AI alone is no longer a differentiator: What matters is where intelligence鈥痮perates鈥痠nside of a business. As demand volatility increases, fulfillment windows tighten, and customer expectations鈥痳ise,鈥痮rganizations need more than insights or task鈥痑ssistance. They need intelligence inside quotes, product content, service interactions, and campaigns, guiding decisions as they happen and continuously adapting as conditions change.

This shift lays the foundation for a new generation of executional AI, where capabilities evolve from supporting users to actively鈥痬onitoring鈥痜lows,鈥痑nticipating鈥痳isk, and over time acting as intelligent agents within core customer-facing processes.

With the Q1 2026 release of鈥� solutions, 51风流advances this shift by bringing AI closer to day-to-day customer-facing execution across sales, service, commerce, and engagement. Intelligence now operates closer to where outcomes are realized鈥攈elping organizations protect revenue, reduce friction, and deliver consistent, trusted experiences at scale.

Below, explore more of the highlights from the Q1 2026 release. And for full sub-solution details, see recaps for听,听,听,听, and听.

Optimize revenue streams with confidence

Revenue becomes more reliable when customer intent is captured early and executed consistently across sales and commerce workflows. The execution depends on speed and accuracy: accurate product information, relevant content, and seamless handoffs from inquiry to quote creation. When these are disconnected, teams face delays, manual rework, and missed revenue opportunities.

From customer inquiry to executable quote

• Email to quote with AI:鈥疉utomatically add SKUs from a deal using opportunity and email data with the Microsoft Outlook add-in for 51风流Sales Cloud. Users can choose to generate a quote, and the quote is quickly created in 51风流Sales Cloud in just a few clicks. After review, sellers can hit send; it is that easy.  
• Deep research: Accelerate account planning and reviews by synthesizing 51风流Sales Cloud and 51风流Service Cloud data with external market intelligence. For example, the deep research capability can deliver a detailed brief that can be used to better understand the account, their industry, and other crucial information like news and SWOT. Sellers will be able to engage prospects and buyers more effectively while customers will have more relevant and personalized information delivered.  
• Media attachments for product descriptions: Use AI to extract details from product documents, such as manuals, spec sheets, and PDFs, and automatically generate or enrich product descriptions in 51风流Commerce Cloud. This accelerates catalog updates and improves product data quality so that shoppers, search engines, and agentic commerce are rich with the most accurate product descriptions鈥攅nsuring product descriptions are detailed, differentiated, and discovered.

Delivering鈥痳别濒颈补产濒别鈥痵ervice at鈥痵肠补濒别

• Digital Service Agent handoff鈥痜or case creation: Connect every step of the service journey from conversational AI self-service to field resolution so service teams can resolve customer issues鈥痜aster and provide personalized service engagements that build trust.鈥疷sing conversational cues, Digital Service Agent鈥痵ummarizes intent identification for ticket creation while capturing essential information required for handoff to underlying solutions like 51风流Service Cloud.
• : Give service teams a single, real-time command center in 51风流Service Cloud, consolidating cases, tasks, and service orders into one view with visual workload insights so agents can prioritize faster, stay on top of commitments, and resolve more issues per day. 
• Retail Intelligence (51风流Early Adopter Care): Announced at NRF, Retail Intelligence provides one closed-loop, AI-enhanced retail supply chain planning environment that ties together planning, execution, and engagement. The result: human and agentic teams that don鈥檛 just execute tasks but reshape strategies, reimagine retail supply chain planning, and master autonomous growth and lasting differentiation.
  Learn more at the session.

Orchestrating engagement across the customer life cycle

Customer engagement spans browsing,鈥痯urchasing, fulfillment, and service across multiple channels. 51风流CX connects engagement directly to operational context.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

• delivers鈥痯ersonalized, AI-personalized communications and interactions across every channel powered by connected customer and operational data all fully integrated across SAP. Teams鈥痗an鈥痙eliver consistent, intelligent engagement that builds loyalty and drives鈥痓usiness鈥痠mpact.

• :鈥疎xtend conversational analytics to SMS campaigns. A new data context model narrows analysis to the right dataset, returning faster, more precise answers to natural language questions, such as 鈥淲hat was SMS revenue last month?鈥�

• :鈥疨redictively鈥痠dentify鈥痗ontacts鈥痺ho are鈥痩ikely in the next鈥�30 days to engage,鈥痓ecome inactive, or remain inactive,鈥痵o marketers can target outreach鈥痺here it will deliver the strongest results.鈥��&苍产蝉辫;

Accelerate transformation鈥痺颈迟丑鈥痶丑别鈥痑dvanced success plan鈥痜or 51风流CX

To鈥痑ssist鈥痗ustomers鈥痮n their鈥痶ransformation鈥痡ourneys, 51风流launched the new Advanced Success Plan in the鈥�. This will鈥痟elp customers increase the value of individual applications, accelerate cloud transformation across 51风流Business Suite,鈥痑nd enable consistent adoption of new innovations and 51风流Business AI.

With expanded coverage with additional 51风流CX solutions, including and , the advanced offering is comprised of three powerful elements:

• Success expert: Regular SAP expertise driving strategic customer outcomes
• Adoption guidance: Structured, AI-driven enablement accelerating adoption
• Activation and optimization services: Hands-on services to maximize performance and impact

Check out the鈥痺ebinar鈥痶o learn how the new service offering unlocks more of the transformative value of 51风流solutions:鈥�.

Intelligence where execution happens鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

With 51风流Customer Experience, AI moves beyond isolated鈥痑ssistance鈥痶o鈥痮perate鈥痙irectly within business execution flows. Intelligence is embedded where work happens鈥攊nside quotes, product content, service interactions, and campaigns鈥攈elping organizations respond in real time and deliver consistent customer outcomes at scale.

Learn more about 51风流CX in Q1鈥�2026鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Read the 51风流Help documentation to get started with these new capabilities.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Balaji Balasubramanian is president and chief product officer for 51风流Customer Experience and Consumer Industries.鈥�

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, our new user experience, is gaining momentum and driving significant impact for our customers. Customers are already efficiency, enhancing processes, improving , and .

Joule is now live across 35 solutions and will continue to meet our customers where they are: across the applications they use, with a firm understanding of their business context and data. That鈥檚 why in Q1 we are embedding Joule into more applications鈥攆rom 51风流Datasphere, where it can now execute tasks or explain specific functionalities, to 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management, where users can use natural language to retrieve critical data and navigate to relevant applications.

Joule Agents, such as the Tender Analysis Agent, are boosting customer revenue growth by extracting critical requirements and flagging risks in complex documents. While project managers in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition are saving time setting up projects with the new Project Setup Agent. Plus, there are many more agents to discover below.

Agents are becoming a key new user鈥攁nd enabler鈥攐f enterprise software, joining humans as the only other non-deterministic operators while simultaneously expanding enterprise software鈥檚 scope and usefulness. Our agents will continue to deliver trustworthy, repeatable, and auditable results every time.

We now have over 30 specialized agents and more than 2,500 Joule Skills. The agent-to-agent protocol means our agents work across 51风流and non-51风流systems. As the number of agents grows across both, 51风流AI Agent Hub already today provides customers with the essential infrastructure and guardrails to manage, govern, and discover agents in this new ecosystem.

Some highlights from Q1 2026:

• 51风流Joule for Consultants is a conversational AI solution that provides expert guidance on cloud transformations, drawing on SAP鈥檚 knowledge base. To improve trust and traceability, citations are now displayed in a dedicated side panel and can be grouped for clarity. Administrators can enable web search, allowing Joule to draw from public content while maintaining clear source attribution. For tailored answers to problems where the system may not have customer-specific documentation, consultants can now upload up to 10 PDF or text files directly into the chat. This is further enhanced by the inclusion of content from the 51风流Enterprise Architecture Reference Library, which provides more complete and accurate answers to complex queries. Get started here.
• 51风流Business AI for supply chain minimizes disruptions and simplifies planning. The Project Setup Agent allows project managers to rapidly establish new projects by drawing on data from past initiatives. 51风流Integrated Business Planning users can now generate complex formulas in Microsoft Excel with natural language. 51风流Digital Manufacturing can distill complex manufacturing issues into clear descriptions. Joule is also helping 51风流Integrated Product Development users create problem reports and requirement models with simple, natural-language commands. Explore more below.
• 51风流Business AI for finance offers greater efficiency and insight across critical processes. Joule now translates complex e-invoicing errors into plain language. The Dispute Resolution Agent automates root-cause analysis for invoice disputes, while payment advice processing significantly reduces document processing time. Unstructured data, such as PDFs, can now be automatically transformed into sales orders, and accountants can access natural language explanations for complex fixed asset calculations. Users can personalize their home page and easily understand system errors using natural language across 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. Learn more below.
• 51风流Business AI for procurement and customer experience enhances the entire commercial journey with new capabilities. In procurement, automated statement of work (SOW) creation in 51风流Fieldglass reduces the time to define deliverables. The Catalog Optimization Agent means e-commerce managers can continuously improve product data quality. In retail, managers can get instant, conversational answers from Joule on order management data. There’s so much more to learn below.
• 51风流Business AI for IT and developers puts the latest tools and greater control directly into the hands of developers and data professionals. Joule is now generally available in 51风流Datasphere, enabling users to navigate the platform, get answers, and execute tasks using simple conversational language. The generative AI hub in AI Foundation continues to expand, offering developers access to the newest models, including OpenAI GPT 5.2, Gemini 3.0 Pro, Anthropic Claude Opus 4.6, and Claude Sonnet 4.6. Developers also gain greater power through enhancements such as advanced prompt optimization, metadata filtering, and declarative orchestration configurations in the prompt registry. Additionally, 51风流Document AI now offers more granular control with custom confidence thresholds and expanded document support. Dive into everything below.
• 51风流Business AI for industries delivers specialized intelligence to solve unique business challenges. Sales teams can accelerate their response process with the new Tender Analysis Agent, which automates the review of complex RFQ documents to improve win rates. Joule now works with 51风流Commodity Management to turn verbal or written negotiations directly into detailed draft deals. In life sciences, clinical supply professionals can use predictive analytics to reduce inventory waste costs, and Joule dramatically cuts information search time. 51风流Self-Billing Cockpit automates invoice data extraction from any format, significantly reducing manual processing time. Discover more for industries below.
• 51风流Business AI for business transformation management provides the critical insights needed to navigate and accelerate organizational change. Joule is now in 51风流Signavio, enabling natural-language searches that cut information discovery time. Business process model and notation simulations in 51风流Signavio provide clear, actionable summaries directly within process diagrams. Meanwhile, enterprise architects can leverage guidance in 51风流LeanIX to surface actionable insights directly from their architecture inventory, accelerating transformation execution and reducing the time to uncover them. Read more about transformation management below.

Joule

Joule, enhancements

User experience is improved by streamlining startup times and introducing cross-thread search functionality that lets end users find information across all conversation threads without manually checking individual histories. The document grounding capability has also seen a substantial upgrade, now supporting seamless integration with Google Drive.

To set up, see: , , and .

Furthermore, scalability has been greatly improved, as the system now supports up to 8,000 documents per pipeline, enabling large-scale data repositories to be processed and utilized efficiently.

For more information, see .

51风流Joule for Consultants, enhancements

Enhanced Citation Visibility
51风流Joule for Consultants has improved how citations are displayed for all identified sources returned by the product. Citations have been relocated to the right side in a dedicated panel for clearer visibility, and now also include public web search results when applicable (see below).

A new grouping feature has also been added, allowing citations to be grouped. This update provides users with a more transparent view of where information originates, strengthens trust, and improves traceability across all responses.

To see the sources and panel, click the sources button below each message; the panel will open on the right, showing all grouped sources.

Enable Web Search
Administrators can now enable/disable web search via the control panel for all assigned end users in 51风流Joule for Consultants.

When enabled, 51风流Joule for Consultants will consider public web content in its reasoning and cite relevant public sources in responses when they contribute to the answer. This enhancement gives organizations greater flexibility and transparency by enabling broader coverage of information while maintaining clear source citations for all sources used.

File Uploads in the Joule Message Input
End-users can now upload up to 10 files directly from the conversational message input box and reference them throughout the entire conversation.

Supported file types include PDF and TXT. Each file should be no more than 10 MB/600K characters; for PDFs, an approximation. A 100-page limit applies; if your file is larger, split it into multiple documents. Image files are currently not processed and will be ignored. We are working diligently to make this feature even more useful to end users. This enhancement enables richer, context-aware interactions by allowing you to incorporate your uploaded documents into its conversational responses throughout the session. Please be aware that the standard data privacy terms apply. See also the help documentation for additional information on the free user quota.

Content: 51风流Enterprise Architecture Reference Library
51风流Enterprise Architecture Reference Library data has been ingested and is now available for use in conversations. As more data is added, relevant portions may be included in 51风流Joule for Consultants鈥� responses, enabling more complete, accurate, and context-rich answers to user queries. Since 51风流Enterprise Architecture Reference Library content cannot be link-referenced, you won鈥檛 see the additional content listed under sources, even though it will be referenced.

Get started .

SECTION

51风流Business AI for supply chain

Project Setup Agent
Beta release

Project managers can now rapidly establish new projects by drawing on data from similar past initiatives. The agent bypasses complex interfaces and reduces reliance on the project management office (PMO) to facilitate the swift allocation of key resources needed to launch projects effectively. With a 10% reduction in project creation time, 16% faster resource allocation, and 30% less time spent reworking projects due to incorrect templates, teams can shift focus from operational coordination to improving project profitability and driving efficiency.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-assisted retrieval of equipment information in service management
General availability

Service managers using the AI-assisted retrieval feature in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition gain a complete 360-degree view of customer equipment. The feature provides instant access to warranty information and a full history of service transactions, complemented by an AI summary and actionable recommendations. This allows service managers to more efficiently oversee service schedules, reduce potential downtime, and ensure customer equipment operates at peak performance.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted input recommendations for returns order creation
General availability

Returns clerks can accelerate the creation of customer returns with data field recommendations powered by historical data. This feature analyzes past return documents with similar process variants to automatically suggest the most common input values and return reasons, minimizing manual data entry and reducing errors. Organizations benefit from a one percent reduction in data management costs and a five percent decrease in business and operations analysis expenses, enabling returns teams to process orders more efficiently while maintaining accuracy.

Get started .

51风流Integrated Business Planning, AI-assisted MRO inventory analysis
General availability

Inventory planners get a new analytical assistant in the MRO inventory analysis feature for 51风流Integrated Business Planning. The feature accelerates root cause analysis by generating clear, natural-language summaries that explain the key drivers behind recommended safety stock and reorder points. By translating complex calculations into understandable insights, this capability enables planners to reduce time spent analyzing inventory runs by 30%, leading to faster adoption of outputs and ensuring that inventory parameters align with strategic business goals.

Get started .

51风流Integrated Business Planning, add-in for Microsoft Excel, AI-assisted planning
General availability

Supply chain planners can now simplify their work with a new AI-assisted planning add-in for Microsoft Excel. Instead of manually creating complex formulas or formatting rules, which often require technical expertise, they can simply describe their needs in natural language, and the system automatically generates the correct syntax. This intuitive way of interacting with the system removes technical barriers and improves a planner鈥檚 efficiency by 10%, freeing them to focus on strategic analysis rather than implementation details.

Get started .

51风流Integrated Business Planning, AI-assisted system security check
General availability

Supply chain planners and security analysts gain a robust way to assess system configurations against established security recommendations. The feature evaluates compliance states and provides clear guidance on required adjustments, helping administrators identify and address potential gaps while aligning configurations with 51风流best practices. Organizations can expect a 27% increase in compliance with hardening guidelines and a 32% reduction in the effort required to meet security recommendations. This feature strengthens the protection of sensitive data and reduces the risk of security breaches.

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51风流Integrated Product Development, AI-assisted problem report creation
General availability

Maintenance engineers can simplify the creation of formal problem reports by leveraging AI capabilities in 51风流Integrated Product Development. By describing an issue in their own words to Joule, it intelligently extracts key details like the problem name, tags, and priority, and then automatically generates a structured report. This streamlined process dramatically reduces manual data entry and ensures all reports are consistent and compliant with organizational standards, improving overall efficiency.

and get started .

51风流Integrated Product Development, AI-assisted requirements model creation
General availability

Requirements managers now have a more direct path to creating requirement models within 51风流Integrated Product Development by using natural language commands with Joule. This feature allows them to initiate new models, specify names, and apply templates in a single step, completely bypassing the need to navigate through complex folder structures. This streamlined approach provides a much faster starting point for new projects and empowers users to begin their work immediately without requiring deep knowledge of the repository layout.

Get started .

51风流Field Service Management, AI-assisted automated scheduling analytics
General availability

Field service dispatchers and consultants can now access clear, on-demand explanations of auto-scheduling results that demystify complex system logic. The new feature interprets scheduling reports and translates technical scoring details into business-friendly insights, explaining why specific technicians were assigned, why alternatives were passed over, and why certain activities remained unscheduled. This transparency drives a 12.5% increase in dispatcher productivity and a five percent reduction in erroneous resource allocations, strengthening trust in automated decisions while significantly reducing analysis time.

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51风流Digital Manufacturing, AI-assisted description enhancement
General availability

Quality managers documenting complex manufacturing issues can now generate clear, objective, and structured descriptions with minimal effort. 51风流Digital Manufacturing for issue resolution offers description generation that refines rough initial inputs, removes bias and subjective language, and produces balanced, factual problem statements. With support for multilingual translation and enhanced clarity, organizations can achieve up to five percent improvement in quality engineer efficiency during issue handling and up to 10% reduction in errors throughout the problem resolution process.

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51风流Business AI for finance

Dispute Resolution Agent (for 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition)
Beta release

When invoice disputes arise, accounts receivable specialists need to act quickly without sacrificing accuracy. 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition introduces an agent that automates root-cause analysis, scanning invoices, sales orders, delivery records, pricing agreements, and tax rules to identify the source of discrepancies. The agent detects incorrect charges and recommends compliant solutions, such as credit memo creation, enabling finance teams to resolve disputes faster, minimize manual investigation, and cultivate stronger vendor relationships through transparent, efficient processes.

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51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted smart personalization of my home for applications
General availability

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition users can easily configure their home page with the most relevant applications through AI-assisted smart personalization. By describing their task in natural language, the system identifies the appropriate app, which can then be added to their home screen with a single click. This intuitive capability reduces the cost of personalizing the home page by 33%, shortens the learning curve for new users, and improves satisfaction by keeping frequently needed tools readily accessible.

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51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted error explanation
General availability

When encountering system errors, 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition users can turn to a new feature that generates clear, natural language explanations and resolution recommendations. This capability transforms cryptic error messages into easy-to-understand guidance, helping users of all experience levels quickly rectify issues and continue with their work. By reducing error resolution time by five percent, organizations benefit from increased productivity, improved data quality, and shorter training cycles for new team members.

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51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted sales order creation from unstructured data
General availability

Sales representatives benefit from a streamlined order creation process in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition that handles unstructured data like PDF or image-based purchase orders. After uploading a file, 51风流Document AI automatically extracts the relevant information and proposes the data for a corresponding sales order request. This automation significantly reduces manual data entry, minimizes errors, and improves overall operational efficiency, allowing teams to process orders faster and enhance customer satisfaction.

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51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted processing of payment advices with 51风流Document AI
General availability

Accounts receivable clerks can accelerate their workflow using the 51风流Document AI-powered payment advice processing feature in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. The system automatically extracts payment amounts, references, and currencies from diverse invoice formats across multiple languages, with a self-learning capability that continuously improves recognition accuracy. Organizations implementing this feature can reduce document processing time by 70%, cut template maintenance time by 83%, and decrease value loss from manual processing delays by 40%.

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51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-assisted fixed asset key figures explanation
General availability

Asset accountants gain clarity on complex fixed asset calculations through a new AI feature in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. The feature generates natural-language explanations that detail the origins of displayed values and how figures such as depreciation are calculated; for example, illustrating the impact of mid-year acquisitions with specific depreciation keys. This transparency reduces the effort required to analyze asset values, enables faster responses to asset-related questions, and helps mitigate compliance risks.

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51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-assisted settlement rule proposal for asset capitalization
General availability

Overhead and asset accountants can now streamline the complex process of creating settlement rules for investment measures, eliminating the traditionally time-consuming, error-prone manual configuration. The solution automatically determines receivers, calculates percentages, and proposes feasible rules based on contextual data and user-defined instruction profiles. Organizations reduce the effort required to create full settlement rules by 50% while simultaneously improving accuracy in asset capitalization and enhancing overall operational efficiency across their financial processes.

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51风流Document and Reporting Compliance for 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-assisted electronic document error handling
General availability

Tax accountants navigating the growing complexity of e-invoicing mandates across multiple countries gain an easy way to decode technical errors without wading through intricate XML or JSON formats. Joule, integrated with 51风流Document and Reporting Compliance, delivers plain-language explanations of electronic document errors, enabling faster root-cause identification and more efficient resolution. Organizations get an 80% reduction in time spent understanding and resolving errors, dropping from 150 minutes to approximately 30 minutes. This results in faster processing cycles, reduced penalty risks, and improved cash flow.

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51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted error resolution for cost accounting
General availability

Operations managers in retail organizations can now access Joule via 51风流Order Management Services, enabling them to query order data and receive real-time, role-specific operational guidance across order processing, orchestration, sourcing, availability, returns, and fulfillment flows. Joule surfaces instant insights and recommended actions directly in the workflow, reducing the need to navigate multiple systems. This enables proactive intervention before issues escalate. The feature offers faster transaction access, improved responsiveness and accuracy, and lower operational risk, which support smarter, quicker decisions across the order lifecycle.

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51风流Business AI for spend management

Expense Report Validation Agent
General availability

Business travelers can enjoy a smarter, guided approach to expense report completion with an agent that proactively identifies missing items, prompts for necessary details, and clarifies confusing alerts throughout the submission process. By simplifying how users understand and resolve issues, the agent ensures accurate, policy-compliant reports with minimal effort required. This means a 30% reduction in time spent preparing and submitting reports, a 24% increase in first-pass approvals, and a noticeably improved employee experience that removes friction from the expense management process.

Get started .

Expense Pre-Submit Audit Agent
51风流Early Adopter Care

Expense report submitters can now catch receipt accuracy issues and policy breaches before hitting the submit button, avoiding the frustration of rejected reports and delayed reimbursements. This agent automatically reviews expenses during creation, surfacing compliance problems and offering smart suggestions for quick corrections. The agent uses a non-blocking design that keeps users in control of final decisions. Organizations benefit from a 10% decrease in sent-back expense reports, reduced rework for travelers, managers, and auditors alike, and a noticeably smoother reimbursement process that enhances the overall employee experience.

Get started .

Expense Automation Agent
51风流Early Adopter Care

Employees burdened by the administrative chore of creating expense reports can now delegate the heavy lifting to a Joule Agent. This agent automatically builds expense reports by aggregating transactions, populating custom fields based on contextual details and user history, and preparing everything for a quick review before submission. The outcome is up to 30%鈥� reduction in time on task for auto-generated expense reports. This offers a modern expense management experience that slashes manual data entry, accelerates the submission process, and frees employees to focus on high-value work rather than paperwork.

See the demo .

Concur Expense, AI-assisted configuration for audit rules
General availability

Expense administrators responsible for managing complex audit rule setups can now interact with their configuration environment in plain language, eliminating the need for deep technical expertise or tedious manual adjustments. This AI-assisted feature enables admins to search existing rules, create new ones, and receive real-time explanations simply by asking questions like “What rules apply to meals in France?”, delivering clear, actionable guidance instantly. The outcome is a 40% reduction in audit rule configuration effort, fewer support tickets, and empowered administrators who work with greater independence, accuracy, and confidence in maintaining compliance logic.

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Policy Navigator
51风流Early Adopter Care

Business travelers seeking quick answers to company travel and expense policies no longer need to sift through lengthy documents or wait for admin responses. Policy navigator in Joule allows employees to ask questions in natural language and receive clear, contextual guidance grounded in approved policies, whether planning a trip, in the middle of a journey, or completing an expense report. The result is in-the-moment policy clarity that prevents non-compliant spend before it happens, reduces support tickets, and empowers travelers to make confident, compliant decisions without disrupting their workflow.

Get started .

51风流Business AI for procurement

51风流Fieldglass Services Procurement, AI-assisted SOW deliverables creation
General availability

Procurement specialists can accelerate the development of their statements of work using the deliverables feature in 51风流Fieldglass Services Procurement. The feature analyzes the defined project scope and automatically generates precise, relevant deliverables that ensure tight alignment between buyer expectations and supplier commitments. By adopting this capability, organizations can reduce the time required to manually create SOW deliverables by 70% and cut the risk of poor outcomes by 50%, while fostering stronger collaboration during the negotiation process.

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51风流Business AI for customer experience

Catalog Optimization Agent
General availability

E-commerce product managers tasked with maintaining large 51风流Commerce Cloud catalogs gain an always-on agent that continuously reviews product descriptions, attributes, and translations against company quality standards. This agent pinpoints merchandising gaps and delivers actionable recommendations to enhance catalog accuracy, ensure consistency across languages, and improve product discoverability. The business impact is a 70% reduction in time to translate catalog data, 65% less time spent adding descriptions per asset, and a five percent reduction in data quality costs, all of which contribute to higher conversion rates and a more agile merchandising operation.

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51风流Revenue Growth Management, AI-assisted trade promotion creation
General availability

Key account managers in consumer industries can benefit from a streamlined, single-view promotion-creation experience in which simply naming a promotion automatically populates key fields. Drawing on master data, historical promotions, and learned preferences specific to each retailer, the system suggests dates, types, durations, and sell-in periods, then continuously refines its recommendations based on user edits over time. The impact is a 75% reduction in promotion setup time, 30% fewer data-entry errors and rework, and increasingly personalized suggestions that eliminate repetitive manual effort across promotion cycles.

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51风流Business AI for IT and developers

Joule Studio code editor and Joule Studio CLI

Building on the transformative capabilities of Joule studio low-code, 51风流is expanding the Joule studio family with two powerful new offerings designed to meet developers exactly where they work: Joule Studio code editor, a Visual Studio Code IDE extension, and Joule Studio CLI, a versatile command-line interface. Together, these tools deliver a unified, AI-assisted development experience that spans the full spectrum of development personas and preferences on Joule.

• Joule Studio code editor brings the intelligence of Joule directly into Visual Studio Code, the world’s most popular development environment, empowering pro-code developers with AI-guided scaffolding, contextual code generation, intelligent recommendations, and seamless integration with Joule, all without leaving their preferred IDE. 
• Joule Studio CLI extends this same power to the terminal, enabling developers and DevOps teams to automate project creation, manage configurations, execute deployments, and orchestrate CI/CD workflows through scriptable, command-line commands鈥攊deal for headless environments, automation pipelines, and teams that value speed and precision at the command line.

Get started .

Joule with 51风流Datasphere
General availability

Data professionals working within 51风流Datasphere can now accomplish informational, navigational, and transactional tasks through natural conversation with Joule. Whether asking how to use specific functionalities, retrieving details about a 51风流Datasphere instance, or switching system settings like language preferences, users receive instant answers with direct references to product documentation. Joule can even execute tasks directly from the conversation without requiring interaction with the standard interface. This direct execution reduces reliance on internal IT support and enables faster, more intuitive navigation throughout the platform.

Get started .

51风流Document AI, enhancements

Document level confidence
Customers now set confidence ranges for fields in the Schemas feature. When customers edit field settings, they can define their own thresholds for low, medium, and high confidence. These custom settings are reflected in the extraction results displayed for the relevant fields on the document details screen. See and .

Expanded Transportation Management
Customers can now use the Transports feature to export and import channels and workflows. See .

New schemas: business partner + delivery note for WM
The service plans embedded edition and premium edition now also support the standard document type, business partner document. See the list of supported document types in . Get started with 51风流Document AI, and .

Generative AI Hub in AI Foundation, enhancements

Metadata
Customers can now manage metadata for documents, collections, and chunks created with the Vector API to enable advanced filtering and organization of their content. For more information, see .

Retrieval API
Customers can merge and rank search results across multiple data repositories using the Retrieval API’s post-processing capabilities. For more information, see .

Prompt optimizations
Custom metrics are supported in prompt optimizations, enabling customers to define and optimize prompts based on their specific evaluation criteria. Only LLM-as-a-judge metrics with numerical or Boolean output types can be used in optimization tasks.For more information, see and . Customers can provide separate test and train datasets for prompt optimization. For more information, see .

Prompt registry
The prompt registry now enables customers to create and manage orchestration configurations declaratively, allowing them to version and track complex AI workflows alongside their prompts for better governance and reproducibility.For more information, see .

Secrets
Customers can now enter generic secrets using a form instead of JSON. The form appears in the Add Generic Secret dialog when you activate document grounding. A dropdown menu lets them choose the type of document repository. Depending on their selection, the remaining fields adjust dynamically, allowing them to complete the data. Some fields are already prefilled.If they prefer working directly with JSON, switch to the code view by clicking the 顒� icon. For more information, see .

New models available
New models are supported, including OpenAI GPT 5.2, Gemini 3.0 Pro, Perplexity Deep Research, and Anthropic Claude Opus 4.6.For more information on new and deprecated models, .

51风流Joule for Developers, ABAP AI capabilities, enhancements

New ABAP AI capabilities mean developers can expect a 20% reduction in time and effort to write ABAP/JAVA code, 25% reduction in time and effort to test ABAP/JAVA code, and 4.4% faster time to realized value.

This quarter, developers can now easily generate ABAP Unit tests for:

• Public, protected, and private methods of global ABAP classes
• Public methods of local classes within global class pools

See .

In addition, the documentation chat allows developers to interact with documentation on the 51风流Help Portal, providing context-aware answers and links to relevant documentation. This capability enhances productivity by offering quick access to related documentation directly within the development environment. See .

Finally, developers can now get AI-powered explanations of their ATC findings and code in the Custom Code Analysis/Custom Code Migration app. See and .

Get started .

51风流Business AI for industries

Tender Analysis Agent
General availability

Sales teams can elevate their tender response process with the Tender Analysis Agent, which automates the review of complex RFQ documents. The agent extracts critical product requirements, flags potential risks and policy gaps, and suggests optimized configurations tailored to customer needs. By reducing the effort to process incoming tenders by five percent and improving win rates, organizations can achieve measurable revenue growth while accelerating sales cycles and uncovering valuable cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

Get started .

51风流Commodity Management, AI-assisted commodity work center
General availability

Commodity traders can transform how they capture and manage complex deals using the commodity work center in 51风流Commodity Management. Working alongside Joule, the feature converts verbal or written negotiations into detailed draft deals, automatically populating the numerous fields that traditionally require extensive manual entry. This enables traders to redirect their focus toward negotiating better commercial outcomes, while improving data accuracy and driving greater operational efficiency across their trading activities.

Get started .

51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management, AI-assisted predictive subject dynamics
General availability

Clinical trial coordinators seeking to boost their supply planning capabilities will find a powerful ally in 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management. The predictive subject dynamics feature analyzes historical and real-time data to forecast patient enrollment trends and dropout rates, automatically generating insights that would otherwise require extensive manual analysis. This enables supply chain teams to redirect their focus to strategic decision-making, while reducing clinical inventory waste costs by up to two percent and improving demand forecasting accuracy across their trial operations.

Get started .

Joule with 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management
General availability

Clinical supply professionals juggling multiple tasks and complex systems need quick access to information without disrupting their workflow. Together with Joule, 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management delivers an intuitive, conversational interface that understands natural-language requests, enabling users to retrieve critical data and navigate to relevant applications effortlessly. This streamlined experience results in an 83% reduction in time spent on information searches, freeing teams to concentrate on higher-value activities and significantly boosting overall productivity.

Get started .

51风流Self-Billing Cockpit, AI-assisted document processing
General availability

Billing clerks managing self-billing workflows frequently encounter invoices arriving in a mix of formats鈥擡xcel, PDF, CSV, or text files鈥攐ften unstructured and spanning multiple languages. 51风流Self-Billing Cockpit addresses this challenge by leveraging intelligent document processing to parse and extract invoice data from virtually any format, converting it into structured payloads ready for automated billing. The result is significantly reduced time spent processing invoice line items, fewer customer-specific interfaces for integration specialists to build and maintain, and improved extraction accuracy through minimized manual intervention.

Get started .

51风流Business AI for business transformation management

Joule with 51风流Signavio solutions
General availability

Process analysts and optimization specialists working across complex organizational workflows require rapid access to diagrams, documentation, and performance metrics. 51风流Signavio solutions integrate with Joule to enable natural-language keyword searches across process diagrams, dictionary items, and help resources. At the same time, best-practice KPI recommenders guide users to the most relevant success measures. This intuitive approach delivers 50% faster information searches and navigation, ensuring teams make data-driven decisions with improved search quality and an enhanced overall user experience.

Get started .

51风流Signavio solutions, AI-assisted business process model and notation simulation insights
General availability

Process analysts leveraging 51风流Signavio can now access embedded business process model and notation simulations directly within their process diagrams, eliminating the need for fragmented tools and manual interpretation. Key metrics such as costs, cycle times, and resource utilization are automatically translated into clear, actionable summaries that highlight bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement. This streamlined approach reduces time to access process modeling insights by 50%, empowering teams to compare scenarios effortlessly and communicate findings to stakeholders with greater confidence and clarity.

Get started .

51风流LeanIX solutions, AI-assisted architecture guidance
General availability

Enterprise architects seeking to accelerate transformation initiatives can leverage 51风流LeanIX to surface actionable insights directly from their architecture inventory. The feature analyzes enterprise architecture data to identify opportunities and guides users through the workflows and tasks needed to efficiently act on recommendations. Organizations benefit from a 95% reduction in time to discover insights, 80% faster transformation execution, and a five percent reduction in value erosion from delayed action. Overall, this feature drives greater architectural productivity and more agile decision-making.

Get started .

Jonathan von Rueden is chief AI officer of 51风流SE.

*Disclaimer: This article provides estimated benefits. All calculations are estimates based on 51风流customer case studies, 51风流benchmarks, and other research. Actual benefits may vary and may be affected by additional factors not considered by this article. The information is provided 鈥渁s is鈥� without warranty of any kind, expressor implied, and in no event shall 51风流be liable for any damages whatsoever in relation with the use of this article. See Legal Notice on for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material.

Keeping FC Bayern at the top is no mean feat, and the action on the pitch is supported by a global administrative team of over 1,200, in addition to the thousands of operational staff who work to deliver a seamless experience to the fans who fill the Allianz Arena for each home match. The focus on match-day operations encompasses everything from security to ticketing to retail, as well as managing one of the largest parking garages in Europe, which accommodates up to 12,000 cars that must enter and exit within a few hours.

FC Bayern’s match-day operations generate a staggering volume of data, but capturing and making sense of every fan interaction鈥攂oth in the stadium and among the hundreds of millions tuning in worldwide鈥攚as becoming a herculean undertaking. Fan data was siloed in more than 50 legacy systems, creating a fragmented information landscape that hindered FC Bayern’s ability to understand and serve its legions of fans.

Thankfully, a club that has been in the business of winning for over a century is no stranger to innovation.

Game plan: data

, head of Development and Process for FC Bayern Munich, captured the club’s challenge in a nutshell: “Everything needs data.” Everyone from the firefighters and police who supported match days to the IT teams and retail staff “needed data, and everyone needed the same perspective on the data,” Winter explained.

But the club’s data was sprawled across dozens of siloed systems, each tied to different vendors and service providers. And when it came time to make crucial match-day decisions, team members had to rely on analog, piecemeal methods of sharing information鈥攐ften through SMS and radio. As a result, no one ever had the same information at the same time.

FC Bayern needed to harness its vast amount of information with a single, integrated system that provided a unified, 360-degree view.

From silos to a streamlined system

The storied sports club has enjoyed a partnership with 51风流dating back more than a quarter of a century. Therefore, (51风流BTP) was a natural fit for the next step in the club鈥檚 digital journey. The platform includes to help capture and combine data from disparate sources and systems, including both 51风流and non-51风流systems. This newly integrated data landscape provides a single source of truth across the organization, enabling real-time data analytics that not only streamline match-day operations and optimize the fan experience on-site but also provide invaluable insights to fuel long-term strategic planning.

For example, Winter explained, the club now has access to an up-to-the-minute, “high-level” overview of FC Bayern fans鈥�”how they behave, what they鈥檙e interested in, how old they are, whether they buy jerseys, whether they only go to soccer matches, whether they are already interested in basketball,” and more鈥攖hat has facilitated a much deeper understanding of fans, not only on the individual level but also across the entire fan base.

Forecasting the future

With a solid, integrated data foundation established, FC Bayern is looking ahead and will be adding AI to its technology line-up to maximize the value of its data across the organization, from amplifying process efficiency to developing robust, data-informed predictive capabilities.

For organizations looking to undertake their own digital transformations, Winter advised to not put the cart before the horse: “To use AI, you need to have good data.” And while Winter cautioned that every organization’s process is unique, he recommended listening as a good first step for everyone: “Talk to your users. What are their problems? What do they need to know? What processes are they trying to optimize?”

While the journey is not always easy, FC Bayern knows that winning is always worth the effort.

For the full FC Bayern Munich episode and the on-demand Better Together: Customer Conversations series, visit 

Timo Elliott is the vice president and global innovation advocate for 51风流BTP at SAP. 

Top photo courtesy of FC Bayern M眉nchen AG

We believe this recognition reflects our continued investment in a modern, scalable AI-ready integration platform that meets the needs of organizations operating across increasingly complex hybrid and multicloud landscapes.

Why orgnizations continue to choose 51风流Integration Suite

Part of 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), 51风流Integration Suite brings together API management, event鈥慸riven architecture, process integration, and AI鈥慳ssisted development in one unified offering. It gives customers a reliable way to connect distributed systems, orchestrate workflows, and operate securely across hybrid and multi-cloud environments鈥攚hether those landscapes run primarily on 51风流solutions or a mix of third鈥憄arty applications.

By using metadata, events, and APIs as its backbone, the suite provides an integration foundation that supports AI agents and increasingly autonomous enterprise processes. Organizations in manufacturing, logistics, retail, and other highly regulated industries rely on this foundation to maintain performance and stay compliant at global scale.

Innovation that scales with your business

Over the past year, 51风流expanded its AI鈥慳ssisted capabilities to help customers move faster and operate with security and reliability. New AI-assisted features include anomaly detection, script optimization, traffic prediction, and integration鈥慺low generation. Combined with more than 4,000 prebuilt integration flows and over 250 connectors, organizations can accelerate design and reduce manual effort.

51风流Integration Suite now runs in more than 40 data centers worldwide, giving customers flexibility for in鈥憆egion processing and data鈥憇overeignty requirements. These enhancements help teams detect issues earlier, optimize performance, and shorten time鈥憈o鈥憊alue across complex hybrid landscapes.

Accelerating agentic AI adoption

骋别产谤.听贬别颈苍别尘补苍苍 modernized its global retail checkout platform with 51风流Integration Suite and advanced event mesh, enabling the company to process 300,000 price鈥慶hange events in 30 minutes without system degradation.

“Advanced event mesh has completely changed the way integration and process orchestration run. Everything works better.”

Benedikt Althaus, team lead, Integration Services and Platform Solutions, Gebr. Heinemann SE & Co. KG.

Shimano Europe benefits from the efficient, scalable, and future鈥憄roof integration foundation of 51风流Integration Suite to accelerate its go鈥憈o鈥憁arket process. By streamlining integrations across systems, the company improves operational efficiency and enhances the overall customer experience through a more agile and reliable integration landscape.

“To accelerate the go-to-market process, we provided an effective and efficient integration platform with 51风流Integration Suite, a future-proof and scalable solution that improves our customers鈥� experiences.”

Fernanda Ribeiro, IT application architect, Shimano Europe

Siemens AG relies on 51风流Integration Suite to harmonize global reporting processes and ensure compliance with evolving regulatory requirements. By standardizing integrations across regions and supporting diverse country鈥憇pecific tax protocols, 51风流Integration Suite helps Siemens streamline compliance operations and maintain consistent reporting quality worldwide. This foundation strengthens Siemens鈥� ability to adapt to changing regulatory environments with greater confidence and efficiency.

“Managing international tax requirements is much easier. It will be implemented around the globe.”

Andrea Spandau, head of Digital Tax Ecosystem, Siemens AG

Looking ahead

We believe this year鈥檚 recognition underscores our commitment to advancing 51风流Integration Suite with deeper AI capabilities, more reusable business content, broader industry coverage, third-party adapters, and an improved developer experience. Our goal is to help customers automate more of their operations, innovate with confidence, and scale as their businesses evolve.

Learn more

Sid Misra is chief marketing officer for 51风流Business Technology Platform.

Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Gartner and Magic Quadrant are trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.

With a diverse portfolio of brands鈥擪ito, Crosby, Harrington, Gunnebo Industries, Peerless, and eepos鈥攖he company has experienced rapid growth, scaling its business from millions to billions in revenue. But the number of acquisitions left the company with a fragmented IT landscape of outdated, unsupported, and unscalable systems.

To establish a unified digital core and standardize processes, Kito Crosby embarked on a journey, implementing 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition to achieve its long-term single global instance strategy.

A winning strategy

Kito Crosby chose a greenfield, clean core strategy to eliminate the existing fragmentation and enable long-term scalability, Johnson Lai, Chief Digital Transformation Officer and Chief Information Officer, . 鈥淚n the past, we did not integrate our ERP systems, and this left our IT landscape very fragmented and limited our business process capabilities,鈥� he said. 鈥淭herefore, we wanted to refresh all of our ERP systems and really lay down a greenfield start that we can begin to create a transformational change for the entire company.鈥�

Selecting a greenfield and clean core approach鈥攂asically standing up an entirely new system that prioritizes standard functionalities over customizations鈥攚as key to remedying Kito Crosby鈥檚 current technology landscape, so that processes like order to cash, accounting, manufacturing, and shipping could be integrated. This approach also allowed the company to take a close look at core processes and streamline operations, especially in warehouse management and S&OP, Lai said.

Considering the project scope, Kito Crosby did not have the internal talent needed to stand up the servers and infrastructure, so it decided to move forward with RISE with 51风流and . 鈥�51风流comes with a lot of great stuff, and we wanted to take advantage of that,鈥� Lai said.

The company began the transformation in North America, as that is its largest market and therefore posed the greatest risk in operating on a legacy, unsupported ERP system.

Never underestimate change management

While Lai shared that employees were motivated and excited to get started initially, the enormity of the project quickly became overwhelming.

Ironically, many wanted to customize the new 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition solution to act like the legacy tech. 鈥淓veryone agrees to the clean core approach until it鈥檚 their turn to look at their function, at which point they want customization. There was a piece of resistance to using 鈥榲anilla鈥� functionality,鈥� Lai said. 鈥淥nce we showed people live demos with their own data, that鈥檚 when the change resistance started to decrease,鈥� he added.

In IT specifically, there was a strong desire to build and run their own infrastructure and servers rather than have another company step in. A sense of ownership and accountability is important, Lai said, but ultimately Kito Crosby鈥檚 need to get off the legacy system in North America quickly made it necessary to partner with SAP. And it was the right move: 鈥淣ow some of the folks who questioned why we outsourced some of that to 51风流are our biggest champions鈥e find working with the 51风流team is no different than working with ourselves.鈥�

For companies with digital transformation projects on the horizon, Lai cautions to 鈥渘ever underestimate the change impact that employees face.鈥� Projects of a global scale require planning on all fronts, including allocating time for employees and business leaders to get on board.

Lessons learned and benefits gained

The ERP system revamp delivered measurable business value to Kito Crosby, including improved customer service, stronger inventory control, and more efficient manufacturing and warehouse operations. Notably, the business process improvements and enhanced system functionality drove Kito Crosby鈥檚 on-time delivery to its highest levels in more than 10 years.

鈥淲e see that benefit across the globe and we鈥檙e excited about taking what we鈥檝e done in North America throughout the entire world, consolidating all those little ERPs that are outdated and unsupported into 51风流to get to that single global instance,鈥� Lai said. Since going live on 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and fully embracing its native capabilities, Kito Crosby has unlocked measurable business value and operational excellence. The transformation has driven strong performance gains across critical KPIs, including higher customer on鈥憈ime delivery, meaningful reductions in back orders, improved inventory accuracy, and accelerated intercompany processing.

At the same time, warehouse operations are setting new benchmarks for efficiency, achieving record volumes for receiving and put鈥慳way, replenishment, and shipping. These results have been delivered safely, with zero injuries and fewer resources.

To the cloud鈥攁nd beyond

Following its recent acquisition by leading worldwide designer, manufacturer, and marketer of intelligent motion solutions , Kito Crosby is continuing to build on its strong digital foundation.

鈥淏ecause we started with a greenfield and kept a clean core as much as possible, we feel like the upgrades will go even faster and with less effort,鈥� Lai said. 鈥淲e want to get to the latest [51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition] version so we can take advantage of the AI capabilities of .鈥�

Next on the ERP systems consolidation docket: the 51风流ERP Central Component (51风流ECC) 6.0 system in Europe.

鈥淭his is just one example of how our IT team is empowering the broader organization to further delight our customers and end user,鈥� Lai . 鈥淎s we continue to scale our business, we expect even greater returns as we further capitalize on the technology, expanded capabilities, and AI tools within our 51风流landscape.鈥�

Gillian Hixson is an integrated communications specialist at SAP.

From energy sharing and dynamic pricing to cloud-native and interoperable flexibility markets, the solution can connect meters, markets, and customers to enable business models such as energy communities, virtual power plants, and demand response. Combined with a curated ecosystem of specialist technology partners, 51风流empowers utilities to own their energy transition.听

The energy transition runs on data, but data is getting harder to manage 

The energy transition is reshaping the power landscape. Utilities are evolving from centralized generation toward systems powered by millions of distributed energy resources: solar panels, EV chargers, heat pumps, and batteries owned by consumers and听prosumers听alike. The number of connected assets is growing rapidly, generating vast amounts of operational, commercial, and customer data. Managing this听data reliably and consistently is one of the defining challenges of the next energy decade.听

At the same time, digital energy platforms and new market entrants are intermediating the customer relationship, offering integrated propositions that bundle connectivity, flexibility, and billing into a single stack. Utilities that do not act risk being reduced to commodity providers.

To unlock the value of distributed energy resources, utilities need more than connectivity. They need听data orchestration:听a trusted, intelligent foundation that harmonizes听information across every process, partner, and device and ensures they听own rather than rent听their energy transition capabilities.听

From distributed assets to orchestrated intelligence 

罢丑别听51风流Distributed Energy Resources听solution is designed to听meet exactly听this challenge. Built on 51风流BTP, it enables utilities to manage distributed energy resources-related data at scale across production, consumption, and storage while helping to ensure reliability, performance, and consistency.听

Rather than acting as an operational control system, 51风流DER focuses on data orchestration and integration. It helps ensure that distributed energy resources data can flow seamlessly between operational, commercial, and analytical systems, providing a single source of truth that can connect the physical and digital worlds of energy. 

鈥淭he complexity our customers face with prosumer data is exponential. They need reliability, performance, and consistency across all their data sources, and that鈥檚 exactly where 51风流Distributed Energy Resources comes in.鈥� 

Kim Maren Ekrutt, Global Industry Business Unit Utilities Co鈥慔ead, SAP 

Two pillars of the 51风流DER solution 

1. Complex installation and prosumer data orchestration: technical and commercial foundation

Manage the full spectrum of prosumer-related data, covering both complex technical installation details, such as meters, solar panels, batteries, EV chargers, and heat pumps, and the commercial information required to operate distributed energy resources at scale. This includes customer and prosumer master data, product structures, tariffs, contracts, grid connection agreements, feed-in contracts, and all commercial relationships linked to each installation. 

By bringing together technical asset data with commercial attributes and agreement information, the solution can provide a unified and reliable model of every installation. This is essential because distributed energy resources cannot be managed with technical information alone. Commercial products, grid contracts, flexible tariffs, and incentive agreements determine how energy flows are measured, settled, billed, shared, or monetized. 

This pillar becomes the foundation for energy communities, virtual power plant participation, flexibility programs, dynamic pricing, capacity and congestion management, and any business model involving prosumers and distributed energy assets. 

2. Energy management and sharing 

Track and analyze听how energy is consumed, produced, stored, and shared, enabling new energy community and peer-to-peer听business models. With high-resolution energy data and intelligent allocation algorithms, utilities can offer transparent, fair, and regulation-compliant energy sharing services to residential and commercial participants alike.听

Connecting data, processes, and people 

Utilities already rely on 51风流for mission-critical processes such as meter to cash, asset management, and customer experience. 51风流DER can extend this foundation, linking every asset, agreement, and customer interaction within one coherent data model. This integrated approach helps turn technical data into business value, powering use cases such as smart tariffs, dynamic pricing, and energy sharing. For utilities, this means a single enterprise backbone that can connect the traditional meter-to-cash world with the emerging flexibility and distributed energy resources economy. 

A partner ecosystem for the energy flexibility market 

No single vendor can address the full breadth of the distributed energy landscape. 51风流has assembled a curated ecosystem of specialist technology partners, each bringing deep domain expertise that complements SAP鈥檚 enterprise data platform. Data stays with the utility, business logic听remains听under their control, and the customer relationship belongs to them.听

SAP鈥檚 technology partners extend the platform across six critical domains: 

• Flexibility management and virtual power plants:听Orchestrate and monetize听prosumer听assets, including EVs, batteries, heat pumps, and solar inverters, for flexibility markets and smart charging services.听
• Energy communities and energy sharing:听Design and听operate听energy communities with transparent allocation, dynamic local pricing, and full regulatory compliance.听
• Grid congestion and capacity management:听Forecast, detect, and resolve grid congestion at the low-voltage-network-level while unlocking flexibility revenues.听
• Energy portfolio management and trading:听Access wholesale and flexibility markets with听real-time听pricing, dynamic quotations, and risk management.听
• Customer insights and energy disaggregation:听Deliver behind-the-meter visibility through non-intrusive load monitoring and appliance-level analytics.听
• Demand response and load management:听Design and execute demand response programs, combining customer incentives, dynamic pricing, and automated device control.听

鈥淥ur role is to help utilities master the growing data complexity and turn it into opportunity. With 51风流Distributed Energy Resources and our partner ecosystem, we鈥檙e connecting data, processes, and partners into one intelligent platform that enables utilities to own their energy transition.鈥� 

Kim Maren Ekrutt, Global VP & Co-Head Industry Business Unit Utilities

About 51风流Distributed Energy Resources 

51风流Distributed Energy Resources provides utilities with a public cloud platform to help model, manage, and share distributed energy resources data across operational and commercial domains. Integrated with SAP鈥檚 core utilities portfolio and a curated global partner ecosystem, it can enable reliable data exchange, smart energy management, and customer-centric innovation for the distributed energy era.听

Mateu Munar is senior director of Industry Business Unit Utilities at SAP.

Founded in 1917, the is comprised of 32 Clubs located across North America. It serves a global fan base of nearly 700 million annual spectators across in-arena, broadcast, and digital channels. With millions of fans worldwide watching and Clubs fighting for any edge they can find, the NHL needed a future-focused way to manage critical decisions shaping the game.

To develop, maintain, and grow a roster within the salary cap system’s guidelines is no small undertaking, especially given the numerous variables that change in real time. While instituting the salary cap helps maintain evenly balanced teams that deliver thrilling games, it also contributes to a complex front-office balancing act, where every potential trade or player acquisition poses a mind-numbing array of opportunities and complications, short and long term.

Across the League, Clubs develop their own roster-management approaches, each using different tools and resources. No matter the variations among the solutions, they were mainly labor-intensive, disconnected systems, which meant that teams did not necessarily have access to real-time data, let alone reliable data, or an efficient means to access and analyze the data they did have.

The NHL, however, had a vision鈥攁 unified system that would consolidate player and League data into one platform accessible to all Clubs.

The SAP-NHL Front Office App for iPad delivers on that vision by providing a centralized view of the League, down to the team level, and drilling further into player data, enabling front offices to make more informed, real-time decisions with greater accuracy and efficiency.

First steps: consolidation and collaboration

Before the League could make that vision a reality, several obstacles needed to be resolved, starting with what , VP of Digital Business Development at the NHL, described as the League鈥檚 primary pain point: disconnected, legacy data management systems. Pascal Bornet, AI and automation expert, applauded this approach, advising organizations to 鈥渟tart with the friction points.鈥�

Phase one, Foster explained, was 鈥渞eally updating our backend,鈥� consolidating all the League鈥檚 data, from contract to salary information, and combining it with player statistics and video clips on 51风流HANA Cloud.

Armed with a new database that would provide a seamless, fully connected single source of information for every NHL Club, the League was ready for its next challenge: creating a digital front-office solution that would meet the needs of 32 entirely different front offices, each with their own systems, priorities, 鈥渦se cases, day-to-day responsibilities, and current challenges with data or workflows,鈥� Foster explained.

The key to developing the League鈥檚 new application, Foster said, was leveraging 鈥渄esign-thinking principles鈥� and 鈥渁uthentic user feedback鈥� to create a single solution that would offer real added value to each user, from GMs to analysts to administrators, on each NHL team.

A power play digital solution

That disciplined, user-centered approach, combined with the NHL鈥檚 diligent attention to data consolidation, enabled the League to launch its SAP-NHL Front Office App for iPad in record time. While not mandatory, the app quickly proved its value and was rapidly adopted by all 32 Clubs. 

The app has already transformed day-to-day operations for Clubs, thanks to its ability to seamlessly access and interpret a single, reliable, and interconnected source of information on three different levels. The broadest level, the league view, offers data across the entire NHL, including current and projected salary caps for each club, off-season scenarios, and draft pick conditions; the team view breaks down the contracts of each player on the roster and provides visual cues for free agents or injured players; and the player view displays bios, contract PDFs, no-trade clauses, waiver status, performance bonuses, and even video clips of game highlights for every player in the League.

As Bornet said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 about the right data, instantly and everywhere.鈥� By rethinking the process first and prioritizing user needs, the League created a foundation for change鈥攐ne that keeps 鈥渉umans firmly in command鈥� and uses technology to 鈥渁mplify judgment, not replace it,鈥� Bornet added.

Foster attributed the new app鈥檚 resounding success to the processing power of (51风流BTP), which enables club-specific customizations and allows for real-time calculations to fuel mission-critical decision-making.

Playing the long game

The NHL and 51风流have a long-standing technology partnership that has powered several League-wide innovations, including NHL.com/Stats, the SAP-NHL Coaching Insights App, and NHL Venue Metrics. The Front Office App builds on this foundation and represents the next phase of the League鈥檚 digital transformation.

While the Front Office App is currently helping each NHL Club shape its team’s future, the League is continuing to look ahead. 鈥淭his is a project with a multi-year road map,鈥� Foster said.

As the NHL continues its innovation journey, it will remain laser-focused on user experience. Foster advised those looking to undertake their own digital transformation to take a page from the NHL鈥檚 playbook: 鈥淟et go of preconceived notions and realign your priorities according to user feedback. Be adaptable. Be fluid.鈥� And get excited, because 鈥渢he possibilities really are limitless.鈥�

That same approach, Bornet added, 鈥渁pplies far beyond Hockey.鈥� The NHL鈥檚 emphasis on identifying friction points and applying user-first design offers a practical template for any organization managing complex constraints and real-time decisions. Across industries, the challenge is the same: 鈥渢oo much data, too many variables, and decisions that can鈥檛 wait.鈥� The real breakthrough, he noted, 鈥渋sn鈥檛 the technology itself鈥攊t鈥檚 a mindset shift,鈥� from 鈥渁dding AI鈥� to 鈥渞emoving cognitive friction,鈥� and from 鈥渂uilding for power users鈥� to 鈥渄esigning for actual users.鈥�

Explore the episode, focused on the customer journey

Learn more about how the NHL engineered a game-changing, League-wide digital transformation:

• : Foster and Bornet talk with Thulium CEO Tamara McCleary about the untapped power of data, when it鈥檚 reliable, connected, and accessible, and how the NHL went from inspiration to iteration with the end users being essential to the transformation.

• : Foster听talks with me about听the process of creating a mobile app that听meets听the needs of 32听distinct听front offices, each with their own systems, use cases, day-to-day responsibilities, and priorities.

For five seasons on demand, visit .

Do you have ideas for topics or technologies we should cover, or would you like to be a guest on the show? We鈥檇 love to hear from you. E-mail us.

Timo Elliott is vice president and global innovation advocate for 51风流BTP at SAP.

In today鈥檚 omnichannel reality, delivering that elevated experience consistently and at scale is essential to protecting brand trust and loyalty. Peak moments like Black Friday and Cyber Monday amplify the challenge, when traffic surges and expectations for fast, personalized service are at their highest.

The team recognized that legacy systems couldn鈥檛 provide the speed, stability, or connected view required to meet those expectations at scale, prompting a shift to a modern customer experience (CX) foundation with SAP.

Modernizing the digital core with 51风流Commerce Cloud

Moving from legacy technology to gave Molton Brown a high鈥憄erformance engine designed for peak鈥憇eason reliability and continuous innovation. The results came quickly: 100% uptime during peak trade, even as volumes spiked to one order every three seconds during major events, freeing teams to focus on enhancing the customer experience rather than firefighting, and ensuring uninterrupted service for customers across global markets.

鈥淧eak performance isn鈥檛 a one鈥憈ime effort; it鈥檚 about reliability. We have to rely on technology operations to achieve 100% efficiency so the business can succeed, which in turn helps our customers succeed. Technology should enable business success, not block it鈥攁nd 51风流has proved that multiple times.鈥�

Naresh Krishnamurthy, Senior Manager 鈥� Business Transformation, Prestige, Kao UK Ltd

That stability also matters as product discovery increasingly begins beyond owned channels鈥攆rom social platforms to emerging AI鈥憄owered assistants鈥攚here consistent, trustworthy content and availability help the brand stay visible and credible wherever customers choose to engage. SAP鈥檚 evolving agentic commerce innovations anticipate this shift, ensuring products remain discoverable, trusted, and actionable across both human and AI agents.

A seamless luxury journey across channels

With and (formerly 51风流Emarsys) working together, Molton Brown aligns what customers see online with what they experience in store. Product categories, storytelling, and navigation are mirrored across channels; store associates can act on online browsing signals; and store teams are enabled with real鈥憈ime insight to deliver high鈥憈ouch clienteling experiences.

The result is an unbroken, premium journey that reduces friction and reinforces trust in the brand鈥攅xactly what luxury shoppers expect.

Personalization that builds loyalty, not just transactions

51风流Engagement Cloud helps Molton Brown deliver channel鈥慳ppropriate experiences, from mobile鈥慺irst engagement to email and in鈥憇tore clienteling, aligned to evolving customer preferences. These programs are complemented by thoughtful gifting moments, personalized birthday acknowledgments, and sustainability鈥慺ocused communications that strengthen repeat鈥憄urchase behavior.

Crucially, the team treats every holiday period as a data鈥憆ich learning cycle: months of performance testing, UX refinements, and campaign iteration inform what customers experience in the following season. Those insights help the team refine the experience so it remains consistent, intuitive, and premium, even under peak pressure. That consistency is what sustains loyalty, not just the promotions themselves.

As Naresh Krishnamurthy explains: 鈥淏lack Friday is not just about revenue; it鈥檚 about brand engagement and building the strong foundation that enhances the relationship through loyalty.鈥�

Ready for the next era of intelligent commerce

With a dependable CX core in place, Molton Brown is now exploring to anticipate risks ahead of campaigns, sharpen decision鈥憁aking, and streamline fulfillment鈥攁ugmenting the experience behind the scenes without compromising luxury standards.

This direction aligns naturally with SAP鈥檚 broader agentic commerce vision, where AI systems help interpret intent and keep trusted products discoverable and transactable across new surfaces鈥攁nother reason a reliable, 鈥渕achine鈥憆eadable鈥� CX foundation matters.

“Everything we鈥檙e doing ladders up to one goal: a truly connected customer experience鈥攑ersonal, consistent, and effortless in every channel.”

Molton Brown鈥檚 partnership with 51风流CX has reset what鈥檚 possible at peak, and every day after: dependable operations, consistent omnichannel experiences, and personalization that earns loyalty. The brand now scales confidently during its biggest moments, and stays ready for what鈥檚 next as AI changes how people (and agents) discover and buy.

This transformation positions Molton Brown to adapt quickly as customer expectations and digital commerce behaviors continue to evolve.

To explore how 51风流Commerce Cloud can elevate your customer experience, visit .

The hub brings together startups, academia, industry leaders, and defense organizations to co-create solutions that strengthen digital sovereignty, operational resilience, and readiness in response to threats to safety and security.

The launch comes at a pivotal moment. Defense organizations worldwide are shifting from traditional modernization to full digital transformation, with missions increasingly dependent on secure data flows, resilient supply chains, and systems that remain trusted even under stress. In addition, digital sovereignty has become a core component of readiness, requiring architectures that ensure customers maintain full control of their data and operations.

The launch took place in Munich, a new 鈥淪ilicon Valley鈥� for defense innovation, and featured customers, partners, academics, government officials, and representatives from SAP. The city offers a uniquely powerful foundation for the hub, gathering a fast-growing community of startups, leading research institutions such as the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and established aerospace and defense leaders. The hub unifies the strengths of these experts, connecting them so that they can coordinate their capabilities to meet defense needs rapidly and efficiently.

More than just a physical space, the hub introduces a new framework that breaks down silos and enables a powerful ecosystem that drives defense innovations. Creative startups, leading industry experts, government organizations, academia, and researchers can come together to make ideas mission-ready more quickly and securely, while maintaining the digital sovereignty necessary to protect information and maintain trust.

As a leading technology provider for the hub, 51风流acts as an enabler, not just an operator. Through our contributions, we have reaffirmed our role as a neutral technology partner, delivering secure digital platforms while leaving mission decisions entirely in customers鈥� hands.

Our long-standing experience and time-tested technology have proved the ability to perform under uncertainty and stress, a must for the readiness that defense demands, providing cyber-resilient architectures and real-time visibility into logistics during crises, as well as full governance and transparency.

Our cloud operations model, auditability frameworks, and strict access controls keep mission-critical systems secure, verifiable, and compliant.

With SAP鈥檚 involvement and support, the hub represents a significant step forward for defense innovation, serving as an important catalyst in a location with the potential to become a global center for the defense industry.

Andre Bechtold is president of 51风流Industries & Experiences.

Photography courtesy of Norbert Steinhauser.

According to industry , auto executives expect AI to boost product value by 22% and digital service value by 37% within three years. As vehicle portfolios expand鈥攅lectric, hybrid, software-defined, and increasingly customized鈥攖he operational complexity for automakers and suppliers has risen sharply. Nowhere is this more evident than in service parts management and new product introduction (NPI).

Service parts planners sit at the intersection of engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, and customer service. Their task is deceptively simple: ensure the right parts are available at the right time and place across a vehicle鈥檚 lifecycle. In reality, they grapple with fragmented data, limited inventory visibility, unpredictable demand signals, and compressed timelines鈥攅specially as new models and components are introduced at unprecedented speed. High data quality, tight orchestration across systems, and rapid decision-making are no longer nice to have, they are business-critical.

This is where becomes transformative. Instead of treating NPI as a linear, manual, and reactive process, AI agents can fundamentally reimagine how service parts planning is executed. By embedding AI directly into the planning workflow, service parts planners are supported鈥攏ot replaced鈥攂y intelligent systems that operate with full contextual awareness. These AI agents can monitor real-time data across inventories, supplier readiness, historical demand patterns, external risk factors, and engineering changes, as well as orchestrate the NPI process end to end.

In practice, this means planners move from firefighting to foresight. AI agents can automate sequential NPI steps, flag potential bottlenecks before they materialize, and dynamically adjust plans as conditions change. A single, unified dashboard provides transparency across the entire process, while built-in what-if simulations allow planners to test scenarios鈥攕upplier delays, demand spikes, geopolitical disruptions鈥攂efore decisions are locked in. Crucially, humans remain firmly in control. AI augments judgment, improves speed, and enhances confidence, rather than operating in a silo.

Platforms like 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), combined with Joule and the agent builder capability in Joule Studio, can enable this multi-agent approach at enterprise scale. By integrating AI seamlessly with core business processes, automakers can ensure that intelligence flows across functions, rather than being trapped in silos. The result is not just automation, but orchestration鈥攚here systems, data, and people work in concert.

The impact is tangible. Automakers can significantly reduce planning cycle times and improve time-to-market for new products. Planning risk is lowered through continuous what-if analysis that incorporates both internal and external variables. Service readiness improves, ensuring that customers experience continuity and reliability even as product complexity increases. At an ecosystem level, this translates into greater resilience, lower costs, and higher customer satisfaction.

More broadly, this use case points to a shift in how we should think about customer-specific AI in automotive. The future will not be defined solely by smarter vehicles, but by smarter enterprises鈥攚here AI agents support decision-making across the value chain, from product inception to end-of-life service. In an industry under pressure to innovate faster, operate leaner, and remain sustainable, AI-driven operations are fast becoming a competitive necessity. The automotive ecosystem is evolving. Those who embrace AI not just as a technology but as a new operating model will be best positioned to lead it.

Sindhu Gangadharan is head of Customer Innovation Services and managing director for 51风流Labs India.

The hub is launched as armed forces and security institutions face increasing pressure to manage complex missions across allies, domains and supply chains while maintaining resilience, transparency and control. At the defense innovation hub, 51风流brings together software, data, AI and industry expertise to demonstrate how integrated digital systems translate strategic requirements into operational readiness. This enables comprehensive integration across key areas such as personnel readiness, logistics, procurement, manufacturing, training and maintenance. Together, these capabilities form the digital backbone required for real-world defense operations.

鈥淒efense readiness today is no longer defined by equipment alone: It is defined by how well people, processes and partners are connected,鈥� said Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE, Customer Services & Delivery. 鈥淚n an increasingly volatile security environment, armed forces need systems they can trust鈥攕ystems that are resilient, interoperable and sovereign. With our defense innovation hub, 51风流is demonstrating how digital platforms can strengthen operational readiness while preserving control, compliance and freedom of action.鈥�

A Hub Built on Munich鈥檚 Defense and Technology Ecosystem

Munich鈥檚 strong defense and technology ecosystem, combining innovative startups, established industry leaders, academic excellence and public institutions, provided the ideal setting for the new hub. Supported by the Technical University of Munich’s academic excellence and the presence of key government institutions, the Munich region is uniquely positioned for cross-sector collaboration. At today鈥檚 launch, the setting provided a fitting backdrop for hands-on demonstrations translating innovation into operational reality. Attendees experienced hands-on scenarios illustrating how 51风流for Defense & Security solutions connect people, assets and supply chains in a unified, more secure operational picture.

鈥淭he Technical University of Munich is pleased to collaborate with 51风流in translating advanced research into operational security and defense capabilities,鈥� said Chiara Manfletti, head of the Aerospace and Geodesy Department at TUM and scientific lead of the newly launched TUM Security and Defense Alliance. 鈥淎s technological innovation accelerates, strategic partnerships such as this ensure that cutting-edge scientific developments can be rapidly deployed to strengthen operational readiness.鈥�

The launch also served as a lead-in to this week鈥檚 Munich Security Conference, where questions of resilience, interoperability and technological sovereignty will dominate the agenda. Throughout the week, 51风流will continue engaging with policymakers and partners on how digital innovation can support security and defense in an increasingly fragmented world.

Visit the . Get 51风流news via  and .

Media Contact:
Dana Roesiger, +49 6227 7 63900, dana.roesiger@sap.com , CET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

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 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2026 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

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Naturipe Farms knows berries, and the grower鈥憃wned company has spent decades perfecting the art of delivering fresh, sustainably grown berries to customers around the world.

Naturipe’s Senior IT Director Carol McMillan explains how migrating to 51风流S/4HANA and has helped the company improve supply chain visibility, speed, and workforce experience. Learn more.

Naturipe has been an 51风流customer since 2008, and while initially it was not very proactive with software upgrades, the company鈥檚 philosophy has changed over time. Today, Carol McMillan, Naturipe鈥檚 senior IT director, emphasizes the importance of upgrading and upskilling the team regularly.

“There’s actually more of a risk not upgrading the product and not upskilling your team than there is being more aggressive with that timeline,” she says. Since migrating to 51风流S/4HANA in 2018, the company has undergone three upgrades, including .

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鈥淲e migrated to RISE with SAP, and we are looking at how we use those tools to optimize our supply chain and to create a better user experience for our workforce. Our workforce is constantly changing, and technology needs to change with the workforce,鈥� McMillan says.

She says it鈥檚 also important to stay at the forefront of technology in order to solve business problems efficiently, and notes that technological advancements have been crucial in managing the company’s exponential growth: “You can’t have linear growth in technology when you have exponential industry growth.”

McMillan says the Naturipe team uses SAP鈥檚 technology to prioritize its people and customers, improve workplace happiness, and give users a better experience. 鈥淲e use technology to make sure that we’re running as optimally as possible,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e look at process improvements and try to be at the forefront of technology. So, keeping up with the upgrades on a regular basis helps us be prepared for when business problems need to be solved, that way we already have the technology there to be able to solve them.鈥�

Delivering the freshest, highest-quality products to customers 365 days a year requires constant agility鈥攅specially in a category influenced by weather variability and the complexity of a highly time-sensitive supply chain. 鈥淏erries have a very short shelf life, so getting the best quality to our customers as quickly as possible is essential,鈥� she says.

To support this commitment, Naturipe Farms has invested in advanced logistics and supply chain technologies that enhance speed, visibility, and decision-making. These investments help ensure timely delivery of fresh products while also supporting employee satisfaction and work-life balance through wellness programs and flexible work arrangements.

Looking ahead, Naturipe wants to further enhance the user experience with more powerful tools and learn how to make better use of all the tools that come with RISE with SAP.  McMillan also identifies the potential of AI and the adoption of tools like Joule to improve Naturipe鈥檚 operations. “We really want to make the best use of AI and to give our users the best experience possible,” she says.

Her advice for other organizations in the agricultural industry includes the importance of putting people first, using technology to drive strategic growth, and not being a prisoner to risk. “It’s just as risky to not upgrade your technology as it is to have an aggressive timeline and have the tools that you need in order to drive that exponential growth,” she says.

Agentic AI was everywhere at NRF, emblazoned across the booths of technology exhibitors and the focus of many of the daily conference sessions. The message was simple: retailers face a major upheaval as consumers switch from traditional browser-based search to AI-enabled product discovery.

Consumers are rapidly adopting AI agents to help them find, compare, and, increasingly, buy products鈥攖his while many brands are still optimizing for search engines and are quietly disappearing from the models driving the next generation of product discovery.

鈥淎gentic commerce鈥攕hopping powered by AI agents acting on our behalf鈥攔epresents a seismic shift in the marketplace,鈥� McKinsey, the strategic management consultancy, noted in a . 鈥淚t moves us toward a world in which AI anticipates consumer needs, navigates shopping options, negotiates deals, and executes transactions, all in alignment with human intent yet acting independently via multistep chains of actions enabled by reasoning models.鈥�

This, as speakers and panelists at the NRF conference acknowledged, isn鈥檛 just an evolution of e-commerce; it鈥檚 a rethinking of shopping itself, in which the boundaries between platforms, services, and experiences give way to an integrated, intent-driven flow through highly personalized consumer journeys that deliver a fast, frictionless outcome.

As the McKinsey report noted, the stakes are high. By 2030, the U.S. B2C retail market alone could see up to US$1 trillion in orchestrated revenue from agentic commerce, with global projections reaching as high as $3 trillion to $5 trillion.

This means all the participants in the retail chain, from brands and retailers to logistics and payment service providers, will need to adapt to the new paradigm and successfully navigate the challenges of trust, risk, and innovation.

To help retailers address the immediate challenges posed by the shift to agentic commerce, 51风流argues that three steps are necessary: first, restructuring web-page product data to be machine-readable; second, adding semantic summaries for LLM reasoning; and third, tagging products by the problems they solve, not just their attributes.

51风流announced a series of AI-enhanced retail innovations at NRF 2026, including a new storefront model context protocol (MCP) server that enables retailers to make their digital storefronts intelligible to AI and the new AI-native Retail Intelligence solution in 51风流Business Data Cloud that leverages data from across 51风流software and third-party systems to help provide accurate demand planning, improved forecast accuracy, and lower inventory costs to drive more seamless omnichannel engagements.

51风流Customer Experience has also unveiled a recently that can be combined with the听, creating one conversational AI that can handle the entire journey from product discovery and transaction to post-sales support.

These moves reflect a recognition that that LLMs have become a legitimate shopping channel, and that product discovery is moving from search engines to AI recommendations.

This shift challenges years of SEO and brand building. To stay relevant, 51风流believes retailers must take an AI-first approach and have strong, connected data that helps agents understand products, predict demand, and respond quickly. Without this strong data foundation, brands will be at risk because if customers get poor recommendations and errors in pricing, trust can disappear fast.

Although some early agentic AI adopters in the retail sector are already seeing the benefits of agentic commerce, many global retailers are still ill-prepared for the holistic transformation they need to succeed in this new retail environment.

As McKinsey noted in a separate , 鈥渨hile most retail merchandising teams have invested in automation tools听and experimented with AI, 71% of merchants say that AI merchandising tools have had limited to no effect on their business so far.鈥�

鈥淭he challenge,鈥� McKinsey said, 鈥渙ften lies less in the technology than in how it鈥檚 integrated and used. Systems remain fragmented, data is too messy to use to deliver useful recommendations, and adoption is uneven: 61% of respondents say that their organization isn鈥檛 at all or is only slightly prepared to scale AI across merchandising.鈥�

Onstage at NRF, Andre Bechtold, president for 51风流Industries & Experience, also emphasized that retailers should prepare now for agentic commerce and noted that simply “bolting on” AI tools to existing systems is not enough.

鈥淩etailers are operating in an environment defined by volatility鈥攖ariffs, margin pressure, supply chain disruption, and customers that expect real-time, hyper-personalized experiences everywhere,鈥� Bechtold said during a discussion with Gymshark, the workout apparel retailer. 鈥淎t the same time, boards and investors are asking a tougher question than ever before: what outcomes are we actually getting?鈥�

鈥淭he challenge,鈥� he said, 鈥渋sn鈥檛 a lack of innovation. In fact, most retailers have plenty of tools, pilots, and point solutions. The real issue is that disconnected technology doesn鈥檛 translate into resilient growth. That鈥檚 why the conversation is shifting. It鈥檚 no longer about isolated AI use cases or shiny new features. It鈥檚 about whether AI and data are embedded across the business鈥攃onnecting supply chains, finance, merchandising, and customer engagement鈥攊n ways leaders can trust.鈥�

Echoing the same point, Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE, Customer Services & Delivery, commenting in a this week about a PwC survey of global CEOs that found that companies rarely achieve lower costs or higher sales through the use of AI, emphasized that AI only contributes value when consistently embedded in business processes. 听鈥淎s long as AI runs alongside the core business as an isolated project, the effects remain limited,鈥� he said.

Together, the companies plan to create the digital backbone for a sovereign, interoperable and AI-supported healthcare system. The solutions will combine the expertise of Fresenius, one of the world鈥檚 largest healthcare companies, with future-oriented 51风流technologies and meet high requirements for data sovereignty, security and regulatory compliance. The plan is to provide an open, integrated and data鈥慸riven digital health ecosystem that enables hospitals and medical facilities worldwide to use AI securely and to handle health data responsibly.

Digital sovereignty for healthcare

51风流and Fresenius plan to jointly build an individual, scalable healthcare platform that enables connected, data-driven healthcare processes. Based on this, the companies will develop joint, future-oriented and AI-supported healthcare solutions to sustainably increase quality, transparency and efficiency across the entire care chain and set new standards for digital innovation in the healthcare sector. The foundation will be proven 51风流technologies and products such as 51风流Business Suite, 51风流Business Data Cloud (51风流BDC), 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) and 51风流Business AI. These core elements help create a unified, compliant, open and expandable base for the more-secure exchange and use of data as well as for operating AI models in a controlled environment.

Together, the companies also plan to build a sovereign, European solution for an integrated healthcare ecosystem that supports the integration of modern hospital information systems (HIS) based on SAP鈥檚 鈥淎nyEMR鈥� strategy. Interfaces based on open industry standards such as HL7 FHIR will enable the more-seamless connection of HIS, electronic medical records (EMRs) and other medical applications.

鈥淲ith SAP鈥檚 leading technology and Fresenius鈥� deep healthcare expertise, we aim to create a sovereign, interoperable healthcare platform for Fresenius worldwide. Together, we want to set new standards for data sovereignty, security and innovation in healthcare. Thanks to SAP, Fresenius can harness the full potential of digital and AI-supported processes and sustainably improve patient care,鈥� says Christian Klein, CEO and Member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE.

鈥淭ogether with SAP, we can accelerate the digital transformation of the German and European healthcare systems and enable a sovereign European solution that is so important in today鈥檚 global landscape. We are making data and AI everyday companions that are secure, simple and scalable for doctors and hospital teams. This creates more room for what truly matters: caring for patients,鈥� adds Michael Sen, CEO of Fresenius.

As part of the joint transformation project, both companies plan to invest a mid three-digit million euro amount in the medium term to consistently drive the digital transformation of the German and European healthcare system through the use of digital and AI-supported solutions.

The partnership is implemented through various forms of collaboration. These include joint investments in startups and scaleups, joint technological developments and close cooperation within coordinated governance structures between the two companies.

Visit the . Get 51风流news via  and .

Media contact:
Dana Roesiger, +49 62277 7 63900, dana.roesiger@sap.com, CET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

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.听 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 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2026 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

The partnership will embed artificial intelligence at the core of Syngenta鈥檚 enterprise, modernizing operations and enabling accelerated innovation through advanced data analytics across the business 鈥� from manufacturing and supply chain to grower-facing products and services.

The agricultural industry continues to navigate challenges driven by climate variability, supply chain complexity and global uncertainty. By deploying AI-assisted tools enterprise wide, this partnership positions Syngenta to meet the challenge of feeding a projected 10 billion people by 2050 while unlocking faster innovation, stronger operational resilience and scalable impact across the business.

鈥淎I is the catalyst for agricultural transformation and has quickly become a core competitive edge for Syngenta,鈥� said Feroz Sheikh, chief information and digital officer at Syngenta Group. 鈥淥ur partnership with 51风流is transforming how we run the enterprise, modernizing core operations and unlocking new ways to work 鈥� a testament to our commitment to becoming an agriculture company with AI at its core.鈥�

鈥淪yngenta鈥檚 transformation sets a benchmark for digital innovation in agriculture,鈥� said Philipp Herzig, chief technology officer at 51风流SE. 鈥淭ogether, we鈥檙e demonstrating how cloud and AI technologies can drive sustainable growth and efficiency in one of the world鈥檚 most critical industries. This partnership will help Syngenta future-proof its operations to feed the world responsibly.鈥�

Scaling an AI-First Operating Model for Agriculture

Syngenta鈥檚 transformation will begin with鈥�51风流Cloud ERP Private solutions, modernizing core operations across the value chain to deliver agility, resilience and scalability. The company鈥檚 ambition is clear: unlock innovation faster, strengthen its leadership in agriculture and future-proof operations against volatility.

Through the 51风流Business Data Cloud solution, Syngenta will create a unified, more secure and scalable data foundation essential for real-time decision-making and AI integration. Combined with 51风流Business AI and AI-assisted tools such as the Joule copilot, this will help the company explore smarter, faster decisions that drive operational efficiency and accelerate innovation. Additionally, Syngenta will be able to deliver better products and services to growers worldwide while enabling them to retain control and privacy over their proprietary information.

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Media contacts:
Lesa Plingen, +49 622 776 9000, lesa.plingen@sap.com, CET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com
Syngenta Media Relations, media@syngentagroup.com

Top image courtesy of Syngenta

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 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2026 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

Heartland Dental is the largest dental support organization in the United States, with over 3,000 supported doctors in more than 1,900 supported practices across 39 states and Washington, D.C. But beyond numbers, what sets Heartland apart is its tight knit community and people culture. As Jerome shared, “The first thing I associate with Heartland is community; we鈥檙e doctor-led. In our support role, we don鈥檛 tell dentists how to practice. Our role is to make their lives easier鈥攅nabling dentists to concentrate on patient care.”

Making lives easier is a vision Heartland shares not only for its supported dentists but for its own operations. The company’s digital journey began “backwards” starting in 2018 with 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), instead of with ERP, to resolve disparate data from all over. Once 51风流BTP was established and adopted by the organization, it then began to incorporate .

What makes this journey truly stand out is how Heartland is using technology to serve people, supported through seamless integration with tools like 51风流Concur solutions, embedded听AI鈥攕uch as smart invoice management鈥攁nd embedded analytics. These features are freeing up time and resources so teams can focus on what matters most: supporting doctors and improving patient care.

The team has rolled out听51风流Build Work Zone across its supported practices and is investing in听AI tools like 听to help employees access information faster, automate repetitive tasks, and focus on what really matters鈥攑atient care and experiences. Jerome explained, “Just like we take the administrative burden off our supported doctors, 51风流takes the tech burden off us, so we can focus on supporting doctors and their teams.鈥�

Heartland’s next big milestone is going live with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition听and taking AI a step further to automation.

Heartland Dental鈥檚 story shows that with the strategic adoption of technological innovations, it鈥檚 possible to build a future-ready healthcare support organization grounded in people and purpose.

Chris Putvinski is a communications specialist at SAP.

Since the launch, has empowered organizations to streamline operations for increased efficiency, reduced manual workloads, and untangled multi-channel complexity. With this approach, businesses can deliver on customer promises with seamless customer experience. This momentum has also been recognized in the market, as 51风流Order Management Services was named a Leader in by IHL Group for its robust capabilities and enterprise readiness.

, a leading German home improvement retailer, is already seeing the benefits. With 51风流Order Management Services, Hornbach connects digital and physical stores with full visibility into day-to-day transactions, providing omnichannel retail experience at scale to its customers.

However, the retail landscape is evolving continuously. While profitable growth is critical to businesses, earning and sustaining customer loyalty now is becoming more important. Ahead of the curve, 51风流has heavily invested in expanding capabilities in the 51风流Order Management Services bundle to help retailers deliver on customer promises with intelligence, scalability, and adaptability, leading to boosts in customer loyalty.

At NRF 2026, 51风流is unveiling new and enhanced capabilities that power retailers to not only operate more efficiently but also achieve loyalty-led growth through every order.

AI in 51风流Order Management Services

Joule in 51风流Order Management Services: SAP鈥檚 AI copilot, Joule, is now available in 51风流Order Management Services. Access order-related data, analysis, and insights through conversations in natural language and visual display.

Order Reliability Agent: Accelerate operational efficiency with the Order Reliability Agent in 51风流Order Management Services. Proactively mitigate and resolve any potential issues and gaps, such as stock discrepancies or process bottlenecks, to help ensure every order is fulfilled seamlessly and to boost customer loyalty.

AI-assisted copy generation and translations: Create promotional copy in seconds and translate it into any language with AI assistance, helping to reduce manual workload and accelerate time-to-market.

UI enhancements

Workflow-optimized UI: The enhanced and unified UI in 51风流Order Management Services can deliver a consistent user experience across order, inventory, and fulfillment operations. Teams can now work faster, reduce training time, and maintain full visibility across every step of the order lifecycle.

Watch the 51风流Order Management Services  to get a closer look at the AI capabilities in action. Visit the 51风流booth at NRF 2026, January 11 鈥� 13, to learn more about 51风流Order Management Services and catch an in-person demo.

Emilie Fournelle is head of Product Management for 51风流Order Management Services at SAP.

NEW YORK 鈥� (NYSE: SAP) today announced a new generation of AI-enhanced retail innovations at NRF 2026: Retail鈥檚 Big Show.

51风流continues to infuse AI into the DNA of every part of its retail solutions, reinforcing its suite-first strategy and helping retailers operate with greater intelligence, resilience and trust while delivering better experiences for customers everywhere.

鈥淩etailers face a landscape where AI is no longer optional,鈥� said Balaji Balasubramanian, President and Chief Product Officer for Customer Experience and Consumer Industries, 51风流SE. 鈥�51风流provides one closed-loop, AI-enhanced retail operating system that ties planning, execution and engagement together. We put data and AI at the heart of retail, delivering speed, personalization and growth across every channel and segment.鈥�

AI that turns retail data into actionable intelligence

The Retail Intelligence solution in provides accurate demand and inventory planning, leveraging retailers’ data from across 51风流software and third-party systems to drive profitable growth through actionable, real-time insights. Purpose-built for retailers and direct-to-consumer businesses, it will be generally available in the first half of 2026.

Harmonizing real-time data from sales, inventory, customers and suppliers, Retail Intelligence uses AI-generated simulations so planners can anticipate outcomes and optimize inventory. This improves forecast accuracy, reduces manual planning effort, lowers inventory costs and raises service levels. All this drives more seamless omnichannel engagements, which strengthen customer loyalty and enable growth without adding complexity for retailers.

鈥淩etailers are seeking built-in, embedded AI solutions to help balance daily operations, future planning and agility to manage a dynamic market,鈥� said Ananda Chakravarty, Vice President of IDC Retail Insights. 鈥淲hat sets 51风流apart is the holistic nature of its approach, offering an agentic operating system that works in the background, connects data and orchestrates agents. 51风流makes it an easy lift for retailers to achieve enterprise-wide intelligence, avoiding the complexity of many point solutions.鈥�

AI that streamlines modern retail operations

Retailers must make fast, confident decisions across assortments, pricing and planning. To meet that need, 51风流announced new AI-assisted assortment management capabilities, allowing planners to create, modify or retire assortments using natural language through the Joule copilot. This reduces the bottleneck on expert users, enabling faster responses to market shifts and freeing time for higher-value merchandising decisions.

51风流also introduced omnichannel sales promotions in sales orders, integrating the 51风流Omnichannel Promotion Pricing solution with the 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, retail, fashion and vertical business solution. This enables advanced promotions such as bonus buys to be applied consistently across diverse channels, enabling a single source of truth for pricing and promotions in store and online, so retailers can deliver a consistent experience.

In addition, 51风流is delivering deeper merchandising, segmentation and manufacturing support in the solution, tailored to fashion wholesalers and manufacturers. These enhancements provide the data and process foundation needed for AI-assisted fashion operations across the business.

AI that drives better customer engagement

As shopping journeys increasingly begin with AI assistants rather than storefronts or search engines, retailers need new ways to be present wherever buying decisions are made. 51风流helps retailers connect products, pricing, inventory and promotions directly to AI-enabled discovery and shopping experiences, unlocking agentic commerce with its new storefront MCP server, part of the 51风流Commerce Cloud solution.

Retailers can now make their storefronts intelligible to AI, driving shopping experiences not only on their storefronts but also on platforms such as ChatGPT.听This creates a truly channel-less commerce experience, one where engagement, discovery and transaction happen more seamlessly across human and AI-assisted touch points.

AI that builds customer loyalty

As customer expectations rise and fulfillment networks grow more complex, retailers need confidence that every order will be delivered as promised, using AI solutions that provide proactive visibility and guidance to help keep operations running smoothly and at scale. And as brand visibility shifts in the age of agentic commerce, reliable and consistent shopping experiences are more important than ever to drive sustained customer loyalty and trust.

51风流announced Order Reliability Agent as part of the 51风流Order Management Services bundle, planned for release in the second quarter of 2026. The new agent proactively identifies and resolves potential order issues, helping associates answer common questions about order status, stock availability and fulfillment risks before they impact customers.

By combining agentic autonomy with human oversight where judgment matters, these innovations from 51风流drive insightful planning and improve operational efficiency, both enhancing the customer experience and driving profitable growth.

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51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

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.听 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 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
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With sales to 86 countries, 450 employees from more than 30 nationalities, and production of vital vaccines against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, tuberculosis, and bladder cancer, AJ Vaccines is a significant player in global vaccine preparedness.

Since the Statens Serum Institut (SSI) sold its vaccine production in 2017 and it was taken over by AJ Vaccines, the organization has transitioned from a public entity to a private pharmaceutical company based in Copenhagen.

From legacy to cloud and compliance

After the divestment from SSI, AJ Vaccines inherited an 51风流system from the late 1990s, which was designed more for a public health organization than a pharmaceutical company.

鈥淲e were left with an outdated system that didn鈥檛 really fit our needs as a private player in a global market,鈥� Michael Kvistholm, head of IT at AJ Vaccines, said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we decided to go all-in on a cloud solution with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud. We carried out a pure standard implementation from scratch (greenfield) in a RISE with SAP setup and now have a modern, flexible, and scalable cloud ERP platform that supports our entire business.鈥�

The decision was made to ensure a platform that matches the company鈥檚 needs and future growth.

鈥淲e have reduced our technological debt and consolidated our systems, gaining a more intuitive and user-friendly platform so we can work more efficiently and securely鈥攚hile also meeting the high standards for quality, traceability, and documentation required in our industry,鈥� he explained.

Everyday examples: efficiency and user-friendliness

Since implementing in October 2025, AJ Vaccines has gained a unified platform that creates new opportunities to optimize and integrate processes across the company. The solution provides a solid foundation for better data quality and workflows, enabling improved management, increased transparency, and more effective decision-making.

The IT department has gained an overview and reduced complexity with 51风流LeanIX, a tool for mapping and managing the company鈥檚 entire application landscape and ensuring governance across both 51风流and non-51风流solutions. 51风流Cloud ALM is used for project management and lifecycle management, so releases, testing, and documentation are handled efficiently, and compliance is always top-notch.

During the implementation, AJ Vaccines used 51风流Signavio and based its approach on 51风流standard processes, which brought several advantages.

鈥淲e鈥檝e saved a lot of hours by using standard test cases from 51风流Signavio, which is our platform for process mapping, modelling, and optimization,鈥� said Kvistholm. “We鈥檒l also use these tools for other projects across the company.”

At the same time, 51风流Enable Now鈥攆or change management and end-user training鈥攈as made learning for existing staff and onboarding new employees easier.

鈥淲e鈥檝e created over 100 training videos so all employees can quickly find answers and learn new workflows鈥攊t鈥檚 been a huge success,鈥� Kvistholm confirmed.

Kvistholm also looks forward to early 2026, when the recruitment process will be digitized with 51风流SuccessFactors. Finally, he and his team will carefully consider the new opportunities created by 51风流Business Technology Platform. The platform enables rapid development and integration of new solutions and apps, allowing IT to support business needs flexibly, and, among other things, consolidate other platforms: 鈥淭here鈥檚 really no reason to pay double,鈥� as Kvistholm put it.

Change management and the foundation for the future

AJ Vaccines is focused on formalizing its superuser organization and strengthening governance around master data.

鈥淲e need to clean everything up and keep things in order,鈥� Kvistholm said. 鈥�51风流has become the foundation for our continued digitalization. From now on, it鈥檚 about seeing how we can get 51风流spread even more out throughout the company.鈥�

Advice for other companies

Kvistholm emphasized the importance of management support and a narrow scope: 鈥淚t鈥檚 about staying focused and achieving a fundamental implementation鈥攁nd then continuously carrying out smaller improvement projects. That is and will be the key to our success.鈥�

Ellen Vig Nelausen is an integrated communications expert for 51风流Regional Communications.

As the pace of digital demand accelerates and mission priorities grow more complex, it is clear that traditional modernization approaches can no longer keep pace.

To deliver on rapidly evolving government missions, agencies must move beyond lifting and shifting legacy systems. The true transformation lies in reimagining operating models to support continuous, secure, and scalable innovation.

Shift from modernization to transformation

Legacy IT structures, designed for predictability and control, often limit progress. Risk-averse approaches that once provided stability now constrain agility and innovation. Federal agencies leading the way are adopting future-ready, cloud-native architectures that emphasize interoperability, flexibility, and resilience. These architectures do more than modernize technology; they modernize how agencies work, collaborate, and deliver results.

Reducing technical debt has become a strategic imperative, but emerging technologies also demand a balance of governance and innovation. Federal leaders are reframing their approach to modernization as an ongoing process, a state of persistent transformation where technology, mission, and operations evolve in sync.

Measuring what matters: from cost to capability

As agencies embrace new models of delivery, success must be evaluated through a dual focus:

• Total cost of ownership (TCO): Sustaining efficiency by lowering infrastructure costs and simplifying operations
• Total cost to innovate (TCI): Accelerating value creation by enabling teams to activate, test, and scale new capabilities with minimal risk and complexity

This broader lens allows agencies to view modernization as an investment in agility, resilience, and readiness鈥攅nsuring they can respond to what鈥檚 next, not just what鈥檚 now.

Partnering for a smarter, more agile government

Driving this shift requires strategic collaboration across the public and private sectors. Programs such as the U.S. General Services Administration鈥檚 initiative are redefining how government acquires and deploys technology. By consolidating procurement and engaging directly with technology providers, OneGov helps create greater transparency, efficiency, and long-term value for taxpayers.

In alignment with this vision, 51风流has partnered with GSA to provide federal agencies with expanded access to both 51风流licensed-based products and white glove migration, all while avoiding data egress fees. These initiatives help agencies reduce technical debt, accelerate digital transformation, and establish a secure, cloud-native foundation for the future.

Building the innovation-ready enterprise

Modernization is not a destination, it is a capability. Agencies that continually adapt their operating models will define the next generation of public service. The path forward is clear:

• Reimagine modernization as operating model transformation, not just technology refresh
• Balance efficiency with innovation by measuring both cost savings and speed to value
• Build future-ready enterprises where mission and IT operate as one, powered by cloud, automation, and AI

Together, we are shaping a smarter, more secure, and more agile federal enterprise, one that is ready to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world and deliver enduring value to citizens.

David Robinson is president of Cloud ERP and acting managing director of U.S. Public Services at SAP.

Headquartered in Homberg (Ohm), Germany, with worldwide locations, in 2024 KAMAX generated 鈧�1 billion in revenue and employs 4,000 people dedicated to serving OEMs globally.

To maintain its competitive edge, the ambitious company embarked on a transformative journey to streamline its supply chain through digitalization and intelligent logistics management. This transformation centers around the deployment of (51风流EWM),  (51风流TM), and a comprehensive 51风流S/4HANA platform, supporting superior logistics efficiency, transparency, and sustainability.

Optimizing logistics at scale

Handling approximately 400 transports daily across multiple global plants, KAMAX manages two distinct logistics flows: goods pre-packed and stored in warehouses, and a “pack-to-order” system where items are packaged just before shipment. Currently, three plants operate on 51风流S/4HANA with 51风流Extended Warehouse Management and one pilot plant with 51风流Transportation Management integrated, while others are transitioning from 51风流ERP Central Component (51风流ECC).

The implementation of the advanced shipping and receiving process dramatically improved logistics transparency and efficiency.

“The use of the unified package builder, which leverages real data instead of estimates, allows us to provide precise shipping information to freight forwarders earlier in the process,” Jens Hoidem, director of IT Business Solutions at KAMAX, explained. This improvement enhances truck planning and communication with carriers, positively impacting the company’s logistics operations daily.

KAMAX collaborates exclusively with freight forwarders, working with approximately 20 carriers globally. At the advanced shipping and receiving pilot plant, about 60 deliveries per day are coordinated, involving around 2,000 handling units across five to six trucks. This network supports operational responsiveness without compromising control.

On premise today, cloud-ready tomorrow

Currently, three of KAMAX鈥檚 plants run on 51风流S/4HANA, with the remaining plants on 51风流ECC, all on an on-premises basis designed to be cloud-ready for future transitions.

Hoidem pinpointed the critical process improvements brought by advanced shipping and receiving in combination with 51风流Extended Warehouse Management and 51风流Transportation Management: 鈥淭he shipping registration now uses the unified package builder, relying on accurate, real data rather than estimated figures. This has substantially improved truck planning and early communication with our freight forwarders, impacting around 60 deliveries and about 2,000 handling units daily at our pilot plant.鈥�

Over 95 percent of KAMAX’s transport is by truck. “We maintain a global footprint close to our OEM customers to optimize delivery times and costs,鈥� Hoidem added. 鈥淲e currently engage about 70 to 80 different freight forwarders worldwide, facilitating diverse and dynamic transport needs.鈥�

Sustainability and process automation

KAMAX has a bold strategy for sustainability and aims for carbon neutrality by 2037. Implementation of 51风流Extended Warehouse Management and 51风流Transportation Management plays a crucial role in supporting KAMAX’s goal by enabling better route planning, efficient truck utilization, and minimizing empty runs.

鈥淩educing CO2 emissions through smarter transport management is a key project outcome,鈥� Hoidem added.

The German company is also actively advancing in automation. In China, KAMAX has piloted RFID technology integrated with automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to automate intra-logistics, reducing manual labor and enhancing productivity.

the company’s digital subsidiary, has developed an Operator Cockpit linked with 51风流Extended Warehouse Management for real-time monitoring and automated production order management. Using laser technology, KAMAX automated piece counting, saving about 40 labour hours in May at their Slovakian plant across 1,200 containers.

KAMAX plans to roll out 51风流Extended Warehouse Management, 51风流Transportation Management, and advanced shipping and receiving across all seven plants, progressively improving automation and digitalization of intralogistics processes. 鈥淲e aim to integrate AI for advanced receiving and transportation management, continuing to optimize costs and capacity,鈥� Hoidem shared.

Curious about how KAMAX鈥檚 journey to streamline and future-proof its supply chain? .

Personalization in AI is no longer an innovation layer; it is becoming a foundational expectation. Whether it鈥檚 for driving operational excellence, improving customer experiences, or enabling faster decision-making, organizations are increasingly prioritizing AI that understands their reality.

Generic AI models are designed to be broadly applicable, but that also makes them inherently limited. These models often fail to account for the specific nuances of a business, resulting in lower accuracy, generic insights, and poor cross-functional scalability. Their one-size-fits-all nature makes them difficult to adapt across industries with diverse regulatory needs, data types, and operational complexities.

In critical industries, where precision, compliance, and context are non-negotiable, relying on generic models can lead to inefficiencies and missed opportunities. Additionally, integrating these models into enterprise governance, security, and compliance workflows becomes an uphill task. The result? Underperformance and a growing recognition that one-size-fits-all AI is not built for the complexity of enterprise needs.

This is why more enterprises are investing in differentiated innovations with AI solutions designed from the ground up to serve specific business goals.

A clear example of this is our partnership with . Managing close to 1 million invoices annually across more than 40,000 contracts, the company faced a complex, manual billing process. Together, we used 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) and generative AI to create a compliant, intuitive application that allows account executives to manage invoicing directly and navigate rate cards and contract terms without relying heavily on specialist teams.

The results are tangible. Billing is faster and more accurate, the user experience has improved, and commercial teams can focus more on clients instead of operational tasks. By year-end, billing efficiency is expected to improve by 32 percent and setup times halved. Much of the manual work has been replaced by an intelligent, automated platform.

Where it鈥檚 working: Sector-level transformation

Customer-specific AI applications are transforming industries by shaping intelligence around the specific data, processes, and challenges each sector faces.

In manufacturing, the impact of customer-specific AI applications is evident in how companies are streamlining complex operational processes. For instance, our team developed a solution for Henkel to support their financial supply chain management deduction and dispute management indexing process. This solution automates the analysis and indexing of claim documents received from customers, embedding advanced AI capabilities directly into the daily workflows of dispute management users. The result is faster, more accurate claim case creation, improved efficiency, and greater agility in handling disputes.

In oil and gas, AI models trained on geological data, equipment logs, and environmental variables are improving drilling forecasts and enabling proactive maintenance, enhancing both safety and energy efficiency. The automotive industry is seeing similar gains, with AI supporting predictive maintenance, autonomous driving systems, and real-time diagnostics, while also delivering personalized in-car experiences. Retailers are leveraging AI that adapts to regional buying patterns and live sales data, allowing for sharper demand forecasts, localized inventory planning, and more relevant promotions that reduce waste.

Even government agencies are finding value in context-aware AI, automating routine processes, prioritizing citizen requests, and designing policies with greater precision to deliver faster, more effective public services.

Across these examples, the pattern is clear: AI that understands the context in which it operates drives smarter decisions, more efficient operations, and better outcomes for both organizations and the people they serve.

SAP鈥檚 vision: Building enterprise-grade customer-specific AI applications

51风流is at the forefront of this shift toward enterprise-grade personalized AI. The company鈥檚 vision is rooted in creating AI that is not experimental, but enterprise-ready.

Rather than building standalone solutions, 51风流embeds AI directly into core business processes across finance, HR, supply chain, and more. Through co-innovation with customers and partners, 51风流is working to make every AI solution technically robust and aligned with real-world use cases.

For AI to drive true enterprise transformation, it needs to be designed in and not bolted on. That means working closely with domain experts, aligning with compliance standards, and constantly tuning models based on real-time feedback. Customer-specific AI applications are not just about code; they are about collaboration, trust, and long-term value.

Our approach is to empower organizations to build AI that mirrors their structure, culture, and customers–making it more relevant, reliable, and responsible.

The time to scale is now

Organizations that want to stay competitive can no longer afford to treat AI as a side project. The era of experimentation is over. This is the time to scale AI that works for you intelligently, responsibly, and at speed. Customer-specific AI applications are not tech features but are strategic enablers of innovation, efficiency, and differentiation.

The future belongs to those who can scale personalization without sacrificing performance. It鈥檚 time to build with AI that knows your business.

Sindhu Gangadharan is head of Customer Innovation Services at SAP.

To support ongoing expansion, Far East sought more streamlined and efficient lease lifecycle management operations, leading the company to progressively digitalize the entire leasing lifecycle.

Manual processes prompt change

The leasing process at Far East has traditionally been resource-intensive, involving multiple manual steps and significant human intervention across various stages, including pre-offer approvals via e-mail, rental computations, budget comparisons, contract drafting, amendment management, and rental change tracking.

This approach required substantial manpower and created multiple data entry points across the leasing lifecycle, which could affect accuracy and timeliness. Manual updates to rental terms and amendments also contributed to inefficiencies.

The project marks an important step toward operational excellence. By identifying and addressing these systemic challenges, Far East is laying the foundation for a fully digital, integrated leasing platform that supports seamless process flow, real-time data visibility, and more informed decision-making. It is a bold shift toward a strategic, data-driven approach to leasing that enhances agility, accuracy, and growth.

A strategic move forward

For this reason, FEO decided to undertake a strategic transformation to digitalize its leasing operations through a robust, intelligent, and integrated 51风流ecosystem. This initiative unifies the full leasing lifecycle, from lead generation to contract execution and financial settlement, while enhancing operational excellence, data transparency, and customer service.

51风流was selected as the strategic platform for leasing digitalization due to its ability to deliver a comprehensive, end-to-end solution that connects business processes across the leasing lifecycle. With at the core, Far East benefits from a powerful digital foundation that aligns real estate, finance, and operational workflows into a single source of truth, supporting data integrity, process consistency, and real-time visibility. SAP鈥檚 cutting-edge technologies鈥攊ncluding 51风流Customer Relationship Management (51风流CRM), 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), and 51风流Fiori apps鈥攅nable intelligent automation, advanced analytics, and a clean core architecture that supports both standardization and innovation.

This integrated ecosystem empowers FEO employees to leverage real-time analytics for data-driven decisions and reduce errors and eliminate bottlenecks with automated tasks, streamlined processes, and optimized workflows.

The result? FEO experienced an 80% improvement in sales process efficiency at closing leasing sales.

Impact of the leasing digitalization project

The successful implementation of the leasing digitalization project has delivered tangible improvements across the organization, from the residential and commercial group business unit to its financial, operational, and compliance domains. By streamlining and automating leasing processes, FEO achieved over US$500,000 in annual cost savings while reducing operational overhead. The project eliminated redundant data entry through intelligent field derivation and automated rental computations, helping to minimize errors and boost workforce productivity.

In addition, the leasing lifecycle has been accelerated, cutting the lead-to-contract process and reducing contract generation time from days to just minutes. With 100% system uptime since go-live and strong user adoption, the platform has become a reliable tool for leasing operations. Intelligent validations, including budget checks and competitive rent evaluations, have strengthened regulatory compliance and enhanced decision accuracy. Collectively, these outcomes have strengthened FEO鈥檚 position as a digitally enabled real estate business, well-equipped for agile, data-driven portfolio management and continuous innovation.

FEO has made significant leaps forward in the property management industry. Employee productivity has increased with streamlined processes. Regulatory compliance with industry regulations and standards is managed with intelligent validation. And, analytics provide valuable insights into tenant behavior, rent trends, and property performance.

An 51风流Innovation Award winner

For its property management achievement, Far East Organization was selected as a 2025 51风流Innovation Award winner in the Industry Leader category.

Nicolas Englo is program manager for the 51风流Innovation Awards.

Few industries feel this dual pressure more than American candy makers, particularly during this year鈥檚 Halloween season — their single most important sales moment of the year.

Unfortunately, this year the spookiest season proved to be a particularly tricky one. According to , candy prices rose by 17% from 2024 to 2025. Price increases pose a threat to legacy brands, as 26% of American consumers say they can no longer afford brand loyalty, according to the .

For confectionery manufacturers that have long relied on emotional connection and nostalgia to sustain sales, this Halloween season created pressures on the front- and back-end, leading to what鈥檚 effectively called the 鈥淐PG squeeze.鈥�

Yet, there鈥檚 still room for optimism. The bottom line is that consumer demand hasn鈥檛 disappeared; it鈥檚 simply evolving. While this Halloween season presented a scare, candy makers can prepare for upcoming moments like the holiday season and Valentine鈥檚 Day by integrating financial, commercial, and supply chain planning as well as by connecting sourcing, production, logistics, marketing, and retail.

Supplier side reality

Behind the fun-size bars and Halloween packaging, U.S. candy makers grappled with operational headwinds this year. Volatile trade policy made ingredient and packaging costs unpredictable, while global disruptions reverberated through supply chains.

In anticipation, manufacturers stockpiled inventory and restructured supplier networks, tying up working capital and putting additional stress on already thin margins. The loss of supplier stability has also become a defining feature of today鈥檚 CPG landscape: 70% of companies report switching suppliers primarily due to cost considerations, and fewer than one in four (22%) have maintained supplier relationships longer than five years, according to .

For candy makers dependent on commodities like sugar, cocoa, and dairy, these disruptions hit particularly hard. Add that to the growing costs of packaging, transportation, and marketing, and even iconic brands found themselves squeezed from all sides.

Cautious consumers and the erosion of loyalty

On the consumer front, the loyalty that once defined relationships with classic candy brands began to show signs of strain. That鈥檚 bad news for staple brands that have long relied on customers who instinctively reach for the same branded candy every Halloween.

At the same time, social media has amplified product discovery. Trends can shift overnight, and a viral post about a new flavor or an unexpected candy collaboration can sway younger buyers instantly. For established brands, loyalty must now be earned continuously.

Halloween was one example of this shift, but we鈥檙e going to see families purchase fewer products or mix traditional favorites with lower-priced alternatives in the future as Americans continue to tighten their budgets. Meanwhile, retailers will face uncertain demand and fluctuating supplier costs, leading to a greater risk of stockouts. These trends highlight why CPG companies need smarter, more connected planning to stay ahead of shifting consumer behavior.

Stopping the squeeze with end-to-end connected planning

The effect of the CPG squeeze during this Halloween season offers candy makers valuable lessons before future moments of peak demand. Companies that continue to operate with fragmented data risk missing critical insights, whether it鈥檚 an emerging cost spike, a change in trade policy or a social trend that could make or break sales.

That鈥檚 why CPG companies must embrace end-to-end business planning, a holistic approach that aims to enable agility, transparency and collaboration across every stage of the value chain, through the following methods:

1. Integrated supply and demand planning

Using AI-driven analytics and real-time data, companies can more accurately balance supply and demand, ensuring they produce the right amount of product at the right time. For candy makers, that means having adjusted holiday production runs in response to early season buying trends or ingredient cost shifts.

This model helps connect supplier, logistics, and retail data streams, allowing teams to react instantly to cost spikes or sales slowdowns — helping CPGs improve forecast accuracy for tomorrow鈥檚 disruptions today.

2. Collaborative commercial and promotions planning

Integrating sales, marketing and trade promotion data with supply and finance planning helps maximize promotional ROI. that 68% of CPG companies are simplifying or otherwise improving their organizational structure to improve coordination between teams, leading to fewer out-of-stocks and stronger seasonal performance.

To make these efforts more effective, companies must turn to revenue growth management as a strategic link between planning and execution. By connecting ROI, volume, and profit and loss data, ensures promotions are timed and tailored to shopper needs. This approach supports customer retention, attracts new buyers, and helps maintain healthy margins.

The coordination of holiday campaigns, shelf placements, and promotional pricing with a unified view of inventory and demand is crucial. Rather than running separate marketing and logistics calendars, teams must collaborate around a single version of truth,听ensuring the product featured in a viral ad is available on shelves.

3. Financial planning and scenario modeling

End-to-end planning also allows companies to simulate 鈥渨hat-if鈥� scenarios by modeling policy changes, supply shortages, or demand surges to test resilience. For example, a candy maker facing a 10% increase in imported cocoa costs can immediately assess how to reallocate budgets through promotional adjustments, sourcing alternatives, or margin management.

With real-time connectivity across teams, financial forecasts can automatically update as assumptions shift, empowering decision-makers to pivot fast.

Turning pressure into opportunity

The 鈥淐PG squeeze鈥� wasn鈥檛 just a momentary market condition; it鈥檚 a structural shift that will reshape how candy makers and other CPG brands operate for years to come.

Halloween this year delivered more tricks than treats for American candy makers. Rising costs, shifting loyalties and supply challenges exposed the fragility of traditional planning models. To weather the holidays ahead, all CPGs must embrace integrated planning models that connect every part of the value chain.

With greater visibility and agility to anticipate change and respond to consumer demand, CPG brands can make every holiday a little sweeter.

Jon Dano is an industry executive advisor for Consumer Products at SAP.

In just six months, Brose transitioned its mission-critical systems from internal data centers to the cloud, including complex production processes such as just-in-time and just-in-sequence operations across its global manufacturing plants. The migration was executed without any disruption to customer deliveries, underscoring the robustness of the solutions and the strength of the SAP-Brose partnership.

鈥淭his cloud migration makes Brose faster, more flexible, and more resilient鈥攁nd strengthens our position as an innovative partner for the mobility of the future,鈥� said Stefan Krug, CEO of the Brose Group. 鈥淐hallenging times in particular show how important digital transformation is. I鈥檓 proud of our team鈥檚 dedication and the seamless collaboration with SAP.鈥�

The project is considered a reference implementation for the automotive industry and sets a benchmark for future 51风流cloud initiatives. Brose鈥檚 successful deployment demonstrates how 51风流Cloud ERP Private can support high-performance manufacturing environments while enabling scalability and innovation.

鈥淏rose鈥檚 rapid and disruption-free migration to 51风流Cloud ERP Private exemplifies the power of the cloud to drive agility and resilience in the automotive sector,鈥� said Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE. 鈥淭his collaboration showcases what鈥檚 possible when industry leaders embrace transformation with speed and precision.鈥�

Looking ahead and听reinforcing its role as a pioneer in automotive digitalization, Brose will continue to work closely with 51风流and other ecosystem partners to strengthen its foundation听of 51风流cloud solutions to enable the usage of the latest innovations such as business AI.

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The new regulation will require companies to account for carbon emissions on select imported products. For the auto industry, the steel and aluminum categories are especially critical.

Complete automobiles are not currently covered by CBAM, but the automotive sector is among the most exposed because of its dependence on emissions-intensive materials. Components such as body panels, chassis, frames, and battery enclosures rely heavily on imported steel and aluminum.

CBAM is currently in its transition phase and will enter the definitive phase on January 1, 2026, meaning that companies need to track their imported emissions on covered products throughout 2026 and begin purchasing certificates for those imported, tracked emissions in February 2027, with the first report due August 2027.

CBAM costs will add up quickly

The modern passenger vehicle contains around 1 tonne of steel and 200 kilograms of aluminum. Global averages hover around per tonne of manufactured steel, and each tonne of primary aluminum produces around .

With analysts projecting could reach 鈧�150 per tonne of CO鈧� by 2030, a newly manufactured vehicle could soon be subject to 鈧�300 in CBAM certificate costs, assuming manufacturers import 20% of the necessary steel and 54% of the required aluminum, consistent with EU import data. Given that Germany produced in 2024, German automakers and component manufacturers could be on the hook for about 鈧�1.2 billion in CBAM certificate purchases in 2027.*

Looking past 2027, the European Commission plans to add categories like chemicals and plastics to the regulation, bringing more auto parts under the CBAM umbrella and making it even more important for European automakers and component manufacturers to solidify their CBAM strategies today.

CBAM preparations for automakers and component manufacturers

Across the EU automotive industry, companies seem insufficiently prepared for the new phase of CBAM.

While companies are actively preparing for upcoming CBAM regulations,听their ability to act is constrained by the lack of a finalized EU regulatory framework, including the methodology for emissions-value calculations and the associated verification rules. That said, regulators already clarified the scope of companies that must report and the timelines to purchase certificates.

With this information, it鈥檚 now crunch time for European automakers and component manufacturers to get ready for the rules taking effect in January 2026. Here鈥檚 what they should prioritize.

1. Get familiar with CBAM and evaluate your process

The core elements of CBAM have been defined and companies must act now. If you haven鈥檛 done so yet, start by understanding the overall process and requirements.

If you are in scope鈥攎eaning you meet the de minimis threshold of either importing more than 50 tonnes of CBAM affected goods per year or 100 tonnes of embedded CO鈧� annually鈥攄etermine which parts of your supply chain are most affected. Identify your top suppliers and imported goods, develop a focused approach for obtaining actual emissions data from those suppliers, and assess the potential financial impact. As more materials come under the scope of CBAM, and as the carbon ETS prices rise, the financial impact will increase in the years ahead. Companies must prepare to meet these new obligations and manage this financial impact.

2. Collaborate with your suppliers

Identify and focus on your most critical suppliers鈥攖ypically the top 50 to 100鈥攁nd build a targeted engagement plan while defining an informed approach for the broader supplier base. Consider updating procurement terms to require future data sharing and provide support to suppliers in educating and calculating emissions where needed. Close collaboration will be essential to obtain actual emissions data to avoid the more expensive default values and identify decarbonization potentials. 

Accessing trusted supplier data is one of the biggest challenges facing companies today.

While the EU provides mechanisms for data exchange between suppliers and importers, , an industry network for the European automotive sector, in combination with third-party data exchange software, offers an alternative to collecting trusted, standardized emissions data. Catena-X enables companies to collaborate and share data in a trusted environment. It brings together manufacturers, technology providers, and suppliers to standardize data sharing processes across the value chain. Beyond data exchange, these networks foster knowledge sharing, allowing members to learn best practices, align on standards, and accelerate compliance readiness collectively.

To participate, companies typically register with the network, adopt certified software that supports standardized data exchange, and begin collaborating with other members. This approach ensures interoperability and automates trusted emissions data collection. Catena-X is actively refining its scope and standards to support CBAM.

3. Find the right technology for your business

Most importantly, you want to find the right technology partner that will streamline CBAM reporting and support the integration of carbon into core financial accounting processes.

The EU CBAM report requires a lot of data, all of which can be requested, filled, and reported automatically using actual emissions values with tailored, ERP-based systems. The 51风流Green Token solution can support CBAM declarant reporting by enabling standardized, auditable reporting workflows. The 51风流Green Ledger solution will manage the certificate repository and help ensure financial and carbon accounting of CBAM emissions and certificates in alignment with accounting standards like US GAAP and IFRS (planned for H1 2026).

Manual processes, like e-mails and Excel files, are prone to error, do not scale, and will make CBAM compliance time-consuming and resource intensive.

Prepare your systems for CBAM compliance

CBAM is set to reshape material sourcing in the automotive industry by introducing carbon as a cost factor and driving transparency across global supply chains.

The ideal scenario for automakers and component manufacturers is to take decisive actions to decarbonize鈥攕uch as sourcing low-emissions steel and aluminum, increasing circularity efforts, and optimizing product design to use less CBAM materials鈥攚hile fully automating CBAM compliance.

Access to accurate data on supply chain emissions鈥攁nd their financial implications鈥攑rovides the insights that business leaders need to decarbonize and reduce risk in the years ahead.

The right combination of software tools and industry network collaboration can enable cost-optimized and automated CBAM compliance and deliver valuable supply chain intelligence. can deliver measurable ROI by automating data collection and workflows and enabling finance teams to move beyond manual processes toward strategic analysis and action. This helps create a scalable foundation for ongoing carbon cost management while supporting standardized data exchange and collaboration across the value chain.

Start preparing now to ensure your business thrives as the 2026 CBAM definitive phase approaches.

Read the CBAM and watch the CBAM to learn more.

Thomas Janzen is an industry expert at SAP SE.

*This is a back of the napkin calculation to illustrate the potential impact. This is based on data that shows the EU imported 27.4 million tonnes of finished steel products in 2024. The EU consumed about 129 million tonnes. Therefore, we assume  imports account for roughly 20% of EU steel use. In , 54% of the aluminum used in the EU came from imports. Using these averages means about 2 tonnes of imported CO2 per vehicle, or 鈧�300, assigning 20% of 1 tonne of steel emissions and 53% of 200kg of aluminum emissions.

At the heart of this effort, 51风流is working in concert with Deutsche Telekom, NVIDIA, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Perplexity, PhysicsX, and Agile Robots. 

Together, the AI Cloud project partners plan to help shape Europe鈥檚 digital future and facilitate the application of advanced AI technologies in European industry, beginning with a partnership between Deutsche Telekom and NVIDIA totaling around 鈧�1 billion. 

The initiative, which is backed by the German Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernization, is designed to transform Germany into Europe鈥檚 AI hotspot and enable European companies to access secure and sovereign computing resources, as well as help them accelerate innovation and unlock the full potential of industrial AI — responsibly, collaboratively, and on Europe鈥檚 terms — drawing on Europe鈥檚 vast corporate data reserves.听

Sovereignty, not isolation

Digital sovereignty has been a hot topic in Europe and elsewhere over the past nine months, reflecting growing concerns about geopolitical events, including tariffs and cross-border data access. Some, including the European Union, have argued that Europe needs its own infrastructure to support digital sovereignty, while others have taken a broader view of the issue.听

The Industrial AI Cloud project aims to bridge these perspectives and strengthen digital sovereignty and innovation in Germany and across Europe by听leveraging听the best available technologies through trusted partnerships while ensuring that control over proprietary data听remains听firmly in European hands.听

During a joint press conference in Berlin, the partners unveiled their plans for the Industrial AI Cloud, which promises to simplify the integration of AI solutions into business operations, addressing the fragmentation that has long limited Europe鈥檚 AI landscape. 

Phase one 

In its first phase, Deutsche Telekom鈥檚 existing data center in Munich will be expanded by adding AI infrastructure with NVIDIA GPUs by the first quarter of 2026. This will enable the provision of high-performance AI services to companies of all sizes throughout Germany and Europe.  

While Deutsche Telekom supplies physical infrastructure, 51风流delivers the technology听layer by providing 51风流Business Technology Platform and a comprehensive suite of applications,听accelerated by听advanced AI听and simulation听technologies,听including those from NVIDIA. Together,听the partners are听establishing听a secure and high-performance digital platform for enterprises, public sector听organizations,听and regulated industries such as defense and critical infrastructure.

罢丑别听state-of-the-art听AI computing facility with the听Industrial听AI听Cloud is also one of the first flagship projects of the “Made 4 Germany” initiative, which includes more than 100 German companies, aiming to strengthen Germany as a business location and accelerate digitalization in business and public administration.听

Collaboration as the key to success听

As 51风流CEO Christian Klein emphasized, the demand for digital sovereignty is growing rapidly in an increasingly regulated and complex environment where tech companies are competing for leadership in the emerging market for generative and agentic AI leadership. 

According to 51风流estimates, the AI market in Europe will exceed 鈧�20 billion by 2030 and require more than 22 gigawatts of data center capacity. Meeting this demand, Klein argued, is only possible through close collaboration and partnerships. 鈥淲e will not achieve digital sovereignty by isolating ourselves, but by bringing the best technologies to Europe together with strong partners, while retaining control over our data,鈥� Klein said.

In the global AI race, it is crucial for Europe to set its own agenda and听become a leader in industrial AI.听

Laying the foundation 

Projects like the Industrial AI Cloud, Klein noted, lay the foundation for this ambition. Building infrastructure and data centers is only one step; the real economic value will be generated when AI is productively deployed and deeply integrated into business and administrative processes.  

鈥淥nly when AI is seen not as an isolated technology, but as an integral part of operational workflows, will it unlock its potential to rethink business models, substantially boost productivity, and accelerate innovation,鈥� he said. 

Prerequisites for success

Germany and Europe possess a strong industrial base, extensive expertise, and a wealth of industrial data. To turn this opportunity into tangible progress, policymakers and business leaders must coordinate their efforts, establish clear frameworks, and invest strategically in education, research, and secure, interoperable infrastructure. 

The Industrial AI Cloud enables seamless integration of AI solutions into businesses, closing the gap in Europe鈥檚 previously fragmented AI landscape. It combines choice and scalability, addressing the growing demand for secure, European AI solutions. 

The vision extends beyond the project itself. A digitally sovereign Europe — offering modern, user-centric services for citizens, government, and industry — will make Europe more efficient and innovative than ever, thanks to AI.听

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America鈥檚 biggest integrated cannabis company Trulieve chose 51风流S/4HANA to provide it with the scale and flexibility it needs in a highly dynamic market.

Read the article to learn more about Trulieve鈥檚 success: https://sap.to/6056AiWNe.

The manufacturer was heavily reliant on manual documentation, which caused delays in accessing and updating critical data and documents, resulting in data quality and compliance issues.

To address these challenges and optimize asset management, LESER sought to establish seamless data integration through a unified single source of truth. After thorough research and careful comparison of options, the valve manufacturer successfully chose to implement digital twin technology with to help optimize collaboration with customers.

Error-free asset data and streamlined collaboration with smart asset management

Relying on a manual documentation process was not only time-consuming but also prone to errors and delays. This was causing significant challenges in accessing and updating critical data and documents, leading to poor data quality and inefficiencies across the ecosystem. Recognizing the need for a modern solution on the operator side, LESER identified the importance of supporting customers with a centralized asset management system. LESER decided to digitize its asset management system by implementing a centralized, cloud-based platform. This platform enables LESER to seamlessly share the digital twin with customers, enhancing transparency and data sharing while continuing to manage internal processes separately.

By implementing the technology integrated with , LESER created a one-to-one virtual replica of each piece of physical equipment and product, consolidating all relevant data and documentation into a single, accessible platform.

鈥淭he digital twin acts as a precise digital mirror of the physical safety valve, enabling our customers to receive complete, error-free, and up-to-date data about the safety valves,鈥� Pierre Draheim, manager of Product Data Management at LESER, explains.

LESER provides digital twins both for new () and existing () safety valves, centralizing all relevant data and documents. Each valve is labeled with the globally-standardized ID link, or QR code, IEC听61406听that allows LESER’s customers to directly access and sync product-specific information with their asset management systems, enabling seamless data transfer, documentation compliance, and cost reductions of up to 95% for initial recording.

鈥淏y embracing digital innovation, we have empowered our customers to boost their operational efficiency,” Draheim says. He emphasizes that this not only helps LESER achieve substantial time-savings but also enables the company to focus on core activities and drive greater business growth: “It’s a win-win. Not only us, but also our customers achieve significant improvements in overall productivity.”

Reduce operational costs with real-time digital twin integration

Automating valve data sharing within has made it much easier for LESER operators and service providers to coordinate maintenance, eliminating the need for manual data reconciliation. This automation cuts down on administrative work, helps avoid unnecessary downtime, and optimizes spare parts inventory, all of which contributes to a substantial decrease in operational costs.

By standardizing and digitizing data with a globally-standardized ID link, multiple service providers get instant access to accurate, up-to-date information.

鈥淲ith the introduction of the digital twin and 51风流Business Network Asset Collaboration, we can now automate valve management, making the entire process faster and more reliable,鈥� Draheim says.

Ensure safety and quality through global and regulatory compliance

Making sure safety valves meet international standards at every step requires a high level of automation in managing product data. This is especially important for LESER. 鈥淐ompliance is not just about meeting regulations, but about the ‘rules of the game’ in the industry, which enable an automated exchange of information across different IT systems and stakeholders,鈥� Draheim says.

With such a significant market presence, LESER holds its suppliers and materials to very high standards, ensuring every part complies not only with global regulations but also local rules. This level of care is particularly essential for operators working in industries with strict safety and regulatory conditions.

Beyond setting these standards, LESER keeps detailed records to maintain full transparency and traceability across the supply chain. This integrated approach helps the ambitious company reduce the need for additional level approvals and supports safe, reliable plant operations all over the world. In return, its customers experience improved reliability and confidence in the products and services they receive, creating a positive impact throughout the entire value chain.

Oyku Ilgar is part of 51风流Supply Chain Thought Leadership & Awareness.