The journey began in early 2019 with the launch of Agile Finance, an end-to-end transformation initiative designed to support the company’s aggressive growth trajectory, which included a goal to double in size. The initiative was built around three strategic pillars: enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the finance organization, promoting career fulfillment, and establishing a robust digital operating model. The impact was significant, with the finance function achieving approximately 35% productivity gains in its labor force.

The third pillar鈥攖he move to a digital operating model鈥攊s where the partnership with 51风流Taulia began.

鈥淭he 51风流Taulia Dynamic Discounting solution was introduced not merely as a cost-cutting measure, but as a strategic tool to transform and digitize the interaction with Applied’s extensive, global supplier base,鈥� Junaid Ahmed, corporate VP, Finance at Applied Materials, says. 鈥淲e understood that to reap the benefits of digitization, we had to ensure the suppliers were on board. It needed to be a win-win outcome.鈥�

Unprecedented flexibility for suppliers

The program empowers suppliers鈥攖housands of them worldwide鈥攖o self-select which approved invoices they wish to discount for early payment. This is not a continuous, all-or-nothing commitment but rather a decision made on an invoice-by-invoice basis. This flexibility allows suppliers to manage their working capital needs with greater precision, taking advantage of early payment during their own critical periods, such as quarter-end or year-end, to help meet their own financial targets.

The system also drastically improves transactional efficiency. Suppliers no longer have to call Applied to track invoice status, approval, or payment date. All this information is available 24/7 in the 51风流Taulia solution, reducing resource allocation on both sides and ensuring both reap the benefits of moving to an integrated, digital system.

Strategic benefits for Applied Materials

For Applied, the program is a testament to its focus on balancing efficiency with strong supplier relationships. The philosophy is a 鈥渨in-win鈥� built on a crucial spread: Applied Materials, as a Fortune 500 company with strong cash flow, has a significantly lower cost of capital than many of its suppliers. By funding the discounts, Applied captures a return鈥攖he discount income鈥攚hile offering its suppliers funding at a rate close to their cost of capital, but with greater convenience.

This relationship-focused approach is critical. Applied鈥檚 supplier account managers actively support the program because they recognize its mutual benefit, not viewing it as a finance mandate to push costs onto the supply base.

Furthermore, the “dynamic” nature of the discount rates is a powerful risk mitigation tool. Unlike fixed contractual discounts, the rates can be adjusted in response to global economic changes, such as shifts in interest rates. When interest rates rose after the pandemic, Applied was able to adjust the discount rates accordingly with minimal pushback, as the core proposition remains the valuable spread between the parties’ cost of capital.

The 51风流Taulia Dynamic Discounting solution has been rolled out globally, giving all suppliers the opportunity to use it. This has been critical over the last 12 months as many businesses around the globe have been subject to new and often unexpected tariff costs impacting their margin and their liquidity.

鈥淭he flexibility of the solution means suppliers can access funds when they need them, which helps them navigate some of the economic uncertainty that many businesses are facing,鈥� Dirk Holoubek, managing director, Finance Shared Services, explains. 鈥�2025 saw a 23% increase in usage of the discounts, reflecting the pressures that suppliers are feeling right now on their cash flow.鈥澛�

The solution’s capability to drive sophisticated analytics is also a major strategic asset. It helps provide insights into the different costs of capital between Applied and its supplier base. This data allows for targeted outreach and communication, ensuring that the offer of capital support is proactively extended to the suppliers that need it most.

The strategic value of the solution is further cemented by its ownership. The acquisition of Taulia by SAP brings several advantages.

鈥淭rust is really important to both us and our suppliers,鈥� Ahmed says. 鈥淔or our suppliers to adopt a new solution, they need to know its technology they can rely on in the long term. Being part of 51风流creates that assurance in the long-term future of the program.鈥�

Looking forward, Applied Materials is already focused on the next stage of the transformation project: Agile Finance 3.0, which is focused on enabling the organization to become AI-first. The company is deploying a global, organization-wide AI assistant to drive personal productivity, but the strategic application of AI in the supplier management space is even more profound.

AI is expected to transform decision-making enablement by analyzing critical information and communicating effective options. In the future, AI will be able to proactively assess the specific needs and attributes of the supplier base, enabling Applied to address issues more quickly and resolve them earlier. The benefits are already tangible in e-invoicing: AI has made the solution more flexible and “human-like,” capable of reading minor changes in invoice format that would have previously caused electronic errors. This reduced rigidity and increased flexibility are directly contributing to the overall efficiency of the digital operating model.

By leveraging the 51风流Taulia Dynamic Discounting solution, Applied Materials has not only digitized a process but also strategically transformed its financial operations, creating a system that is agile, resilient, and focused on maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with its global supplier ecosystem.

Cedric Bru is CEO of 51风流Taulia.

What made the event distinctive was its candor. Customers did not come to present polished success stories. They came to compare realities. And those realities were refreshingly honest.

Why direct procurement is hitting a breaking point

The pressure on direct procurement is not coming from one direction. Geopolitical instability and accelerating technological change are forcing sourcing decisions earlier in the product lifecycle, at precisely the moment when many organizations are least equipped to act. Meanwhile, institutional knowledge is leaving faster than systems are modernizing. The experienced individuals who once held fragile processes together are retiring or moving on, and the systems meant to replace that knowledge are not yet ready.

The result is an operating model that prevents procurement leaders from influencing value at the moments that matter most. Several customers described a tension they are actively dealing with. Sourcing is being pulled upstream into design and development, while the tools and processes that support it are still anchored downstream.

What customers shared about their reality

While all participants operate with a strong 51风流footprint, spanning and , many acknowledged that direct materials sourcing remains fragmented and disconnected from the digital core. The picture they described was familiar but worth stating plainly: engineers, buyers, and suppliers still collaborating through e-mail, local tools, and disconnected applications; there’s an overreliance on a small number of experienced individuals to make things work; and multiple ERP landscapes run in parallel, with direct sourcing living largely outside all of them.

One observation stood out clearly. The real friction is not the sourcing events themselves. It is the handoffs, the gaps between systems and teams where decisions get made too late, data is reconciled manually, and no single digital thread connects product intent to sourcing execution.

In other words, the process functions, but it functions in silos.

Participants also noted that traditional indirect source-to-pay approaches simply do not support direct materials adequately. They lack native support for procurement embedded in new product development, sourcing scenarios that evolve with engineering change, demand aggregation across programs, and contracts treated as executable objects rather than static documents. That last point came up repeatedly, particularly the need to treat contracts as executable objects. This is also where the add-on in 51风流S/4HANA is starting to resonate more strongly in ongoing customer discussions.

Where customers are focusing next

What emerged from the discussions wasn鈥檛 a long list of priorities, but a firm shift in where companies are focusing their efforts.

Moving sourcing upstream into product development鈥攔ather than reacting after design decisions are already locked鈥攚as a consistent theme. So was reducing dependency on hero buyers: individuals whose personal expertise and relationships are currently holding critical processes together.

Commodity volatility and renegotiations also came up as structural challenges, not one-time events. Organizations want to handle these systematically rather than heroically. And several participants raised the reality of managing multi-year 51风流S/4HANA journeys without stalling progress in the meantime鈥攁 genuine tension that demands honest road map planning.

While the direction is widely understood, most organizations do not yet have the setup to execute against it at scale.

These priorities help explain why customers are increasingly adopting the 51风流Ariba direct materials sourcing add-on alongside , , and 鈥攃apabilities that together can support the connected execution model direct procurement actually requires.

How AI fits into direct procurement

AI generated significant interest, but expectations were measured and, I would say, appropriately so.

The consistent message was this: AI only matters once the fundamentals are addressed. Agent-based capabilities depend on clean processes and consistent data. Without a unified digital thread across product design, sourcing, contracting, and execution, AI does not generate insight鈥攊t amplifies noise.

Leaders also expressed clear skepticism toward black-box automation. They want AI that is explainable and embedded directly into sourcing, negotiation, and execution workflows, not layered on top of broken processes and presented as a fix.

This thinking aligns closely with 厂础笔鈥檚 vision for the Autonomous Enterprise, introduced at 51风流Sapphire just weeks after our Walldorf discussions. The vision anchors AI agents directly in transactional business processes, data, and governance鈥攅xactly what customers said they needed before they could trust AI in direct procurement environments. Hearing them articulate that requirement so clearly, before the announcement, felt like meaningful validation.

Where this is all heading

The Walldorf roundtable confirmed a clear trajectory. Direct procurement organizations are moving away from heroics and spreadsheets and toward system-led execution. They are aligning sourcing transformation with their 51风流S/4HANA road maps and preparing their organizations鈥攏ot just their systems鈥攆or a future where AI supports decision-making across the full procurement lifecycle.

Direct procurement, seen through this lens, is not a standalone transformation. It is a foundational building block. Connecting product, sourcing, contracts, and execution through a single digital thread is what enables AI to operate accurately, compliantly, and at scale. That connection has to exist before any of the more ambitious automation goals become realistic.

For SAP, conversations like the one in Walldorf directly inform our product direction and investment priorities. There is no substitute for sitting in a room with people navigating these challenges every day, without a script.

What was clear in Walldorf is that the direction is no longer in question for participating organizations. The challenge now lies in execution and in how quickly organizations can move from fragmented, person-dependent processes to cohesive models that reflect how direct procurement operates today.

Karolina Bombardelli is global go-to-market lead for Direct Procurement at SAP.

They are expected to manage risk, ensure compliance, and deliver strategic value, all while navigating talent shortages and increasing operational complexity. And most are doing it without the end-to-end visibility they need.

Workflows are disconnected, decision-making is reactive, and policies are inconsistently enforced. I have heard this from customers across every industry and, frankly, it is a problem that traditional approaches to procurement technology haven鈥檛 fully solved.

That鈥檚 what makes this moment different. At 51风流Sapphire, we introduced the Autonomous Enterprise, a fundamental shift in how businesses operate, with AI assistants and agents powering end-to-end execution at scale, with governance built in. Critically, this isn鈥檛 just about adding AI features to existing tools. It is about moving from AI in applications to AI on applications鈥攊ntelligence that works across your entire landscape, not just inside individual products.

Autonomous Spend Management: From concept to reality

Autonomous Spend Management is a core pillar of the Autonomous Enterprise vision, designed to address the fragmentation that holds procurement and finance teams back. By applying agentic AI across procurement, travel, expenses, and external workforce processes, we鈥檙e creating continuity where disconnection exists today鈥攊ntelligent systems that orchestrate activities, connect context, and surface the right insights at the right moment.

What this means for the people doing the work is equally significant. When AI handles routine execution, decision-makers get time and clarity back. They can intervene earlier, with better information, and focus on more strategic work that actually moves the needle.

To bring this to life, we are introducing a new set of Joule Assistants, AI-powered teammates designed to support procurement and spend management across the full life cycle:

• Category Management Assistant: Analyzes spend patterns, delivers market intelligence, and helps build sharper category strategies
• Sourcing Assistant: Manages the entire sourcing life cycle, from drafting RFPs and bids to recommending negotiation strategies
• Supplier Management Assistant: Provides comprehensive oversight of the supply base, from intelligent classification to continuous multi-dimensional risk monitoring
• Contract Assistant: Streamlines contract authoring, flags renewal opportunities, and connects supplier selection through to contract execution
• Requisition Assistant: Guides users to the right buying channel, auto-fills fields, and uses advanced trade-off analyses to help maximize volume discounts
• Buying Assistant:Helps professional buyers identify spend leakage, surface optimal suppliers, and automate order consolidation
• Receiving Assistant: Auto-creates goods receipts and service entry sheets and guides users through quality tracking so nothing falls through the cracks
• Invoicing Assistant: Handles invoice capture, duplicate detection, and payment proposals so finance teams can close faster with fewer errors
• Services Procurement Assistant: Manages the full SOW life cycle from creation through compliance tracking
• Travel Assistant: Simplifies trip planning with pre-spend estimates, streamlined approvals, and built-in compliance guidance
• Expense Management Assistant: Automates expense reporting, capturing details, flagging errors, and keeping everything compliant

The Autonomous Spend Management capabilities run across our cloud ERP application portfolio, including 51风流Cloud ERP Private, for end-to-end coverage across business processes and systems.

Why connected processes are critical

Connection is just as powerful as intelligence, and that conviction runs through everything we  announced this week. AI can only do so much if the underlying processes are still fragmented.

In next-gen 51风流Ariba Buying, new Joule Agents support purchasing and policy management through a more intuitive, persona-driven experience, guiding users toward compliant, contract-linked options while improving catalog management and document traceability. Deeper integration with 51风流S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition and 51风流ERP Central Component means these capabilities work with existing ERP investments, not around them.

51风流Ariba Contracts now brings contract creation, approvals, and compliance tracking into a single unified workspace. AI-assisted drafting lets teams create contracts using natural language, while centralized visibility into terms, pricing, and key dates keeps data consistent and connected to downstream procurement processes.

We also introduced a new Joule Agent in 51风流Ariba Intake Management to automate how procurement requests are captured and routed across 51风流and non-51风流systems. And expanded supplier evaluation capabilities in 51风流Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance let teams segment performance data by geography, business unit, or category 鈥� with insights feeding directly into to inform sourcing and procurement decisions.

Expanding visibility into services spend and supporting adoption

Nowhere is the need for connected processes more apparent than in asset-intensive industries. In oil and gas, mining, and utilities, external workers can make up 40% of the workforce, yet most organizations are still managing them through manual processes and disconnected systems. The risks are real: expired certifications, overpayments, and poor visibility into work billed versus work actually done.

New 51风流Fieldglass capabilities address these challenges by bringing together the full contractor life cycle, from the moment a worker arrives on site through to final payment. Organizations can now automate time tracking, verify worker credentials and safety requirements before granting site access, maintain tighter controls over equipment, and dramatically reduce the manual effort involved in invoicing.

We鈥檙e also using AI to accelerate SOW creation by automatically recommending worker roles based on the SOW description and historical buyer data, which reduces manual setup and improves consistency from the start. And to support adoption, WalkMe Premium is now integrated with 51风流Fieldglass and 51风流Ariba, providing in-app guidance for tasks such as creating statements of work, approving timesheets, and hiring candidates.

The future of spend management

Autonomous Spend Management marks a fundamental shift from managing processes to delivering business outcomes. From chasing cost savings to actively shaping resilience, margin, and growth. From reacting to events to anticipating them.

The real strategic implication is this: Spend does not happen in isolation. Every contract and invoice has a downstream effect on financial performance. When those decisions are made in context鈥攚ith AI connecting procurement, supply chain, and finance鈥攖he enterprise doesn鈥檛 just run more efficiently, it runs as one system.

That鈥檚 what we are building, and what we announced this week marks a significant step forward.

For more details on this week鈥檚 announcements, see the . For more details on the latest updates in travel and expense, please refer to the

Etosha Thurman is co-business lead and chief marketing officer for 51风流Finance & Spend Management.

In his kickoff keynote at 51风流Sapphire Orlando, Florida, Klein and other 51风流Board members detailed how 51风流plans to bring agentic AI to the world’s most critical business workflows so that humans and AI can meet the accelerating demands of global business profitably, strategically, and safely.

鈥淭oday I鈥檓 super proud to launch our new 51风流Business AI Platform, which forms the basis for our vision of the future of business: the Autonomous Enterprise, where agents run the business and you can focus on what truly matters,鈥� Klein said.

Enterprise AI is at an inflection point, Klein told his 30,000-strong in-person and virtual keynote audience, and 51风流is in a unique position to deliver what customers need to turn their businesses into autonomous enterprises.

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The business AI imperative

Across industries, organizations are investing heavily in artificial intelligence, yet many still struggle to translate that investment into meaningful business value. At 51风流Sapphire, the message was clear: This isn鈥檛 a technology problem; it鈥檚 a context and execution problem.

While 80% accuracy may be sufficient for consumer AI applications, Klein said, 鈥淓ighty percent is just not good enough when you run the world鈥檚 most business-critical businesses. They [LLMs] should not guess; they should deliver accurate, compliant, and secure outcomes.鈥� 

Klein acknowledged that while adoption of AI has become near-universal, tangible business value remains elusive. Citing a recent Stanford AI survey, he noted that almost every company is now using AI, but seeing only limited return.

The reason, he argued, lies in a structural gap. Above the waterline of enterprise AI, LLMs continue to improve at tasks trained on publicly available data, while below it lies what enterprises truly need: AI that understands mission-critical business data, end-to-end processes, and operates within security, compliance, and governance frameworks.

ERP as the foundation for business AI

厂础笔鈥檚 answer to this challenge begins with what Klein described as 鈥渢he brain of every company: its ERP system.鈥� For over 50 years, 51风流has had solutions with incredibly deep process and data domain know-how alongside the governance requirements, compliance controls, and company-specific configurations that define how businesses actually run.

Now, as part of the company鈥檚 new vision, 51风流plans to infuse this institutional knowledge into AI agents, enabling them to navigate thousands of business processes, select from more than 7 million data fields, and verify identity and access authorizations before returning any output.

鈥淲e鈥檙e bringing together LLMs with 50 years of business know-how stored in our ERP. But to do this, we had to do nothing less than completely reinvent our company,鈥� he told the audience. 鈥淭oday we are very excited to show you the new 51风流and our vision for the Autonomous Enterprise.鈥�

51风流Business AI Platform

To bring this vision to life, 51风流executives on stage announced a series of important innovations, beginning with the launch of the new 51风流Business AI Platform, a unified architecture bringing together 51风流Business Technology Platform, 51风流Business Data Cloud, and AI Foundation under a single roof.

鈥淭he heart of this new platform is the rich context layer,鈥� said Klein. 鈥淗ere, we infuse the deep ERP business domain know-how into the AI agents. Through our knowledge graphs, our AI agents have now a compass, a map, to find the right process and data in your ERP universe. And to provide the agents even more context, we are also introducing our new 51风流Domain Models. They have been trained on SAP’s code to even better understand the business logic of your company.鈥�

But, he said, 51风流is going further: 鈥淏ecause you run your business not only with 51风流solutions, our AI agents have to also understand non-51风流data. That’s why we included our 51风流Business Data Cloud in the context layer to build a single semantical data layer across 51风流and non-SAP. No more silos, no spaghetti data sprawl鈥攂ecause no AI agent can compensate for a broken data model.鈥�

Echoing Klein, 51风流CTO Philipp Herzig, who presented the platform in detail, said it has been designed to close the agent adoption gap in the enterprise by delivering outcome, speed, enterprise-readiness, and context. 鈥淚t’s the place where you build, contextualize, reason, and govern AI,鈥� he said.

Herzig explained that the platform is structured around three layers: the context layer which Klein referenced, the build layer, and the governance layer. 鈥淎gents are only as powerful as the context they operate on,鈥� he said. 鈥淟acking context is the number one reason why enterprise AI projects fail to deliver value.鈥�

Within the build layer of the new platform, the new Joule Studio is designed to understand a company鈥檚 business challenges and enables the building of new AI agents quickly and easily.

The third tier is the governance layer, anchored by the new 51风流AI Agent Hub built on 51风流LeanIX. This provides a single command center to discover, manage, and govern all AI agents鈥�51风流and non-SAP. It will be generally available in Q3 and included in 51风流Business AI Platform at no additional charge.

Underscoring the changing AI marketplace, Herzig was joined on stage by KPMG Global Head of Advisory Rob Fisher, who told the audience: 鈥淲hat I鈥檓 hearing from clients is a clear shift; they鈥檙e moving from AI pilots to embedding integrated AI and agents into how work gets done. Where we see leaders really separating from the pack is in the execution and the organizational adaptability.鈥�

51风流Autonomous Suite

Building on the platform, 51风流Executive Board Member Muhammad Alam, 51风流Product & Engineering, announced the transformation of 厂础笔鈥檚 SaaS application portfolio into the 51风流Autonomous Suite, described as the most significant evolution of 厂础笔鈥檚 applications business in the company鈥檚 history.

The suite spans five domains: Autonomous Finance, Autonomous Spend, Autonomous Supply Chain Management, Autonomous HCM, and Autonomous CX, with more than 200 agents and over 50 assistants available in the coming months. Each assistant is mapped to core business roles and carries defined KPIs tracked through 51风流AI Agent Hub.

鈥�51风流Autonomous Suite brings together the depth of our process expertise, semantically rich data, and built-in governance and compliance,鈥� said Alam. 鈥淭hese agents are designed with outcomes as a core objective. Each assistant has a defined set of ROI KPIs that you can expect it to deliver.鈥� 

鈥淯nderpinning the autonomous suite are out-of-the-box agents鈥攈undreds of agents cutting across all core business processes,鈥� he shared. 鈥淭hese agents come together into what we call assistants, or Joule Assistants. We’ve mapped these assistants to roles across the core processes of an organization, because we know that the first step 
in realizing value from AI is to empower your people to do more, do it better, or do things that just weren’t possible to be done before.鈥�

Turning to Joule itself, Muhammad said 51风流is fundamentally reimagining how users will interact with 51风流applications in the future.

鈥淲e call this Joule spaces and along with the familiar Joule conversations experience and Joule Studio 2.0, it is now part of what we call Joule Work,鈥� he explained.

鈥淛oule Work represents a massive step forward in super-charging the capabilities of Joule as we know it today,鈥� Alam said. 鈥淲ith Joule Work, we’re bringing a claw-based agentic harness to Joule along with computer and file access, better support for open standards such as MCP and A2A, access to a more complete knowledge base, and, of course, amazing visualizations on the fly.鈥�

Industry AI: H&M and Sector-Specific Transformation

During the keynote, 51风流Chief Operating Officer Sebastian Steinhaeuser introduced the Industry AI initiative, delivering AI-powered solutions built on decades of sector-specific expertise across 26 industries. In life sciences, he highlighted how 51风流customer Takeda is achieving up to 10% productivity gains, up to 25% reduction in revenue loss from stock-outs, and up to five percent reduction in safety stock through Autonomous Regulated Manufacturing.

He was also joined on stage by H&M Group CDIO Ellen Svanstr枚m, who discussed how the fashion retailer is embedding AI across its value chain. Built on RISE with SAP, 51风流Business Data Cloud, 51风流Commerce Cloud, and 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, H&M has developed a Store Intelligence Agent that processes real-time signals to generate actionable recommendations for store managers. Svanstrom also demonstrated the AI-powered InStore Concierge, a customer-facing agent that bridges digital and physical retail through personalized outfit recommendations and real-time availability.

RISE with 51风流and 51风流GROW: Path to the Autonomous Enterprise

Returning to the keynote stage, Klein emphasized that technology adoption alone does not create business value. Simply plugging AI agents into your system landscape will drive zero value, he said. 鈥淢oving to the Autonomous Enterprise requires serious change management. Adoption of AI goes hand-in-hand with business process change and end user enablement.鈥�

To support customers on this journey, 51风流announced a comprehensive reset of its RISE with 51风流and 51风流GROW offerings. RISE with 51风流customers will receive contractual commitment to activate three Joule Assistants within the first year, with the Max Success Plan extending adoption across the full enterprise.  

51风流GROW customers will receive more than 20 AI assistants from day one, with an AI-enabled toolchain designed to support go-live in weeks. New partnerships with Palantir and Accenture will support the most complex migration scenarios.

Closing: The Autonomous Enterprise

Klein closed the keynote by asking Joule to summarize the key takeaways and noting that 51风流is evolving from being a software company to becoming a business AI company.

鈥淲e showed how to turn the promise of business AI into reality with 51风流Business AI Platform, which provides the data processes and governance AI need to deliver accurate and secure outcomes at scale; we introduced the 51风流Autonomous Suite, where applications reason, decide, and act for you; and we showed how to manage change management with RISE with SAP. Together with customers and partners, we showed how 51风流is helping companies realize the vision of the Autonomous Enterprise.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檝e been reinventing how businesses run for over 50 years, and now by infusing 厂础笔鈥檚 ERP brain into the new 51风流Business AI Platform, we鈥檙e solving one of the biggest challenges businesses are facing today: how to turn AI into business value,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the end of long negotiations, supply chain disruptions, financial blind spots, and the beginning of better: Welcome to the Autonomous Enterprise.鈥�

The company introduces a unified 51风流Business AI Platform, deepening partnerships with Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Palantir

ORLANDO聽鈥� At 51风流Sapphire in 2026, (NYSE: SAP) introduced the to help enhance the world’s most critical business workflows, so that humans and AI work together to meet the accelerating demands of global business profitably, strategically and safely.

鈥淔or the mission-critical processes of our customers, ‘almost right’ just isn鈥檛 good enough,鈥� said Christian Klein, CEO of 51风流SE. 鈥淏y uniting 51风流Business AI Platform with 51风流Autonomous Suite, we anchor AI agents in the business processes, data and governance so they can deliver accurate, compliant and secure outcomes, unlocking new sources of revenue and meaningful cost savings.鈥�

The Autonomous Enterprise includes a unified AI platform for building, contextualizing and governing agents, an autonomous suite that executes core business operations and a new user experience that redefines how people work with enterprise software.

Introducing 51风流Business AI Platform

51风流Business AI Platform is a new foundation for building and deploying enterprise AI grounded in real business context. 51风流Business AI Platform now unifies 51风流Business Technology Platform, 51风流Business Data Cloud and 51风流Business AI into a single, governed environment.

At its core is the 51风流Knowledge Graph solution, which gives AI agents a structured map of business entities, processes and relationships across a customer’s 51风流landscape. Joule Studio is SAP’s AI-first solution for building enterprise agents, applications and agentic workflows. Developers can build using the no-code, pro-code and AI frameworks of their choice on SAP-managed infrastructure that is secure, scalable and optimized for enterprise AI.

Deploying 51风流Autonomous Suite Across Every Business Function and Industry

Building on this foundation, 51风流also introduced 51风流Autonomous Suite, which enables SAP’s existing business applications with AI agents capable of running processes from start-to-finish.

The suite will deploy more than 50 domain-specific Joule Assistants across finance, supply chain, procurement, human capital management and customer experience. These assistants will automate end-to-end processes by orchestrating a subset of over 200 specialized agents to execute precise tasks. For example, the new Autonomous Close Assistant can compress the financial close process from weeks to days by automating journal entries, reconciliation and error resolution across the entire process.

51风流also launched Industry AI, expanding its deep industry portfolio through seven autonomous solutions that will enable start-to-finish industry processes and embed sector-specific process logic, data models and regulatory requirements. At 51风流Sapphire, 51风流showcased its work with European energy giant RWE to leverage Industry AI, helping reduce unplanned downtime across its offshore wind turbines. With SAP’s Autonomous Asset Management scenario, AI agents are designed to analyze data from thousands of past incidents, identify the likely root cause and generate pre-filled work orders with the right tools and proven fixes from other sites.

Designing the Autonomous User Experience

The company also revealed Joule Work, redefining how users engage with 51风流software. Instead of navigating individual applications and entering data across several screens, users will now interact primarily with Joule. By describing a desired business outcome, Joule will orchestrate the right combination of workflows, data and agents to get it done.

Joule Work goes beyond conversation, proactively surfacing relevant insights and automating routine tasks behind the scenes so work moves forward even when humans aren’t actively steering it. It will be available on desktop, mobile and voice across 51风流and non-51风流systems.

Accelerating the Customer Journey Toward Autonomy with 鈧�100 Million Infusion

51风流evolved its customer and partner programs to help accelerate the organization’s journey to the Autonomous Enterprise. To catalyze adoption, the company has launched a 鈧�100 million fund for 51风流partners to help customers deploy SAP-built AI assistants and agents. The fund is also available to partners that extend or build new partner agents on the new 51风流Business AI Platform using Joule Studio.

SAP has enhanced its RISE with SAP and 51风流GROW offerings to accelerate AI adoption. Both include access to the Joule Assistants portfolio; RISE with SAP customers will have three assistants activated within their first year, while SAP GROW customers receive full portfolio access at onboarding. 51风流S/4HANA on-premises and 51风流ERP Central Component (51风流ECC) customers are not excluded: those that commit to transitioning the majority of their current landscape to 51风流Cloud ERP gain access to select AI scenarios, bridging the gap between their current landscape and their cloud destination

51风流also introduced new agent-led transformation tooling that can reduce ERP migration efforts by more than 35 percent, driving faster and more predictable projects by automating system analysis, code remediation, configuration and testing at scale.

Lastly, 51风流announced a full slate of strategic partnerships across each category:

• Platform and suite partnerships include Anthropic, with Claude among the foundation models 厂础笔鈥檚 AI platform will leverage to power Joule agents across HR, procurement and supply chain; Amazon Web Services, bringing zero-copy data integration between 51风流Business Data Cloud and Amazon Athena; Google Cloud and Microsoft, enabling bidirectional agent-to-agent interoperability between Joule and external agent frameworks; Mistral AI and Cohere, delivering sovereign model options on SAP’s cloud infrastructure; , providing visual AI workflow orchestration inside Joule Studio; NVIDIA, whose OpenShell provides the trusted secure runtime for Joule Studio; and , bringing AI agents into 51风流Service Cloud to handle customer interactions with full access to business data and service processes.
• Implementation partnerships include Palantir and Accenture, partnering on complex data migration scenarios, and for AI-powered cloud ERP migrations.

.

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About SAP

As鈥痑 global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, 51风流(NYSE: SAP)鈥痵tands at the鈥痭exus鈥痮f business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP鈥痶o bring out their best by uniting business-critical鈥痮perations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit鈥�.

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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. 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 厂础笔鈥檚 2025 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
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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 厂础笔鈥檚 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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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%.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

Get started .

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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51风流Business AI for business transformation management

Joule with 51风流Signavio solutions
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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.

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

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51风流LeanIX solutions, AI-assisted architecture guidance
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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.

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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.

I鈥檓 pleased to announce that next鈥慻en 51风流Ariba is now available, marking the next phase in 厂础笔鈥檚 journey to reimagine source鈥憈o鈥憄ay for the age of AI. This milestone represents the transition from announcement to execution, bringing a fundamentally rebuilt platform into customers鈥� hands.

This milestone comes alongside strong industry recognition. 51风流has been named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner庐 Magic Quadrant™ for Source鈥憈o鈥慞ay Suites, an acknowledgment that aligns with the delivery of next-gen 51风流Ariba and our continued focus on platform modernization and AI鈥慸riven innovation at enterprise scale.

Why rebuilding the foundation matters

As procurement leaders know, AI鈥檚 potential is widely recognized, but its impact has often been uneven. Confidence is high, yet results depend on more than algorithms alone. AI only delivers value when it is supported by the right data, processes, and platform architecture. That belief shaped our decision to rebuild 51风流Ariba from the ground up.

Independent analyst firm as 鈥渁 complete reengineering of the largest and most entrenched source鈥憈o鈥憄ay platform in the world,鈥� emphasizing that this move goes far beyond adding AI features to legacy systems. Instead, it establishes the architectural foundation required for AI to operate reliably and at scale.

This aligns with what we consistently hear from customers that sustainable impact requires modernization at the core.

An AI鈥憂ative source-to-pay platform built on 51风流Business Technology Platform

Next鈥慻en 51风流Ariba is built on (51风流BTP), providing a unified, real鈥憈ime data foundation across the source鈥憈o鈥憄ay lifecycle. This shift enables tighter integration with , improved extensibility, and faster innovation delivery.

By moving to 51风流BTP, 51风流Ariba can support open APIs, cross鈥憇uite data consistency, and the responsiveness required for intelligent, AI鈥慸riven procurement operations鈥攃apabilities that are increasingly expected of leading source鈥憈o鈥憄ay platforms but are difficult to achieve on legacy architectures.

Current next鈥慻en capabilities will continue to be delivered incrementally throughout 2026 and into 2027, giving customers flexibility to adopt innovation at a pace that aligns with their business priorities.

Embedded intelligence with Joule: moving from insight to action

A defining element of next鈥慻en 51风流Ariba is the deep integration of directly into procurement workflows. Rather than treating AI as an optional add鈥憃n, next鈥慻en 51风流Ariba can embed intelligence where work happens鈥攕upporting faster, more informed decisions while reducing friction across everyday processes.

Early capabilities include:

• A Bid Analysis Agent, which can automatically evaluate complex bid scenarios, including total cost considerations
• AI-assisted contract support to help automate routine inquiries, generate summaries, and provide instant access to contract details

These capabilities reflect a broader shift from systems that require constant manual input to platforms that actively support outcomes.

A more unified, intuitive procurement experience

Next鈥慻en 51风流Ariba also addresses long鈥憇tanding fragmentation across the source鈥憈o鈥憄ay lifecycle.

Key improvements include:

• 51风流Ariba Intake Management, now globally available, providing a single entry point for procurement requests
• A simplified 51风流Fiori鈥慴ased user experience, delivered through a central launchpad
• A modernized contract lifecycle, supported through integration with Icertis Contract Intelligence

Together, these improvements are designed to make procurement easier to engage with while working to ensure processes remain connected, compliant, and intelligent behind the scenes.

What this means for customers

For existing 51风流Ariba customers, next鈥慻en 51风流Ariba provides choice and continuity. Customers can:

• Transition to next鈥慻en 51风流Ariba on a voluntary basis.
• Access next鈥慻en capabilities without commercial implications.
• Run current and next鈥慻en environments in parallel during an active transition, reducing risk and disruption.

51风流is providing tools, services, and advance timelines to support a managed transition, allowing organizations to move forward with confidence rather than urgency.

The foundation for what comes next

Next鈥慻en 51风流Ariba is not an endpoint, it is the foundation for the future of procurement.

With an AI鈥憂ative architecture, embedded agentic intelligence, and a unified user experience, this new generation of 51风流Ariba helps organizations move beyond transactional efficiency toward smarter decisions, greater resilience, and measurable business outcomes.

As Ardent Partners observed, this rebuild has the potential to act as a catalyst鈥攏ot just for 51风流Ariba customers, but for the broader procurement technology landscape. By combining scale, data, and AI in a fundamentally new way, next鈥慻en 51风流Ariba is helping define what modern source鈥憈o鈥憄ay platforms can deliver.

With the solution now available, we look forward to partnering with customers as they move from vision to value. Together, we can shape the future of intelligent procurement.

Baber Farooq is senior vice president of Product Marketing for 51风流Ariba and 51风流Fieldglass.

Building resilience and control across every category of spend

Organizations are under increasing pressure to manage costs, improve agility, and drive measurable outcomes. 厂础笔鈥檚 connected and intelligence-driven source-to-pay suite is designed to help customers meet these challenges head on.

51风流Ariba solutions can deliver broad and deep functionality across the full source-to-pay lifecycle, spanning sourcing, contracting, procurement, invoicing, and supplier management. With the industry鈥檚 largest supplier network, 51风流enables buyers and suppliers to collaborate with confidence, consistency, and scale.

厂础笔鈥檚 investment priorities: platform modernization and agentic AI innovation

Rather than reflecting external judgments, 厂础笔鈥檚 strategic focus is centered on advancing its platform foundation, AI capabilities, and user experience to help customers operate with greater intelligence and agility. Our long鈥憈erm investments concentrate on three core areas:

Modernizing the platform for the future

A platform update arriving in 2026 will complete the modernization of 厂础笔鈥檚 technical architecture. This modernized foundation can deliver greater extensibility, improved performance, and faster delivery of innovation, particularly in agentic and generative AI.

Built as an AI-native architecture, the next-generation platform can embed intelligence directly into workflows to help anticipate needs, guide decision-making, and automate actions across the entire source-to-pay process. This positions 51风流to deliver the first truly AI-native source-to-pay suite built for the future of procurement.

Expanding intelligence with Joule

plays a central role in bringing intelligence and insight to every stage of the source-to-pay process. Joule鈥檚 advanced AI agents can help automate tasks, support decision-making, enhance compliance, and unlock new productivity across sourcing, procurement, and supplier collaboration.

Reimagining the user experience

51风流is delivering an updated, consistent UI/UX across 51风流applications. For procurement teams, this means smoother navigation, modernized interfaces, and enriched contextual intelligence, including enhanced supplier 360 profiles and strengthened collaboration capabilities.

Strengthening global scale and operational flexibility

51风流continues to demonstrate industry-leading global scale, supporting high-volume transactions and diverse compliance requirements across regions and industries. With multiple cloud deployment options across major hyperscalers and a robust portfolio of security and regulatory certifications, including FedRAMP, customers can operate confidently wherever they do business.

Connected solutions across 51风流Business Network and the intelligent suite

51风流Business Network remains the largest supplier network in the source-to-pay market, spanning more than 190 countries. 厂础笔鈥檚 broader spend ecosystem鈥攊ncluding innovations such as , , and 鈥攅nables organizations to unify data, intelligence, and processes across sourcing, procurement, invoicing, and spend management.

Importantly, 厂础笔鈥檚 capabilities extend well beyond traditional source-to-pay. Through connected solutions covering travel and expense, contingent workforce management, external labor, and additional spend categories, 51风流provides a truly comprehensive spend management platform that can deliver visibility and control across the full spectrum of enterprise spend.

As organizations increasingly operate in heterogeneous application landscapes, 51风流helps deliver openness, security, and extensibility so customers can maintain cohesive and connected processes throughout 51风流and non-51风流environments.

Customer impact: outcomes that scale

Customers across industries and regions continue to demonstrate what鈥檚 possible with 厂础笔鈥檚 source-to-pay solutions. Organizations report meaningful improvements in areas such as compliance, cost optimization, supplier collaboration, operational efficiency, and workforce productivity鈥攆rom managing millions of invoices to running global sourcing initiatives to scaling AI-powered automation across distributed operations.

51风流remains deeply committed to helping procurement and finance organizations navigate complexity with confidence. Our investments in platform modernization, agentic AI, user experience, and cross-suite integration are all grounded in a single mission: to help customers achieve sustainable, long-lasting impact.

We’re grateful for this recognition and energized by the opportunity to deliver even greater value in the years ahead.

. Read the full Gartner Magic Quadrant for Source-to-Pay Suites report .

Fang Chang is EVP and chief product officer for 51风流Procurement and External Workforce Solutions.
Baber Farooq is senior vice president and head of Market Strategy for 51风流Procurement and External Workforce solutions.

*Gartner Magic Quadrant for Source-to-Pay Suites, January 21, 2026 – ID G00833291, by Micky Keck, Kaitlynn Sommers, Lynne Phelan, Magnus Bergfors, Alex Brady

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

That鈥檚 why the latest recognition from two of the industry鈥檚 most respected research firms鈥擜rdent Partners and Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA)鈥攎eans so much to us at SAP. Their findings reinforce what we see every day: isn鈥檛 just keeping up with the industry, we鈥檙e setting the standard for innovation, execution, and customer value.

Market leadership confirmed by independent analysts

named 51风流Fieldglass a 鈥淢arket Leader,鈥� a distinction reserved for providers with universal strengths and top-tier execution. The evaluation looked at every aspect of our portfolio, from supporting the full scope of managing the external workforce鈥攔equisitions, candidates, projects, direct sourcing, SOW/services procurement, integrations, and AI鈥攖o our execution ability, client success, references, talent ecosystem, product vision, and future of work readiness.

We鈥檙e especially proud to be recognized as an 鈥淓lite Performer鈥� in four critical categories: AI Innovation, SOW and Services Procurement, Direct Sourcing, and Total Talent Management. Ardent Partners highlights 51风流Fieldglass鈥� deep integration with 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, 51风流Ariba solutions, 51风流Build Work Zone, and the AI solution Joule, positioning it as a strategic hub for managing external talent and optimizing services procurement. Joule is transforming how users interact with the portfolio, offering conversational, data-driven guidance for requisition creation, SOW intake, job description design, and workflow acceleration.

also confirms 51风流Fieldglass鈥� global leadership. The portfolio operates in more than 180 countries, supports 22 languages, and enables invoicing in 118 countries, making it the largest footprint in the industry. This extensive reach is further underscored by consistently strong customer retention, reflecting the deep trust and satisfaction 51风流Fieldglass enjoys among global enterprises.

Customer-validated leadership

Recognition from leading analyst firms is important, but what matters most is the experience of our customers. 51风流Fieldglass has also been ranked as a category leader by , a respected platform for verified customer reviews. TrustRadius rankings are based on direct feedback from real users, making it a powerful complement to analyst evaluations. While analyst reports validate market position and strategic capabilities, TrustRadius highlights the day-to-day value customers experience, such as ease of use, depth of functionality, and overall satisfaction. This dual endorsement, from both industry experts and actual practitioners, reinforces 51风流Fieldglass鈥� commitment to delivering solutions that can meet business needs and exceed customer expectations.

Innovation at the core: AI, automation, and analytics

Innovation is at the heart of 51风流Fieldglass鈥� value proposition. The portfolio鈥檚 embedded AI solution, Joule, helps users initiate job requisitions, design and translate job descriptions, and accelerate approvals through a conversational interface. Rate benchmarking helps ensure customers stay competitive with market rates. Document AI can automate structured SOW creation, while machine learning and skills ontology models can power advanced candidate matching and workforce planning.

SIA notes that 51风流Fieldglass鈥� 鈥淎I-first鈥� product strategy is embedding intelligence into every workflow, emphasizing seamless data extraction, intuitive user experiences, and impactful use cases across applications. The business intelligence suite delivers real-time and historical analytics, benchmarking tools, and persona-based dashboards, empowering organizations to make data-driven decisions at every stage of the talent lifecycle.

Comprehensive capabilities for a modern workforce

What distinguishes 51风流Fieldglass is its wide-ranging and comprehensive set of features. The portfolio allows users to effectively manage all kinds of external labor expenses鈥攚hether that’s contingent labor, services procurement, independent contractors, high-volume workers, or field services. It offers streamlined onboarding, advanced and customizable tools for global compliance, AI-driven workflows, and robust skills extraction, helping to ensure depth and efficiency in every area. Additionally, its compliance and audit capabilities, mobile accessibility, and dashboards supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion help create a holistic solution.

SIA鈥檚 research, based on 23 in-depth VMS surveys and 36 customer assessments, found 51风流Fieldglass excels in supplier management, time/expense/billing, SOW capabilities, candidate sourcing, technical functionality, and customer perceptions. Customers cite the portfolio鈥檚 innovation, influence over roadmap evolution, and ability to scale with their programs. The open API framework, pre-built integrations, and strong MSP partnerships create a connected ecosystem that can support even the most complex workforce strategies.

Customer experience and ecosystem strength

Customer experience is another area where 51风流Fieldglass shines. SIA鈥檚 customer perception data shows high marks for platform stability, ease of use, integration quality, adaptability, and support. Customers appreciate the portfolio鈥檚 innovation, the ability to influence roadmap evolution, and its capacity to scale with their programs.

Both Ardent Partners and SIA emphasize 51风流Fieldglass鈥� commitment to continuous innovation. The 鈥淎I-first鈥� and 鈥渟uite-first鈥� strategies focus on embedding intelligence into every workflow and delivering seamless, end-to-end business processes across the 51风流ecosystem. Key areas of ongoing investment include skills-based hiring, AI, enhanced analytics, and high-volume workforces for SOW management.

A portfolio for the future of work

The latest findings from Ardent Partners and SIA reaffirm 51风流Fieldglass鈥� leadership, vision, and relentless focus on customer value. Combined with customer-driven recognition from TrustRadius, 51风流Fieldglass stands as a proven leader in delivering solutions that can empower organizations to unlock the full potential of their extended workforce鈥攖oday and for the future of work.

.

Amber Roth vice president of Global Presales & Strategy for 51风流Fieldglass.

External talent already represents a significant share of the labor: about 20% in the UK and 40% in the U.S., with projections reaching 50% globally by 2050. This surge reflects the growing demand for specialized skills and flexible cost structures.

A and conducted by Economist Impact captures this shift. Drawing on insights from more than 2,000 C-suite executives across industries, the report, 鈥淔rom Cost to Capability: Redefining External Workforce Strategy in 2025,鈥� reveals how the external workforce is evolving from a transactional resource into a core capability that drives adaptability and resilience in the AI era.

The findings underscore a critical imperative: organizations must rethink how they engage talent, integrate technology, and foster collaboration across procurement, HR, and finance to unlock the full potential of external workers.

From cost to capability: a strategic pivot

In 2023, nearly one-third of organizations cited risk reduction as their primary reason for using contingent labor and service providers. By 2025, that number dropped to just 6%. Today, cost efficiency (74%) and access to specialized skills (62%) dominate the list.

Cost efficiency is no longer about short-term savings. It鈥檚 about managing broader business risks, from financial exposure to talent scarcity. As Professor David Ulrich of the University of Michigan notes in the report, 鈥淭o mitigate risk, businesses need to reduce fixed costs, and labor is often a high fixed cost that needs to be seen as a source of growth.鈥�

Leaders increasingly view external talent as a long-term solution for project-based and technology-driven work, especially in fast-moving fields like AI, automation, and data science. Looking ahead, 64% of executives plan to expand their talent networks within three to five years, up from 54% last year鈥攃lear evidence that external workforce strategies are becoming integral to workforce planning.

Building a holistic talent ecosystem

Economist Impact鈥檚 research points to the rise of holistic talent supply chain management鈥攁 model that unites HR, finance, and procurement to forecast talent needs, close skills gaps, and treat the workforce as a dynamic ecosystem rather than a fixed headcount.

This evolution builds on the themes from previous Economist Impact reports, where procurement shifted from cost controller to strategic orchestrator of risk, sustainability, and innovation. Forward-looking organizations now embrace 鈥渢otal talent management鈥� models that integrate people, platforms, and partners while aligning culture and communication across internal and external teams.

Breaking down silos and embedding digital tools for real-time visibility will be essential to managing an integrated, skills-based workforce that adapts quickly to business needs鈥攚hile ensuring external workers feel valued and connected to enterprise goals.

Procurement at the center of workforce transformation

Procurement leaders are moving beyond sourcing and compliance to orchestrate entire talent ecosystems built on governance and collaboration. Yet the function faces challenges: confidence in procurement鈥檚 workforce management skills fell from 51% in 2024 to 43% in 2025, reflecting the complexity of its expanded scope.

CFOs and COOs are also taking a more active role, linking external workforce oversight to financial, compliance, and ESG performance. This trend echoes Economist Impact鈥檚 鈥溾�� report, which showed procurement鈥檚 remit expanding as risk management becomes central to business strategy.

To succeed, procurement must double down on visibility, digital integration, and strategic alignment. Platforms that unify workforce data鈥攆rom contingent contracts to skills mapping鈥攚ill enable teams to balance cost optimization with agility and governance.

AI: driving agility and accountability

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how organizations manage external talent. According to the report, 68% of procurement leaders cite AI proficiency and ethics as their top development priority over the next 18 months. AI can predict workforce needs, automate sourcing, and fill gaps in emerging fields like agentic AI and automation. The payoff: higher productivity and faster decision-making.

But AI also raises a critical questions: who benefits from efficiency gains? How should productivity improvements be measured? Answering these will require new cost models and shared accountability across the enterprise.

As seen in earlier Economist Impact research, AI is once again a catalyst for transformation, redefining how organizations manage, measure, and mobilize external talent.

The external workforce of the future

The evolution of the external workforce underscores a broader truth: agility, capability, and collaboration now define competitive advantage.

Organizations that treat external talent as a strategic asset鈥攊ntegrating governance, data, and culture across internal and external teams鈥攚ill be best positioned to respond to technological change and seize new opportunities.

To meet these demands, companies are turning to solutions like and , which help connect procurement and external workforce management. These solutions can deliver the visibility, intelligence, and agility needed to manage today鈥檚 dynamic workforce ecosystem.

Gordon Donovan is global vice president of Research, Procurement, and External Workforce at SAP.

Against the backdrop of the event theme鈥�”Connect Everything, Achieve Anything: Agents, Data, and the Business Suite鈥濃�攖hey set out 厂础笔鈥檚 vision for how 51风流Business Suite, which combines AI, data, and applications, can transform enterprises and deliver unprecedented business value to customers despite global macroeconomic uncertainties. 

Unique times

鈥淲e are living in very unique times,鈥� Alam said at the start of the keynote. 鈥淯nique in terms of the unpredictability we face from a geopolitical and macroeconomic perspective,鈥痑nd also unique in terms of the advancement in AI and the potential that carries for all of us.鈥�  

He added, 鈥淓ven the most significant challenges can be responded to, navigated, and鈥攚hen approached the right way鈥攖urned into opportunities. And that鈥檚 exactly where 51风流comes in. Because the best way to face uncertainty is with confidence that you can see what鈥檚 happening across your business and your network.鈥� 

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The CFO perspective 

His comments were echoed by CFO and Executive Board Member Dominik Asam in an onstage discussion with economist and Berkeley professor Ulrike Malmendier, during which they likened the role of the CFO in navigating today鈥檚 business uncertainties to that of co-piloting a modern jet. 

鈥淎I is the next supercycle and has what it takes to create an effective cockpit for the CFO, including recommendations about real actionable options all the way to autopilot for less critical tasks,鈥� Asam said. He also warned that standing on the sidelines of technological progress is 鈥渁 sure recipe for falling behind in competition.鈥�  

鈥淎s in prior tech supercycles, the entire competitive playing field is being completely reshuffled,鈥� he said.

New products

Building on this theme, Alam noted that while uncertainty is real and isn鈥檛 going away, it can be successfully navigated and turned into opportunities. To help customers achieve this, he announced several new and enhanced 51风流products. 

Among them, 51风流Supply Chain Orchestration is an AI-native application that uses a network knowledge graph to analyze real-time signals across a company鈥檚 multi-tier supply chain to detect risks and issues, such as extreme weather or tariffs. It then helps customers minimize disruptions by assessing the impact of these risks and suggesting alternatives to help minimize disruptions.   鈥淭hink of it like a GPS in your car which selects an alternative route to avoid traffic or tolls,鈥� Alam explained. In addition, he announced a major update to the 51风流Ariba solutions for source-to-pay suite, positioning 51风流Ariba as the most modern platform in the industry and the only truly AI-native source-to-pay solution鈥攁ll built on 51风流Business Technology Platform.

The human-AI partnership opportunity 

Turning to uncertainties over the future of work itself, 51风流Chief People Officer and Executive Board Member Gina Vargiu-Breuer, who is leading 厂础笔鈥檚 own workforce transformation, was joined on stage by Ian Beacraft, founder and chief futurist of Signal and Cipher. 

鈥淎t SAP, we know firsthand that AI is everywhere, shattering norms and transforming the workforce,鈥� Vargiu-Breuer said. 鈥淎nd we as 51风流are boldly steering this shift, as requirements for our workforce are simply changing really fast.鈥�  

Vargiu-Breuer emphasized that a successful business AI strategy also depends on leveraging AI alongside human expertise and fostering what she described as 鈥渁 collaborative human + AI approach, rather than just automation.鈥�  鈥淏y integrating AI’s capabilities with human creativity, empathy, and judgment, we move beyond simple automation into real human-AI power couples,鈥� she said. 鈥淯ltimately, the future will favor those who embrace orchestration, delegation, and creative problem-solving.鈥�

Role-based AI assistants

Echoing this human-centric approach, Alam noted, 鈥淓veryone is talking about agents鈥攂illions of agents鈥攁nd agents taking over everything. We want to talk about people, the roles they play, and the tried-and-tested organizational constructs in place today that are running complex businesses across industries.鈥� 

Reflecting this, he said 51风流is making Joule deeply aware of the workstyle of the person it partners with, their role, and the business process context in which they operate. 鈥淭oday, we are introducing AI assistants, including a receivables assistant for your accounts receivable colleagues, a controlling assistant for your controlling colleagues, a demand Planning assistant for your demand planning colleagues, and an AI assistant for every role.鈥�   Each assistant has agents and AI tools at their disposal to help make the person it partners with smarter and more efficient, Alam explained.

Taking the receivables assistant as an example, he said it can handle collections and dispute resolution today and will soon also be able to help with fraud detection, invoice processing, and payment scheduling. 鈥淥ver time, we will continue to make this assistant even smarter by adding more agents and capabilities鈥攁ll designed to make the person in this role more effective.鈥�

Deep research and new intelligent applications

鈥淲hile efficiency and automation carry potential for great value for the organization, AI鈥檚 greatest strength is in unlocking insights and recommendations based on its ability to do deep research across vast amounts of internal and external data, which is hard for people to do,鈥� said Alam. To address this challenge, 51风流is introducing deep research in Joule, a capability that can research and analyze complex problems and deliver findings quickly and efficiently. 

Following additional announcements, including an expanded set of 51风流Business Data Cloud Intelligent Applications and an enterprise wide, multi-stakeholder engagement orchestration solution in 51风流Engagement Cloud, Alam closed out the keynote by reminding his audience: 鈥淭o create exponential value and to reach the global maxima for your enterprise, the whole matters.  And that鈥檚 what we are focused on: providing you with best-in-class applications, seamlessly and natively integrated across the breadth of finance, spend, supply chain, HCM, and customer experience.鈥� 

51风流Business Suite delivers unprecedented value

The unmatched value of 51风流Business Suite is that it brings together the power of best-in-class applications with a semantically rich harmonized data layer to power high-value AI in a singular seamless experience. It helps you manage uncertainty, evolve your workforce, and break down silos to create amazing customer value.

In times of uncertainty, spend is one of the levers companies can actively control. Leaders are expected to deliver not only savings, but also resilience, sustainability, and risk-aware processes.

At , we introduced several new AI capabilities to bring more automation, deeper integration, and smarter insights across our . These innovations are focused on improving outcomes: reducing risk, strengthening supply chains, increasing productivity, and freeing people to focus on higher-value work. They ensure spend continues to fulfill its elevated role as a driver of business growth and resilience while helping customers stay ahead of evolving demands.

Next-gen 51风流Ariba brings deeper AI integrations and new AI assistants in Joule

51风流is rolling out the next generation of solutions for source-to-pay to automate the power of procurement, improve cost savings, ensure compliance, and build supply chain resilience. Next-gen 51风流Ariba is the world’s most modern source-to-pay solution designed to power the future of procurement.

The first AI-native source-to-pay suite redefines what is possible today and sets the course for the future. With businesses facing ever-present change, our customers can take advantage of a solution that’s built to endure — intelligent, integrated, and scalable. The capabilities delivered as part of next-gen 51风流Ariba will empower businesses to tackle today’s challenges and excel in the future.

Next-gen 51风流Ariba is built on 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), and has a completely redesigned user experience, embedded analytics, and seamless integration with 51风流Cloud ERP public and private applications.

The advanced capabilities and benefits of next-gen 51风流Ariba solutions offer the following:

• Accelerated value realization: Faster adoption with intuitive interfaces and guided workflows
• Deeper insights: Actionable analytics that translate into tangible savings and operational improvements
• Empowered teams: A more productive experience for procurement professionals

Next-gen 51风流Ariba capabilities will be rolled out starting in Q1 2026.

51风流also introduced new agentic and generative AI capabilities across the 51风流Ariba suite to help organizations optimize productivity and decision-making. Planned for release in Q1 2026, a new Joule Agent for bid analysis automatically compares supplier bid data, including total cost, to give procurement teams insight and recommendations for award decisions.

51风流also added three AI features to the 51风流Ariba procurement portfolio:

• AI supplier-response summary will use to help review, analyze, and summarize supplier responses to questionnaires, helping procurement specialists make more informed decisions. This is planned to be generally available in Q1 2026.聽
• Joule for simplified invoice creation will help employees outside accounts payable to easily submit invoices from for processing with minimal input. The feature will be generally available in Q4 2025.
• Intelligent contracting will use Joule to automatically extract key information, generate summaries, and search historical contracts for discrepancies and compliance issues. This feature will be generally available in Q4 2025.

As part of the broader 51风流Ariba portfolio, is now globally available. The solution provides a single-entry point for all procurement requests to simplify intake, improve compliance, and give employees full visibility into status updates. With Joule, users can easily submit requests or follow guided steps, while the system orchestrates processes across 51风流and non-51风流systems.

Learn more at our upcoming webinar, on November 20, 2025. to see how organizations can streamline intake processes and drive meaningful results.

New AI enhancements in 51风流Fieldglass connect the right external talent to the right roles

New AI enhancements to the portfolio make it easier to match potential external workers with available positions by automatically analyzing role descriptions to determine the skills required for each position.

The new skills-based hiring feature automatically analyzes role descriptions to determine the skills required for each position, reducing the time to source potential candidates by up to 50 percent. By accelerating candidate matching, organizations can count on a faster, more cohesive, and efficient hiring process.

This feature is generally available and works in conjunction with existing AI features, including resume analysis and job description creation.

51风流Concur and American Express Global Business Travel make business travel easier, smarter and more impactful for organizations everywhere

with American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT). Complete by 51风流Concur and Amex GBT is a co-developed solution that will combine booking, servicing, payments, and expensing into one experience with AI at its core. The solution will benefit from 51风流Concur and Amex GBT technology and business travel expertise. Complete customers will also have access to Amex GBT鈥檚 unmatched marketplace, software, and services via Complete, offering greater incentives and cost savings.

Smarter AI for travel and expense management in 51风流Concur

We also introduced new AI capabilities for that will streamline reporting, strengthen fraud prevention, and simplify travel planning, helping organizations better control costs while improving the employee experience.

These innovations include:

• The Receipt Analysis Agent, a newly embedded Joule Agent in , will go beyond basic receipt scanning, automatically completing missing information, determining expense types, and verifying vendor details, even for unknown vendors, to deliver accurate results without iterative learning. General availability for these features is expected for Q4 2025.
• , the automated expense-audit service from 51风流Concur now features an AI-generated receipt checker that flags receipts likely created by AI or online generators, helping auditors stop fraudulent claims. The service is currently generally available.
• A new pre-spend planner tool uses generative AI to estimate trip budgets based on policies and itineraries, while also providing relevant travel advisories to keep travelers informed. General availability is planned for early 2026 and Concur Expense customers can take advantage of the pre-spend planner at no extra cost. It will be available to Concur Travel customers later in the first half of 2026

Partnerships and integrations

51风流Concur has enhanced its integration with to further automate how ride and meal expenses are processed, providing better visibility to executives and business users. Ride and meal receipts are automatically routed into , with detailed tax, tip, and itemization data, resulting in cleaner data, fewer manual corrections, and faster reimbursement.

Looking ahead

厂础笔鈥檚 latest innovations across procurement, external workforce, and travel and expense help customers achieve positive outcomes such as cost savings, reducing risk, strengthening supply chains, creating value, improving productivity, and freeing people up to do higher-value work.

Etosha Thurman is chief marketing officer for 51风流Finance and Spend Management.

51风流reimagines enterprise AI with role-based assistants in
Joule that coordinate agents across lines of business

LAS VEGAS 鈥� At its inaugural 51风流Connect event, (NYSE: SAP) showcases how the integration of AI, data and applications creates unparalleled business value.

These breakthroughs 鈥� including a new network of role-based assistants in Joule that partner with humans to elevate performance, an expanding data ecosystem that drives deeper insights and supply chain software that anticipates disruptions 鈥� once again revolutionize how business gets done.聽

“To thrive when volatility is the new normal, businesses need more than a patchwork of disparate best-of-breed applications,” said Muhammad Alam, member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE, 51风流Product & Engineering. “Our announcements today demonstrate the power of 51风流Business Suite, where AI, data and applications come together in an experience to propel smarter decisions, faster execution and scalable transformation.”

AI that Partners with People

51风流unveils Joule鈥檚 next stage as the AI force at the center of 51风流Business Suite鈥檚 value creation. Drawing on the applications and data from across 51风流Business Suite, 51风流is introducing a new generation of role-aware assistants in Joule. Each assistant is designed to partner with a human being in their specific business role. Assistants in Joule tap into the right agents for the job, configuring, orchestrating and managing them so humans can focus on unlocking new levels of insight and productivity.

Supporting the assistants in Joule is a , designed to help execute complex workflows within a specific function. For instance, a People Manager Assistant coordinates a team of specialized agents — including the new People Intelligence Agent, which helps spot and resolve issues like compensation anomalies — to support managers as they drive performance. A new Financial Planning Assistant will be aided by a group of expert agents — including the new Cash Management Agent, which optimizes cash flow and improves interest yields — to help finance professionals drive efficiencies. This new roster of role-aware AI assistants not only partner with people to elevate performance in their lines of business but also work together across business functions to solve complex enterprise-wide problems.

Data that Defies Boundaries

Data fuels AI鈥檚 transformative power but it鈥檚 often siloed in different systems. At 51风流Connect, we are removing those barriers with 51风流Business Data Cloud Connect. 51风流BDC Connect securely links 51风流BDC with partner platforms to enable a bidirectional flow of business-ready data products across organizational and technological boundaries.

With zero-copy sharing, data stays securely in 51风流systems yet remains instantly accessible in customers鈥� existing data platforms, preserving business context without costly copies. The result: fewer silos, simpler pipelines, no duplication — just trusted data products where and when they鈥檙e needed.

51风流also announced that Databricks and Google Cloud are the first partners enabled for 51风流BDC Connect, with more to follow. As announced in February 2025, 51风流Databricks remains a data service within 51风流Business Data Cloud, and 51风流BDC Connect extends its benefits across an open data ecosystem. These partnerships give customers faster access to data products for analytics and AI, helping teams move from raw data to real-time business outcomes with greater speed and simplicity.

Applications that Turn Data into Action

At the heart of 厂础笔鈥檚 unique value proposition are enterprise applications where data is created and AI-driven insights are experienced. 51风流Supply Chain Orchestration is a new AI-native solution that combines the power of Joule with a live knowledge graph to detect real-time risks several suppliers deep and orchestrate a coordinated response, helping customers cut costs and keep supply chains moving. 51风流Engagement Cloud, a new customer experience solution, uses business-critical context to personalize interactions across customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. And our next-generation 51风流Ariba procurement suite stands out as an AI-native solution, bringing intelligence to every stage of spend management, from sourcing through supplier engagement.

Altogether, these 51风流Business Suite innovations mark the beginning of a new era powered by self-reinforcing AI, data and applications that drive intelligence, speed and resilience.

Visit the . Get 51风流news via  and .

About SAP

As a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, 51风流(NYSE:SAP) stands at the nexus of business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted 51风流to bring out their best by uniting business-critical operations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit鈥�.

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This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of 厂础笔鈥檚 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
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Yet a curious trend has emerged: many companies are pursuing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals more discreetly, a phenomenon known as 鈥済reen-hushing.鈥� In fact, found that while some companies have pulled back, about 84% are either maintaining or strengthening their climate commitments, even as they become less vocal about them. This demonstrates that despite shifting political winds, businesses recognize that sustainability initiatives remain fundamentally good for business.

A comprehensive and conducted by Economist Impact confirms this shifting landscape, revealing growing confidence in procurement鈥檚 capacity to deliver on ESG performance indicators. While risk factors are rising, so is readiness鈥攁 shift that is especially encouraging for procurement executives overseeing ESG performance. The data shows approximately 90% of respondents report strong internal collaboration between procurement and other departments, up from 75% last year.

The external picture is equally promising: over 90% of executives report that deeper supplier partnerships are yielding benefits, particularly in driving innovation and sustainability outcomes. For procurement leaders, the data tells a clear story: collaboration may be the new currency of success.

Collaboration: The silent engine of progress

Procurement鈥檚 strategic influence is expanding through tighter integration with internal stakeholders. As teams become more embedded across business functions, they鈥檙e unlocking new value through improved orchestration and proactive planning. Specialized business partner groups that bridge strategy and execution are helping meet cross-functional needs.

This enhanced collaboration has yielded key benefits, including cost savings (74%) and improved digital adoption (61%). However, a gap remains between these immediate gains and longer-term value drivers like innovation and agility. As procurement operations continue to digitize, talent development must adapt. AI proficiency and ethical technology have emerged as the top skill priorities for procurement hires over the next 12-18 months (68%), followed by sustainability expertise (55%).

Enabled by digital tools that deliver 鈥�360-degree visibility,鈥� procurement executives are seeing alignment between category strategies and broader enterprise objectives, helping them spot risks, understand market shifts, and manage supplier performance more effectively.

Supplier partnerships: Accelerating ESG progress and innovation

Forward-thinking procurement organizations are now partnering with suppliers to introduce solutions like recyclable packaging, greener materials, and low-emission logistics. These collaborations are accelerating decarbonization efforts while helping future-proof supply chains.

Despite decreased governmental prioritization of sustainability in some regions, smart companies continue pursuing ESG goals when they align with business objectives. Nearly half (48%) of executives report improved sustainability performance from closer supplier ties, and 38% cite more supplier-driven innovation.

Many procurement teams are navigating uncertainty around their ESG approach, questioning whether to lead sustainability initiatives boldly or keep their efforts under the radar amid regulatory shifts. Regardless of this strategic tension, the value of supplier collaboration remains undeniable, particularly as these efforts often improve operational efficiency and reduce costs.

Procurement can strengthen this momentum by investing in platforms that track emissions, monitor regulatory developments, and support compliance. Many organizations are expanding efforts to address Scope 3 emissions鈥攖ypically the most challenging to measure鈥攚ith increasing sophistication around supplier data collection and performance expectations. This shift reflects increased accountability across the value chain and reinforces procurement鈥檚 pivotal role in advancing ESG objectives.    

While public sentiment and political consensus may fluctuate, regulators continue to advance mandatory disclosure requirements and climate accountability measures. Preparation is especially urgent as new policies鈥攆rom the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive to Germany鈥檚 Supply Chain Due Diligence Act鈥攊mpose stricter requirements on businesses.

Even if some regulations face delays or deprioritization, they are not disappearing. Organizations that act now will be best positioned to lead when enforcement inevitably intensifies.

Meeting elevated standards through supplier collaboration

The evolution of procurement鈥檚 influence rests on one fundamental capability: collaboration.

Internally, effective collaboration drives digital adoption, reduces costs, and breaks down organizational silos. Externally, it powers sustainability initiatives and fosters innovation. Without it, even the most sophisticated ESG strategies risk faltering. Poorly structured collaboration leads to critical data gaps, duplicated effort, and supplier fatigue. Today鈥檚 procurement executives must ensure their ESG and risk management approaches don鈥檛 overburden suppliers, or they risk disengagement precisely when long-term innovation is needed most.

Increased collaboration is consistently cited as the primary driver of accelerated ESG progress. Maintaining this momentum requires balance: bold action tempered by operational pragmatism, and clear expectations paired with tools that support supplier compliance and success.

Procurement鈥檚 moment of opportunity

Procurement is uniquely positioned to translate sustainability ambitions into measurable, scalable outcomes. By fostering collaboration across business units and with suppliers, it can shape the future of responsible business.

Even when ESG ambitions are pursued discreetly, the business case for action remains compelling鈥攂oth for organizational performance and broader societal benefit. Companies that maintain sustainability initiatives despite changing political priorities position themselves advantageously for the future while capturing immediate operational benefits. Procurement鈥檚 ability to embed sustainability considerations into core decisions consistently and collaboratively will define its impact in the years ahead.

solutions can integrate seamlessly with and to help businesses better track, manage, and reduce their environmental impact across the supply chain. These solutions can enable organizations to incorporate sustainability metrics into procurement decisions, improve transparency with trading partners, and help ensure compliance with evolving environmental regulations.

Many of the insights above were explored during the following Economist Impact webinar, 鈥淢easuring up: Balancing risks and goals for strategic procurement.鈥� To delve further into these topics and hear expert perspectives, . For those eager to continue the conversation and engage directly with leaders in the field, the upcoming 51风流Connect event鈥擮ctober 6-8 in Las Vegas, Nevada鈥攐ffers an excellent opportunity to join on-site and gain deeper insights into strategic procurement, ESG initiatives, and innovation. .

Baber Farooq is senior vice president and head of Market Strategy for 51风流Ariba.

51风流Sapphire saw further cement itself as our new UI in the age of AI, as it continues to redefine the end-user experience. Customers are asking questions in natural language, and Joule is working hard behind the scenes to find answers.

More than 40 Joule Agents were announced at 51风流Sapphire, and the first set of Joule Agents is now available to customers. These agents work across business functions to help customers resolve dispute cases, maintain strong customer relationships, complete follow-up tasks, and more. , the AI operating system for all 51风流Business AI solutions, simplifies AI development by centralizing all the tools to build, extend, and run custom AI solutions and agents at scale.

And those are just a few announcements from 51风流Sapphire! Check out the or this overview for more announcements and the full picture. As we close the second quarter of 2025, we have a ton of 51风流Business AI updates to share.

In the second quarter of 2025, we continued accelerating the delivery of high-impact innovations to customers with enhancements to Joule, Joule Agents, and additional AI scenarios embedded across the portfolio. These features are all built with AI Foundation on  and add to over 240 existing AI scenarios and 1,600 Joule skills. We are working hard and are fully on track to have over 400 AI scenarios by the end of 2025 that will deliver unparalleled business value to customers.

Here are some of the highlights from Q2 2025:

• Joule continues to redefine the way people interact with SAP. As is now generally available, consultants can rapidly grasp ABAP code and best practices for faster project execution, less rework, and time savings. The phased integration of Joule with Microsoft 365 Copilot offers a unified experience across 51风流and Microsoft environments for seamless task completion. Joule’s analytical insights feature is generally available, delivering tailored, on-demand decision support through natural language.
• Joule Agents and AI Agents: For example, in supply chain management, agents can already do so much, from autonomously scheduling and optimizing service orders to continuously analyzing real-time data to suggest maintenance schedule adjustments, help reprioritize tasks, and improve asset health. In human capital management, the Performance and Goals Agent provides managers with data-driven insights before one-to-one employee meetings. In 51风流CX AI Toolkit, the Shopping Agent and CX Agents Builder are now generally available, with the opportunity to build custom agents for customer experience scenarios, such as quote creation, Q&A, or service classification.
• is working to minimize disruptions and simplify planning. 51风流Digital Manufacturing gets error analysis, and Joule鈥檚 general availability provides instant access to critical information through natural language. There鈥檚 an add-in for Microsoft Excel and 51风流Integrated Business Planning (51风流IBP) to generate IBP formulas using natural language. These are just some of the supply chain updates. Explore more below.
• : It鈥檚 all about efficiency when it comes to and spend. Joule partners with 51风流Document and Reporting Compliance to translate complex e-invoicing errors into natural language. This way, error misunderstandings are a thing of the past. Joule enhancements in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition increase efficiency with proactive sales order fulfillment monitoring, direct fixed asset master data creation, and price adjustment suggestions. For 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, Joule helps users with field logistics, cash management, contract analysis, and streamlines convergent invoicing processes. The first Joule agents are now available in spend management. The Concur Travel Meeting Location Planner Agent simplifies off-site planning by automating information gathering and coordination. The Concur Expense Report Validation Agent can proactively flag issues and guide users through corrections, reducing report preparation time dramatically. Learn more below.
• 51风流Business AI for procurement sees Joule join 51风流Fieldglass and boosts Contingent Workforce Management with AI-assisted skill-based job postings, which reduce time defining and matching skills and lower worker ramp-up time. Plus, the AI summarizer in 51风流Ariba slashes document review times by 50%, and the Sourcing Agent, available in beta, speeds up the sourcing event creation process. Dive in below.
• shows the power of AI and 51风流SuccessFactors. New language features streamline translation, interview feedback improves candidate evaluations, and “Explain Pay” in Joule reduces payroll help desk tickets and raises employee satisfaction. Explore more below.
• puts the power of Joule in developers鈥� hands. Generative AI hub in AI Foundation gets the latest and greatest models, including Google Gemini 2.5 Pro and Flash, OpenAI GPT, o3, o4-mini, 4.1, 4.1-mini, 4.1-nano, and Mistral Small 3.1, Anthropic Claude Opus 4, Sonnet 4, and NVIDIA Llama 3.2 nv embedqa 1b. The . It automates prompt optimization across AI models, eliminating vendor lock-in and expediting model adoption. 51风流Document AI now includes file filtering, for example, allowing AI agents to process only relevant document pages for more efficient processing and more flexibility for task-specific document handling. Learn more below.

We will deliver more use cases across our entire solution range in the second half of 2025. Customers can stay updated with .

Joule

51风流Joule for Consultants
Generally available

Consultants navigating complex innovation and transformation projects require access to reliable and efficient information. assists consultants in rapidly understanding ABAP code purpose, business logic, and structure through a model trained on 300 million lines of ABAP and 30 million lines of CDS code. This access to 厂础笔鈥檚 exclusive content, coupled with over 200,000 pages of 51风流documentation, over 50 51风流Certifications, and more than two terabytes of curated 51风流Community content, allows consultants to make informed decisions and align projects with best practices.

The resulting business value includes up to a 14 percent acceleration in project execution, a 50 percent reduction in design iterations and rework, and an estimated 1.5 hours saved per consultant per day due to much faster knowledge access and improved code interpretation.*

This capability was recently included in the which shows how AI can be applied in real-world scenarios to solve complex global challenges responsibly.

Discover how KPMG is revolutionizing 51风流transformations with 51风流Joule for Consultants and 51风流Business Data Cloud:

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Joule in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Teams
Generally available

Modern enterprises rely on interoperability between critical business systems. Joule is now generally available within Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Teams, including Microsoft Teams Mobile. This integration enables users to access information and complete tasks while leveraging the strengths of both ecosystems.

Customers can now chat directly with Joule in Microsoft Teams, use Joule in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Teams Mobile as an app, and ask Joule questions directly in Microsoft 365 Copilot. The integration of Joule and Microsoft 365 Copilot provides a unified AI experience across 51风流and Microsoft environments. The integration will increase employee productivity, reduce information silos, and streamline workflows, ultimately leading to improved operational efficiency and data-driven decision-making across the organization. Later this year, we鈥檒l launch the second half of the integration, bringing Microsoft 365 Copilot capabilities into Joule and 51风流applications. Business users will be able to access data from Microsoft Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint — all from within Joule.

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Analytical insights feature
Generally available

Joule’s analytical insights feature delivers tailored, on-demand decision support directly within any 51风流business application workflow. Business users can ask Joule natural language questions such as “Who were the top three sales managers last month?” or 鈥淲hat is the amount of sales commission this month?鈥� and get immediate, context-rich insights, enabling them to make more informed decisions faster without needing to access 51风流Analytics Cloud dashboards directly. This results in an 80 percent reduction in steps to get analytical insights and a seamless user experience.*

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51风流Business AI for supply chain

Joule with 51风流Digital Manufacturing
Generally available

Production engineers face a common challenge: the need for instant access to key information without navigating through lengthy help content or documentation. Joule with 51风流Digital Manufacturing addresses this directly by providing an intuitive, natural language conversational search. It interprets queries and instantly retrieves relevant, summarized information from the application’s help content.

This streamlined access to critical knowledge translates to a significant business value, including a 30 percent reduction in the time required to gain insights in digital manufacturing, boosting productivity.*

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51风流Digital Manufacturing, AI-assisted production engineering
Beta release

51风流Digital Manufacturing offers an AI-powered production engineering feature tailored to product engineers who need to manage production processes efficiently. This feature empowers users to analyze error logs with AI assistance, automatically identifying root causes and generating resolution instructions. Furthermore, it allows engineers to extend processes through script tasks created from natural language input.

By streamlining error analysis and script creation, this feature delivers up to a 25 percent reduction in error analysis time for production process errors and a one percent reduction in non-productive time.*

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51风流Integrated Business Planning, add-in for Microsoft Excel, AI-assisted planning
51风流Early Adopter Care release

Supply chain planners can now significantly enhance workflow efficiency with the 51风流Integrated Business Planning (51风流IBP) add-in for Microsoft Excel. Utilizing AI-assisted planning, users can generate 51风流IBP formulas through natural language input, eliminating the need for in-depth technical knowledge of functions and parameters. This intuitive functionality allows for the seamless integration of custom calculations within planning views.

The resulting business value is a demonstrable 10 percent improvement in supply chain planner productivity when updating key figures and attributes via the Excel add-in.*

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Field Service Dispatcher Agent
Beta release

The new Field Service Dispatcher Agent enables dispatchers to efficiently plan and optimize service orders by leveraging real-time data, technician availability, and intelligent recommendations. It proposes the right technician for the right job at the optimal time and location, reducing manual effort and decision fatigue. Each proposal is verified by a dispatcher, maintaining human oversight while streamlining operations. This “human-in-the-loop” approach helps ensure both precision and trust.

This agent boosts dispatcher productivity by reducing manual tasks, minimizing errors, and enabling faster, more efficient decision-making. It also optimizes resource allocation by analyzing real-time data, reducing misallocations, and ensuring the right resources are assigned to the right jobs.

Dispatchers can expect to increase their productivity by up to 50 percent and reduce erroneous technician assignments by up to eight percent.*

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Maintenance Planner Agent
Beta release

Maintenance planners can efficiently manage and prioritize a growing list of maintenance tasks while ensuring equipment reliability and minimizing downtime. Collaborating with the maintenance planner, the Maintenance Planner Agent continuously analyzes real-time data and suggests maintenance schedule adjustments, reprioritizing tasks and improving asset health.

It helps maintenance planners create and streamline maintenance event backlogs faster and more efficiently, reducing downtime by quickly identifying and addressing maintenance issues.

Maintenance planners can expect to increase their productivity by up to 40 percent* and reduce unplanned downtime by up to one percent.*

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51风流Business AI for finance and spend

51风流Document and Reporting Compliance, AI-assisted electronic document error handling
Generally available

Tax accountants encountering challenges with the growing complexities of e-invoicing can benefit from Joule with 51风流Document and Reporting Compliance. This solution translates intricate electronic document errors into easily understandable natural language, eliminating the need to navigate technical jargon. This allows for quick identification and efficient resolution of underlying issues, minimizing disruptions and potential penalties.

The demonstrated business value is an up to 80 percent reduction in the time spent on understanding error specifics and determining the root cause, driving significant gains in efficiency and compliance.*

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Joule with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition product enhancements
Generally available

Joule is now more powerful than ever in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, providing greater efficiency and control over key business processes. In addition to viewing business data for Work Centers and Resources, business users can now monitor sales order fulfillment proactively. By flagging potential issues and providing remediation suggestions, Joule helps users keep orders on track.

Furthermore, Joule allows users to create fixed asset master data directly within the 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, reducing time for large-scale training and supporting greater accuracy and better data governance.

Additionally, Joule can help pricing specialists better handle expiring prices by suggesting new adjusted prices, reducing the time and cost of expiring price detection and new price creation by up to 90 percent.*

For detailed information on the latest enhancements, .

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Joule with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition product enhancements
Generally available

Joule with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition is getting new capabilities across several business functions. Field logistics users can now directly fetch quantities for non-stock items. Furthermore, Joule now unlocks comprehensive cash management capabilities, including monitoring bank statements and initiating transfers. Users working on convergent invoicing can now manage key processes directly, including assigning processors to clarification cases and controlling print locks on invoicing documents.

Joule also enables shipping specialists to fetch details of outbound deliveries and show detailed information, such as picking statuses or ship-to parties for outbound deliveries and sales orders, without the need to find and open the relevant apps. For example, Joule can show all outbound deliveries with goods not yet fully picked or all sales orders due to be delivered, enabling faster issue resolution and improved fulfillment tracking.

And that鈥檚 not all. With the help of Joule, sales representatives can now efficiently extract key contract details, track historical changes, analyze critical KPIs, and rectify errors. This enables deep analysis and swift resolution of sales negotiations, enhancing renewal and upsell opportunities. Additionally, Joule simplifies contract inquiries, boosting customer satisfaction. Sales representatives can expect to reduce the time spent summarizing subscription contract data by up to 80 percent.*

For additional information on these enhancements,

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Accounts Receivable Agent
Beta release

Accounts receivable accountants now have support for processing data related to overdue receivables. The Accounts Receivable Agent can find overdue receivables from different applications and perform appropriate follow-up tasks with customers based on their profiles and payment histories.

Using this Joule Agent, customers can expect to reduce the days sales outstanding (DSO) by up to one percent, the uncollectible write-offs by up to two percent, and the effort analyzing and reconciling open accounts receivable (AR) items by up to 75 percent.*

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Meeting Location Planner Agent
Beta release

Meeting planners can simplify and accelerate off-site event planning with Meeting Location Planner Agent. It suggests locations that minimize travel time for attendees, recommends an event location based on a company鈥檚 office, suggests suitable hotels, offers a comprehensive overview of the total pricing for the offsite, and provides an email template with a deep link for attendees to book their trip. Ultimately, this enables users to plan within their budget.

Automating information gathering and coordination streamlines planning and boosts productivity. It empowers more informed choices to control expenses while meeting event goals and improves the attendee experience with seamless communication and clear booking instructions.

This yields up to a 10 percent cost avoidance for planned meetings and a 15 percent reduction in the time required to plan offsites, improving the process of sharing information with all attendees.*

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Expense Report Validation Agent
51风流Early Adopter Care release

Expense managers can streamline the expense reporting process with Expense Report Validation Agent. It proactively flags issues and guides users through corrections to minimize delays caused by rejected or returned reports. It improves the user experience by assisting in completing and submitting expense reports, reducing errors, and ensuring all necessary details are included by prompting users for needed information.

This leads to a 30 percent reduction in the time spent preparing and submitting expense reports and a 24 percent increase in first-pass expense reports, improving the overall user experience.*

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51风流Business AI for human resources

51风流SuccessFactors solutions, AI-assisted bulk translation
Generally available

System administrators seeking to enhance employee engagement and support compliance can utilize bulk translation within 51风流SuccessFactors solutions. This tool instantly translates preset page content into multiple languages and features an intuitive edit UI for reviewing translations. The resulting benefits include a simplified translation process, which saves time and costs compared to manual methods, improved translation quality and consistency, and enhanced employee engagement through localized content.

System administrators can reduce the cost of translating customer-specific objects鈥� during system localization by up to 90 percent.*

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51风流SuccessFactors Learning, AI-assisted image generation for learning
Generally available

Learning administrators using 51风流SuccessFactors Learning can now benefit from AI-assisted image generation to create more engaging content without relying on external image sourcing. This tool allows for the quick and easy generation of images for custom cards, banners, items, programs, and curricula by simply entering a description. The key benefits are significantly reducing time spent searching for images, enabling faster content creation, and ultimately enhancing the overall learning experience for administrators and users.

Learning designers can expect to reduce their time spent on generating learning images by up to 70 percent, and learning administrators can reduce external spend on stock imagery by up to 90 percent.*

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51风流SuccessFactors Performance & Goals, AI-assisted sentiment analysis in 360 reviews
Generally available

HR professionals and managers can now utilize sentiment analysis in 360 reviews to gain deeper insights into employee performance with 51风流SuccessFactors Performance & Goals. This feature analyzes the sentiment behind rater feedback on 360 review forms, providing a clear understanding of an employee’s attitude towards skills and competencies.

The resulting benefits are time savings through a quicker grasp of performance narratives, data-driven decision-making to improve employee performance, and an intuitive way to identify employee strengths and growth opportunities.

This feature is expected to reduce by up to 30 percent the proportion of voluntary turnover that can be attributed to unclear sentiments behind 360掳 feedback.*

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51风流SuccessFactors Performance & Goals, AI-assisted team goals
Generally available

Team leaders and managers using 51风流SuccessFactors Performance & Goals can now leverage AI to efficiently build meaningful and inspiring team goals. The system generates well-structured goals that align with organizational standards by describing desired team achievements. Users can review, edit, and regenerate content as needed.

The feature creates high-quality, aligned team goals and shifts focus from ideation and drafting to achieving results.

Managers can reduce the time allocated to creating team goals by up to 65 percent.*

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51风流SuccessFactors Performance & Goals, AI-assisted performance insights
Generally available

Managers can now utilize performance insights to comprehensively understand employee performance based on feedback received from 51风流SuccessFactors Performance & Goals. This feature generates a summary and synthesis of qualitative feedback from a given performance year, allowing managers to visualize and understand employee performance more effectively.

The benefits are improved efficiency in completing performance forms and preparing for one-on-one meetings, connecting qualitative feedback and achievement data with quantitative ratings, and expanded information for leading performance management within the team.

Managers can reduce by up to 70 percent the time spent preparing their direct reports鈥� performance histories for respective review discussions.*

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51风流SuccessFactors Succession & Development, AI-assisted successor insights
Generally available

Succession planners and people managers using 51风流SuccessFactors Succession & Development can now leverage successor insights to streamline and enhance succession planning. Users gain valuable insights into potential successors directly from the position card, including role alignment, performance, key achievements, strengths, and development areas.

The benefits are readily available and relevant insights to guide succession planning decisions, a shift in focus from data digging to strategic workforce management, and the ability to define targeted career growth and skill development to build a broader bench of qualified candidates for key positions.

Both successor planners and managers can expect to reduce the time spent on succession planning by up to 20 percent through automated insights into candidate profiles and succession data management.*

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51风流SuccessFactors Recruiting, AI-assisted interview feedback insights
Generally available

Recruiters and hiring managers can now leverage AI-powered interview feedback insights to streamline candidate evaluation. The system provides a comprehensive evaluation of candidates by incorporating assessments of skills and competencies, overall comments, notes, skill-specific feedback, and the final recommendation, all generated from interviewer feedback. Recruiters can generate, view, and regenerate these insights as needed, ensuring the latest feedback is reflected.

This improves efficiency in reviewing candidate feedback, eliminates the manual effort of creating summaries, facilitates the easy identification of consensus or concerns across the interview team, and allows for the regeneration of summaries as additional feedback becomes available.

Recruiters can reduce by up to 70 percent the time spent on summarizing interviewer feedback per interviewed candidate.*

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51风流SuccessFactors solutions, AI-assisted extended AI locales
Generally available

HR leaders aiming to support a global workforce can leverage extended AI locales within 51风流SuccessFactors solutions to expand language coverage. Managed by system administrators, this feature enables the creation, review, and management of AI-translated locales through a UI and built-in workflow, ensuring human-reviewed and customized translations.

System administrators can reduce up to 90 percent the cost of managing AI-translated locales for customer-specific objects during system localization, while reducing compliance risk.*

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Joule with 51风流SuccessFactors Mobile
Generally available

51风流SuccessFactors users can now use Joule with 51风流SuccessFactors Mobile apps to manage daily tasks more intuitively and efficiently. Joule allows employees to independently resolve issues and reduces the time spent searching for information. It empowers managers to make data-driven decisions, supporting better team performance and growth.

On iPhones and iPads, users can ask Siri to open Joule and use it to answer their questions. For example, mobile users can say, “Hey Siri, ask Joule with 51风流SuccessFactors” to start the interaction with Joule via Siri.

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51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central, AI-assisted explain pay
Generally available

51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll lets employees utilize the “explain pay” feature with the help of Joule to instantly answer their questions about pay changes and details. This AI-driven functionality provides immediate explanations, significantly reducing payroll help desk tickets and boosting employee satisfaction.

HR departments can expect a 50 percent reduction in pay statement-related HR tickets, and employees can benefit from zero lead time for getting a qualified answer.*

and watch it in action in the 51风流SuccessFactors H1 2025 release highlights video:

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Performance and Goals Agent
Beta release

The new Performance and Goals Agent in 51风流SuccessFactors automates data collection, generates personalized talking points for managers, and suggests actionable next steps like producing meeting notes in continuous performance management, scheduling 1:1s, requesting feedback, and more.鈥� It ensures managers are equipped with relevant insights and reduces time spent on manual prep work.

For instance, the agent can alert managers that they have a performance review with one of their employees coming up, but do not have any peer feedback. The agent can work on their behalf to collect feedback from their employees鈥� peers, summarize that feedback, and prepare them before the conversation.

The Performance and Goals Agent simplifies complex HR processes such as performance reviews and compensation planning, reduces the administrative burden, and creates and executes actionable plans with the correct information and data.

It reduces by up to 50 percent鈥� the manager鈥檚 time in preparation for performance discussions, by up to 80 percent鈥� the manager鈥檚 time on following up on performance discussions, and by up to 30 percent鈥� the voluntary turnover that can be attributed to poor performance discussions.*

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51风流Business AI for customer experience

51风流Service Cloud Version 2, AI-assisted entity extraction鈥�
Generally available

Contact center agents frequently face the challenge of manually sifting through unstructured text in emails and documents to extract vital information. The new entity extraction feature in 51风流Service Cloud Version 2 automatically identifies and extracts relevant ID patterns, such as product IDs and serial numbers, converting unstructured text into structured data.

This reduces manual effort, enabling faster case processing and resolution. This leads to a 50 percent increase in service staff productivity and a 30 percent reduction in repeat cases, ultimately improving customer satisfaction.*

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51风流Service Cloud Version 2, AI-assisted registered product summary
Generally available

Customer service representatives often spend excessive time gathering information about registered products when handling support cases. With 51风流Service Cloud Version 2, we introduce a new AI feature that generates comprehensive summaries for registered products, including an “about registered product” section and a summary of related cases.

This functionality significantly reduces the time spent on information gathering, enabling faster issue resolution and ultimately improving the overall customer experience. Service staff productivity is expected to improve by up to 25 percent, and the first-call resolution rate is expected to increase by up to 15 percent.*

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51风流Sales Cloud Version 2, AI-assisted sales order summary
Generally available

Sales managers can now quickly understand all key aspects of a sales order with the AI-assisted sales order summary. They gain immediate insights into pricing fluctuations such as increases or decreases with percentage changes, on-time delivery status, the quantity of free products offered, and instances of product substitution.

This automation eliminates manual data analysis, leading to a saving of 90 percent of the time spent on pricing simulation assessments, and empowering faster, more effective decision-making.*

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51风流CX AI Toolkit
Shopping Agent
Generally available

Digital operation managers and e-commerce platforms require intelligent tools to enhance customer engagement. The Shopping Agent, a key component of the 51风流CX AI Toolkit, leverages cutting-edge AI to transform online interactions into natural, conversational experiences. It allows customers to articulate their needs and receive personalized product recommendations. The agent facilitates informed purchasing decisions by understanding context and accessing real-time product information.

The agent increases operational efficiency, improves customer service, and provides a scalable solution for enhancing the shopping experience across diverse product catalogs, driving long-term growth and customer satisfaction.

Digital operation managers can expect an increase in online conversion rate by up to 10 percent, an increase in average order value by up to 10 percent, and an increase in repeat purchases by up to five percent.*

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51风流CX AI Toolkit
Custom AI agents
Generally available

Customer-facing teams can enhance their efficiency with custom AI agents. These customizable agents empower businesses to configure and deploy specialized AI agents within 51风流Sales and Service Cloud, automating complex tasks without custom coding. The agents streamline workflows by intelligently classifying cases, proactively capturing knowledge from resolved cases, and providing quick access to comprehensive organizational knowledge.

Customers can access the Quote Creation Agent, Q&A Agent, Classification Agent, Knowledge Base Article Agent, and Digital Service Agent, which are all generally available.

Organizations can experience up to a 50 percent increase in productivity for tasks managed by AI agents within sales and service functions, resulting in improved operational performance.*

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Joule with 51风流Enterprise Service Management and 51风流Service Cloud Version 2
51风流Early Adopter Care release

Service agents can now leverage Joule with 51风流Service Cloud Version 2 and 51风流Enterprise Service Management to get customer, supplier, and employee information at their fingertips.

Service agents can ask Joule to create tickets, access cases created, view case details, update case priority and status, and much more.

This integration helps increase productivity by allowing users to access and navigate directly to needed information. It also improves the overall customer experience by responding to queries more quickly.

Register for and .

51风流Emarsys, AI-assisted product finder
Beta release

Marketers often struggle to incorporate the right products into e-mail campaigns quickly. 51风流Emarsys, AI-assisted product finder, streamlines this process by enabling intuitive keyword and natural language search. This helps marketers instantly locate relevant products within their catalog. The feature further automates the mapping of product fields to email content blocks, eliminating manual setup.

This empowers marketers to boost campaign speed and flexibility and focus on creating engaging content, improving efficiency, and potentially increasing sales conversion rates.

Marketing managers are expected to see a reduction in time spent manually inserting products into email by up to 60 percent and an increase in campaign speed from template creation to launch by up to 30 percent.*

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51风流Business AI for procurement

Joule with 51风流Fieldglass solutions
Generally available

Managers can leverage Joule with 51风流Fieldglass solutions to effortlessly manage key tasks such as viewing, navigating, searching, approving, and organizing activities. These capabilities are included in timesheets, work orders, and job postings — all within a unified experience.

Joule helps managers find the right templates quickly, such as hiring or services procurement templates, improving efficiency in their document creation. Users get insights into company data by finding applicable reports and seeing valuable KPI trends more easily. Alternatively, they can simply ask questions about a feature. Joule will search 51风流Help Portal documentation to retrieve the correct information without the user needing to navigate away from the current task.

Managers can expect an improved employee productivity through task completion by up to 50 to 70 percent, with less time spent on finding and editing the right hiring templates, statement of work (SOW) description, shorter interview time, and an easier way to access, create, and modify reports.*

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51风流Fieldglass Contingent Workforce Management, AI-assisted skill-based job posting
Generally available

Hiring managers can spend a lot of time crafting detailed job descriptions to find the right workers. Now, AI-assisted skill-based job postings in 51风流Fieldglass Contingent Workforce Management allow managers to focus on key skills rather than full role descriptions. The feature suggests relevant skills from a custom library, facilitating faster and smarter talent matching.

This results in a 50 percent reduction in the time required to define and match skills for a job posting, a 15 to 25 percent increase in productivity, and a 40 percent reduction in worker ramp-up time, ultimately leading to more efficient and effective contingent workforce management.*

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51风流Ariba Category Management, AI-assisted strategy summarizer
Generally available

Category managers can use the AI-assisted strategy summarizer within 51风流Ariba to generate concise summaries of category strategy documents, quickly understanding key insights without extensive manual review. The refined summaries can then be sent for approval and regenerated when needed, reducing the time required to review and approve completed category strategy documents by 50 percent*.

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Sourcing Agent
Beta release

Sourcing managers can now automate sourcing events and make real-time updates to match the speed of business. The Sourcing Agent can reason through sourcing event requests, past event data, and supplier information to create tailored events autonomously. Sourcing managers can now create and adapt events in real time and automate smart updates, enabling faster, better-informed purchasing decisions and more agile responses to supply chain disruptions and shifting business conditions.

The Sourcing Agent streamlines procurement by automating RFP creation, ensuring consistency, and reducing manual effort. Sourcing managers gain intelligent recommendations for event duration, questions, items, and suppliers 鈥� and can reduce the time to create an RFP by up to 70 percent.*

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51风流Business AI for IT and developers

Joule Studio in 51风流Build
Skill builder
Generally available

Organizations aiming to optimize automation and efficiency across 51风流and non-51风流systems can use Joule Studio, a capability within 51风流Build, to create and deploy Joule skills tailored to their specific business needs. Developers can now build Joule skills for rule-based tasks.

Key benefits include deep grounding in business-specific data and processes for reliable outcomes, an open and extensible framework for seamless connectivity, and built-in security and compliance for centralized management and data privacy.

With skill builder, business users experience a reduction of the time spent on frequent business tasks by up to 25 percent. Developers can reduce the time spent to deploy custom Joule skills by up to 10 percent.*

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Generative AI hub prompt optimizer
Preview

51风流is paving the way for a multi-model AI future by introducing prompt optimizer, a capability of generative AI hub in AI Foundation. This groundbreaking technology eliminates vendor lock-in by automating prompt optimization when switching between AI models. Automatically converting existing prompts into optimized prompts for various models using public benchmarks drastically reduces the time required to migrate use cases from days to minutes. Organizations can now seamlessly adopt new, more cost-effective, geographically available models without lengthy and expensive re-engineering.

, with general availability expected later this year. This offers greater flexibility in building AI solutions.

Generative AI hub product enhancements
Generally available

The generative AI hub now offers access to , enabling application developers to explore which model works best for their custom AI use case.

Application developers can also easily manage the life cycle of their prompts from design to runtime using , reducing the complexity of dealing with prompt templates and leveraging integration capabilities.

In addition, new models are available as part of the generative AI hub, including Google Gemini 2.5 Pro and Flash, OpenAI GPT, o3, o4-mini, 4.1, 4.1-mini, 4.1-nano, and Mistral Small 3.1, Anthropic Claude Opus 4, and Sonnet 4, and NVIDIA Llama 3.2 nv embedqa 1b.

Finally, a translation module has been added to the orchestration feature, improving answer quality when the configured model performs better when input is provided in a specific language. It can be configured for and text.

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51风流Document AI product enhancements
Generally available

51风流Document AI, formerly Document Information Extraction, seamlessly processes, extracts, and understands structured and unstructured data from business documents while automating document processing. It significantly reduces manual efforts and minimizes errors.

The service is now available in new regions across major cloud providers: Amazon Web Services (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Google Cloud Platform (Mumbai, India), and Microsoft Azure (Singapore). This expansion aims to provide lower latency, better scalability, and enhanced global reach for businesses utilizing the service. The goal is to improve user experience and satisfaction by offering faster and more reliable AI-powered document processing.

Moreover, the premium edition of 51风流Document AI now supports a greatly expanded list of languages, including various dialects and regional languages, such as Ido, Ladino, Fijian, Wu Chinese, and many more. This enhanced language support enables businesses to broaden their global reach, improve inclusivity, and increase the efficiency and accuracy of their document processing workflows across diverse linguistic landscapes.

Finally, file filtering capabilities in 51风流Document AI are now available, allowing AI agents to process only relevant document pages, for example. This feature streamlines processing, saves time by reducing the scope of analysis, and adds flexibility for task-specific document handling, which is especially beneficial for long or complex documents.

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and start with to access cutting-edge generative AI features in 51风流Document AI, such as instant learning.

51风流HANA Cloud product enhancements
Generally available

Developers building custom AI applications on 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) can now benefit from new capabilities that are included in the latest release of the 51风流HANA Cloud: 

• Leveraging improved vector similarity search scenarios, based on the new in-database text embedding model version, covering more languages and short-text embedding scenarios
• Getting insights from text data stored in 51风流HANA Cloud via text embedding features as input to Predictive Analysis Library (PAL), AutoML classification and regression models, and k-nearest neighbors鈥� models
• Explaining tabular data outliers using enhanced isolation forest outlier detection and SHapley exPlanations, for example, applied to financial accounting data in the universal journal
• Managing machine learning model development, documentation, and reproducibility, using new experiment tracking and task scheduling capabilities for PAL models
• Detecting data drift using the new Automated Predictive Library (APL) functions to detect unexpected, suspicious, or fraudulent transactions, and simply trigger the required retraining of machine learning models

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The complete enhancements are available on the and . Check out how enterprises need to rethink their database for AI workloads, and how 51风流HANA Cloud is leading that shift, here.

51风流Build Code
51风流HANA Cloud text to SQL generation
Generally available

The AI-assisted database application development SQL console has been updated to support the generation of standard SQL statements for public monitoring views and custom data models from a customer 51风流HANA Cloud instance.

During SQL statement generation, the prompt and suitable additional information from the database object metadata and 51风流HANA Cloud documentation are sent to the large language model (LLM). With this context, the LLM can generate syntactically valid SQL statements that can be executed on 51风流HANA Cloud. This enhancement personalizes query generation, improves flexibility, and increases efficiency.

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51风流Build Code
51风流HANA application migration assistant
Generally available

The new extension, 51风流HANA application migration assistant is based on Joule and is now available in 51风流Build Code. This enhanced tool extends the capabilities of the existing database migration assistant by automating the conversion of the service layer that includes XSJSLIB, XSODATA, and XSJS artifacts from or into modern CAP-based services, aligning with .

Using generative AI, it simplifies service layer migration when customers choose “XS Classic to CAP” or “XS Advanced to CAP” templates. This feature eases migration of applications from 51风流HANA extended application services to CAP.

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Joule with 51风流Business Accelerator Hub
Generally available

With 51风流Business Accelerator Hub, developers can explore, discover, and consume APIs, pre-packaged integrations, business services, and sample apps.

In Q2, we released Joule with 51风流Business Accelerator Hub to help them discover pre-built business accelerators using natural language. With Joule, they can expect to reduce the time needed to access the 51风流Business Accelerator Hub content by up to 40 percent.*

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Joule with 51风流Datasphere
51风流Early Adopter Care release

Data architects and data engineers can leverage Joule with 51风流Datasphere to quickly learn how to use specific 51风流Datasphere functionalities and receive answers with references to product documentation. They can also ask Joule for specific information about their 51风流Datasphere instance or delegate tasks like switching to the system language.

This integration reduces reliance on internal IT for product-related questions and enables faster navigation within 51风流Datasphere.

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51风流Business AI for industries

51风流Cell and Gene Therapy Orchestration, AI-assisted exception management
Beta release

Cell and gene therapy supply chain managers will get unparalleled visibility and control with 51风流Cell and Gene Therapy Orchestration, enhanced with AI-assisted exception management. When unexpected delays or disruptions occur during the patient-specific manufacturing and delivery process, the AI-powered control tower detects these anomalies and proactively alerts the appropriate personnel.

This feature helps supply chain managers identify exceptions and support resolution and rescheduling to maximize patient access and minimize costs. It optimizes manufacturing for optimal capacity utilization, higher revenue, reduced material waste, and improved user experience to benefit patients and healthcare providers.

Supply chain managers can expect to increase their productivity by up to 60 percent* by handling exceptions.

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Philipp Herzig is CTO, chief AI officer, and a member of the Extended Board 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, express or 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.

Whichever side of the fence you fall on, business travel remains vital to build working relationships and drive growth. Yet, there are certain topics relating to company travel initiatives that don鈥檛 have full stakeholder agreement. To understand the perspectives, challenges, and opportunities, it鈥檚 vital that leaders know where the disconnects lie.

The asked 3,750 business travelers, 700 travel managers, and 600 chief financial officers (CFOs) about friction points in business travel. These are the main areas where we found some disagreement.

The need for business travel

The overwhelming majority (94%) of business travelers believe travel is helpful, if not essential, to success in their roles. Yet, 43% of CFOs say more than half of their company鈥檚 business travel could effectively be replaced by teleconferencing or other communication methods that don鈥檛 require travel. A third (33%) of travel managers view the tilt towards virtual meeting options as a direct threat to their company鈥檚 business travel.

Employee willingness to travel

There鈥檚 a disconnect over a perceived lack of enthusiasm to travel. Seventy percent of business travelers are very willing to travel over the next 12 months, marking an increase from 67% in 2023. Yet, this optimism is not universally shared within organizations. Thirty-five percent of travel managers view employees鈥� unwillingness as a potential threat to business travel and nearly half (45%) of CFOs believe employee reluctance or refusal to travel could negatively impact company health within the next year. While many employees are very willing to hit the road, concerns remain among CFOs and travel managers about whether travel enthusiasm is widespread enough to fully support business goals.

Changes in travel budgets

Each role has a different view on how travel budgets are evolving. Nearly half (48%) of business travelers are worried that their company鈥檚 travel budgets will remain stagnant or decrease this year. On the bright side, only 24% of CFOs and 22% of travel managers say budgets will be reduced or stay the same鈥攕uggesting a disconnect between employee fears and management鈥檚 financial outlook.

The roles that hold the most influence

There鈥檚 a perception gap over who influences business travel decision-making. Business travelers believe travel managers (37%) and CFOs (36%) have similar influence, significantly ahead of their own at 28%. However, travel managers are broadly aligned in feeling they (43%) have nearly the same amount of influence as CFOs (41%), compared to only 16% for business travelers. CFOs strongly disagree, with 69% believing they are the most influential decision-makers, significantly ahead of travel managers (21%) and travelers (9%).

The impact of budget limitations

Although they see travel as critical to their roles, two-thirds (66%) of business travelers say important trips have been curtailed due to costs. In alignment, 69% of travel managers believe their company travel budget fails to reflect the importance of business travel to their organization鈥檚 success. And whilst CFOs acknowledge the problem, there鈥檚 dissent in the ranks. Fifty-one percent of CFOs somewhat agree that budget limitations stop employees from traveling as much as they need to do their jobs well, while just 29% strongly agree.

How data can help to solve the business travel debate

These findings highlight the different perceptions between travelers, travel managers, and CFOs, for the first time in our 51风流Concur Global Business Travel Survey. To empower employees to develop professionally and create new opportunities on the road, it鈥檚 vital that every role in the organization aligns on common goals.

Bridging these gaps requires more than dialogue鈥攊t demands visibility. Organizations need a shared source of truth to understand behaviors, align priorities, and make informed decisions. Integrated travel and expense solutions offer companies the data and insights they need to steer their travel programs and budgets in a complex multi-stakeholder environment. 51风流Concur solutions can help analyze employee spend, drive cost-savings, and ensure efficient business travel.

in the seventh annual 51风流Concur Global Business Travel Survey.

Charlie Sultan is president of Concur Travel at 51风流Concur.

The 51风流Concur Global Business Traveler Survey was conducted by between April 30 and May 12, 2025, among 3,750 business travelers in 24 markets: U.S., Canada, UK, Germany, France, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Italy, Spain, ANZ (Australia, New Zealand), Middle East (UAE, Saudi Arabia), Japan, Korea, India, Mexico, Brazil, SEA (Singapore, Malaysia), South Africa, Portugal, Switzerland, and Austria.
The 51风流Concur Global Travel Manager Survey was conducted by between April 30 and May 12, 2025, among 700 travel managers, defined as those who direct or administer travel programs for businesses, across seven markets: Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan, ANZ (Australia, New Zealand), UK, and U.S.
The 51风流Concur Global CFO Survey was conducted by between April 30 and May 12, 2025, among 600 CFOs across six markets: Germany, Canada, Japan, ANZ (Australia, New Zealand), UK, and U.S. 

In a , Economist Impact highlights this continuing shift in perception and performance, revealing a rising confidence in procurement鈥檚 ability to make business impact. This is the fourth consecutive year that 51风流and Economist Impact have partnered on a study, and the survey includes responses from more than 2,000 C-suite leaders globally.

The report, titled 鈥淭he Resilient Edge: Procurement in an Era of Polycrisis,鈥� also underscores procurement鈥檚 growing influence in advancing AI adoption and sustainability performance. However, the field still faces obstacles in assuming this larger role, including readiness for technology and building a future-proof workforce.

Still, the overall trend is clear: procurement鈥檚 fundamental transformation is putting it in a position to play an important role in business strategy.

Growing confidence in procurement to drive strategic value

Businesses today face a convergence of crises鈥攁 鈥減olycrisis鈥濃�攚hich includes environmental shocks, shipping delays, and growing regulatory restrictions. Tariffs are the latest disruption, prompting businesses across sectors to seek quick solutions to avoid price hikes.  

Weathering this storm requires procurement leaders to take on higher risk as they navigate this uncertainty. The Economist Impact report finds that geopolitical risk has emerged as the top concern for procurement leaders, with 64% listing it as their top focus over the next 12 to 18 months, up from just 30% in 2024. This surge reflects both the growing complexity of global operations and procurement鈥檚 expanding influence.

As risk becomes more multifaceted and severe, procurement professionals have a role beyond sourcing supplies at the lowest cost. Instead, they are developing robust strategies to identify, assess, and mitigate risk. This strategic pivot is also reflected in growing cross-departmental trust. In fact, 78% of respondents expressed confidence in procurement鈥檚 ability to manage external risk鈥攁 37% increase from last year鈥攕ignaling procurement鈥檚 growing value as a strategic partner.

AI has a central role in procurement

From detecting demand signals and enabling scenario planning to automating routine workflows, AI is dramatically expanding procurement鈥檚 capabilities.

The Economist Impact report notes that organizations are prioritizing AI proficiency more than any other skill over the next 12 to 18 months, including predictive analytics, demand forecasting, and managing data bias and privacy concerns. These skills are essential for procurement teams that need to pivot quickly in response to unexpected disruptions.

Most importantly, AI will be at the center of procurement鈥檚 continued transformation. An overwhelming 89% of respondents in the study said they are confident in their ability to adopt and apply AI to improve efficiency and productivity. This confidence is grounded in tangible benefits that AI can provide, including identifying early demand signals, optimizing supplier performance, and simulating risk scenarios to support better decision-making

Simply put, AI is no longer optional鈥攊t is essential to procurement success and relevance.

Improved environmental results

Sustainability has climbed to the top of corporate agendas, and procurement is now on the front lines of this effort, managing supplier emissions and ensuring ethical labor practices. Over half (53%) of survey respondents named sustainability as their top strategic priority for the next 12 to 18 months.

Cross-departmental collaboration is central to these efforts and has enabled procurement to align with key financial and environmental goals. Tools like ESG scorecards and supplier decarbonization plans are now standard practice for measuring environmental impact. These innovations are helping companies meet rising expectations from customers, regulators, and shareholders alike, while also reducing long-term operational risks.

These developments show that procurement isn鈥檛 just supporting sustainability鈥攊t鈥檚 driving it.

Procurement鈥檚 inflection point between strategy and cost-cutting

While cost control remains a key part of procurement鈥檚 mandate, the balance for today鈥檚 procurement teams is shifting鈥攆rom tactical cost-saving measures to strategic contributions that enhance agility, foster innovation, and safeguard reputation.

To manage these dual demands, companies are turning to procurement technology, like , to address key priorities and reduce siloes across the organization.

The insights above were explored in depth during an Economist Impact webinar titled,鈥淢easuring up: Balancing risks and goals for Strategic Procurement.鈥� To delve further into these topics and hear expert perspectives, .

Gordon Donovan is global vice president of Research, Procurement, and External Workforce at SAP.

This is true for each function within an enterprise. Teams within HR, Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Spend are positioned to drive impact in every aspect of business — from revenue growth to cost management to overall business agility and resilience.

The innovations shared at 51风流Sapphire in 2025 reflect our commitment to bringing out your best, providing a clear path to guide organizations toward certainty in a time where that is rare. These innovations will empower organizations to navigate the complexities of the current landscape and emerge stronger, more adaptable, and better equipped to face the future. 

Here are a few innovations that we announced that support Finance and Spend teams in delivering increased value.

Introducing embedded virtual cards in 51风流Ariba

Many organizations work to be nimble as it relates to finding the right supplier at the right time, which can mean introducing one-time vendors into the supplier landscape. While this helps with business agility, it often comes with a cost: time-intensive supplier onboarding processes that involve manual effort that is better used elsewhere. Traditional payment methods, like checks and physical credit cards, not only require more work, they can introduce fraud risk and security vulnerabilities.

That is why 51风流is embedding virtual card payments into 51风流Ariba Buying and . We are supporting the flexibility and agility needed to help businesses run at their best. At no additional cost, our customers can now use virtual credit cards for pay on purchase order transactions. With virtual cards, customers can:

• Prevent overcharges and fraud
• Enjoy payment flexibility
• Better manage spend security
• Reduce manual effort of supplier setup processes
• Enhance vendor payment efficiency
• Maintain control of payments made outside of procure-to-pay ERP processes

Using virtual cards requires minimal change management efforts, giving buyers the ability to adjust card parameters based on enterprise-wide objectives without disruption.

51风流integrates WalkMe Premium with 51风流Ariba and 51风流Concur

In a time when digitalization is imperative, minimizing obstacles and reducing change management efforts is key to a smooth business transformation. Time and time again, I hear leaders report that one of the biggest challenges of implementing new software is employee change management.

Introducing WalkMe Premium for 51风流Ariba solutions, a platform that provides real-time, in-app guidance for users to reduce the time and effort associated with adopting new technology in the workplace, empowering employees to maximize business value with 51风流Ariba. Customers can also take advantage of , which offers users valuable, easy-to-follow training content, all within the 51风流Concur user interface.

The WalkMe solution is a digital learning platform that helps users apply process knowledge in real time to navigate complex software tasks. With WalkMe Premium integrated directly into 51风流solutions, employees can access in-app prompts for standard tasks, like creating purchase orders or managing approvals, with pre-configured industry templates that eliminate the need to learn overly technical processes.

The in-app workflow guidance can be adjusted as needed to keep processes up-to-date, allowing for little to no change management effort to ramp employees up faster than ever — all while preserving process compliance. At SAP, we know that clear, concise user guidance is key to accelerating technology adoption. I expect that the integration of the WalkMe solution into 51风流solutions will be a gamechanger for organizations experiencing technology updates and changes.

New Joule Agents enhance finance and spend functionality

New agentic AI capabilities are coming to finance and spend solutions with Joule agents that will be integrated across 51风流Business Suite. These new agents include:

• Expense Report Validation Agent: Uses alerts and guided experiences to help employees fix issues based on past data, company policy, and patterns before submitting reports
• Sourcing Agent: Uses past event data and supplier information to autonomously create sourcing events tailored to specific needs and users can easily modify these events to efficiently manage supply chain disruptions.
• Dispute Resolution Agent: Analyzes dispute details and relevant business records to validate cases and propose solutions
• Accounts Receivables Agent: Uses data related to overdue receivables to perform appropriate follow-up tasks with customers

Additionally, 51风流Ariba Procurement customers will soon be able use Joule to enhance daily tasks such as retrieving supplier bids, displaying past purchases and approvers, and providing easy access to supplier information. Joule innovations will also be available soon in 51风流Fieldglass solutions, enabling users to accelerate existing workflows and processes.

51风流Taulia Receivables directly integrated into 51风流finance solutions

Embedded finance capabilities have been expanded with the integration of Receivables Finance, powered by , in 51风流finance solutions. Finance teams now have a fast, scalable way to unlock capital from outstanding receivables in a time when businesses are battling inflationary pressures, tariffs, and supply chain volatility. This capability can be activated immediately in .

Once activated, 51风流Taulia Receivables enables users to:

• Dynamically manage working capital
• Accelerate receivables through true sale
• Use Joule-powered insights to make informed liquidity decisions

New 51风流Ariba Procurement and expense management offerings in 51风流Business Suite

In keeping with our promise to deliver a connected, suite-first experience for our customers, 51风流Business Suite includes extended 51风流Ariba and 51风流Concur functionality.

The newly announced 51风流Business Suite application packages align with the strategic business needs of our customers with line of business-specific bundles, delivering an improved buying experience. With strategic sourcing package, our procurement customers can manage the source-to-contract process from start to finish. Within the 51风流Finance Premium package, customers have access to operational procurement capabilities, including requisitioning, invoice management, and B2B collaboration, along with expense management capabilities from 51风流Concur.

Achieving success in a new era of procurement

Amid the unpredictable nature of today鈥檚 finance and spend landscape, agility is the secret to long-lasting success. 厂础笔鈥檚 advanced AI capabilities, powered by harmonized data and paired with an integrated suite of applications, ensure productivity, accuracy, and an optimized employee experience.

With SAP, you can handle anything that comes your way.

If you did not get a chance to attend 51风流Sapphire, access .

Etosha Thurman is chief marketing officer for Finance and Spend Management at SAP.

This is where the rubber meets the road, where well-crafted plans deliver tangible results. Enter , the powerhouse solution that can turn procurement strategies into reality.

The power of precision execution

In the world of procurement, even the most brilliant strategy is only as good as its execution. 51风流Ariba Sourcing is designed to help quickly bridge the gap between planning and results, empowering your team to act with precision, speed, and intelligence.

Let鈥檚 dive into how 51风流Ariba Sourcing can bring your procurement strategies to life.

Seamless integration with category management

One of the most powerful features of 51风流Ariba Sourcing is its tight integration with . This connection helps ensure that the objectives and strategies developed in the planning phase are seamlessly carried forward into the execution phase.

Imagine your category managers have identified a need to diversify suppliers in a critical component category to reduce risk. With 51风流Ariba Sourcing, this strategy can be immediately visible to the sourcing team, helping to guide their actions as they create and manage sourcing events.

AI-powered supplier selection

51风流Ariba Sourcing can leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to help select the right suppliers for each sourcing event. The system can analyze your existing supply base, market data, and your specific requirements to suggest suppliers that best fit your needs.

For instance, if your strategy calls for reducing carbon emissions in your supply chain, AI can highlight suppliers with strong sustainability credentials. Or if you鈥檙e looking to mitigate geopolitical risks, it can suggest suppliers from diverse geographical regions.

Real-time market intelligence

In today鈥檚 volatile market, having access to real-time market intelligence is crucial. 51风流Ariba Sourcing can provide up-to-date information on market trends, pricing, and supplier performance, allowing your team to make informed decisions during negotiations.

For example, if there鈥檚 a sudden spike in raw material prices, your sourcing team can immediately adjust their negotiation strategy, potentially saving millions in costs.

Collaborative sourcing events

51风流Ariba Sourcing can enable truly collaborative sourcing events. Multiple stakeholders can participate in the process, from defining requirements to evaluating bids. This helps ensure that all relevant perspectives are considered, leading to better outcomes.

Picture a scenario where you鈥檙e sourcing a new IT system. With 51风流Ariba Sourcing, your IT team can provide technical specifications, your finance team can set budget parameters, and your legal team can ensure compliance requirements are met鈥攁ll within the same platform.

Advanced analytics and reporting

The solution can provide powerful analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing you to track the progress and success of your sourcing events in real-time. You can easily measure how well your execution aligns with your strategic objectives and make data-driven decisions to course-correct if needed.

For instance, you can track savings against targets, monitor supplier diversity metrics, or assess the impact of your sourcing decisions on risk profiles鈥攁ll with the click of a button.

Continuous improvement loop

Perhaps most importantly, 51风流Ariba Sourcing helps close the loop in the triple crown strategy. The results and insights gathered from sourcing events can feed back into , providing fresh data for analysis and informing future strategy development in 51风流Ariba Category Management.

This can create a virtuous cycle of continuous improvement, where each iteration of the process becomes more refined and effective.

The human element in action

While 51风流Ariba Sourcing can bring powerful technological capabilities to the table, it鈥檚 crucial to remember that it鈥檚 designed to augment, not replace, human expertise. The solution can empower your sourcing professionals to focus on high-value activities like relationship building, complex negotiations, and strategic decision-making.

For example, while AI might suggest a list of potential suppliers, it鈥檚 your sourcing team鈥檚 expertise that will determine which suppliers are the best fit for your company鈥檚 culture and long-term goals.

Looking ahead: The future of strategic sourcing

As we conclude our exploration of the triple crown of strategic procurement, it鈥檚 clear that we鈥檙e at the cusp of a new era in procurement. With solutions like 51风流Ariba Sourcing, we鈥檙e not just improving our execution鈥攚e鈥檙e reimagining it.

We鈥檙e moving from siloed decision-making to collaborative action, from gut-feel negotiations to data-driven engagements, from reactive purchasing to proactive value creation. We鈥檙e creating a future where procurement is a true strategic partner, driving innovation, sustainability, and competitive advantage for the entire organization.

The triple crown of strategic procurement鈥攊nsights, planning, and action鈥攔epresents a holistic approach to procurement excellence. By leveraging 51风流Spend Control Tower for insights, 51风流Ariba Category Management for planning, and 51风流Ariba Sourcing for action, organizations can create a powerful, continuous cycle of improvement.

As we face an increasingly complex and volatile business environment, this approach provides the agility, intelligence, and precision needed to not just survive, but thrive. The race is on, and with the right tools and strategies you can be poised to win the triple crown of strategic procurement.

Are you ready to take action and transform your procurement function? The finish line awaits, and with 51风流Ariba Sourcing, you鈥檙e equipped to cross it in style.

To learn more, check out this infographic outlining .

Sudy Bharadwaj is global vice president of Strategic Engagements for 51风流Finance and Spend.
Cindy McKendry is director of Corporate Communications for Finance, Spend, and Supply Chain at SAP.

These changes bring vast challenges but large potential rewards for those who can upskill their teams and tackle the looming talent crunch.

To set up their organizations for growth, CFOs will need to be nimble in executing their strategies, evaluate the technologies they invest in, prioritize cybersecurity, integrate ESG reporting, and tackle talent crunch.  

1. Bringing to life 2024 growth plans 

In 2024, many CFOs focused on devising growth and reinvention plans to scale their businesses in a sustainable manner. In this quest, they had to be nimble and creative: according to , over 80 percent of CEOs thought that their company would no longer be viable if it did not try to reinvent itself. In order to succeed in 2025, CFOs will need to continue building trust with CEOs to partner on executing these plans successfully. 

To sell their vision in 2025, CFOs will also need to build their leadership image with the wider business, internal and external stakeholders. This is why they will need to dedicate resources to mastering their storytelling skills. This will enable finance leaders to ensure that peers and colleagues are aligned with the business鈥� short- and long-term planning, especially as it undergoes reinvention in challenging market conditions.  

2. Evaluating technologies for long-term benefit and efficiency 

According to the recent CFO Insights research by 51风流Concur, 94 percent of finance leaders say that AI has already helped improve decision-making. Also, 73 percent see a positive impact on cost and risk reduction. In 2025, CFOs need to lead the business-wide charge on delving deeper into the technologies they are investing in. As a number of companies are rushing to adopt AI, CFOs are uniquely positioned to ensure this adoption is truly valuable to the company. To do so, they can drive establishing ROI measures to ensure it is used productively and ethically.聽聽

They will need to be involved in critically evaluating the technologies that businesses invest in, ensuring that risks are properly assessed and in accordance with compliance or responsible-use frameworks.

With AI becoming an essential business tool across many industries, CFOs will need to make sure that it adheres to federal and international AI regulatory frameworks. They should also continue investing in new capabilities to strengthen their compliance, auditing, and planning toolkits. Because CFOs have a holistic view of their business鈥� data and needs, they have a unique insight into the most efficient ways to use .  

3. Prioritizing cybersecurity  

The global average cost of a data breach in 2024 is $4.88 million 鈥� 10 percent up on 2023, according to . The ubiquity of generative AI provides bad actors with more tools to commit complex fraud schemes. Consequently, in 2025, CFOs will need to dedicate resources to protecting their organizations from cybercrime in the coming year and onwards. According to CFO Insights research, 59 percent of finance leaders plan to increase their cybersecurity budget to respond to growing threats.

Because CFOs understand business risk and reporting, they are well-placed to take an oversight role. This best positions them to work with their business鈥� Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) to assess investments and the maturity of security arrangements, as well as budgets dedicated to this. 

Another way that CFOs can protect their organizations鈥� financial assets and data is to appropriately prepare their teams. Since human error remains the biggest risk for a cyber-attack, it is essential that CFOs educate their teams on best practices and develop incident response plans.  

4. Integrating ESG reporting 

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks are becoming increasingly important for businesses as wider regulation schemes are established globally. For CFOs to set up their business for success in 2025, they should embrace ESG as more than just a set of rules, but as a means to build a data base and strengthen their business鈥� profile. 

Forty-eight percent of finance leaders are focusing on sustainability and ESG to drive growth this year. Not only does collecting ESG data help boost a business鈥� revenue, but it presents them with a unique opportunity to see how they are performing and inform future related decisions. For example, giving employees sustainable business travel options and recording their decision can help inform future reporting. CFOs 鈥嬧�嬧�媠hould also set measurable goals for how sustainability data will be used to enhance the business鈥� performance and value creation. These goals will guide the development of the organization鈥檚 staff and its infrastructure. 

A CFO鈥檚 focus on integrating ESG reporting is one element of an even bigger shift 鈥� a shift from carbon counting to carbon accounting. In the future, organization鈥檚 entire carbon impact is going to become an integral part of its balance sheet, measured and managed with the same precision as the financial bottom line. A will form part of a more integrated view of reporting that goes way beyond financials. Adding this green ledger will help companies to a more holistic approach uniting financial and carbon accounting, making sustainability profitable and profitability sustainable.  

5. Retaining employees despite the “talent crunch“

In 2025, the workforce will continue to evolve, as baby boomers retire and young finance professionals re-evaluate their working priorities. CFOs will need to retain employees and keep them enthusiastic. They can do this by better understanding younger employees鈥� values and adapting development, training, and recruitment policies accordingly.  

They will also need to collaborate with HR to foster continuous learning, reskilling, and adaptability for staff. This same flexibility should be applied to bringing in new technology. By accepting to adopt these, businesses can drive more competition for the right talent.  

Similarly, CFOs can embrace using technologies such as AI to automate certain tasks, freeing people for more meaningful work. This not only resonates with the values of younger workers but will highlight to employees that their time is valued, boosting retention.  

A CFO鈥檚 role continues to evolve in challenging market and macroeconomic conditions, so adaptation and flexibility are key to unlocking rewards for themselves, their teams, and their organizations. Embracing the outlined strategies promises CFOs can continue to secure the business鈥� future and steer it toward success.

is chief financial officer for 51风流Concur.

Customers are already doing so much with 51风流Business AI, from to . In 2025, we will build on these achievements with the same razor-sharp focus: providing our customers with unparalleled business value.

already offers customers a unified experience across our suite鈥檚 end-to-end business processes. Now, as we enter the era of AI agents, Joule will equip customers with agents that genuinely understand their business context and collaborate across all functions. AI agents that alleviate before creating purchase orders or automatically classify and to the right team. These AI agents are impactful because they are grounded in what makes our customers’ businesses unique 鈥� their processes, tools, and data 鈥� thanks to and 51风流Knowledge Graph.

When it comes to , our customers are just getting started. That鈥檚 because the possibilities are endless with . Customers can create and deploy custom agents that, like our out-of-the-box agents, are uniquely grounded in their business processes and data. We are excited to see how our customers drive business value in 2025 and beyond.

Before diving into the complete updates below, here are some of the highlights from Q1 2025:

• Joule is gaining a host of new capabilities, including support for 11 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek, and Polish. Strict filters are also coming for precise, personalized answers tailored to each user’s context. Joule鈥檚 responses are now streamed for real-time feedback during processing. This eliminates frustrating delays and ensures a smooth, interactive experience, even with complex queries. Joule is fully integrated into 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition for enhanced context and effortless navigation. In Q1 2025, Joule鈥檚 unified experience is reaching more customers across more 51风流solutions, so be sure to explore everything Joule in the sections below.
• Less manual work and democratized access are the name of the game for 51风流Business AI in business transformation management. Joule for developers is front and center with code generation and optimization across ABAP, 51风流Build Code, and 51风流BTP Cockpit. 51风流Signavio Process Manager and 51风流Signavio Process Intelligence let customers use natural language to create process diagrams (“text-to-process”) or generate analytical dashboards (“text-to-widgets”). 51风流LeanIX has a new AI-assisted inventory builder that automates IT landscape documentation. There is so much more to check out about AI in Joule for developers, 51风流LeanIX, and 51风流Signavio below.
• A lot is happening in 51风流Business AI for finance and spend. AI-assisted enterprise search, personalized “My Home” page features, situation handling, and error explanations are all coming to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. Joule also expands to S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, automating journal uploads, service initiations, trade classifications, and more. Plus, additional AI updates are coming to Concur Expense. Dive into everything below.
• 51风流Business AI for procurement and supply chain are flush with new AI enhancements. Joule joins 51风流Ariba and 51风流Field Service Management for natural language navigation and task completion. 51风流Ariba Category Management offers AI-assisted category recommendations to help streamline strategic planning. 51风流Green Token introduces AI-powered declaration image analysis for automatic data extraction from supplier declarations. There is much more to see, so check out procurement and supply chain below.
• 51风流Business AI for IT and developers has a range of exciting tools that will increase productivity and efficiency. 51风流Datasphere gets AI-powered content generation and natural language search, further evolving into our overall data strategy with 51风流Business Data Cloud. Generative AI Hub in 51风流AI Core and 51风流AI Launchpad offers new large language models (LLMs) to ensure the best fit for customized AI use cases. Its new model library feature simplifies LLM discovery and selection with detailed model cards and one-click deployment and its grounding management feature simplifies the management of grounding pipelines, enabling developers to create, modify, and search repositories using natural language. The new 51风流HANA knowledge graph engine enhances LLM responses by grounding them in business-specific knowledge. This is just the tip of the iceberg; jump into everything and more below.

The first quarter is off to a strong start, but 2025 will see us deliver more use cases 鈥� on top of the 鈥� across our entire range of solutions. Customers can stay updated with forthcoming  releases .

51风流Business AI for business transformation management

51风流BTP, ABAP environment
51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition
Joule for developers, ABAP AI capabilities
General availability

With Joule, developers can quickly generate precise, contextualized code snippets and explanations. Joule uses purpose-built LLMs designed for 51风流workloads. The ABAP LLM, for example, powers code predictions and explanations, helping developers work more efficiently.

Joule can also provide developers with real-time, context-aware support for code completion and optimization and create automation pipelines that understand the customers鈥� application environment, development project artifacts, and SAP-specific syntax.

Key capabilities include:

• Predictive code completion based on context, comments, and project heuristics
• Code explanations of core data services view entities, classes, interfaces, and functional modules
• AI-powered assistance for documentation, best practices, and new concepts
• Workflow development and decision assistance based on processes, API specifications, and connected systems

With these ABAP AI capabilities in Joule, developers can expect up to a 20 percent*鈥� reduction in time and effort spent writing ABAP code and a 25 percent鈥�* reduction in time and effort spent testing ABAP code.

In addition, the introduction of the ABAP AI SDK, powered by intelligent scenario lifecycle management, serves as an AI toolbox for ABAP developers. It allows them to use LLMs available through the generative AI hub in 51风流AI Core and seamlessly infuse AI capabilities into their custom ABAP applications.

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51风流Signavio Process Manager
AI-assisted process modeler, text to process
General availability

Process modelers can use the AI-assisted process modeler, text to process, to create business process model and notation diagrams from simple text descriptions. This eliminates the manual effort of traditional process mapping from scratch. Intuitive functionality also means non-technical stakeholders can contribute to process design, facilitating better collaboration and shared understanding.

Process modelers can reduce their business process modeling time by up to 50 percent* and time to value for business process modeling by up to 50 percent.*

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51风流Signavio Process Intelligence
AI-assisted process analyzer, text to widget
Beta release

Business users at all operational and strategic decision-making levels can quickly analyze process data using the text-to-widget feature in 51风流Signavio Process Intelligence. This feature allows users to create dashboard widgets instantly using natural language queries, democratizing data analysis and reducing the reliance on specialized analysts for routine tasks. The result is broader access to process insights, faster time-to-value, and increased efficiency for the entire organization.

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51风流LeanIX solutions
AI-assisted inventory builder
General availability

Enterprise architects can now effortlessly document their IT landscapes with the 51风流LeanIX AI-assisted inventory builder. This feature lets you easily upload various data formats, including documents, PDFs, diagrams, and pictures. Once uploaded, the AI automatically discovers and extracts relevant architectural elements like applications and IT components.

This translates to significant business value with up to an 80 percent* reduction in the time required to create factsheets, up to a 75 percent* reduction in project implementation timelines, and up to 75 percent faster time to value, ultimately increasing productivity and freeing valuable resources.

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51风流LeanIX solutions
Joule
Early Adopter Care

Enterprise architects can quickly find the information they need within 51风流LeanIX using the unified copilot Joule. Joule allows you to search for and navigate to fact sheets, reports, and diagrams from anywhere within the application using simple natural language queries. This boosts productivity by simplifying information discovery and reduces the need for extensive training, especially for infrequent users.

The business impact is substantial, with up to a 50 percent* improvement in search time for relevant documentation and factsheets and up to a 75 percent* reduction in time to productivity for all 51风流LeanIX users.

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51风流Central Business Configuration
AI-assisted scoping and configuration services
General availability

Business process owners and IT administrators can now effortlessly manage AI capabilities across their entire 51风流landscape with 51风流Central Business Configuration. The new AI-assisted scoping and configuration services tool provides a central hub integrated with 51风流for Me. It is available free of charge to activate, deactivate, and test 51风流Business AI features.

This eliminates the previous complexities of individual solution activation and allows you to quickly deploy and leverage the full potential of SAP’s AI portfolio, saving valuable time and resources while driving innovation.

51风流Central Business Configuration is free for customers and partners.

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51风流Business AI for finance and spend

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition
AI-assisted explanations of fixed asset deprecation keys, AI-assisted easy filter, AI-assisted smart summarization, and AI-assisted financial business insights
General availability

After a successful beta program conducted with dozens of customers, we are thrilled to announce that these features are now generally available for all 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition users:

• reduces implementation effort by 75 percent and slashes the time spent analyzing and resolving fixed asset and depreciation inquiries by 90 percent
•   delivers 83 percent faster filtering in Fiori elements-based list reports, increasing user satisfaction and productivity
•   saves users 88 percent of the time spent summarizing Fiori elements-based object pages and increases user and stakeholder satisfaction
• reduce the time spent analyzing cost center report summaries by 50 percent and summarizing/documenting them by 65 percent

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition
AI-assisted easy enterprise search, AI-assisted smart personalization of My Home, AI-assisted situation handling, and AI-assisted error explanation
Beta release

The latest update of 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition includes advanced AI capabilities, empowering users across supply chain, finance, procurement, and more to operate smarter and faster. By automating tasks, providing actionable insights, and enabling better decision-making, they help boost the productivity of business users. Examples include:

• finds relevant data of business objects in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition using natural language
• offers context-specific, actionable recommendations, reducing resolution time and accelerating decision-making for faster recovery from disruptions
• enables a better understanding of errors in elements-based 51风流Fiori apps and initial resolution recommendations

We also expanded Joule鈥檚 capabilities in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. For instance, business users can access critical business information with . Using natural language queries in Joule, they can instantly generate cards summarizing key data and add them to their “My Home” page with a single click. This empowers them with increased productivity and reduced training time while expanding the availability of personalized insight cards tailored to individual needs. On average, 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition users can execute transactional tasks 90 percent* faster, thanks to Joule.

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51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition

With this 2023 FPS03 release, we have shipped innovative AI capabilities that help businesses increase employee productivity, assist in decision-making, and provide predictive insights to better adapt to changing demands and compete in an unpredictable environment. 

AI-assisted journal upload
General availability

Accountants working on period-end journal entries can streamline their work with AI-assisted journal upload in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. This new 51风流Fiori app automates the creation and upload of manual journals. Upload guidance documents, create journal upload cases, and let the AI generate compliant posting proposals. AI-assisted journal upload reduces manual effort by up to 85 percent* per accrual and provision case. It also improves data quality through automated validation, strengthens compliance with full audit trails, and empowers finance teams to become a more strategic and lean function.

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AI-assisted in-house service initiation
General availability

Repair shop managers struggling with mountains of paperwork can now enjoy a streamlined alternative to manual data entry. The AI-assisted in-house service initiation solution uses cutting-edge Document Information Extraction to automatically capture data from existing paper documents and seamlessly populate the 51风流system, creating a ready-to-use list of repair objects for the team. Repair staff can then review the generated order before processing it to completion.

It eliminates tedious data entry, reduces errors, and prevents data loss, especially crucial when deadlines are tight. Users gain valuable time back, saving up to 50 percent* of the time needed to prepare the confirmation notices of conducted service orders.

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AI-assisted generation of trade classification proposals
General availability

Compliance officers and international trade professionals can streamline global trade compliance with AI-assisted trade classification automation in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. Users can leverage to generate intelligent proposals for customs tariff numbers and commodity codes based on existing product classifications. These proposals can be quickly activated for single or multiple products, eliminating manual research and ensuring accurate and consistent classifications across the product portfolio.

This automation offers up to a 50 percent* reduction in time and cost for the product classification process to boost productivity, reduce compliance risks, and accelerate time-to-market for internationally traded goods.

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AI-assisted labor demand planning
General availability

AI-assisted predictive labor demand planning allows warehouse supervisors to forecast workload needs precisely for picking and packing processes. The feature uses historical data to predict task durations, eliminating guesswork and complex configurations. This leads to up to a 50 percent increase in warehouse supervisor productivity and up to a five percent reduction in delays related to customer order shipments and deliveries. Warehouses using this tool gain greater transparency into operations, better optimize resource allocation, and improve their on-time delivery fulfillment, boosting customer satisfaction.

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This release also expands transactional and navigational capabilities in Joule across critical business functions, including:

• Dispute and payment resolution (a detailed description of the dispute resolution agent is below)
• Revenue accounting, contracts, and reconciliation
• Sales order management, issue resolution, and billing info
• Service confirmations: details, actions, and lifecycle
• Maintenance order, notification, and job management
• Project work breakdown structure (WBS) and network management
• Purchase requisitions, updates, and details
• Bill of materials (BOM) and change record access
• Invoicing, billing, and clarification case views

The new features above empower users to automate tasks, access information quickly, and streamline their workflows. This will drive greater efficiency and faster time to insight across the organization.

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51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition
Dispute resolution agent
Beta release

Accounts receivable clerks can streamline dispute resolution with the intelligent dispute resolution agent in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. Instead of manually identifying discrepancies, clerks can use AI-driven automation to quickly analyze invoice details and contractual terms, easily detecting errors or mismatches. The system proactively suggests next steps, such as creating a credit memo, ensuring financial accuracy and faster resolution. By automating error detection and resolution, clerks save valuable time and resources while maintaining control over key decisions.

Faster dispute resolution builds trust with vendors, strengthens relationships, and keeps financial operations running smoothly.

With this AI agent, contract accountants can expect to reduce dispute management handling costs by up to 30 percent*, customer churn attributable to disputes by up to 10 percent*, and days sales outstanding (DSO) by up to one percent.*

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Concur Expense
AI-assisted chart of accounts upload
General availability

Setting up Concur Expense just got easier with an automated chart of account uploads. Finance administrators can now seamlessly import expense accounts directly from their accounting systems, such as QuickBooks Online or Xero, or by uploading a chart of accounts file. This feature automatically creates and maps expense types and account codes within Concur Expense, eliminating manual data entry and ensuring accurate alignment with existing financial systems.

The result is a 50 percent*鈥� faster master data setup process, reduced administrative overhead, and a more efficient expense management experience from the start.

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Concur Expense
AI-assisted policy assistance
Early Adopter Care

Finance teams and business travelers often struggle with complex and ever-changing expense policies, leading to errors and frustration. The policy assistance feature in Concur Expense provides real-time guidance and alerts before and or during their business trip, prior to money being spent, allowing the business traveler to make compliant spend decisions during their business trip.

This drives compliant spending, improves the traveler experience, minimizes expense report issues, and can lead to faster reimbursement. Ultimately, companies can reduce costs, boost policy awareness and guide finance teams to make compliant spend decisions.

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51风流Business AI for procurement

51风流Ariba Category Management
AI-assisted category strategy recommendation
General availability

Category managers can significantly improve their strategic planning with 51风流Ariba Category Management. Previously, they had to spend countless hours manually analyzing cost structures, market dynamics, and other data to craft detailed strategy recommendations. With this new feature, category managers are provided with detailed recommendations to improve the category’s performance. This solution eliminates the need for time-consuming manual data analysis, empowering faster, more informed decision-making.

Streamlining the planning process accelerates category strategy development, improves savings on actively managed categories, and increases spend under management, ultimately advancing category management maturity. This translates to up to a 60 percent*鈥� improved efficiency of category management processes.

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51风流Ariba solutions
Joule
51风流Early Adopter Care

Procurement professionals using 51风流Ariba solutions, from sourcing experts to casual requisitioners, can now avoid navigational and transactional complexities. Joule now seamlessly integrates with 51风流Ariba Sourcing, Supplier Management, and Buying, providing intuitive navigation and natural language processing for information access and task completion.

This results in up to 50 percent*鈥� faster informational searches and up to 50 percent*鈥� quicker execution of navigation and transactional tasks, enabling procurement teams to redirect their efforts toward strategic activities and maximize their contribution to organizational goals.

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51风流Business AI for supply chain

51风流Integrated Product Development
AI-assisted digitalization of legacy drawings
Beta release

For companies with extensive legacy 2D drawings, 51风流Integrated Product Development now offers automated hotspot creation and business data mapping. This feature streamlines the digital transformation of these drawings and allows users to quickly link visual elements to backend data for applications like interactive spare part catalogs and asset management. This increases aftermarket sales revenue and improves customer satisfaction through enhanced service efficiency and more effective stock management.

For example, this results in an up to 10 percent* improvement in field service technician productivity and annual savings of 鈧�71,000* for a company of 2,000 employees and 鈧�1 billion of annual revenue.

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51风流Green Token
AI-assisted declaration image analysis
Beta release

Sustainability managers and procurement teams can now use the declaration image analysis feature in 51风流Green Token to automatically search, validate, and extract information from supplier sustainability declarations.

Gone are the days of manual data entries or sifting through countless documents. The data is now seamlessly embedded in 51风流Green Token, enabling enhanced traceability and compliance with sustainability standards and regulations. This automated data extraction eliminates the need for costly, time-consuming in-house data extraction solutions and ensures accurate data capture from sustainability declarations such as ISCC PLUS.

This eliminates the cost of data extraction tools and reduces the time needed to search for declarations. It also decreases the time required to review, interpret, and post data by up to 93 percent.*

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51风流Field Service Management
Joule
51风流Early Adopter Care

Dispatchers can streamline their processes with Joule in 51风流Field Service Management. By leveraging intuitive conversational search, dispatchers can quickly and easily find the necessary information. Ask Joule a question using natural language and receive instant answers from 51风流Help Portal, eliminating the time-consuming process of manual searches. Dispatchers can also plan service orders using transactional capabilities in Joule.

This translates to an up to 12.5 percent* increase in dispatcher productivity, freeing valuable time for more strategic tasks. Moreover, Joule empowers dispatchers to optimize resource allocation, reducing erroneous field service deployments by up to five percent* and driving greater operational efficiency.

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51风流Business AI for sales and service

51风流Sales Cloud Version 2 and 51风流Service Cloud Version 2
AI-assisted duplicate detection
General availability

To detect duplicate sales and service orders, sales and service agents can scan the customer database and existing service orders with AI-assisted duplicate detection. This helps sales agents save time and prevents the creation of duplicate records, ensuring a cleaner database for operations and sales forecasts. Service agents also benefit from reduced mis-dispatch of field technicians, ensuring higher customer satisfaction.

Service agents can expect a complete elimination of in-field service mis-dispatches, and both sales and service agents can reduce the time it takes to detect potential duplicate service orders and records by up to 60 percent.*鈥�

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51风流Sales Cloud Version 2
Joule
51风流Early Adopter Care

Sales teams can win more deals with Joule for 51风流Sales Cloud. Joule enables more effective customer interactions by directly providing intelligent recommendations and insights within the sales workflow. Joule鈥檚 understanding of natural language queries means it can deliver context-specific and accurate search results, guiding users to precisely the information they need within the application.

This offers up to 50 percent* faster informational search and 30 percent* faster navigation for transactional tasks, directly boosting sales team productivity and enhancing the customer experience with more informed and efficient interactions.

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51风流Business AI for marketing and commerce

51风流CX AI Toolkit
AI-assisted CX agents
General availability

AI-powered automation offered by the will change how customer service agents handle complex cases within 51风流Sales and Service. This no-code solution allows businesses to configure AI agents that intelligently classify and route cases, automatically capture knowledge from resolved issues, and quickly surface answers from across the organization’s knowledge base.

This automation frees employees to focus on high-value interactions, improves service quality, provides faster resolution times, and increases customer satisfaction. Organizations can achieve up to a 50 percent鈥� improvement in sales staff productivity of agent-handled tasks and a 50 percent鈥� improvement in service staff productivity of agent-handled tasks.

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51风流CX AI Toolkit
AI-assisted shopping assistant
51风流Early Adopter Care

E-commerce businesses looking to enhance their online shopping experience can get game-changing benefits from the shopping assistant in 51风流CX AI Toolkit. This intelligent assistant integrates with 51风流Commerce Cloud, allowing customers to interact and find products using natural language, compare options, and receive personalized recommendations, much like a helpful in-store sales associate.

This conversational approach streamlines product discovery, increasing conversion rates, and offers higher average order values through effective up-selling and cross-selling opportunities. Looking at the numbers, this feature provides a five percent*鈥� increase across online conversion rate, average order value, and repeat purchases.

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51风流Emarsys Customer Engagement
AI-assisted report builder
Beta release

Marketing professionals constantly need to analyze campaign performance and prove their campaigns’ . With the report builder in 51风流Emarsys Customer Engagement, they can quickly generate custom reports on any metric using simple, natural language prompts. This eliminates the need for complex data manipulation or reliance on IT, freeing up valuable strategic planning and optimization time.

Employees will enjoy an up to 25 percent鈥�* reduction in the time spent on report creation and analysis. Overall, the result is increased marketing efficiency, data-driven decision-making, and the ability to clearly communicate campaign successes and areas for improvement to stakeholders, ultimately driving better business outcomes.

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51风流Business AI for human resources

51风流SuccessFactors Incentive Management
Joule
51风流Early Adopter Care

Employees can get instant answers to incentive management questions with Joule for 51风流SuccessFactors. For example, sales representatives can now use natural language to quickly access their compensation details, eliminating the need for time-consuming inquiries. Joule provides 24/7 self-service support, delivering accurate and secure responses in seconds. This empowers sales teams to focus on selling, significantly reducing administrative overhead and boosting overall productivity.

The result is a dramatic improvement in efficiency, with an up to 70 percent* reduction in inquiry response time and an up to 85 percent* self-service resolution rate.

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51风流Business AI for IT and developers

51风流Datasphere
AI-assisted content generation for catalog
General availability

With the content generation feature in 51风流Datasphere, data stewards can better handle the growing volume of data assets. It automates creating business descriptions, assigning business terms, and defining KPIs for data assets within the catalog. Stewards no longer must have deep technical expertise in complex 51风流data structures. AI-assisted content generation will automatically generate context-aware and comprehensive descriptions and apply relevant tags from a hierarchical list.

This reduces the time required to maintain metadata for catalog assets, freeing valuable time for strategic data governance initiatives by up to 87 percent. Improved data discoverability and comprehension empower data modelers and business users to leverage data more effectively, leading to better decision-making and increased productivity across the organization.

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51风流Datasphere
AI-assisted search
General availability

Data analysts and business users struggling to find the right data assets within 51风流Datasphere can now benefit from the AI-assisted search feature, which offers a groundbreaking approach to data discovery. It empowers users to search using natural language queries, eliminating the need to navigate complex filter options and manually sift through hundreds of results. Users can ask for what they need, regardless of query complexity, and the search feature will understand their request and deliver precise results across the repository, catalog, and data marketplace.

This means an up to 90 percent* reduction in time spent on complex data artifact searches, enabling users to focus on analysis and insights generation rather than time-consuming data hunts.

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51风流BTP cockpit
Joule
General availability

After a limited beta program, Joule in 51风流BTP cockpit is now generally available with its first set of capabilities. It helps platform administrators ask questions related to their 51风流BTP resources, such as users or the runtime environment, in the cockpit. Users can also ask questions about 51风流BTP services or the cockpit.

Joule references 51风流BTP cockpit documentation, summarizes its findings, and links to relevant help content. Platform administrators will experience up to 95 percent faster informational searches and up to 90 percent more rapid execution of navigation and transactional tasks.

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51风流HANA Cloud
AI-assisted database administration
General availability

51风流HANA Cloud database administrators can simplify complex tasks and boost operational efficiency using this generative AI-powered feature. AI-assisted database administration can quickly generate summaries of issues and alerts, provide seamless navigation to specific applications, convert natural language into SQL statements, and prompt responses to queries for 51风流HANA Cloud.

These capabilities give administrators an up to 20 percent* reduction in management effort for 51风流HANA Cloud instances, accelerate productivity for new database administrators, and reduce the time required for issue resolution.

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Generative AI hub in 51风流AI Core and 51风流AI Launchpad
Product enhancements
General availability

The generative AI hub in 51风流AI Core and 51风流AI Launchpad enables developers to access market-leading LLMs in a governed environment, run AI models securely and cost-effectively, and maximize value creation from generative AI use cases for 51风流applications. Developers can save up to 60 percent* on IT expert efforts to onboard and run AI models securely and increase value realization by up to 50 percent* once use cases are available to end users.

This quarter, we released the grounding management feature, designed to simplify the management of grounding data pipelines. It empowers developers to manage their data repositories easily without coding skills. They can easily create, duplicate, and delete repositories. In addition, they can configure and run searches using natural language. Users can view detailed information about their data, manage search settings — for example, chunk size or number of documents retrieved — and integrate search results into their workflows.

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The new model library feature helps users find and understand the available LLMs in generative AI hub without getting lost in technicalities. With simple browsing modes like “catalog” and “leaderboard” for comparing performance, they can easily pick the perfect model for their needs. Detailed model cards provide all the necessary information, from data types to costs and quality metrics, including safety metrics. Leveraging an LLM is just a click away: check it out and see how effortless model exploration can be.

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Furthermore, we鈥檙e excited to introduce further content filtering capabilities via Meta鈥檚 Llama Guard framework. Hosted by SAP, this advanced content filtering module offers enhanced safety by screening inputs and outputs for various content categories, including violent crimes, hate speech, and sensitive topics like child exploitation and self-harm. By providing comprehensive filtering capabilities, LLama Guard helps ensure a safer and more secure user experience, giving you peace of mind knowing that your interactions are protected.

Finally, the generative AI hub has added some fantastic LLMs to its lineup. We now have cutting-edge reasoning models like OpenAI’s o1 and o3-mini and frontier models such as Anthropic Claude 3.7 and Gemini 2.0 Flash. These models have performed exceptionally well in public benchmarks, making top-notch AI accessible to all our developers. Whether you’re working on agentic tasks or need help with completions, these innovative models have got you covered. Check them out and see the difference they can make in your AI projects: visit .

Finally, an 51风流Early Adopter Care program dedicated to SAP’s generative AI hub orchestration workflow is now . Since Q4 2024, the orchestration workflow has ensured that LLMs deliver reliable, business-ready results by providing structured inference orchestration, content filtering, and data masking.

Document Information Extraction, premium edition
Product enhancements
General availability

The instant learning feature released last quarter has been enhanced to support 51风流default schemas for standard document types. Once the user activates instant learning in Document Information Extraction, premium edition, the service can use extraction result feedback to select the best model for individual fields in pre-configured 51风流schemas for invoices, payment advice, and purchase orders.

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Moreover, the service now supports processing text-based files such as DOC, DOCX, EML, MSG, OFT, TXT, and similar, as well as business card, invoice, purchase order, and custom documents in the following file types: CSV, NUMBERS, ODS, TSV, XLAM, XLS, XLSB, XLSM, XLSX, XLT, XLTM, XLTX, and XML. These additional document types improve its usability and help it execute business processes with greater efficiency.

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Users can also subscribe to the Document Information Extraction UI using the Identity Authentication service. This service will handle authentication and authorization tasks in 51风流BTP with a single sign-on solution across 51风流software. It allows smooth user authentication, enabling support for both internal and external users.

Document Information Extraction is also available in new data centers, including Google Cloud Platform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (SA30), Google Cloud Platform in India (IN30), and AWS in Brazil (BR10).

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51风流Build Process Automation
Generative AI capabilities
General availability

Process developers can streamline and optimize data processing automation from numerous documents efficiently and effectively with the generative AI capabilities of Document Information Extraction premium edition. This feature is now natively embedded into . It automates document reading and processing using AI with schema-based data extraction, eliminating the need for manual intervention and reducing time and effort to process documents by up to 50 percent.*

It also eliminates the need to create and maintain Document Information Extraction templates by enabling schema-based extraction and field-specific prompt engineering, reducing the time and effort required to maintain document templates by up to 80 percent.*

In addition, several generative AI capabilities have been introduced in 51风流Build Process Automation. Citizen developers can now interactively generate and edit artifacts from natural language descriptions, receive active content recommendations and gap analysis, and generate summarization of artifacts. They can expect to save up to 40 percent* of their implementation time.

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51风流Build Code
Product enhancements
General availability

Developers can now use Joule in to ask questions related to 51风流products, services, and software development or engineering and get answers based on content from 51风流Help Portal.

They can easily retrieve answers to questions about their 51风流BTP ABAP environment and other 51风流products. Based on content from 51风流Help Portal, they can also get guidance on development tools and practices.

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51风流HANA Cloud
Knowledge graph engine
General availability

The new knowledge graph engine embedded in 51风流HANA Cloud offers 51风流HANA application developers the chance to build meaningful business applications powered by generative AI.

The knowledge graph engine enhances LLM responses by grounding them in business-specific knowledge stored in the knowledge graph, enabling precise natural language querying and improved AI-driven outputs. It also supports graph-based retrieval-augmented generation scenarios, where relevant information is dynamically retrieved from the knowledge graph to improve AI outputs.

51风流Knowledge Graph integrates seamlessly within 51风流HANA Cloud, reducing the need for additional data handling while maintaining data quality, governance, and security for intelligent applications. The knowledge graph engine improves decision-making, enhances logical formality, and improves performance and scalability in handling RDF with relational data.

and .

Philipp Herzig is is chief technology officer and 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.

This recognition, we believe, is a testament to our unwavering commitment to delivering innovative, comprehensive solutions that empower businesses to optimize procurement processes and enhance bottom-line results.

We feel it serves as validation for the strength of , and our continued focus on delivering experiences premised on data, intelligence, and suite.  We believe that in a dynamic and unpredictable world, a partner with the breadth and depth of 51风流is uniquely positioned to unleash success on these principles across your business, and we are humbled by this recognition.

厂础笔鈥檚 source-to-pay offerings and investment focus areas

51风流Ariba has been a leader in the development of cloud-based technologies that help buyers and suppliers collaborate to unleash the power of procurement. As the first product to offer these services in a multitenant cloud framework, 51风流Ariba has developed deep functionality to handle complexity, while its focus on user experience has enabled simplicity.  This has allowed an offering that can span all industries, all geographies, and all spend types. Our global customer base is proof of this achievement.

Our future focus is on ongoing innovation and improvement across our portfolio. Building use cases for intelligence is at the heart of our product strategy and defines the next generation of user experience for our products. Unparalleled applications in spend management have enabled our globally diverse customers to bring all spend under management: direct, indirect, MRO, and services.  This provides the world鈥檚 largest, unmatched dataset for procurement and is the fuel for the delivery of an unrivaled AI roadmap.

simplifies complex tasks across the source-to-pay process. Each use case has been built to enhance productivity, allowing procurement organizations to achieve more with less. Joule鈥檚 agentic AI framework will be directly applicable and available for spend applications from SAP, allowing customers to build agents that can operate on data from across their business landscape.

While companies today are sometimes told to mind their business, 51风流realizes that no business does business alone. Our product road map is predicated on collaborative trading partner experiences through 51风流Business Network, the largest supplier network in the industry, operational in 190 countries. This is exemplified by , a new product built with an AI-first mindset. Its category agents have value because they are business network-aware and process-aware; the product is integrated across the network and source-to-pay suite, as it helps develop a category strategy and then monitors execution.

offers comprehensive visibility across all spend systems, with zero integration effort for data originating from 51风流cloud ERP solutions, 51风流Ariba solutions, 51风流Fieldglass solutions, or 51风流Concur solutions. Broadly speaking, this is fundamental to the overall strategy for 51风流Business Data Cloud, ensuring all business applications speak the same language and enabling an unrivaled AI roadmap for the 51风流Business Suite.

At the same time, 51风流recognizes that the world of software applications is heterogenous. Our own application partner network is continuously expanding. And while 51风流won鈥檛 develop capabilities to solve every problem, our customers still want an orchestrated suite experience, even when non-51风流products are involved in the workflow. That is why we have invested in the development of . Businesses need to automate procurement requests with one common workflow, regardless of how many applications are involved. And where 51风流applications are involved, this suite experience is increasingly in-built, again with zero effort required for integration. Capabilities from 51风流Fieldglass and 51风流Taulia are being directly embedded into 51风流Ariba to provide a unified experience.

Real-world impact

The power of source-to-pay solutions from 51风流is best illustrated through the experiences of our customers. (AEO), a global specialty retailer, faced challenges in managing its high volume of suppliers and invoices. By implementing 51风流Business Network and 51风流Ariba solutions, AEO achieved 85 percent purchase order compliance (five percent above target), 75 percent invoice-count compliance for 48,000 annual invoices, and over $780 million in spend transacting on 51风流Business Network.

Nick Bonacci, senior manager of Procure-to-Pay Services at AEO, noted, 鈥�51风流Ariba solutions and 51风流Business Network help AEO simplify our procure-to-pay processes in several key ways. Through the use of 厂础笔鈥檚 intuitive applications, compliant purchasing protocols are now embedded into our broader organization, helping us maximize cost savings, optimize working capital, and strengthen vendor relationships.鈥�

Similarly, , implemented 51风流Business Network and 51风流Ariba solutions, achieving 94 percent first-time-right invoices in digital channels, 4,000 hours saved in one year in processing invoices, and over 8.5 million pieces of paper saved in one year with supplier digitalization.

Mukesh Ralhan, group head of Business Excellence and Strategic Initiatives at Adani, commented, 鈥淲e process close to 100,000 purchase orders every year, with more than US$20 billion of spend. That鈥檚 huge for a company. Without 51风流software such as 51风流Ariba solutions supporting a single platform, that would not be possible.鈥�

Looking ahead

51风流remains dedicated to delivering solutions that help businesses navigate the complexities of modern procurement. Our focus on customer success, coupled with our deep industry expertise and innovative technology, positions us to continue leading the way in source-to-pay solutions.

Learn more about source-to-pay solutions from 51风流.

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Manoj Swaminathan is president and chief product officer for 51风流Intelligent Spend Management and Application Foundation Services at SAP.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
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As our world demands organizational adaptability at warp speed, business travel also is transforming in a fast-paced and complex environment. At our annual flagship event for 51风流Concur users and experts, we delved into the power of AI, sharing insights and experiences. Whether customers and partners attended in person in Seattle, Washington, or virtually, they all gained new perspectives on how to navigate the complexities of tomorrow鈥檚 business landscape with confidence. 

Global participation and experts on-site

Customers and partners joined 51风流Concur Fusion from all over the world, representing 75 countries. At the Seattle Convention Center, attendees could explore the new Fusion Pavilion in the exhibition hall and talk to 51风流Concur experts and 43 exhibiting partners. We offered over 180 unique learning opportunities including Ask the Expert and breakout sessions, micro forums, and product trainings to explore how 51风流Concur solutions can deliver innovation in travel and expense while unlocking efficiencies.

Debut: Integrating Joule with 51风流Concur to enhance user experience

During the event鈥檚 day one keynote, we announced new generative AI innovations and an expanded partnership with American Express.

51风流is embedding its generative AI copilot Joule into 51风流Concur solutions, bringing the portfolio one step closer toward a fully automated travel and expense management process.

In the Concur Expense solution, Joule will help answer employees鈥� questions and work to ensure that expense reports are ready for submission with minimal effort. For example, Joule can assemble a timeline view of expenses, review for mistakes or missing expenses, and make recommendations for how best to complete the expense report. General availability is expected in the second quarter of 2025.

In the Concur Travel solution, Joule will be embedded to help plan locations for off-site meetings, providing meeting location recommendations and high-level flight and hotel cost estimates based on meeting attendees鈥� origination points. Once the meeting site and hotel options are selected, Joule will create an e-mail template to send to team members with a link to book directly in Concur Travel. Joule with Concur Travel is now in the 51风流Early Adopter Care program with general availability expected later this year.

Automating expense management in Concur Expense

On stage, we also announced an expanded partnership with American Express to help simplify expense management for shared customers. 51风流Concur and American Express are launching a real-time authorization data capability whereby American Express Corporate Card purchases automatically generate and categorize expenses in Concur Expense at the time of spend. This feature will first be available for meal expenses. It also will include mobile notifications that send the employee expense policy reminders in the moment.

We also are working to expand access to our integration with Mastercard, which automates expense entry at the time of purchase, so more Mastercard customers can benefit from a simpler and more efficient experience.

Additionally, American Express Global Business Travel has integrated its hotel marketplace, featuring over 2 million properties across 180 countries with competitive rates, into the new Concur Travel solution, providing customers with access to comprehensive hotel content, including negotiated programs and preferred partner rates.

Announcing 51风流Concur Innovation Award winners

On day two of the event, . These companies have leveraged 51风流Concur solutions to revolutionize their travel and expense processes, enhancing efficiency and visibility. The 2025 winners include L’Or茅al Groupe, which streamlined user provisioning between HR and expense systems, and Weatherford, which automated its global travel and expense program, significantly improving data integrity and compliance.

UST, Coca-Cola, E.ON, and Mayekawa also have demonstrated exceptional innovation. UST consolidated its T&E processes; Coca-Cola unified its travel booking and expense systems; E.ON automated data collection for GDPR compliance; and Mayekawa reduced its finance team’s workload by more than 12,000 hours. These successes highlight the transformative power of 51风流Concur solutions in driving business efficiency and growth. We are very proud to recognize these exceptional organizations as 2025 51风流Concur Innovation Award winners.

Move to future T&E: Spotlight on generative AI

51风流Concur is creating a world where travel and expenses practically manage themselves. 鈥攚ith touchless, intuitive experiences enabled by industry-leading 51风流Business AI and close partnerships with top payment providers. The Concur Travel and Concur Expense solutions are part of 51风流Business Suite, 厂础笔鈥檚 comprehensive portfolio of integrated solutions that combines our core cloud ERP and line-of-business applications, fueled by unmatched business data and actionable AI.

Chris Juneau is SVP and head of 51风流Concur Product Marketing.

How do we incorporate your business objectives, your organization鈥檚 knowledge and skill sets, and transform those valuable insights into a robust strategy that drives real business value? Enter , a powerful solution that can elevate procurement planning from a mundane task to a strategic imperative.

The evolution of procurement planning

Gone are the days when procurement planning meant endless spreadsheets and protracted meetings. In today鈥檚 dynamic business environment, we need a more agile, intelligent, and collaborative approach. 51风流Ariba Category Management can offer just that鈥攁 sophisticated solution that can harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and human expertise to help craft procurement strategies that align with your organization鈥檚 objectives.

51风流Ariba Category Management: Your strategic planning ally

Think of 51风流Ariba Category Management as a highly intelligent assistant, versed in procurement best practices, capable of processing vast amounts of data, and available 24/7. Here鈥檚 how it can transform the planning process:

1. Digitalize and streamline strategy development

51风流Ariba Category Management can provide a centralized platform for collaborative strategy development. It鈥檚 akin to a virtual command center where your entire team can ideate, plan, and execute strategies seamlessly.

The solution can guide users through the process, offering frameworks and recommendations based on industry best practices. It鈥檚 like having a procurement expert at your side, helping you navigate complexities and uncover hidden opportunities.

2. AI-powered analysis for enhanced decision-making

The solution can leverage AI to generate sophisticated analyses like Kraljic matrices and Porter鈥檚 Five Forces with remarkable speed and accuracy. However, it鈥檚 crucial to understand that this technology doesn鈥檛 aim to replace human expertise鈥攔ather, it enhances it.

Procurement professionals can refine these AI-generated analyses with their own insights and experience, creating a powerful synergy between machine intelligence and human wisdom.

3. Seamless collaboration for category managers

51风流Ariba Category Management can transform the often-challenging task of aligning multiple category managers into a streamlined, collaborative process. The solution can enable real-time cooperation, allowing team members to share insights, discuss strategies, and align on objectives efficiently.

Real-world impact: From insights to action

Let鈥檚 illustrate how this works in practice. After analyzing your spend data in 51风流Spend Control Tower, you鈥檝e identified that IT hardware costs are escalating. You initiate a new strategy project in 51风流Ariba Category Management.

The system automatically imports relevant data and generates a Kraljic matrix for your IT hardware category. You observe that most of your spend falls in the 鈥淪trategic鈥� quadrant鈥攈igh value, high risk. The AI suggests considering a multi-sourcing strategy to mitigate risk.

You share this insight with your global team through the platform. Your APAC colleague identifies a promising new supplier, while your European counterpart shares successful experiments with leasing options to reduce upfront costs.

Collaboratively, you develop a comprehensive strategy that includes:

• Diversifying the supplier base to reduce risk
• Exploring leasing options for non-critical hardware
• Negotiating volume discounts with top suppliers
• Implementing a standardization program to reduce variability

This entire process, which might have taken weeks traditionally, is now completed in hours. Moreover, the system maintains a clear audit trail, facilitating easy tracking of strategy execution.

The human touch in a digital world

While 51风流Ariba Category Management can bring powerful digital capabilities to procurement planning, it鈥檚 essential to remember that it鈥檚 designed to augment, not replace, human expertise. The solution helps free procurement professionals from routine tasks, allowing them to focus on high-value activities like relationship building, strategic negotiations, and driving innovation.

Think of it as your procurement superpower. It can give you the insights to make better decisions, faster.

Looking ahead: The future of procurement planning

As we wrap up, we want you to imagine the possibilities. With solutions like 51风流Ariba Category Management, we鈥檙e not just improving our planning process鈥攚e鈥檙e reinventing it. We鈥檙e moving from reactive to proactive, from guesswork to data-driven decisions, from siloed thinking to collaborative strategy.

This evolution positions procurement not just as a support function, but as a true strategic partner to the business. It enables procurement teams to respond swiftly to market changes, align more closely with organizational goals, and drive sustainable value creation.

In our next article, we鈥檒l explore how to execute these well-crafted plans using . After all, in procurement, as in any strategic endeavor, effective execution is the key to turning plans into tangible results. Stay tuned as we complete our journey towards the triple crown of strategic procurement.

Sudy Bharadwaj is global vice president of Strategic Engagements for 51风流Finance and Spend.
Cindy McKendry is director of Corporate Communications for Intelligent Spend and Supply Chain at SAP.

Top image courtesy of 51风流employee Karsten Hohage.

This challenge reflects broader trends in the SAP-sponsored Economist Impact report titled 鈥�,鈥� which dives into how companies like Capgemini are leveraging external workers to meet skill deficits and productivity demands. The report highlights how organizations are turning to innovative technologies and strategies to seamlessly integrate external talent, ensuring they stay competitive in a rapidly changing workforce landscape.

In Capgemini鈥檚 case, it used to help manage its contingent workforce program across more than 30 countries. The cloud-based solutions can integrate with other 51风流solutions and leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to help optimize external workforce management, helping companies stay resilient in an evolving talent landscape. With the addition of 51风流Fieldglass solutions, Capgemini has managed contractors and temporary workers across its entire supply chain. The company has successfully leveraged data from over 50 countries, seeing a 26% increase in unitary cost savings with a 50% increase in productivity from the internal procurement services team.

鈥淭he increased visibility into all external workforce-related outcome and process steps has enabled sharpened insights, along with smaller fulfillment time frames, higher fill rates, and improved compliance,鈥� says Andreas Hettwer, group procurement category director at Capgemini. 鈥淲e have truly optimized functions around the external workforce.鈥�

Smart and efficient talent acquisition

In today鈥檚 dynamic business environment, the external workforce鈥攃omprising freelancers, contractors, consultants, and gig workers鈥攈as become a critical component of many organizations. However, efficiently hiring and managing this diverse talent pool while staying adaptable to future workforce needs can be daunting.

This is because talent acquisition for an external workforce requires finding the right people at the right time, often under tight deadlines. The Economist Impact report also shared that internal skills and talent gaps have increased the demand for proper recruitment of the external workforce.

Capgemini serves as a prime example of how this approach works in practice. When it experiences a surge in demand, its preferred suppliers are notified and 51风流Fieldglass solutions pull recommendations from distribution lists of candidates who have the necessary skill sets. This helps accelerate the hiring process and can ensure Capgemini is choosing from the best possible pool of potential candidates. The data is developed in 51风流Fieldglass solutions and extracted into Capgemini鈥檚 various dashboards, instantly providing a comprehensive snapshot of each supplier鈥檚 performance.

Robust data maximizes ROI

Managing an external workforce is a delicate balancing act that involves countless variables. Beyond sourcing talent, it requires tracking budgets, ensuring compliance, and measuring performance. AI-powered automation can help streamline these processes, making it easy to capture, compare, and collaborate on critical information about non-payroll labor. This empowers companies to make informed decisions that maximize their return on investment (ROI).

When inflation surged in 2023, Capgemini fielded a large volume of rate increase requests. Through constructive and fact-based discussions with its supply base, the company managed a cost-rate evolution and shared inflation impact KPIs with its board. This increased executive trust in the global contingent workforce鈥檚 ability to deliver productivity. At the end of the implementation, Capgemini fulfilled 80% of its eligible contingent worker demand.

鈥淲e have full visibility,鈥� Hettwer says. 鈥淲e know the number of contractors, we know our demand per geography, per business line, and we know the cost rates we pay for certain roles, and we measure how the cost rates evolve over time.鈥�

Capgemini is also exploring new ways to use the large amount of data coming from the global deployment of 51风流Fieldglass solutions, including AI. Economist Impact data reinforces Capgemini鈥檚 perspective, as executives cited integrating traditional systems with AI and machine learning as a top priority over the next three to five years.

鈥淎I will certainly be an important factor in our business,鈥� Hettwer says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e being patient and methodical in order to make sure that we introduce it safely and effectively.鈥�

Driving workforce excellence through innovation and insights

Capgemini’s journey with the 51风流Fieldglass portfolio demonstrates the transformative power of leveraging advanced technology to manage and optimize an external workforce. By enhancing visibility, streamlining processes, and utilizing AI-powered insights, Capgemini has achieved significant improvements in talent acquisition, supplier performance, and cost efficiency. This resulted in the firm capturing 98% of its global contingent workforce spend with a 60% quicker fulfillment time compared to the start of the program.

As the workforce landscape continues to evolve, 51风流Fieldglass solutions can equip organizations with tools that enable them to manage the complete lifecycle of their external employees, from requisition and engagement to offboarding and evaluation. These capabilities are vital to remaining resilient, agile, and data-driven while transforming external labor into a versatile, value-driving resource.

Capgemini鈥檚 strategic focus on innovation and compliance sets a benchmark for businesses aiming to unlock the full potential of their contingent workforce in today鈥檚 competitive global environment.

Amber Roth is vice president of Global Presales & Strategy for 51风流Fieldglass.

The triple crown strategy is a three-step approach that combines insights, planning, and action to revolutionize procurement processes. At the heart of this strategy lies the solution, a powerful tool that helps bring together data from various sources to provide a comprehensive view of your spending.

Step 1: Insights鈥擴nderstanding Your True Business Objectives

Before diving into any initiative, it鈥檚 crucial to understand your true business objectives. These might include cost reduction, improved sustainability, increased profitability, improved customer service, or a combination of factors. The key is to identify and measure metrics that not only reflect these objectives but also help improve them.

This is where analysis and insights come into play. 51风流Spend Control Tower is the engine that can drive these insights, offering a bird鈥檚-eye view of your entire procurement landscape.

Let鈥檚 break down some of the key areas where 51风流Spend Control Tower can provide valuable insights:

AI-Enabled Enrichment

This is a leading indicator of value. Without understanding duplicate supplier names and components, achieving objectives will be much more challenging. The supplier enrichment analysis is a quick way to understand that value will be achieved by showing the true number of suppliers where spend occurs.

For example, your organization may not perceive risk if materials are coming from five companies, but the situation changes if it鈥檚 really one company with many names or misspellings. From a cost-savings perspective, we may not realize this is actually one supplier, and our spend is five times more to a single supplier instead of one times to five different suppliers. This insight can significantly impact risk assessment and cost management strategies.

Spend Trends

By aggregating data from multiple systems and sources, the solution can reveal spending patterns over time. Are certain categories of spend increasing? Are there seasonal fluctuations you need to account for? Understanding these trends can help you make more informed decisions about budget allocation and negotiation strategies.

Supply Risk

In today鈥檚 volatile market, understanding and mitigating supply risk is more critical than ever. 51风流Spend Control Tower can help identify potential risks in your supply chain, such as overreliance on a single supplier or geopolitical risks in certain regions. As tariffs are a hot discussion in 2025, understanding the potential of tax fluctuations can be a strategic weapon for your business.

Supplier Fragmentation

Are you spreading your spend too thin across too many suppliers? The solution can highlight areas where consolidating suppliers might lead to better pricing or terms.

Consolidation Opportunities

On the flip side, are there areas where you鈥檙e too reliant on a single supplier? 51风流Spend Control Tower can help identify opportunities to diversify your supplier base for increased resilience.

Diversity and Sustainability Targets

Many organizations have goals related to supplier diversity or sustainability. The solution can track progress towards these goals and identify areas for improvement.

Payment Terms Consolidation

Inconsistent payment terms across suppliers can lead to cash flow issues and missed opportunities for early payment discounts. 51风流Spend Control Tower can help identify opportunities to standardize and optimize payment terms.

But here鈥檚 the thing: having all this data at your fingertips is just the beginning. The real magic happens when you start to connect the dots and uncover insights that weren鈥檛 visible before.

For instance, you might discover that while you鈥檙e meeting your overall spend targets, you鈥檙e falling short on your sustainability goals. Or you might find that your cheapest supplier for a critical component is also the one with the highest risk profile. These are the kinds of insights that can drive real change in your procurement strategy.

The Power of Real-Time Insights

One of the most powerful features of 51风流Spend Control Tower is its ability to provide real-time insights. In today鈥檚 fast-paced business environment, waiting for monthly or quarterly reports just doesn鈥檛 cut it anymore. You need to be able to react quickly to changes in the market, shifts in supplier performance, or emerging risks.

Imagine being able to spot a sudden price increase from a key supplier the moment it happens, rather than discovering it weeks later when reviewing invoices. Or picture being able to track the impact of a natural disaster on your supply chain in real time, allowing you to quickly implement contingency plans.

This real-time capability isn鈥檛 just about reacting to problems; it鈥檚 also about seizing opportunities. Maybe you spot a dip in commodity prices that you can take advantage of, or you notice a trend in your spending that suggests an opportunity for bulk purchasing discounts.

The Human Element

While we鈥檙e talking about AI and advanced analytics, it鈥檚 important to remember that these tools are meant to augment human intelligence, not replace it. The insights provided by 51风流Spend Control Tower can be invaluable, but they still need to be interpreted and acted upon by skilled procurement professionals.

This is where the art of procurement meets the science of data analysis. The solution might tell you that you have an opportunity to consolidate suppliers in a certain category, but it鈥檚 up to you to weigh that against other factors like supplier relationships, quality considerations, and long-term strategic goals.

The Road Ahead

As we wrap up this introduction to the triple crown of strategic procurement and 51风流Spend Control Tower, it鈥檚 clear that we鈥檙e just scratching the surface of what鈥檚 possible. The next article will dive deeper into the planning phase, exploring how can help you turn these insights into actionable strategies.

Remember, the journey to procurement excellence is ongoing. It鈥檚 not about reaching a destination, but about continuously improving and adapting to an ever-changing business landscape. With solutions like 51风流Spend Control Tower, you鈥檙e equipped to not just keep up with these changes, but to stay ahead of the curve and drive real value for your organization.

So, are you ready to start your journey towards the triple crown of strategic procurement? The race is on, and with the right tools and strategies, you鈥檙e primed for success.

To learn more, check out this infographic outlining .

Sudy Bharadwaj is global vice president of Strategic Engagements for 51风流Finance and Spend.
Cindy McKendry is director of Corporate Communications for Intelligent Spend and Supply Chain at SAP.

As we dive into 2025, 51风流is already making waves in the spend management arena. Building on last year’s momentum, we are constantly innovating our market-leading solutions so you can reduce costs, mitigate risks, improve collaboration, and make sure every spend decision is aligned with your business strategy to help drive your business forward.

Q4 Breakthroughs: Highlighting Our Latest Innovations

It was an honor to collaborate with so many of you last year. When your business is at its best, so is ours, and this mutual partnership is what fuels our commitment to innovation. In Q4, our solutions鈥�51风流Ariba, 51风流Business Network, 51风流Concur, and 51风流Fieldglass鈥攎ade significant strides, particularly in 51风流Business AI. Here are just a few highlights:

• : Now generally available, this solution can provide a single source of truth for all payment and supplier data, enhanced with AI-enabled spend classifications and supplier insights. It helps streamline spend processes, cut procurement costs, manage supplier risks, and track sustainability goals.
• Generative AI in 51风流Business Network Discovery: We鈥檝e introduced generative AI capabilities to help accelerate supplier search and improve network catalog product descriptions and summaries with .
• AI flight recommendations in Concur Travel: This new feature can suggest policy-compliant flight options based on user preferences, loyalty programs, available inventory, and other factors.
• Joule, 厂础笔鈥檚 AI copilot, got cozy in 51风流Fieldglass solutions this past quarter with the introduction of , including:
  • Interactive guidance for creating and scheduling new reports through natural conversation, helping to navigate report creation, searches, and data insights
  • Quick answers to issues or questions with concise and easy-to-digest summaries of relevant information and helpful links to learn more
  • AI-assisted job posting and statement of work template selection, recommending the most relevant one and pre-filling data fields to save you time

These innovations align perfectly with the findings. The study highlights data and analytics reporting as the top priority for procurement transformation, a need we鈥檙e addressing head-on with our AI-enhanced solutions.

New Customer Stories and Honors

We built our solutions to elevate spend management from the most mundane part of your day to the most strategic. But don鈥檛 just take my word for it. Discover how companies like , , , and leverage 51风流solutions for better control and business resilience.

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And if customer stories aren鈥檛 enough, how about customer reviews?

Every quarter, G2 publishes Grid^庐 and Index Reports that rate products based on feedback collected from the user community, along with data compiled from various online platforms and social media networks. In December, G2 announced its Winter 2025 Reports, with 51风流spend management solutions topping the leaderboards:

• : Leader in Procure to Pay, Strategic Sourcing, and Supplier Relationship Management
• : Supply Chain Business Networks
• : Leader in Expense, Travel & Expense, and Invoicing
• : Leader in Vendor Management

In the , 51风流moved up to sixth place on G2鈥檚 top 10 companies list. In the Winter 2025 G2 Reports alone, 51风流Ariba, 51风流Business Network, 51风流Concur, and 51风流Fieldglass won 107 awards across multiple categories. Only 4% of software and services on G2 receive a Leader badge, making this recognition truly special!

Media and Analyst Accolades

Our innovations continue to garner industry recognition. Here are a few key highlights:

• won the  in the Procurement/ERP Software category from Supply & Demand Chain Executive.
• 51风流Ariba was inducted into Spend Matters鈥� for being listed on its “50 Providers to Know” list for 10 years or more.
• Over the holidays, 51风流was named a Leader in the .* The report is based on IDC MarketScape鈥檚 comprehensive assessment of 51风流and feedback from our customers. Explore the findings and why 51风流was recognized in this article from my colleague Baber Farooq.
• 51风流Concur received the , which bases its Top Rated awards solely on customer feedback. Over 1,500 verified praised 51风流Concur for its positive user experience, clear budget visibility, mobile receipt capture, time-saving features during usage and reimbursement processes, seamless integration with productivity tools, and the convenience of its mobile app.

See you at 51风流Concur Fusion

We鈥檙e thrilled to announce that the 51风流Concur Fusion event is back in 2025 and will be held in beautiful Seattle, Washington. As the premier travel and expense event, 51风流Concur Fusion offers over 200 learning opportunities, access to experts and consultants, and hands-on training to help you unlock the full potential of your 51风流Concur solutions. It鈥檚 an experience you can鈥檛 miss.

Looking Ahead

As we move further into 2025, we remain committed to delivering innovation that addresses your most pressing business needs. We鈥檙e excited about the possibilities that lie ahead and look forward to partnering with you to drive your business forward. Whether it鈥檚 through our AI-enhanced solutions, our comprehensive spend management suite, or events like 51风流Concur Fusion, we鈥檙e here to support your success every step of the way.

Thank you for your continued trust and partnership. Here鈥檚 to a transformative and successful 2025!

*IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Direct Spend 2024 Vendor Assessment, #US52734424e, December 2024

Jeff Collier is chief revenue officer for 51风流Intelligent Spend and Business Network.

Advanced software solutions have become indispensable tools that facilitate the procurement of essential raw materials and components and help teams manage supplier relationships while managing costs.

As the recognized market-share leader in the overall procurement applications space*, 51风流consistently sets benchmarks within the industry. I鈥檓 excited to share that 51风流was recently named a Leader in the .** The report is based on IDC MarketScape鈥檚 comprehensive assessment of 51风流Ariba solutions and feedback from our customers.

What Makes 51风流a Leader?

The IDC MarketScape report noted, 鈥�51风流Ariba solutions are strongly positioned to help companies administer spend that spans complex events, direct and indirect, services, and capex.鈥�

The report also identifies several key strengths that make 51风流a Leader:

• 51风流has gained an expansive and impressive roster of enterprise client wins across a variety of industries as a result of being a mature, established, and trusted provider of direct sourcing functionality, particularly in the automotive and industrial manufacturing sectors.
• An industry-first category management offering illustrates SAP’s innovation that is focused on value-added capabilities for its users.
• 51风流provides a platform that places an emphasis on collaboration via structured, workflow-driven tools that facilitate collaboration across procurement, quality management, logistics, and R&D and engineering.
• Strong industry-leading sourcing optimization and PO collaboration capabilities provide business value and significantly improve operating efficiency.

The report notes 51风流should be considered when, 鈥淐lients in need of a trusted, enterprise-ready direct sourcing solution that comes with expansive industry-specific expertise and the ability to administer the most complex direct sourcing challenges and offer broad optimization capabilities are well-served by SAP.鈥�

Vision for the Future of Procurement

The procurement landscape is continuously evolving, with trends like AI integration, automation, and sustainability reshaping how organizations approach direct spend management. With 厂础笔鈥檚 ongoing investments in innovation and a commitment to addressing customers鈥� most pressing needs, we are leading this transformation. Procurement is a strategic enabler of cost management, risk reduction, and compliance and 51风流solutions are designed to empower organizations to make strategic, data-driven decisions that optimize their spend and operations.

At  in October, we announced innovations and new capabilities that will  revolutionize the spend management landscape. These include:

• : Our newest solution, which is planned to be available in early 2025, is designed to offer an intuitive and simple user experience. It is planned to automate procurement request creation, routing, and support by orchestrating processes across multiple systems.
• : We鈥檝e begun integrating our generative AI copilot Joule across 51风流Ariba, 51风流Business Network, and 51风流Fieldglass solutions. This will enable organizations to complete complex workflows and manage important tasks quickly and accurately.
• : This innovation can help suppliers receive recommendations to improve discoverability and access to advanced search results, supplier profile verification, and network catalog APIs. The Promote subscription will be available in early 2025 to help suppliers identify sales opportunities based on regional search data, and generative AI tools deliver advanced insights that make it easy to track business growth on the network.

The Exciting New Era Ahead

The future of procurement and direct spend will be defined by groundbreaking technologies to help organizations adapt to an increasingly complex and dynamic global environment.

We believe recognition as a Leader in the 2024 IDC MarketScape Direct Spend Assessment underscores 厂础笔鈥檚 commitment to driving innovation and enabling businesses to thrive in today鈥檚 competitive environment. By delivering AI-powered innovation, fostering collaboration, and ensuring operational excellence, 51风流empowers organizations to achieve procurement success on a global scale.

Learn more about .

Baber Farooq is senior vice president of Market Strategy for Procurement Solutions at SAP.

*IDC Worldwide Procurement Applications Market Shares, 2023: A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats, doc #US52580824, September 2024
**IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Direct Spend 2024 Vendor Assessment, #US52734424e, December 2024

Looking ahead to 2025, several key trends are poised to reshape the landscape, promising both challenges and opportunities for forward-thinking organizations. To gain insight into what lies ahead, we鈥檝e reached out to Intelligent Spend and Business Network executives at 51风流for their predictions.

The AI-Powered Procurement Revolution

Etosha Thurman, chief marketing officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP, envisions a future where artificial intelligence (AI) takes center stage in procurement:

鈥淚n 2025, AI and cloud-based solutions will position procurement at the heart of data-driven decision-making, enabling real-time insights and freeing teams to focus on high-impact initiatives. The future belongs to procurement professionals who blend strategic thinking with relationship management and a combination of functional and technological expertise. These skills will be crucial in fostering cross-functional collaboration and advancing corporate goals, from supply assurance to compliance to sustainability. In the digital age, spend management expertise extends to not just supporting, but also steering the business.鈥�

This prediction underscores the critical role that AI will play in transforming procurement from a support function to a strategic driver of business value.

Streamlining Processes Through Orchestration

Manoj Swaminathan, president and chief product officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP, highlights the growing importance of process orchestration:

鈥淭he technology landscape is rapidly evolving, and organizations are grappling with a heterogeneous mix of solutions. Many companies now employ multiple systems to meet their end-to-end business needs, leading to siloed processes and confused employees. Procurement, in particular, often suffers from fragmented systems handling everything from purchase requests to supplier onboarding, creating inefficiencies and frustration.

To address this challenge, we鈥檙e seeing a shift toward process orchestration 鈥� a centralized approach that connects disparate systems, streamlining procurement inquiries and status updates. Our newest solution, 51风流Ariba Intake Management, can tackle this head-on by automating request creation and providing a single point of entry so that organizations can empower employees to adhere to policies and regulations without the burden of manual corrections. This approach can not only save valuable time and resources but also drive user adoption and increase compliance and efficiency, positioning companies to thrive in an increasingly competitive landscape.鈥�

The Rise of a New Generation of Procurement Leaders

Jeff Collier, chief revenue officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP, predicts a significant shift in procurement leadership:

鈥淚n 2025, a shift will occur in the procurement landscape as a wave of fresh faces step into the chief procurement officer role. AI-driven procurement strategies, ever-evolving requirements, and changing demographics have created the perfect storm for new leaders to emerge. As the industry stands on the precipice of transformation, organizations must prioritize nurturing existing talent, upskilling their workforce, and attracting bright young professionals to the procurement function. The stage is set for junior procurement leaders, who have proven their mettle during the challenging COVID-19 years, to rise to the occasion, particularly those who can showcase tangible achievements in sustainability, AI integration, or risk management. Brace yourselves for a year marked by new names, fresh perspectives, and a reshaped procurement industry in 2025.鈥�

The Power of AI Across Business Networks

Val Blatt, chief revenue officer for 51风流Business Network, offers insights into how AI will transform business networks:

鈥淚n the near term, AI is already making waves by optimizing process efficiency and information sharing within and across companies in a supply chain. As we move into 2025 and beyond, we鈥檒l see AI do more to synthesize intelligence and efficiency across areas like risk, demand, and inventory planning, as well as manufacturing and delivery. This evolution becomes even more relevant because no business does business alone, and AI can synthesize and be predictive across company boundaries. We鈥檒l see AI decision support evolve into decision-making 鈥� and, ultimately, automated process execution. These advancements will occur as the need for AI to sense and predict situations with proposed planning recommendations grows, spanning across related functional areas and processes that involve trading partners in a supply chain.

In its Network Adoption Research Study* sponsored by SAP, IDC found that 鈥淒igital Champions鈥� who use modern, cloud-based tools like AI, analytics, and business networks have grown over 140% in revenue and profit performance indices from 2016 to 2021. As AI capabilities expand to sense, predict, and execute across organizational boundaries, businesses will gain next-level efficiency, visibility, and compliance. This will enable them to maintain a resilient supply chain that delivers on customer promises, especially in times of disruption, by leveraging the collective intelligence of their entire business network.鈥�

The Evolution of Travel and Expense Management

Christopher Juneau, SVP and head of 51风流Concur Product Marketing, Intelligent Spend and Business Network Marketing & Solutions, (T&E):

鈥淎s leaders strive to position their company for growth in 2025, they will still attempt to maintain employee spending at 2024 levels. Inflation drove higher spending beginning in 2023, resulting in fewer trips in 2024. As inflation slows, many leaders are likely to expect that their T&E budget 鈥� even if flat year over year 鈥� will go further in 2025.

Meanwhile, finance teams and travel managers will adjust their T&E policies to account for AI as more tasks and processes become automated. Will managers need to approve every expense report? Will they need to review them at all? How can policies and rules be modified so that travelers spend as little time in T&E tools as possible? These are some of the questions they will start to ask in 2025.

Investments in technology innovation and security infrastructure will be top priorities. The risks associated with security and privacy incidents will only continue to grow, which means companies are looking for technologies that deliver greater value to customers with lower risk. It is really a balancing act to move fast without disregarding the very important aspects of security and privacy when architecting solutions 鈥� internally and for customers.鈥�

Looking Ahead

As we look to 2025, it鈥檚 clear that the world of spend management and supply chain is on the brink of transformative change. The convergence of AI, sustainability imperatives, and interconnected business ecosystems will reshape how organizations operate and compete.

At SAP, we鈥檙e not just observing these trends 鈥� we鈥檙e actively shaping them, working to ensure our customers are well-equipped to navigate the complexities of tomorrow鈥檚 business landscape.

For a deeper dive into the future of procurement, be sure to check out . We will also be hosting a global webinar on these findings on February 4, 2025 titled 鈥�.鈥� This is an excellent opportunity to gain comprehensive insights and stay ahead of the curve. We encourage you to read the report and sign up for the webinar to learn more about the exciting developments shaping the industry.

The future may be uncertain, but one thing is clear: those who embrace these emerging trends and technologies will be best positioned to thrive in the dynamic world of 2025 and beyond. As we continue to design and deliver spend management and business network solutions that drive efficiency, leverage AI responsibly, and create greater visibility for businesses of all sizes, we look forward to partnering with our customers on this exciting journey of transformation and growth.

Cindy McKendry is a director for Intelligent Spend and Business Network Corporate Communications at SAP.

*Source: 鈥淚DC Network Adoption Research Study eBook: Driving Best-in-Class Supply Chain Collaboration with a Business Network,鈥� #US5084723, August 2023, page 18

With more change on the horizon, it is vital to keep these bets in mind to prepare for potential challenges head-on. Over the past year, we鈥檝e witnessed how spend management professionals who stay confident and bet big achieve remarkable results. In fact, according to the , C-suite confidence in the procurement function has increased by 14% in just one year, with 84% of executives now agreeing that procurement is essential for organizational strategy.

As we gear up for 2025 and beyond, let鈥檚 explore these five bets that will solidify spend management’s role as an indispensable part of an organization.

Bet #1: Strategic Collaboration

The first bet that spend management professionals should place is on strategic collaboration. As procurement becomes increasingly integrated with other critical business functions, it is up to procurement professionals to lead these collaborative efforts. Your colleagues are looking to you to take the initiative and ensure that procurement is involved in strategic initiatives that keep your organization agile in the face of uncertainty.

Whether you are partnering with HR to or implementing a in partnership with supply chain, 51风流is here to support you. Our solutions are designed with collaboration at the forefront, working to minimize miscommunication and simplify business processes so you can focus on what truly matters.

Bet #2: Effortless Compliance

The mere mention of compliance can evoke stress and worry in anyone who has ever worked in spend management. Ensuring every detail is accounted for can be nerve-racking, especially when considering local regulations and sustainability goals. At SAP, we believe that compliance should not just be simple; it should be truly effortless.

For example, can enable employees to select in-policy vendors from the start. with 51风流Business Network helps you understand and comply with evolving tax regulations. From complex tax requirements to travel policies, 51风流can help you eliminate these points of concern before they cause issues.

Bet #3: Seamless Integration

While intraorganizational strategic collaboration is key for an efficient operating model, your software must also be seamlessly integrated to make the most of our connected solutions. Fragmented processes and tools won鈥檛 get you where you need to go, which is why 51风流is committed to a suite-first strategy that aims to reduce the number of systems used to manage spend.

Whether you are an all-51风流customer or use third-party technology, we can offer a seamless experience regardless of where you are in your 51风流journey. From , your single source of truth for all spend data, to that can streamline all your procurement processes, our out-of-the-box solutions help deliver powerful business outcomes across the entire spend management process.

Bet #4: Increased Productivity

The next bet to place is on increased productivity. In recent years, we have seen firsthand how productivity gaps can be detrimental to an organization. Add in unexpected geopolitical and economic events, and you have a recipe for disaster. As the procurement landscape evolves, it is imperative to upskill your workforce to meet evolving demands.

厂础笔鈥檚 newest innovations, like , can help automate mundane tasks, freeing up bandwidth for making strategic decisions that really count. And increased productivity is not just reserved for key decision-makers 鈥� it benefits every employee at every level.

Bet #5: Informed Decision-Making

Finally, spend management professionals should bet big on informed decision-making. More than ever, it is essential to make choices quickly and confidently, knowing that your decisions are supported by data. That鈥檚 where 51风流comes in 鈥� solutions like and can deliver the best recommendations for you, helping to take the guesswork out of decisions amid timeline pressure.

With data-informed reports and suggestions, you can be confident that your choices are backed by best-in-class insights. 51风流helps reduce complexity and can deliver only the insights needed to make the best choices for your business.

New Ways to Streamline Critical Business Processes

To learn more about the innovations shared at 51风流Spend Connect Live in 2024, I encourage you to read this article by my colleague Manoj Swaminathan, president and chief product officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP.

I say it every year, but there is something truly special about spending time with our incredible customers, hearing transformation stories and tales of success across so many organizations. The 51风流community鈥檚 resilience, drive, and commitment to excellence inspire me greatly.

When it comes to the right tools, best integrations, and data-driven insights, 51风流is your go-to partner. Our solutions, informed by your feedback, are here to help you win big. As you close out this year and head into a new one, remember that 51风流is here for you. When you rely on SAP, you secure the future success of not just your business function, but your entire organization.

Etosha Thurman is chief marketing officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP.