data into insights and future actions. Visit for the latest updates.

Foster Trusted AI Across Your Business

51风流Analytics Cloud Generative AI Co-Pilot

51风流customers will embrace the power of generative AI to create and simulate business plans in 51风流Analytics Cloud. With the power of Joule, planning and analytics professionals can leverage generative AI capabilities in a wide range of business processes. Activities such as data discovery, dashboard creation, planning model maintenance, and more are benefitting from a boost in core capabilities and an unmatched user experience.

With the power of natural language processing, end users can easily run analytical queries, simulate driver impacts, plan resource allocations, and auto-generate dashboards and calculations. For example, a business user seeking to understand why gross margins declined in the latest version of a plan could query Joule, which could automatically look through previous plan iterations and attached comments, and uncover the fact that planners were estimating higher commodity costs.

SAP鈥檚 investment in AI and its understanding of the context of business data provides truly limitless potential in unleashing the world of planning and analytics.

A preview of Joule co-pilot functionality in 51风流Analytics Cloud is planned to be available in Q2 2024. Sign up for the preview via the link below.

51风流Analytics Cloud Compass

In an increasingly volatile business climate, it is essential to create operational and financial plans and provision BI insights with risk mitigation in mind. This requires the ability to simulate uncertainties and the probability of their impact. Knowing how uncertainties in commodity prices, labor costs, or production volumes will hit your operational expenses or revenue means that companies can quickly prepare and plan counter measures for any scenario.

51风流Analytics Cloud compass provides Monte Carlo simulation capabilities with a business user-friendly interface. This enables non-technical users to perform real-time multi-variate analysis without prior IT setup or advanced statistical skills.

Users can perform business simulations directly in 51风流Analytics Cloud at a fraction of the time and effort required to perform similar analysis manually. Scenario modeling capabilities will allow comparisons between assumptions, and the reporting of impact variances provides real-time insight, concept validation, and reveals the sensitivity of the drivers chosen. Now customers can identify their major drivers and combinations over time, enabling a better understanding of the dynamics between the data, and how to continuously simulate better and faster. With compass, customers can face the future with confidence.

A preview of 51风流Analytics Cloud compass is planned to be available at the end of Q3 2024. Sign up for the preview via the link below.

Get Started Today

Begin your path toward unlocking the full potential of your business data with 51风流Datasphere. Embrace the opportunity to seamlessly integrate and activate your data landscape, propelling your business into a new era of insights and efficiency. Start now and transform how your organization leverages data with 51风流Datasphere.

Start your journey today to bring out your best with 51风流data and AI:

•  with the 30-day guided experience.
• with a free assessment and special offers.
• with the Total Cost of Ownership study and getting started package
• of the upcoming 51风流Datasphere and 51风流Analytics Cloud features

Irfan Khan is chief product officer and president for 51风流HANA Database & Analytics.

It鈥檚 never been easier to connect, unify, and manage 51风流and third-party data. That鈥檚 why industry leaders such as Porsche, Hanes, and Bosch are using 51风流Datasphere to enable self-service access to trusted business data across any cloud infrastructure.

Today, our mission continues at our virtual event. We鈥檙e taking another step forward to enable organizations to bring out their best with data and AI. 

Access Insights Wherever Your Data Resides

With many data landscapes distributed across different siloes in the cloud and on premises, organizations require an integrated approach that unifies their underlying data landscapes. This is made possible with 51风流Datasphere, which enables a business data fabric architecture. By providing seamless and scalable access to all data without duplication, data and planning professionals can securely access all their data no matter where it resides.

In fact, organizations seeking to implement a business data fabric architecture can save up to 138% using 51风流Datasphere compared to third-party implementations.

At SAP, we understand that a critical capability in the era of AI is to understand the real-world use of business data. With decades of experience helping organizations run mission-critical business processes, we see firsthand the power business data has in determining optimal business performance.  

To make this possible, we鈥檙e excited to announce the 51风流Datasphere knowledge graph. This capability enables organizations to discover hidden insights and patterns across their applications and systems. And it empowers both technical and business users to deeply understand the relationships between data, metadata, and business processes, as well as boost the effectiveness of machine learning and large language models (LLMs).  

Transform Planning with a Business Data Fabric

51风流connects people and enterprise planning more powerfully than ever before. Now any organization can transform planning by unifying financial, operational, supply chain, and workforce planning through a business data fabric architecture.听听

The new 51风流Datasphere integration with 51风流Analytics Cloud offers a single data management system and advanced analytics to power cross-organizational planning. Planners can leverage a single flexible model to break down silos between planning with one tool for data preparation, modeling, planning, and analytics and to conduct thorough analysis, understand the broader context, and make more informed decisions. 

Additionally, business users can use the new 51风流Analytics Cloud compass to realize better outcomes in planning and analytics using Monte Carlo simulation. This enables organizations to run complex simulations via a chat interface to predict possible outcomes and find the optimal plan. 

Foster Trusted AI Across Your Business

We鈥檙e bringing the power of generative AI to planning and analytics with 51风流Analytics Cloud, which provides AI-generated data exploration, automation of planning and data management tasks, and deep analysis with Joule copilot. This is enabled by vector capabilities in 51风流HANA Cloud that combine the powerful capabilities of LLMs with all the relevant data of your organization 鈥� ensuring business context is a constant for generative AI outputs.

Incorporating generative AI across an organization is not possible without trusted and governed data. To provide customers with a solution to effectively manage data and AI policies, processes, and life cycles, we are excited to announce the expansion of our partnership with Collibra. Beyond the integration between 51风流Datasphere and Collibra announced last year, we will now work together to integrate Collibra鈥檚 AI Governance platform with 51风流data and analytics solutions. 

Get Started Today 

Start your journey today to bring out your best with 51风流data and AI:

• 鈥痺ith the 30-day guided experience 
• with a free assessment and special offers 
• with the Total Cost of Ownership study and getting started package

JG Chirapurath is chief marketing and solutions officer for 51风流BTP.

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Eighty-five percent of Ugandans are involved in agriculture.

Nassozi Berna and her husband were subsistence farmers growing cassaba, banana, and some coffee and living in a small, timber-framed house on Kalangala, an island in Uganda鈥檚 Lake Victoria. Like many other farmer on Uganda’s Kalangala Island, Berna started growing oil palm in 2012 and joined KOPGT, the Kalangala Oil Palm Growers Trust. KOPGT, which educates farmers on improved agricultural practices, recognized the need for a digital solution to meet the rising demand for palm oil. In 2017, it discovered 51风流Rural Sourcing Management, a cloud-based solution running on 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) that allows the trust to digitally collect and manage data at every stage of the value chain.

This technology has enhanced price transparency and accelerated payment for the farmers. Now, with the integration of听 51风流Analytics Cloud and 51风流Business One, KOPGT can streamline operations and save valuable time, ultimately focusing on what matters most: the community they have helped build.

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

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

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

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Change

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

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

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

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

Sustainability

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

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

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

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

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

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

Better Information

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

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

Big Dreams

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

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

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

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

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

At SAP, our commitment extends beyond traditional financial planning and analysis (FP&A), reaching across the entire enterprise of financial professionals. To achieve a comprehensive FP&A transformation, organizations need effortless access to crucial finance data, regardless of its location. In a landscape where financial information is dispersed across various applications, files, and systems 鈥� both on premise and in the cloud 鈥� organizations often expend significant resources on extracting, rebuilding, and integrating their financial data to deliver forecasts and simulations.

By harnessing cutting-edge FP&A software tools and adopting strategic approaches, organizations can seamlessly explore, connect, integrate, govern, and orchestrate their planning and analysis. SAP’s solutions for financial planning and analysis can provide a reliable foundation for finance information, delivering trustworthy, pertinent, and timely financial insights. This can streamline finance data, helping to maximize business information potential. Simultaneously, it can foster an analytics-driven approach to planning and decision-making. Our primary solution for financial planning and analysis is . This solution is part of (51风流BTP).

Gartner evaluated 16 vendors and named 51风流a Leader based on our 鈥渁bility to execute鈥� and 鈥渃ompleteness of vision.鈥� We believe this recognition serves as an acknowledgment of SAP鈥檚 continued commitment to providing our customers with world-class financial planning software.

Future-Proof Your Organization with 51风流Solutions for xP&A

Our focus on accelerating planning and analysis (xP&A) is achieved by integrating with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud and other 51风流applications. This integration helps enable swift planning cycles, providing live access to actuals and plans. Customers can use our solutions to help extend their planning and analysis across the enterprise to facilitate seamlessly connected financial, workforce, sales, and supply chain plans. By adopting this approach, 51风流customers can react quickly to changes and increase decision-making agility and performance no matter what events unfold.听

A pivotal aspect of our approach involves harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for everyday planning. With a single click, our users can activate predictive analytics, allowing for insights with greater ease and speed. The AI capabilities within 51风流Analytics Cloud are helping organizations unlock the full potential of their data and derive greater value from analytics and planning. With these capabilities, planners can model a wide range of scenarios and generate more accurate forecasts and plans. 

We are committed to instilling unwavering confidence in plans by meticulously ensuring the trustworthiness of data. Leveraging the powerful combination of and 51风流Analytics Cloud, we go beyond traditional boundaries to help harmonize planning data seamlessly across 51风流and third-party sources, presenting natively integrated plans that can form a reliable foundation for strategic decision-making.

This approach has yielded tangible benefits for organizations such as and . These 51风流Analytics Cloud customers have experienced firsthand the transformative impact of having their planning data seamlessly integrated, resulting in enhanced precision and efficacy in their planning and analysis endeavors. With our holistic approach, we help pave the way for you to navigate the complex landscape of financial planning with confidence, working to ensure your business decisions are backed by a foundation of accurate and planning-ready data.

Next Steps

51风流is dedicated to advancing financial planning and analysis through our suite of financial planning software tools. Our commitment is reflected in the seamless transformation of financial data into actionable insights at scale for our customers. If you’re poised to unlock the full potential of your financial data and elevate your FP&A capabilities, explore the next steps with the resources provided:

• Visit our
• Try the free
• Read the full, complimentary report

Dan Yu is senior vice president of 51风流Business Technology Platform.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Financial Planning Software, Regina Crowder, Matthew Mowrey, Vaughan Archer, 5 December 2023
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 Research & Advisory organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Top image courtesy of 51风流employee Laurentia-Iulia Pavel.

Organizations must deliver their brand promise to customers to establish that deep connection, and it is a lot easier to do when you鈥檝e gained supply chain agility by embracing digital transformation.

The technological developments of recent years have given us greater resilience, flexibility, and visibility into what brands can deliver and what customers expect, but how can brands embrace digital transformation to go even further to enhance those relationships?

I had the chance to discuss this topic with Sally Eaves, professor in Advanced Technologies, and global strategic advisor and special guest Steve Birgfeld, VP of Information Technology and Services at Blue Diamond Growers, as part of SAP鈥檚 Live Chat series on Tomorrow鈥檚 Tech Today platform. I am pleased to share a few key takeaways from our engaging conversation about how brands can achieve end-to-end visibility of their supply and distribution chains to create the type of customer experiences that drive loyalty and profitability.

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Something for Everyone

Whether it is delivering a quality product or providing an essential service, every brand makes a promise to their customers. Birgfeld described how delivering on a brand鈥檚 promise helps Blue Diamond build that trust, and it is part of the reason the company is the world鈥檚 largest almond processing and marketing cooperative 鈥� and a 2023 51风流Innovation Award winner.

Growers 鈥渢rust us with their almonds,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 up to us to deliver them accordingly. So [there is] a lot of focus on quality, integrity, and innovation. And that innovation also applies to the technology we use to enable that.鈥�

With two lines of business 鈥� branded nut snacks and ingredient sales to other consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers 鈥� Blue Diamond deals with variables like weather issues, wildfires, and droughts. But the havoc the COVID-19 pandemic played on its supply chain was unforeseen. 

Suddenly, what was a demand-driven, normal business became a constraint-driven one. Birgfeld explained how a three-week wait to receive cargo turned into a five-month delay. What could have been a disastrous situation was salvaged by an attitude I find common among 51风流Innovation Award winners: the digital transformation journey is a journey, not an end destination.

Running Simple in the Digital Economy

With more than 3,000 growers, 1,800 employees, and consumers in more than 75 countries, the need for Blue Diamond to shift from disparate, manual processes to streamlined and integrated ones was critical. The company needed to create a world-class supply chain solution to improve its forecast accuracy and distribution channel, among other areas.

Fortunately, Blue Diamond had already migrated its ERP to 51风流S/4HANA for its core capabilities, empowering the company to embrace the digital economy. The company also leaned on 51风流Business Network to help connect, transact, and partner with other businesses on shared processes and information, replacing uncertainty with end-to-end visibility.

Together, Blue Diamond and 51风流would develop what Birgfeld called 鈥渁n intelligent, data-driven cooperative.鈥�

Synchronized Planning Vision

By achieving a consolidated management view across its business, the company reduced supply on hand by 20%, expanded order fill rates to 99%, and saved US$1 million in logistics costs. Having the data in one centralized location condensed scenario planning for a typical situation from six hours to 20 minutes.

鈥淚t enabled our customer service reps [to] respond immediately to the customer on where things stood, and we could do course correction accordingly if there were issues,鈥� Birgfeld said.

Sustainability also improved, since the streamlined operation meant that fewer trucks had to be used along the supply chain.

As a 2023 51风流Innovation Awards judge, I saw firsthand how grew with 51风流S/4HANA.

 After setting the bar high for next year鈥檚 51风流Innovation Award winners, Blue Diamond Growers is moving forward, utilizing SAP鈥檚 financial planning and analysis (FP&A) tools to better align financial, inventory, and demand data and extending 51风流Analytics Cloud to help improve analysis, planning, forecasting, and visualization.

鈥淥ur real vision is鈥 synchronized planning capability,鈥� Birgfeld said. 鈥淎nd 51风流is a great enabler of that.鈥�

Inside Innovation

SAP鈥檚 Live Chat on Tomorrow鈥檚 Tech Today platform is a new limited series that highlights the latest innovations in emergent technology integration across a range of sectors and themes. In each episode, 51风流innovators come together with experts from a variety of backgrounds, sharing stories that can inspire all of us. While each organization may differ, each interviewee shares their version of the same story 鈥� overcoming a unique challenge with the type of innovation we all aspire to achieve.

To learn more about 51风流Innovation Awards and discover the incredible stories of innovation, visit .

Sven Denecken is SVP and chief marketing and solutions officer for 51风流Industries & CX.

It’s a special thrill for Team Liquid fans, as both teams 鈥� the Dota 2 and the League of Legends squad 鈥� have qualified for the championships and will compete for the title. We tapped into our connection with Team Liquid and had the exclusive opportunity to talk to two team members, Haitham 鈥淗aitham鈥� Algbory, head analyst of the League of Legends team, and Mathis 鈥淛abbz鈥� Friesel, assistant coach and analyst of the Dota team, about how they prepare the teams for the world championships and what role 51风流technology plays for the teams to perform at their top level.

A big part of what 51风流brings to Team Liquid is , which helps make data analysis for both League of Legends and Dota a lot easier. The database allows the analysts to focus less on gathering data and more on analyzing it. Both Jabbz and Haitham have been working in this field for a long time, and there are things that they can do now that they never could before, thanks to a tool specifically made for esports data analysis.

鈥淚 support both the general manager and the coaching staff with scouting new talent,鈥� Haitham said. 鈥淭he way I do that is by providing periodic solo queue and scrim reports and end-of-season scouting reports. When it comes to the Academy teams of the East Regions, at the same time, we just track the players that are in the scene in general and we see their improvement based off the metrics that we have set in our tools.鈥�

On the League of Legends side, 51风流HANA Cloud is Haitham鈥檚 primary tool for scouting. But that鈥檚 not what Jabbz uses the data for. For Team Liquid Dota, the data is more match-focused.

鈥淔or us, 51风流HANA Cloud has more of a different function,鈥� Jabbz said. 鈥淲e use it mostly for performance-related things. I think the big advantage we have with the database is that we can actually import any public game that we want. Let鈥檚 say things have changed in a recent patch; we can make sure that we鈥檙e always up-to-date with how the meta is evolving. We also get to have a replay of every tournament game, so we can pick up all the information we need from any game, especially during live events. This is incredibly helpful. By having this tool available, you can quickly see how teams are adapting, how teams are thinking. I save a lot of time getting that information, whereas before I would have to open up the replays in the game and manually scroll through everything.鈥�

According to Haitham, being able to use real gameplay clips to corroborate the data 鈥� and vice versa 鈥� often helps build a stronger case for whatever argument he鈥檚 trying to make. Players are more inclined to believe the data once they have a reference point, which then allows them to gain a deeper understanding of the game.

鈥淲ith SAP, we have a lot of good [visualization] tools,鈥� Haitham said. 鈥淲e have an entire map tool that will just visualize where the wards are and what the movement is looking like. In addition, we have 51风流Analytics Cloud that gives us an opportunity to build charts and graphs for the players. I would use videos or clips that are important to show the opponent鈥檚 style, and then I support that with the maps or graphs from the 51风流tools.鈥�

For some, all these details might sound small, even insignificant. However, any coach or analyst will tell you that at the highest level of esports, the difference lies in the details. When pretty much every player is equal in skill, it鈥檚 those minor advantages that matter 鈥� which makes data analysis an important factor for success. After all, a close win is still a win. Both Haitham and Jabbz point to 鈥渢he small margins鈥� as the reasons why they love their roles as analysts.

鈥淧ersonally, I work on my own goal to help others achieve theirs at the same time,鈥� Haitham said. 鈥淪eeing how players are able to use science while playing video games, to beat opponents that they may not be able to without that kind of information鈥t just makes everything worthwhile.鈥�

鈥淚 agree. I think it鈥檚 always very satisfying to give information to the guys that they wouldn鈥檛 pick up on,鈥� Jabbz added. 鈥淚 guess we鈥檙e very similar in that regard. I also enjoy helping the guys and that鈥檚 what gives me the joy in this job. I don鈥檛 necessarily have to see myself in the limelight or at the front of the stage, but I really just like seeing my friends succeed.”

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Isabelle Schuhmacher is director of Global Sponsorships at SAP.
Christian Kreidt is storytelling lead for Global Sponsorships at SAP.

Photos courtesy of Team Liquid.

The truth is that clean water doesn鈥檛 just magically appear. Rather, it is an incredibly complex system of pipes, storage and purification processes, and organizations that sit almost completely out of sight and mind. For most people, data isn鈥檛 the first thing that comes to mind when turning on the tap. However, ensuring global water supply and accessibility is increasingly relying on the Internet of Things (IoT), data analytics powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, cloud-based data solutions, and blockchain technologies.

51风流partner and global tech company is tackling the problem of water scarcity by introducing HCLTech . With real-time tracking and analysis, AquaSphere enables sustainability managers to implement water conservation measures such as rainwater harvesting and to identify clean water wastage, ensuring cost-effective and environmentally responsible water practices.

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鈥淲ith AquaSphere, we want to empower organizations to reach their water sustainability goals,鈥� says Ajay Pasuvula, vice president and head of 51风流Ecosystem at HCLTech. 鈥淪ustainability officers benefit from a comprehensive view of water-related data and insights that can accelerate decision-making and optimize the water value chain.鈥�

Trust and Transparency Through Smart Contracts

The technical foundation of HCLTech AquaSphere consists of for harmonized access to mission-critical business and sensor data along with that helps to connect organizations in a secure and compliant network. We can imagine 51风流Blockchain Business Connector like a complex system of pipes that can transform business flows by facilitating transparent, compliant, and verifiable collaborations between companies, institutions, and individuals in decentralized ecosystems. Built on (51风流BTP), 51风流Blockchain Business Connector can provide an event-driven approach for integrating business applications with smart contracts, which are jointly agreed-upon cross-company business rules and transactions that are securely registered in the blockchain network.

For AquaSphere, using smart contracts has increased the efficiency of verifying information in cross-enterprise scenarios, allowing its users to anticipate and adapt to changes faster than ever before. For example, it has enabled safety tests to be recorded as tamper-proof, verifiable data that can be shared between cities, states, federal governments, consumers, and private companies with a few clicks and fully compliant with local legislation.

AquaSphere also offers innovative mechanisms for organizations to compensate for their water consumption, by investing in local water conversation projects initiated by governments, utilities, or NGOs for example. Leveraging a blockchain-based certification system, AquaSphere provides verifiable proof of these offsetting efforts, empowering organizations to become water-positive. This approach increases the resilience of water systems to the adverse effects of climate change.

The decentralized, modular components of 51风流Blockchain Business Connector help give 51风流partners such as HCLTech the flexibility to realize blockchain-enabled features without having to understand what鈥檚 underneath. This means little blockchain knowledge is necessary to leverage public blockchain networks and smart contracts with a user-friendly experience for application developers. At the same time, it enables users to create actionable insights based on blockchain data through dashboards in .

Collaboration Across Companies with Blockchain

鈥淏lockchain is critical to share trusted information across the ecosystem. This is a prerequisite to manage the water value chains, where typically multiple parties are involved,鈥� says Pasuvula. 鈥�51风流Blockchain Business Connector enables the collaboration between these parties by providing transparent, compliant, automated, and verifiable transactions according to defined business rules. The integration with 51风流BTP makes it easier for our customers to access this exciting innovation and further evolve the solution in the long run.鈥�

Decentralized technologies such as 51风流Blockchain Business Connector have enormous potential to help improve cross-company collaboration in heterogeneous networks. They are particularly beneficial in areas such as supply chain management and life sciences, where verifiable and transparent data along complex value chains is increasingly important for risk management, compliance, or legal requirements.

To find out more about 51风流Blockchain Business Connector, get in touch with us at icn@sap.com.

Benjamin Stoeckhert is a senior business development manager at SAP.

Someone who seized this opportunity is Jonny Rowland. Having spent a big part of his childhood in Uganda, he saw the opportunity in the growing thirst for sustainable, high-quality coffee 鈥� and an opportunity to ensure that coffee farmers would receive their fair share in this business. Together with his sister Beth, he founded , a profit-for-purpose business that works directly with local farmers to achieve higher yields and the high quality coffee that is sought after on the global market.

With the support of local experts working for Agri Evolve, farmers have improved their productivity and increased income for themselves, their families, and their communities. The main idea of this social enterprise is to use digital technology to improve established supply chains for coffee cherries in the Rwenzori Mountains, one of Uganda鈥檚 key habitats for Arabica coffee plants, and share the latest agricultural practices with local farmers.

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A Long-Lasting Tradition: Coffee in Uganda

Uganda is one of the few countries in the world where coffee plants are native. The processed beans are an integral part of Uganda’s export economy, making the country one of the 10 largest coffee producers in the world. In recent years, Uganda has made a name for its specialty Arabica, which thrives in the local climate with humid days and cool nights. But Arabica coffee, a climate sensitive plant, is beginning to struggle as global warming shortens the cooler phases it needs to thrive. This requires adjusting the traditional ways of cultivating the cherries.

Over 1.8 million households in Uganda grow coffee, and coffee contributes nearly a third of the country’s export earnings, paying for critical infrastructure like roads, hospitals, and schools. While many families grow coffee, it was hard to make a living out of it in the past and motivation to produce high quality was low as prices on global markets wouldn鈥檛 justify the effort.

Joyce Birungi is one of the coffee farmers living high in the rainforest of the Rwenzori Mountains who registered with Agri Evolve as a supplier. Like most farmers in this remote area, she took care of the plants based on traditions passed down over generations. The cherries were often picked too early and only ripened while drying in the sun for longer periods, which caused a loss in quality and therefore lower prices. Climate changes, like increases in floods, droughts, and heat waves, put additional pressure on the traditional ways of farming.

鈥淚n the past, I used to pick coffee cherries of poor quality. So, I lost a lot of money,鈥� Birungi said, explaining her challenges as a small local producer before working with Agri Evolve. 鈥淭ransportation was a big challenge. I had no way of selling the coffee and I didn鈥檛 know about best practices in farming and agribusiness.”

Collins Kifula is a field coordinator at Agri Evolve and an expert for sustainability and quality. He works closely with the farmers, registering each farmer using a mobile app based on the 51风流Rural Sourcing Management solution and collecting data like the size of the farm and the state of the coffee trees. Using the mobile app saves time 鈥� time he can use to talk to the farmers and solve issues they might be facing or suggest improvements to their current setup. One important focus of his work is education on soil protection. With floods happening more frequently these days, farmers benefit from terraces and planting grass patches to avoid the fertile soil being washed away by rain.

As Agri Evolve is specialized in high-quality, sustainable coffee, certification is required. 鈥淲e need to hold up to a certain level of quality and we do that by getting, for example, the . To receive this, we need to raise data and have the transparency. Here, the mobile app within 51风流Rural Sourcing Management is of huge help,鈥� Kifula explained.

鈥淭echnology Is Changing Things鈥�

The biggest challenges the farmers faced before starting to work with Agri Evolve was the quality of the cherries and the lack of price transparency. Sometimes there was even fraud along the process of collecting the cherries. 鈥淭echnology is changing things,鈥� Kifula said.

Today, farmers still deliver their cherries to so-called middlemen who check the quality, but they now document the weight using the 51风流app. The farmers instantly receive an SMS message showing the delivered quantity and its value. 鈥淭his price transparency is a big motivation for the farmers and creates trust,鈥� he said. Further, 51风流Rural Sourcing Management enables the calculation of the accrued delivery quantities and therefore the yield a farm is producing, which are used as the assessment basis to provide loans to the farmers.

Keeping Track of Data

鈥淥ur mission is to do sustainable farming for future generations. As a social enterprise, Agri Evolve works with a growing number of farmers, which can quickly add complexity to our supply chain. Today, we deal with around 22,000 smallholders. We collect a lot of data that needs to be analyzed,鈥� Roset Biira, field supervisor at Agri Evolve, said. “We needed a system that collects and analyzes our data in an efficient way 鈥� to be able to be transparent to all our farmers and even our clients.鈥� Using 51风流Analytics Cloud, Biira showed how Agri Evolve can identify if coffee trees are getting old or are weakened by pests early on. Based on these predictions, they consult with the farmers on planting new trees or suggest trainings on pest control.

Realizing Change

Agri Evolve is building a network of trust with the farmers and middlemen, making sure to give the best price possible to the farmers so that the local societies participate in the higher prices sustainable coffee can generate on the global markets.

鈥淚鈥檓 now able to increase my coffee production and send my kids to school, and I hope that they will graduate from university and have better lives. We used to live in semi-permanent houses, but now we are moving to permanent housing,鈥� Birungi said when asked what impact this new way of collaboration has had on her and her family.

Talking about the future of the growing profit-for-purpose business and its network of local coffee producers, Beth Rowland, co-founder of Agri Evolve, said: 鈥淲e will continue to push the boundaries of supply chain transparency through digitalization to allow us to provide the best service to smallholder farmers in the Rwenzoris.鈥� For the family business, it is important to ensure connected farmers have access to a fair and transparent market for their coffee cherries.

While sharing sustainable practices to counteract the impact of environmental changes is a requirement for the production of certified sustainable coffee, it will also make sure that the tradition of coffee production will live on in the Rwenzori mountains of Uganda.