In this episode of Technology Behind the Scenes, we see how offering shoppers a personalized experience can lead to a 15% increase in revenue. We’re talking smart mirrors, AI-based recommendations, easy checkouts, and retail robots – all innovations your customers are coming to expect from their favorite retail stores. https://www.sap.com/industries/retail.html
Croonwolter&dros, a technical installation company based in the Netherlands, has adopted the SAP cloud ERP system, SAP S/4HANA, as part of its digital transformation journey. With a history spanning over 140 years, Croonwolter&dros is a major player in electrical and mechanical engineering, automation, and information solutions for the built environment. Headquartered in Rotterdam, the company […]
The post Croonwolter&dros Adopts SAP Cloud ERP System appeared first on InsideSAP.
Discover how AWS DevOps practices tailored for SAP can revolutionize your automation processes, streamline delivery, and enhance collaboration between development and operations teams.
SAP gives customers AI capabilities embedded into SAP applications, empowering their business processes with AI that’s as intuitive as it is flexible and powerful. See how you can benefit from SAP Business AI: https://sap.to/6057v3cDc
Join Maria Silipo in this expert talk as we dive into the transformative capabilities of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, powered by AI innovations. Discover how tools like Joule are redefining user experience, making business operations smarter, faster, and more intuitive. Don’t miss the live demos by our experts, Sarah Rudi, Product Manager Cloud ERP, and Christian Hoffmann, Chief Product Manager Cloud ERP, who will showcase the AI-assisted UX and its practical applications in real business scenarios.
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🕒 Chapters:
1:14 – Overview of SAP Business AI Portfolio
2:05 – Deep Dive into Joule: AI Copilot for Enterprise
3:02 – Live Demos: AI Features in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
4:37 – Future AI Features and Beta Testing Insights
6:44 – Joule in Action: A Comprehensive Demo
10:25 – Closing Remarks and Future Outlook
💡 Learn more about SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and its AI capabilities here: https://sap.to/6054QxPka
Learn more about Joule: https://sap.to/6055QxPkx
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SAP Design Talks:
Explore insights from Mike Herud, CEO of SCOPE Architects and the visionary architect behind SAP’s new headquarters, as he shares his expertise on creating spaces that embrace the needs of diverse groups.
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Follow our journey as we transform the way we build products for enterprise on: https://sap.to/6057kROUJ
Loop Earplugs, an innovative leader that has revolutionized the way we experience sound protection, has recently adopted SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to support rapid international growth.
“The world is becoming increasingly noisy, and our mission is to support our customers in hearing the world the way they want to,” said Koen Spliet, project manager, Loop Earplugs. “A strong practical value and an aesthetically appealing design have made our earplugs a desirable accessory. Fueled by the popularity of our earplugs in Europe, the U.S., and Asia, we have scaled globally, growing at 1,500% over the last four years.”
To continue the growth momentum, Loop Earplugs needed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution capable of seamlessly supporting its international expansion with robust, embedded localization. This would ensure real-time insights into the state of the business, allowing Loop to focus on innovation that continuously advances its core business functions.
Loop chose SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition offered through the GROW with SAP for scaleups program due to its clear, future-proof, and scalable architecture that can easily integrate with Loop’s existing e-commerce channels and marketplaces. In addition, the ability to support external partners in fulfilling Loop’s supply chain was one of the key advantages that put SAP’s solution forward.
“We are delighted to have Loop Earplugs in the GROW with SAP for scaleups community. We support growth-focused companies in expanding their operations, maximizing valuations, and running lean and agile businesses capable of fast growth,” said Romain Gauthier, VP, GROW with SAP for scaleups. “The program helps scaleups grow the bottom line through optimized operations, working to ensure they are always ready for business expansion.”
“With our rapid growth, time is always essential and we greatly appreciated being engaged digitally by SAP’s Digital Hub team. It was an exceptionally fast, professional, and personalized way to address all the questions and ideas we had, exceeding our already high expectations,” Spliet said. “We had about 30 contacts with SAP on our buying journey, yet only two were needed in person. This was critical in meeting the accelerated business outcomes we required.”
“SAP is evolving our customer engagement, founded on AI and the latest technologies, which are enabling our digitally-skilled talent to deliver fast, immersive, and end-to-end customer experiences. This allows our customers to pursue their digital transformation journeys at the pace their businesses dictate,” explained Sam Masri, global head, SAP Digital, Customer Success.
“For example, based on SAP’s industry best practices and the information our teams had about Loop’s value drivers, our Digital Solution Advisory team in the EMEA digital hub was able to determine ahead of the meeting with the customer that SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition was the best fit. This immediately triggered our Digital Value Advisory and Digital Asset teams to deliver a customer-specific microsite, with the business case, solution demos, and reference videos for Loop to explore at its own pace. This seamless and digital motion helped Loop wrap up the buying journey in under four months from the first contact,” Masri added.
SAP worked with the partner Delaware that engaged with the customer in person at its location. The hybrid engagement model, where SAP engaged digitally and Delaware was available on-site, provided the best mixture of high-velocity digital engagement and human touch to deliver a personalized and efficient solution discovery and adoption journey to the customer. “We are impressed with SAP’s AI capabilities and the efficiencies they enable. We are now exploring how we could leverage these SAP innovations for our own productivity gains as well as for our sustainability efforts,” Spliet said.
Streets, bridges, waterworks: The maintenance of Hamburg’s infrastructure is complex. How does the city manage to balance necessary construction sites and flowing traffic?
Hamburg has more bridges than any other city in Europe. For Germany’s second largest city it’s a complex task to maintain its 2,500 bridges and other structures like pedestrian tunnels, locks, flood barriers, and embankments.
The State Agency for Roads, Bridges and Waterways (LSBG) operates a large portion of the traffic infrastructure in Hamburg and is responsible for the entire lifespan of these public works.
“We’re an important player in flood protection and the prevention of water pollution as well as the maintenance of most roads and bridges in Hamburg,” Erdinc Karabugday, head of Planning and Controlling at LSBG, shares. “Together with our network, we build and protect everything that keeps Hamburg together.”
SAP technology is one building block to perform this duty safely and efficiently.
Mobility plays a key role in the lives of people in Hamburg and other major cities. Bridges bear a particularly heavy load, because they are critical junctions in the city’s transportation network. Tracking the condition of bridges and planning for their maintenance needs and upgrades is vitally important to keep people moving in urban areas.
Karabugday describes the problem in a nutshell: “Our objectives are long term, so basing operational decisions solely on the current situation isn’t enough. We need comprehensive data for the strategic context – not only economic aspects, but social and ecological impacts as well. Our SAP solution supports us with this.”
The manual entry of damage to structures like bridges used to be very expensive and time-consuming, a complex process made even more difficult by the fact that data entry and analysis are performed by both the agency’s own staff and external companies.
To reduce Hamburg’s renovation backlog and create a sustainable long-term solution, LSBG teamed with SAP to develop a standardized data platform. One central aspect involves merging data from a variety of sources on SAP HANA Cloud, making it possible to blend data such as the location and condition of each structure. The results feed into a digital model of streets and bridges and can be used to guide decisions and generate precise forecasts for maintenance and budget planning.
Ulrike Brecht, architect advisor in Customer Advisory Public Sector at SAP Germany, explains: “The project was initially intended to handle bridge maintenance. Employees conduct the necessary maintenance work and inspections on site. They also document the condition of a structure, ensuring that necessary maintenance measures are carried out at the right time.”
All available data on the structures, including road and bridge data as well as geographic and monitoring data, is merged in SAP HANA Cloud. When combined with aging models for the structures, this information can be used for forecasting when specific road segments will require resurfacing, for instance.
These data-driven forecasts put infrastructure budget planning on a new, firmer foundation and make it possible to define the priorities for object renovation to minimize the impact on traffic flows and the lives of urban residents.
Cities around the world face enormous challenges in the coming years when it comes to protecting and maintaining their residents’ quality of life. Dr. Philipp Schulz was a research assistant at the University of Heidelberg and wrote his doctoral thesis on digital urban development. Today, he advises cities and communities on topics like revitalizing inner cities, redesigning public spaces, and civic participation.
One trend Schulz has observed in the cities and towns he works with is the development of urban dashboards that show all the data collected in a city as important parameters such as air quality, weather forecasts, and movements of people.
For Schulz, developing a long-term digital strategy is one of the pillars of modern urban planning.
“From my perspective the term ‘smart city’ is outdated,” he says. “Today I call it ‘platform urbanism,’ an approach in which different players and their information are brought together on one platform.” Platform urbanism describes how apps and websites are changing the way people in cities live, work, and interact with one another. It involves the digitalization of individual areas, which are then brought together incrementally.
The city of Hamburg is on the right track. “Hamburg’s goal is to handle the full maintenance management of its infrastructure through a standardized data platform,” says Brecht.
The city is in the process of expanding the accomplishments of this project to other areas, such as the maintenance of public parks and municipal buildings.
RAUMEDIC has big plans for its global network of production facilities, including a rollout of SAP Digital Manufacturing to all of its plants worldwide by 2028.
“Try out new innovative software and implement them quickly,” RAUMEDIC’s Christian Vogler told SAP’s Winning Insights. “So, if they fail, they should fail fast; and if they succeed, they can benefit from them for a longer time.”
For the German med-tech and pharma solutions provider, technology is a key factor in reducing daily workloads, according to Vogler. This frees time for more important tasks. Learn more: https://news.sap.com/?p=230577
00:00 Time for the Important Things
00:28 Global Plans for Cloud-Based Tech
00:50 Fail Quickly – or Succeed!
Canadian consulting firm Syntax leverages SAP Business AI and natural language processing to transform its timesheet project tracking. The new intelligent solution helped the company shorten the billing cycle significantly.
What has helped Syntax, formally Beyond Technologies, might soon be available for its clients too.
The tracking of revenue-generating activities and efficient billing routines are critical for professional services and consulting business to succeed. In exactly this operational area of its company, Syntax identified opportunities for improvement.
The company decided to explore use cases and existing solutions that leverage the power of SAP Business AI to transform and improve its timesheet task tracking.
Professional service firms that bill clients for their work need highly efficient time-tracking and billing systems. To address these challenges, Syntax, along with two other customers, began its journey with the SAP Business AI Explore Workshop, a human-centered process that helped evaluate operational issues. Following an additional SAP Business AI Design workshop, also offered by SAP AppHaus, Syntax entered the “Run and Scale” phase to implement an effective solution to meet its specific needs.
For Syntax, the timesheet process is a necessary part of operations, serving as the backbone of task tracking and billing. The Timesheet app in SAP S/4HANA Cloud is widely utilized in the professional services industry. Considering the time constraints that most consultants have when entering their time reports, Syntax wanted to look for opportunities to enhance its usability and efficiency. Syntax recognized that complexities within the app could lead to delays in time entry. These delays often resulted in incomplete or inaccurate records that impacted billing and ultimately revenue generation.
Syntax looked to the SAP AppHaus team to optimize timesheet data entry and elevate the user experience for both employees and management through the use of SAP Business AI.
In a joint project with the SAP AppHaus team, Syntax and two other customers evaluated existing SAP solutions for the use case. To tackle billing inefficiencies, SAP developed an innovative application powered by generative AI and built with SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) and SAP S/4HANA Cloud (see diagram), based on feedback from users such as Syntax.
“With this Timesheet app task tracker, consultants can effortlessly record billable hours in real time using natural language, right after completing a task,” Ingo Feucht, senior director of Product Management for SAP S/4HANA at SAP, said about the success of this project. “Ultimately, we consider this a Joule use case, but the project is a great showcase of how SAP customers can leverage generative AI hub to quickly build their own custom business AI solutions.”
The new solution enables real-time task logging and processing. It allows users to enter timesheet data with simple conversational prompts. The usual so-called “shadow systems” that people use to temporarily note down what they worked on — for example, in Notepad or Excel — can be eliminated as the information is directly sent to the Timesheet app in draft format.
Employees can easily and accurately track how much time they spent working on each client. First experiences with the application have shown that it can considerably reduce entry delays and help ensure that employees record their hours efficiently without the cumbersome steps traditionally associated with timesheet management.
Companies failing to accurately track billable hours can lose thousands of dollars in annual revenue per employee. The new solution supports invoices in being processed more swiftly and accurately, leading to reduced days sales outstanding as well as less non-billable hours and less customer inquiries. This means that consultants can dedicate more time to high-value tasks rather than administrative duties, ultimately resulting in an even more productive workforce.
What’s more, the new task tracker replaces individual notes, be it in Excel, Notepad, or other places where employees used to track their own time. By empowering employees to accurately and easily log their time, thus reducing unbilled hours, the new solution helps organizations capture every billable hour, maximizing revenue potential.
Frank Densborn, enterprise architect at the SAP AppHaus, summarized his experience: “With this solution, we were able to eliminate the need for shadow systems that consultants put in place to temporarily track their work before entering it into the system. So, instead of building a new timesheet application, we collaborated and innovated using SAP BTP and the generative AI hub to solve the real business problem, leveraging SAP’s human-centered approach to innovation.”
The implementation of this new SAP Business AI solution not only addressed immediate operational challenges, but also positions Syntax and its clients for future growth. By benefitting from the capabilities of SAP AI Core and SAP AI Launchpad, businesses can continuously evolve their processes, ensuring they remain competitive in an ever-changing market.
Leonardo De Araujo, partner for Global SAP Innovation at Syntax, reflected on the project success: “As early adopters of SAP S/4HANA Cloud and participants in the lighthouse program, we’ve used SAP Business AI to tackle industry challenges like inefficient timesheet processing. This innovation has significantly reduced our days sales outstanding. By saving up to $100,000 per day, we shorten the billing cycle.”
Syntax’ journey illustrates the power of innovation and collaboration within the SAP ecosystem. By harnessing advanced technologies like generative AI built with SAP BTP, organizations are not only transforming their own processes but, in the case of Syntax, also driving significant improvements for clients.
Syntax is setting a new standard. The impact of its generative AI-driven solution will undoubtedly resonate throughout the industry, inspiring others to follow suit. The future of timesheet project tracking has arrived, and it’s powered by SAP Business AI.
Yasaman Jalaei is a working student in the SAP Business Technology Office.