SAP is proud to announce Sierra Digital as the newest addition to SAP AppHaus Network, making it the third partner in North America and the second in the U.S.

As of January 15, Sierra Digital is officially a member of the network. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, the leading technology consulting and services firm is excited to join the global community of design-centric co-innovation spaces.

About Sierra Digital

Founded in 2002, Sierra Digital specializes in digital transformation, automation, and integration services, focusing on modernizing legacy SAP systems. Sierra Digital stands out for its innovative approach, particularly in the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) space. The company is an active member of the SAP BTP advisory council and offers more than 30 pre-built SAP BTP applications. The partner was also one of the first to implement SAP Business AI use cases, driving continuous growth and innovation for its clients.

Sierra Digital’s pre-built apps automate functions like business partner onboarding and revenue processing and enhance processes like budgeting or maintenance with artificial intelligence. Sierra Digital serves industries like oil and gas, chemicals, manufacturing, retail, and the public sector.

The partner’s mission is to help businesses transition into modern digital enterprises by leveraging advanced SAP technologies built on SAP BTP to improve operational efficiency and maintain a competitive edge.

“Sierra Digital is thrilled to be a part of SAP AppHaus Network and bring our design and innovation capabilities to the table,” said Sriman Narayanan Sundararaman, vice president for Sales at Sierra Digital. “We are excited to leverage SAP’s expertise to co-create impactful solutions for our clients and drive digital transformation in our region.”

About SAP AppHaus

In 2013, the first SAP AppHaus location was established, and today there are 25 around the world. Three of the locations are owned by SAP and 22 are managed by strategic partners, such as Sierra Digital. To date, SAP AppHaus Network has executed thousands of projects, hosted more than 4,700 workshops, and won more than 100 awards.

SAP AppHaus Network is a community of creative teams run by SAP or like-minded SAP partners. They leverage SAP products and technology to help humanize business software and help ensure innovation fulfills the needs of the end users, offering unique experiences through a human-centric approach. The network aims to transform the way businesses and organizations innovate and design solutions for the digital economy. By working with companies like Sierra Digital, SAP is able to expand its reach and provide innovative design and co-innovation services to a broader range of industries and regions.
 
“Congratulations to Sierra Digital for becoming part of SAP AppHaus Network and expanding our reach in North America. You’ve showcased expertise in SAP technology, an innovative way of working, and strong commitment to user-centered design, which will greatly assist customers in their transformation journeys,” said Lionel Susini, vice president of SAP BTP North America COE.

Welcome Sierra Digital

Sierra Digital’s inclusion in SAP AppHaus Network is a testament to its commitment to providing cutting-edge solutions and customer-centric design processes. As a partner, Sierra Digital will have access to SAP’s design thinking methodologies, tools, and resources, enabling the company to collaborate with clients and co-innovate on projects that can drive meaningful and sustainable change.

 “Sierra Digital has been recognized as a perfect addition to the SAP AppHaus Network. With a committed SAP AppHaus team equipped to apply our award-winning human-centered innovation approach, they are able to inspire and support customers throughout their journey to realize innovation. We eagerly anticipate co-innovating with the local team!” said Carlos Estala Velasco, co-lead for SAP AppHaus Partner Network.

The addition of Sierra Digital to SAP AppHaus Network further solidifies SAP’s commitment to fostering a culture of innovation and design thinking around the world. By partnering with leading technology consulting firms like Sierra Digital, SAP is positioned to continue driving digital transformation and co-innovation initiatives in North America and beyond.  For more information about the new SAP AppHaus location, visit apphaus.sap.com/network/houston or www.sierradigitalinc.com.

Priscilla Darfour is a working student at SAP AppHaus Network.

It’s wrap on NRF, and it is no surprise that customer engagement and artificial intelligence (AI) were top of mind for most retailers. This furthers SAP’s commitment to delivering compelling innovation that empowers our customers to deliver the best customer experience.

We are leaving the biggest retail event of the year with so much excitement for what’s to come for the SAP Customer Experience portfolio this year. Here’s a look into SAP CX innovations for 2025.

Data-Driven Loyalty Management Solution

We announced a new loyalty management solution that helps brands earn the loyalty of their customers using experiential journeys and personalized, real-time offers.

Creating loyalty is key to profitable growth; however, lasting loyalty has been illusive to many brands. According to the SAP Emarsys Customer Loyalty Index, there are diverse motivations among consumers that drive brand loyalty. Forty-percent credit their loyalty to long-standing reputations, 30 percent say brand consistency is what brings them back, and 22 percent say it’s because of a brands iconic status. Yet, despite this loyalty, only 17 percent of consumers feel “truly valued,” leaving the majority wanting more.

Helping consumers feel truly valued is no small feat. Traditional reward redemption methods focus only on customers who actively join loyalty programs, and that is no longer enough. Brands are innovating loyalty programs to create a sense of nostalgia, community, and devotion that delivers a memorable experience through personalized offers across the entire life cycle and on every channel.

The new loyalty solution from SAP aims to equip organizations with experiential journeys and personalized, real-time offers to help earn customer loyalty through integration with the SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, SAP Emarsys and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, retail, fashion, and vertical business solutions. Key features that enable this are:

• Loyalty profiles that connect every shopper with a cloud-based loyalty wallet, facilitating targeted and personalized offers, entitlements, and real-time basket analysis
• Multi-brand loyalty management, as well as shared loyalty programs with partners that centralize loyalty programs across regions and markets, enabling combined brand programs for gaining market share
• A single place for omnichannel promotion planning with real-time redemption to deliver any type of offer, digital payment, and gifting to all customers on any channel
• Loyalty journey planning that delivers experiential omnichannel journeys tailored to customer needs through personalized commerce, marketing, service, and retail interactions
• Quantifiable metrics that track promotion performance and loyalty-related liabilities, linking to financial systems to measure ROI, and enable settlements with the member and partner brands

We are currently recruiting customers for a lighthouse program, and interested customers can learn more by contacting Yaron Gur-Ari. The solution is expected to be available in the second half of 2025.

Artificial Intelligence Makes Shopping Frictionless

We are also launching an AI shopping assistant to make e-commerce search and discovery a lot easier for customers.

Search abandonment is a real challenge. According to a 2023 Google research report, retailers face more than a $2 trillion loss when shoppers cannot find what they are looking for on a retailer’s website. And to add insult to injury, search challenges also serve a huge blow to customer loyalty, with 78 percent of consumers viewing brands differently and 82 percent of consumers saying that they would avoid websites where they’ve experienced search difficulties.

With the AI shopping assistant, users can now deliver that white-glove experience to their customers online. For industrial buyers, it acts as a technical specialist — helping source specific replacement parts, comparing complex specifications, and suggesting compatible components. For retail customers, it serves as a personal shopper — understanding style preferences, recommending complementary accessories, and answering detailed product questions.

The assistant seamlessly integrates with SAP Commerce Cloud through a flexible API, allowing users to easily plug it into new or existing storefront while maintaining the brand experience. With built-in security and support for multiple languages, it is designed to deliver sophisticated product discovery at scale.

The AI shopping assistant, as part of the SAP CX AI Toolkit, is available for early access now and will be generally available in March of 2025 for SAP Commerce Cloud customers.

Effortless Payment Service Integration

We previously announced a new composable payment solution, SAP Commerce Cloud, open payment framework, that helps retailers continue to scale and remain agile as new payment options gain popularity.

Open payment framework is a no-code, low-code framework that gives retailers a low-cost, adaptive, and agile payments system that can best fit their business and customer needs without the need to build out integrations on their own. Extensible and headless, the framework ensures that the front and back ends are decoupled and operate independently, catering to a wide range of requirements across channels and allowing customers to have the freedom to pick their preferred payment methods. It covers common payment needs and end-to-end payment processes across authorization, capture, refunds, and re-authorization as well as automatic updates with security and compliance standards. Open payment framework is natively integrated with SAP Commerce Cloud.

Open payment framework is planned for general availability on January 22, 2025. Customers can sign up for SAP Early Adopter Care program here.

Intelligent Search Service Makes Product Discovery Easier

The intelligent search service is a modern, multi-tenant SaaS solution designed to deliver seamless, AI-powered search experiences for both shoppers and business users. Key benefits that empower end-to-end commerce journeys are:

• Effortless product discovery for shoppers on the storefront with natural, intuitive search capabilities, enhanced by AI-driven verbatims, flexible indexing, and intelligent scoring. Features like smart word suggestions and personalized recommendations help showcase the most relevant products, improving navigation and driving higher satisfaction.
• Search operation management with ease for business users through back-office processes that enable data-driven merchandising strategies, powered by integration with intelligent selling services. This ensures measurable impact and optimization of search experiences.

By combining modern technology with AI, the intelligent search service maximizes conversion rates and product views, delivering a natural and intuitive shopping experience. It helps retailers not only enhance customer satisfaction but also build long-term loyalty and lifetime value.

The service is planned for general availability on January 22, 2025. Customers can sign up for SAP Early Adopter Care program here.

At SAP, we are committed to empowering businesses to deliver exceptional customer experience while driving profitable growth. By leveraging connected, insightful, and adaptive technology solutions, we help our customers put their customers at the center of their operations to build loyalty, foster innovation, and unlock new opportunities for success.

To learn more about SAP CX, visit sap.com/cx.

Balaji Balasubramanian is senior vice president and global head of Commerce and Industry Cloud at SAP.

A topic that has come up many times at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos over recent years is the increasing fragmentation of our world — within societies and between nations. But, amid this division and disagreement, there is one hope that many still share: the belief that artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to significant progress across the globe.

From my work at a company that pioneers AI in business processes, I hold this hope too: AI has the potential to stimulate growth and make companies more productive. It can make economies more resilient by helping businesses navigate disruptions, whether through global trade crises, natural disasters, or regional conflicts.

AI can also play a critical role in our ability to achieve our sustainability goals, tackle climate change, and mitigate its impact. While many recognize AI’s positive potential, the growing fragmentation of our world greatly reduces our ability to take full advantage of the opportunities AI presents.

AI can only be as good as the data it can access and work with. The more restrictions, limitations, and political borders we impose on it, the less positive impact AI can have in our countries and companies. AI can’t thrive in a fragmented world. This is what I call the AI progress challenge.

Tackling the AI Progress Challenge, Step by Step

Finding solutions to something as vast and as complex as global fragmentation requires us to divide the problem into smaller, individual challenges that are easier to overcome. How can we make AI a stronger tool for progress? How can we navigate the AI progress challenge step by step?

1. Begin at company-level

It starts on our doorsteps — at the level of the individual company. Cloud migration is an integral first step. The cloud makes data accessible for AI, systematically and comprehensively, and cloud solutions can easily — even automatically — be kept up to date with the latest AI innovations. What is more, integrated cloud software offers a standardized environment for data and processes. It makes it easier for companies to keep their data structured, clean, and coherent across the company — and consequently easier for AI applications to use.

2. Create an industrial ecosystem

The second step toward maximizing the potential of AI is to bring individual companies together in an industrial ecosystem. To become more productive, resilient, and sustainable, companies need to exchange information with suppliers — sometimes thousands of them — as well as with their clients and innovation partners. In the age of business AI, the need to build intelligent business networks is more important than ever. The more broadly and widely data can be shared between companies, the better and more impactful AI outcomes can be. The whole ecosystem profits in terms of added competitiveness and innovation power.

3. Build international frameworks

The third step is to build international frameworks that allow AI innovation to thrive in a responsible way. Governments and regulators can reduce unnecessary barriers to the exchange of data within countries and between countries. In cooperation with industry, public actors can also work towards aligning and harmonizing technological regulations wherever possible, especially between the key economic powers of North America, China, and Europe.

At the same time, we must build trust. Lack of trust is perhaps the greatest driver of global fragmentation — and the biggest obstacle to collaboration. By joining forces, international companies can agree on common rules for data usage, data privacy, and responsible, ethical AI. Such “confederations of trust” encourage more frequent data sharing.

Putting the AI Puzzle Together

The cloud, business networks, and a more harmonized global environment based on trust; each of these steps reduces fragmentation and increases federation. And, each of these steps can help the organizations involved reap much greater benefits from AI.

It’s like putting together a 10,000-piece puzzle. It’s not easy to start with and it’s not something that can be accomplished in one go, but if we begin by putting a handful of pieces into place, the big picture gradually emerges. As the degree of federation increases, progress accelerates.

It’s on us to put the AI puzzle together and reduce fragmentation, one step at a time. This is how we maximize the potential of AI — not just for some, but for many.

Christian Klein is CEO of SAP SE.

This piece originally appeared on the World Economic Forum website.

The technology space—and the business world—are changing rapidly. The race to explore and capitalize on AI’s potential is accelerating that change even more. However, businesses can only realize AI innovations if they transition from on-premise systems to the cloud to leverage the unparalleled speed and agility they offer.

SAP’s vibrant ecosystem of over 25,000 partners and SAP PartnerEdge open ecosystem members helps ensure customers are supported and thriving across the entire customer journey. These trusted partners share SAP’s vision of helping companies bring our their best and can be the catalyst to true business transformation. Partners apply their deep technical expertise and business experience to build on, sell, service, and run SAP’s leading cloud ERP and AI solutions.

Recognizing this and the need to empower partners to set the right foundation for the cloud, SAP is revamping SAP PartnerEdge—its flagship, global program to engage with partners, no matter their route to market. The program, now 100% cloud-focused, is designed to help recognize and elevate partners that are ready to support customers in the cloud-powered AI economy.

A Closer Look at the Changes Coming in 2025

Prioritizing partners that are in lockstep with SAP’s vision to drive business growth and customer value, we are focusing on the following key pillars for the SAP PartnerEdge program in 2025:

• Aligning with SAP’s cloud vision: We’ve redesigned the program with elements that support and incentivize partners to reflect SAP’s strategic cloud focus. This helps differentiate partners that are fully aligned with SAP’s direction.
• Deepening SAP expertise: Under the new framework, expertise plays an even stronger role in determining partner levels. Competencies and specializations—focused on cloud solutions from SAP—serve as benchmarks of a partner’s maturity and credibility. These also signal to customers that they can trust a partner’s expertise in areas most critical to their business.
• Championing AI adoption: To meet the AI moment, partners are further motivated to innovate on tools that can lower the bar to entry for customers to leverage AI technologies. From no-code simplicity to advanced customization, partners are encouraged to build on SAP’s embedded AI portfolio and create tailored solutions that meet our customers’ unique needs.
• Committing to customer value: Long-term success for our customers is our top priority—and it holds true weight in our partner program as well. By prioritizing solution adoption-led growth, aligning delivery practices to SAP’s cloud methodologies, and delivering measurable outcomes, partners can create lasting value throughout the customer lifecycle, ultimately propelling their partnership too.

An Approach Endorsed by Industry Experts

These changes to the SAP PartnerEdge program signal our deepened commitment to the cloud, AI innovations, and, most importantly, our customers and their success. Industry experts agree, highlighting the drivers behind this transformation and SAP’s proactive approach:

“The convergence of cloud and artificial intelligence is ushering in a new era of business innovation,” said Dave McCarthy, research vice president, Cloud and Edge Services at IDC. “This synergy is driving transformative advancements across industries.”

“SAP understands this shift and is actively taking steps to ensure its partner ecosystem is aligned and paving the path for businesses to leverage breakthrough innovations,” added Steve White, program vice president, Channels and Alliances at IDC.

Supporting Customers to Find Their Best-Fit Partner

Under our new program framework, SAP and partners will be able to experience increased synergy as they move forward focused on the cloud and AI. However, customers will see the greatest benefits. While SAP PartnerEdge is designed for partners, its goal is to ultimately create a robust ecosystem that has the experience, knowledge, and specialization to address the unique needs of all of our customers and create a blueprint for long-term success.

For businesses ready to find their best-fit partner, SAP Partner Finder can provide easy search functionality to quickly find partners that match their industry, line of business, or size. It also showcases each partner’s level, competencies, and unique qualifications, such as the GROW with SAP partner designation. 

For customers to find success in the AI-driven era—and to thrive with the pace of innovation it brings—partnerships are more crucial than ever. By combining partner expertise with the power of SAP’s robust portfolio of cloud solutions, AI technologies, and data capabilities, customers can capitalize on this exciting moment as they transform their business.

SAP encourages businesses to explore our ecosystem of partners today and take the next step towards business transformation, greater competitiveness, and growth.

Karl Fahrbach is chief partner officer at SAP.

WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) will release its results for the fourth quarter of 2024 and 2024 year-end results on Tuesday, January 28.

SAP CEO Christian Klein and CFO Dominik Asam will host a press conference to present fourth quarter financial figures and 2024 year-end results, as well as an outlook on the current financial year.

Media representatives are invited to join in person or participate in the press conference via Webcast at 10:00 a.m. CET/4:00 a.m. ET, accessible at broadcast.sap.com/go/pc.

In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly displacing and disrupting employee skill sets, it’s imperative to help current – and future – employees bridge the gap between the skills that AI demands and the skills they currently have. While corporations focus on reskilling their current workforces, educators around the world are hard at work developing and delivering courses to equip today’s students with the skills required to thrive in a world increasingly defined and driven by AI.

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

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

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

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

In an interview, Professor Pierre-Majorique Léger of HEC Montréal talked about the latest collaboration between HEC Montréal and SAP: Business Builders, the next generation of SAP gamified learning.

Business Builders: Game On with SAP Analytics Cloud

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

Professor Léger says educators are caught up in the generative AI tsunami and need to “rethink a new pedagogical approach for students to develop data analytics and data literacy skills while at the same time recognizing that ChatGPT, for example, makes it super easy for students to circumvent doing the tasks themselves.”

Business Builders is one solution to that problem.

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

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

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

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

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

Real-Life Problems with Realistic Data

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

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

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

A Win-Win for Students, Educators, and Employers

“It is the challenge of our generation of professors faced with generative AI to come up with a novel way to teach students about data analytics,” Professor Léger says. “We have found a way of using gamification to engage students in leveraging what they know about analytics and mathematics to become business builders. Using data to get insights and solving problems on the best technology that exists – SAP Analytics Cloud. And the best thing of all, it’s free for lecturers and their students around the world.”

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

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

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

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