When Alex de Minaur steps onto the court in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park this month, with his Wilson Ultra v5 tennis racket, it represents much more than years of athletic preparation and training. From its origins at the Wilson Innovation Center in Chicago to the court at the US Open, the racket is the outcome of a concise and connected journey.

The hand-crafted stringing on the face of the racket, the customized design, the packaging and distribution, and the systems that enable each touchpoint are all part of a global supply chain that ensures the racket gets from the warehouse into the gear bag of the world No. 5 exactly when he needs it.

That journey—from raw materials and global suppliers through manufacturing, warehousing, customs, and last-mile delivery—is a supply chain story. And SAP helps power it.

The carefully curated racket, along with Wilson’s shoes, shirt, cap, and shorts de Minaur chooses to wear as he competes at the highest level, are just a few of the thousands of products Wilson manufactures and delivers to athletes and customers around the world.

Behind each product is an interconnected global operation spanning manufacturing, warehousing, retail, e-commerce, and B2B channels and a digital foundation that helps Wilson keep it all moving seamlessly.

Powering a global sporting goods business

Wilson is a global leader in sports equipment and apparel, with a legacy of more than a century of innovation across tennis, basketball, baseball, golf, and other sports. From developing high-performance equipment for the world’s best athletes to creating products for players at every level, Wilson combines deep sporting expertise, innovation, and craftsmanship to help athletes perform at their best.

For almost two decades, Wilson has trusted SAP to run its global operations, connecting hundreds of employees across finance, sales, logistics, warehousing, and other critical retail functions.

Wilson’s SAP landscape spans core enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management, data and analytics, procurement, travel, global trade, integration and enterprise architecture. Its current environment includes SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC), SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Datasphere, SAP Business Data Cloud, and SAP Business Technology Platform, as well as SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, and SAP LeanIX solutions, among others.

And Wilson’s SAP digital transformation is continuing. The company is preparing for a major SAP S/4HANA transformation beginning in 2027, which will unlock new capabilities across areas such as extended warehouse management (EWM), transportation, quality, and omnichannel operations. As part of its SAP S/4HANA journey, Wilson uses Joule to assist with code conversion marking the beginning of introducing AI-powered capabilities into its business operations

One connected foundation for a connected customer experience

Beyond professional athletes such as de Minaur that choose to utilize Wilson to perform on and off the court, Wilson’s global customers interact with the company in many ways—through retail stores, e-commerce, and B2B channels. Behind those experiences is a complex network of products, inventory, orders, warehouses, and business processes that need to work together.

Built for the pace of sport

The world of professional sports moves quickly. A tennis match can turn in a matter of seconds. Consumer goods organizations like Wilson run an equally dynamic and demanding global operation: designing, manufacturing, moving, and selling products to customers and athletes around the world.

A major event, such as a Grand Slam or a Wilson ambassador winning a tournament, can bring heightened demand for the products athletes use and fans want to buy. This requires Wilson to coordinate inventory, production, warehouses, retailers, and e-commerce across markets and respond quickly as demand changes. SAP solutions such as SAP Extended Warehouse Management, SAP Global Trade Services, SAP Concur and SAP Ariba provide Wilson with the digital foundation to run smarter, operate faster, and respond to the ever-changing demands running a global retail business

This September in New York fans will see Alex de Minaur compete with his trusted Wilson racket and adorn his new customized Wilson kit. What they won’t see is the integrated ecosystem and the multifaceted journey behind every single racket, every pair of shoes, every piece of apparel—and the SAP technology powering it.

Tennis is a game of preparation. When I walk onto the court, every detail matters—from how the racket feels in my hand to the kit I’m wearing. Knowing that Wilson and the technology behind their business makes sure everything is ready exactly when I need it, that’s the kind of confidence that lets me focus on competing at my best.

Alex de Minaur

Whether it’s a game of tennis or the demands of a global business, success depends on having everything working in harmony. With SAP, Wilson can perform at its best.

And on the court, Alex de Minaur knows he can trust that everything is in place when the moment matters most.

At NASA, a moonshot is not a metaphor. It is an operating model.

Returning humans to the Moon—and building the foundation for an enduring presence in deep space—requires thousands of people, multiple government agencies, international partners, commercial providers, and highly complex systems to work together with extraordinary precision.

During the SAP NOW event in Washington, D.C., Dr. Lori Glaze, associate administrator for NASA’s Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate, offered attendees an inside look at the Artemis program and the operational discipline behind it. I later joined Dr. Glaze for a conversation about managing complexity, sustaining momentum, and using emerging technology to support mission outcomes.

The discussion offered lessons that extend far beyond space exploration. For public sector organizations and enterprises undergoing their own transformations, NASA’s experience demonstrates how ambitious goals become achievable: one tested capability, one informed decision, and one coordinated team at a time.

Building momentum one mission at a time

NASA’s Artemis program is designed as a sequence in which every mission tests capabilities and generates knowledge for the next.

Artemis I, completed in 2022, successfully tested the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft without a crew. Artemis II built on that foundation with the first crewed flight of the program, launching four astronauts in April 2026 for a nearly 10-day journey around the Moon before their safe return approximately nine days later.

During the mission, the crew tested Orion’s life-support and maneuvering systems, traveled farther from Earth than any humans before them, conducted scientific observations, and safely re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at nearly 24,000 miles per hour.

But the mission was not only about setting records. Every observation, test, and operational decision produced information that NASA can apply to what comes next.

“Each test flight in this program is going to inform the next steps of our mission,” Glaze said.

NASA is now preparing for Artemis III, targeted for 2027. The mission will test critical rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and commercial human landing systems developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX. Those tests are intended to reduce risk before Artemis IV, currently targeted as the program’s first crewed lunar landing mission in 2028.

This incremental approach offers an important transformation principle: Meaningful progress does not require solving the entire future at once; it requires designing each milestone to validate assumptions, reduce risk, and create a stronger foundation for the next decision.

Standardization creates the capacity to accelerate

Speed is often associated with moving quickly. At NASA, it also means reducing unnecessary reinvention.

Glaze explained that one of the agency’s priorities is standardizing the architecture supporting future Artemis missions. Although exploration frequently involves building something that has never existed before, NASA also needs repeatable systems and processes that can support a more regular cadence of missions.

“We want to do this over and over again, so we need to standardize our architecture,” she said. Standardization does not eliminate innovation. It creates the stable foundation upon which innovation can move faster.

NASA relies on an extraordinary range of technologies to support that complexity, including SAP solutions. But technology alone does not make a mission like Artemis possible. Its value comes from how effectively it connects people, processes, information, and decisions around a shared objective.

This is equally relevant to organizations modernizing their finance, workforce, procurement, supply chain, and operational systems. When information and processes remain fragmented across different platforms, teams spend significant time reconciling data, navigating interfaces, and recreating decisions.

A connected digital backbone can reduce that friction. It provides a shared operational foundation so that organizations can scale proven processes, introduce new capabilities, and respond to change without rebuilding the enterprise each time.

Complexity demands faster, better-informed decisions

The scale of the Artemis program is difficult to overstate.

NASA must coordinate launch vehicles, spacecraft, landers, spacesuits, scientific instruments, communications, logistics, personnel, budgets, commercial contractors, and international partners. Each element has its own timeline, dependencies, and risks—and all of them must ultimately come together at precisely the right moment.

Glaze said NASA is working to streamline decision-making by placing the right expertise closer to the work. Subject matter experts have been embedded with contractors and industry suppliers so that issues can be identified, evaluated, and resolved more quickly. The objective is to shorten the distance between insight and action.

That challenge is familiar across government. Leaders often have access to enormous amounts of information but lack a unified view of what is changing, where pressure is building, or which intervention will have the greatest impact.

Glaze identified this as one of the most promising applications for artificial intelligence: helping teams absorb large volumes of data, understand status across complex programs, and identify the areas that require attention.

For organizations, the opportunity is to move from systems that primarily document what has happened to systems that can help interpret conditions, anticipate risks, and support the next best action.

Autonomy works best when it expands human capability

NASA is already applying autonomous technology beyond administrative processes.

Robotic vehicles exploring the Moon and Mars can evaluate terrain, select safer routes, schedule scientific activities, manage communications, and avoid hazards with limited intervention from Earth. AI can also help researchers analyze the enormous scientific datasets generated by NASA missions and focus their attention on the most valuable discoveries.

These capabilities illustrate an important distinction: autonomy is not necessarily about removing people from the mission. It is about allowing technology to manage complexity at a scale and speed that enables people to make better decisions.

The same principle applies to the Autonomous Enterprise. Embedded AI can help coordinate routine processes, detect emerging issues, and recommend actions while keeping people responsible for judgment, accountability, and mission outcomes.

Partnerships turn ambition into capability

No single organization could accomplish the Artemis mission alone.

NASA’s architecture brings together government teams, commercial space companies, traditional aerospace manufacturers, international space agencies, scientific institutions, and military partners. Each contributes a specific capability to the larger mission.

For Artemis III, NASA is coordinating with Blue Origin and SpaceX on commercial landing systems. The Orion spacecraft includes a service module provided by the European Space Agency. Future lunar exploration plans also involve mobility systems, habitats, scientific instruments, and infrastructure developed through additional public-private and international partnerships.

This ecosystem is not adjacent to the mission; it’s how the mission gets done.

For public sector transformation, partnerships can provide specialized expertise and innovation that would be difficult for one organization to develop independently. But successful ecosystems require more than contracting. They require shared objectives, clearly defined responsibilities, trusted information, and mechanisms for making coordinated decisions.

Trust is the ultimate operating system

When I asked Glaze for her most important leadership advice, her answer was direct: surround yourself with smart people and trust them. “No one person can do these things,” she said. “They require thousands of people to achieve these amazing things.”

Technology, architecture, and process all matter. But none of them can substitute for teams that understand the mission and are empowered to act.

NASA’s progress under Artemis demonstrates what becomes possible when a bold vision is supported by disciplined execution. The agency is testing before scaling, standardizing where it can, bringing expertise closer to decisions, using technology to expand human capability, and building an ecosystem around a clearly defined mission.

Whether the objective is returning to the Moon, modernizing a government agency, or transforming a global enterprise, the lesson is the same: the most ambitious outcomes are achieved when people, data, processes, and partners move forward together.

Jamison Braun is senior vice president and managing director for U.S. Public Services at SAP America.