Discover how SAP and UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited are tackling youth unemployment with the ‘Educate to Employ’ initiative. The initiative is set up through Youth Agency Marketplace (YOMA), a public-private-youth ecosystem from UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited to empower young people like Edmond to gain digital skills.
https://sap.to/6055AtkoL
Although the iconic German footwear and fashion brand Birkenstock is synonymous with a laid-back lifestyle, before it took the first step on a journey to transform its North American operations the company carefully planned the project and left nothing to chance.
Birkenstock’s technology transformation included launching a new subsidiary in Canada and replacing an outdated, 16-year-old AS 400 system in the U.S. with cutting-edge technology supported by SAP S/4HANA and the industry-specific features of the SAP S/4HANA for fashion and vertical business solution.
The Birkenstock project team, led by Joshua Milos, senior director of IT for Birkenstock Americas, worked closely with SAP partner Rizing to reinvent its Canadian and U.S. operations and now has a streamlined, modern platform to support the company’s robust growth.
Birkenstock has long had a presence in the U.S., and in 2019 it decided to open a new subsidiary in Canada to better serve its growing market there. Starting out with no existing infrastructure in the country—no offices, employees, or tech—it was a true “greenfield” project in every sense of the term. From the start, Milos and his team saw the Canadian project as a blueprint for a planned revamp of Birkenstock’s U.S. operations and the perfect opportunity to lay a foundation for future growth.
“This was the greenest of greenfield implementations you could have, which gave us the chance to use it as a template for future expansion,” he explains. “Starting with Canada gave us the opportunity to test our processes and make adjustments before rolling out to other regions.”
The Birkenstock team worked with Rizing to establish a robust foundation for the new subsidiary, relying on the partner’s system architecture expertise to ensure that the infrastructure was scalable, future-proof, and met the company’s specific needs. “Rizing provided us with preconfigured clients and the expertise necessary to get us off the ground quickly,” says Milos, noting that this enabled seamless implementation of advanced functionalities like order management, inventory control, and financial reporting.
Process standardization was crucial: the Canadian project team collaborated closely with U.S. colleagues to identify and embed best practices from the U.S. business. Rizing helped Birkenstock map out its business processes and configure the new SAP system to align with these standards, ensuring that the Canadian operations were consistent with established U.S. practices.
The Canadian implementation quickly demonstrated the benefits of a modern ERP system. Within a few months, Birkenstock Canada was operating with a level of efficiency and visibility that was unattainable with the legacy systems in the U.S.
Real-time reporting and analytics capabilities in the new SAP system provided Birkenstock with immediate insights into operations, allowing for faster decision-making and better resource allocation. Automated workflows and integrated systems significantly reduced manual processes, improving operational efficiency and freeing up resources for more strategic tasks. And as Birkenstock Canada grows, its SAP infrastructure is ready to handle increased loads and expanded operations.
While the Canadian greenfield implementation was straightforward, Birkenstock’s “brownfield” transition from its old system to SAP S/4HANA in the U.S. wasn’t without challenges. The company’s legacy system hadn’t been upgraded in 16 years, resulting in inefficiency and manual processes. A global pandemic, a private equity investment, and an IPO all added additional layers of complexity along the journey. Milos knew that patience and consensus-building with stakeholders were crucial for change management. “We had to identify where the issues and pain points were to establish our ROI,” he says.
Rizing helped navigate these hurdles, providing industry expertise to create a compelling business case for global leadership. And to get buy-in at all levels of the organization, the project team spent ample time with business stakeholders, including visualizing processes in a sandbox environment to make the technology more approachable.
Another key step was to form a super-user group comprising key business stakeholders. This group, empowered by extensive training, was responsible for owning the system post-implementation. “The user group made the decisions, took ownership, and were heavily involved in the process,” Milos notes.
Birkenstock has ensured that its system is future-proof, nimble, and upgradeable by sticking to a “clean core”—using standard functionality and avoiding unnecessary customizations. “We took an MVP [minimum viable product] approach. Only the minimal things needed for go-live were implemented,” Milos explains.
Having clean, accurate data before go-live was also vital. “Get your master data right before you start transacting in the system. It drives a lot of what goes on daily,” Milos advises. Focusing on data integrity enabled a smooth data migration and allowed the company to get immediate value from its new system.
Birkenstock leaned heavily on Rizing’s expertise with SAP best practices as it implemented the clean-core strategy. The SAP partner helped Birkenstock identify where standard functionality could be leveraged, reducing the need for custom development.
Implementing SAP S/4HANA has allowed Birkenstock to achieve a unified system for its wholesale, retail, and digital channels that offers real-time insights and streamlined business processes. “We have more sales reporting and can see data in a holistic view, not in silos,” Milos notes.
The transition has also improved supply chain visibility, crucial for navigating global uncertainties like tariffs. “Being able to support our consumers better and adapt to changes nimbly has been a game-changer,” Milos says. In addition, Rizing’s industry-specific solutions and deep understanding of the fashion retail sector ensured that Birkenstock could maximize the benefits of SAP S/4HANA.
Birkenstock opted for the SAP S/4HANA for fashion and vertical business solution because of its industry-specific features like allocations, ATP scheduling, and the retail article master. “For fashion companies, using SAP S/4HANA for fashion and vertical business is crucial for its advanced capabilities and better product management,” Milos emphasizes.
Rizing’s preconfigured Fashion Suite accelerator for SAP S/4HANA for fashion and vertical business also sped up the implementation process. With order types, pricing procedures, and other processes ready to go “out of the box,” Birkenstock could focus on business-specific customizations.
Despite initial skepticism from Birkenstock executives that had experienced past project challenges, the company’s North American SAP S/4HANA implementation went live on schedule and was a resounding success. From the beginning, the team knew it needed to do the U.S. implementation as a “big bang,” with the wholesale, retail, and digital channels all going live at the same time. To ensure a smooth transition, the team added an additional six months to the initial timeline for rigorous testing.
The project was also a success from the SAP partner’s perspective, says Rizing’s Javier Zayas Cela, business development senior director, fashion: “Partnering with Birkenstock on this transformation journey has been incredibly rewarding. Their openness to change and strategic vision in transitioning from legacy systems to the advanced capabilities of SAP S/4HANA have positioned the brand well to embrace new technologies and accelerate its growth.”
The transformation has not only modernized Birkenstock’s operations but also equipped the company with the tools to adapt and thrive in the constantly-changing fashion business landscape. As the company moves forward, it’s focused on continuous improvement and optimization and is committed to using its SAP system to drive innovation and growth. “This is just the beginning,” Milos says. “We’re excited about the possibilities that lie ahead.”
The business intelligence (BI) and analytics market is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by rapid advancements in generative AI and the demand for more intuitive, integrated data experiences.
A trusted data foundation is critical in the age of AI. But in a global survey of 1,200 business and technology leaders, 55 percent cited poor data quality as their biggest challenge. And nearly half struggle to harmonize data across multiple ecosystems.
SAP Business Data Cloud offers organizations a fully managed SaaS solution that unifies and governs SAP data while seamlessly connects with third-party data. This data platform gives organizations the tools they need to make even more impactful decisions and insights across all lines of business.
After only eight months in the market, leading analyst firms have given SAP Business Data Cloud high marks for its analytics and BI solutions, primarily SAP Analytics Cloud.
IDC MarketScape provides in-depth quantitative and qualitative technology market assessments. The evaluation highlights the most influential factors for technology buyers that want to introduce, modernize, or replace business intelligence and analytics tools within their organization.
“Organizations are constantly striving to engage in data-driven decisions,” said Megha Kumar, research vice president, Analytics and AI, IDC. “This need for insights across the board puts pressure on data and analytics teams. This will result in organizations seeking capabilities around automation, GenAI, and agentic AI features within their business intelligence and analytics platform. It is also important that these insights are available in the flow of work to allow for improved collaboration and decision velocity.”
IDC MarketScape recognizes SAP as a Leader for the following strengths:
Read an excerpt from IDC’s report with additional details here.
The BARC Score report assesses solutions that fulfill a broad set of BI and analytics needs. BARC named SAP a Market Leader, citing the following benefits:
Read BARC’s full report here.
This recognition from both the IDC MarketScape and BARC reinforces the pivotal role of SAP Business Data Cloud in empowering organizations to become truly data-driven.
By providing a unified, intelligent, and scalable platform that fuels business AI, SAP continues to set the standard for modern data and analytics, ensuring customers can derive trusted insights and drive decisive actions in an increasingly complex business landscape.
Dan Yu is chief marketing officer for SAP Business Data Cloud at SAP.
According to our latest SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey:
📉 43% of CFOs say over half of business trips could be replaced by virtual meetings.
✈️ But 94% of business travelers say in-person travel is essential to succeeding in their roles.
Discover the full story: https://sap.to/6055fVAO1
Learn about PwC’s innovative AI solution, which is such a game-changer for reporting that it led PwC to be selected as a winner of the SAP Innovation Awards 2025.
To find out more about the SAP Innovation Awards and how to submit your own innovative ideas, visit:https://sap.to/6058fGA1Y
#SAPInnovationAwards @PwC
Join Petra Scheithe, Senior Vice President of Digitalization at BASF, as she shares insights into BASF’s ambitious Greenfield transformation to SAP S/4HANA and RISE with SAP. Learn how BASF is modernizing its complex ERP landscape, applying clean core principles, and leveraging AI to enable faster, smarter business decisions. Discover the challenges of transforming a monolithic system with over 300,000 custom codes and how BASF plans to unlock AI-driven value across business units by 2030.
00:04 – Introduction & Role at BASF
01:14 – Business Challenges & AI Needs
02:55 – Monolithic ERP Landscape & Custom Code
03:46 – Greenfield Transformation Successes
05:00 – Roadmap & Parallel RISE Adoption
06:20 – AI Strategy & Future Use Cases
Watch the full Customer Keynote: https://youtu.be/nF35qFUxuzs
Watch all SAP Sapphire replays on demand: https://sap.to/6057NNsuT
#SAPSapphire #CustomerSuccess @basf
MADRID — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA and HKEX: 9988) to accelerate cloud transformation.
As part of the collaboration, Alibaba Group will leverage SAP Cloud ERP Private for its enterprise infrastructure, as well as a joint go-to-market strategy aimed at delivering accelerated value for customers worldwide.
Alibaba, the Chinese multinational technology company focused on e-commerce and cloud computing, will leverage SAP Business Suite for faster maintenance, smooth upgrades and easier integration of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities into core business processes. Alibaba Group also plans to deploy SAP Business AI, SAP Business Technology Platform, and SAP Ariba, SAP Integrated Business Planning, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Concur, and SAP Emarsys solutions to further optimize its technological backbone, enabling greater agility and resilience in serving its vast ecosystem of businesses and consumers.
“Our collaboration with SAP reinforces our commitment to empowering global businesses with world-class technologies,” Alibaba Group Chairman Joe Tsai said. “By combining SAP’s enterprise software with Alibaba Cloud’s robust infrastructure and AI capabilities, we can help customers build smarter, more agile operations.”
The collaboration marks the next chapter in Alibaba’s and SAP’s longstanding partnership focused on enhancing operational efficiency and accelerating innovation for joint customers. A core component of this strategic alliance is a joint go-to-market initiative.
Under the collaboration initially focused on the China market, enterprises will be able to implement SAP Integrated Business Planning and embark on the RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP journeys. It is also planned to be rolled out in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. With Alibaba Group as a certified hyperscaler for SAP software workloads, Chinese enterprises will also be able to deploy SAP Cloud ERP and SAP Cloud ERP Private solutions, empowering them with scalable, more secure and intelligent solutions tailored to local business needs. Marking a significant step in enterprise AI integration, SAP is also exploring the integration of Alibaba’s large language model, Qwen, to the generative AI hub in SAP AI Core in China to enable enterprise users to access localized generative AI capabilities within SAP software applications and Custom AI applications. In parallel, SAP is exploring the deployment of its AI Foundation on Alibaba Cloud to bring powerful, scalable AI tools to customers operating in China. Alibaba also will be part of the latest infrastructure-as-a-service certification program to support customers running SAP’s enterprise solutions.
“Our collaboration with Alibaba Group is a testament to the power and flexibility of SAP’s cloud solutions,” SAP CEO Christian Klein said. “Our joint go-to-market strategy can unlock new opportunities for enterprises by providing them with access to a comprehensive suite of tools and services. Together, we can help our joint customers drive innovation, improve operational performance and create new competitive advantages. We look forward to working with Alibaba to shape the future of cloud-powered digital transformation.”
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Today we can finally see the consumer version of what futurists, writers, and filmmakers have been conceptualizing for long: AI that can predict events and outcomes even before they happen. When Isaac Asimov foresaw cars with “robot brains,” he described a fictional technology that would fuel such an invention. Seven decades later, autonomous cars are a reality because of AI’s ability to analyze vast amounts of data from sensors, cameras, and other sources. And these proactive, predictive, and preventative capabilities of AI are equally applicable in almost any industry today, for example in healthcare with AI-powered wearables, retail with optimization of inventory for high-volume sales, or manufacturing with maintenance through anomaly detection.
When it comes to customer support, these capabilities are game-changing not only for current applications but also for future implications. The way businesses deliver support is improving every day, thanks to the rapidly evolving framework: technological breakthroughs, business innovations, and process agility. Here are six key methods that can transform the delivery of customer support.
With AI-infused features in diagnostics, an electric car can detect potential malfunctions and schedule its own service appointment automatically, preventing issues like battery depletion or tire pressure drops before they become critical.
How does real-time monitoring play out in the world of business software? SAP Cloud ALM provides a feature-rich observability platform that can collect telemetry data, like metrics, logs, and traces, from applications and their supporting infrastructure, allowing support teams to review the health of these systems. By providing real-time analytics and a centralized dashboard, SAP Cloud ALM helps empower IT teams to quickly respond and fix issues, so the business remains operational with minimal interruptions. Additionally, the use of OpenTelemetry standardizes observability within a modern customer landscape.
“The SAP Cloud ALM solution has been instrumental for our IT operations. It offers real-time insights and seamless integration across all our enterprise applications, making everything run more smoothly. It’s like having a bird’s-eye view of our operations, ensuring efficiency and helping us stay proactive rather than reactive.”
Omprakash H, Senior Director, Blueprint Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Customer feedback loops play an important role in improving products and services and refining customer relationships. Repeat requests, in customer and user feedback, help service providers identify critical needs and also prioritize features to be delivered.
For example, users within SAP Business Network and SAP Ariba solutions go to the help center for self-service or case assistance 10.8 times less than they did years ago. These drop-in, end-user support sessions are the result of features that have been built into the product, based on customer feedback.
AI-enabled outbreak detection is another significant process in proactive resolution that allows support teams to address unexpected increases in anomalies, customer complaints, or issues.
“We continuously identify the reasons for frequent customer demands and challenges from inquiries raised to SAP support. This allows SAP to proactively deliver the most impactful product changes before they become a challenge for more customers. This way, we improve our products while also focusing on key product capabilities used by our customers today.”
Alexey Ukrainsky, Solution Support Architect, SAP MCC
In the retail industry, predictive analytics is used effectively for proactive and preventative support. One prominent example is SAP’s holiday season readiness program, which helps position SAP as a front-runner in AI-driven, predictive, and proactive support solutions. With the goal of issue prevention at its core, the program can provide a comprehensive, 360-degree customer support profile, helping to accelerate issue detection and anticipate potential problems with AI-driven features like a virtual support assistant, resource prediction, web traffic prediction, a recommendation engine, case history analysis, issue correlation, and pattern recognition.
“During Cyber Week 2024, SAP’s holiday reason readiness program equipped our support and ops teams to achieve 100% uptime for our customers with the predictive, proactive, and bi-directional support model implemented by the program.”
Tarun Luthra, Head of Support, I&CX Solutions
SAP Signavio solutions can help businesses visualize the end-to-end customer journey, tracking interactions across different touchpoints. This enables companies to identify areas of improvement in their customer support processes, leading to more personalized and effective interactions.
With the help of SAP Signavio Process Intelligence, SAP can successfully map support processes to help implement AI improvements for optimizing our services. The result: a 100% increase reported in customer value.
For example, a business that struggles with connecting customer experience data and operational data can take advantage of the SAP Signavio Journey-to-Process Analytics solution to help reduce time to insight and uncover anomalies and trends.
“The challenge in increasing our customer experience lies in the direct link between process and journey activities. I see SAP Signavio solutions as the perfect tools for consolidating these two perspectives to develop operational excellence in step with customer experience.”
Stefan Gammel, Business Process Consultant, Hilti Group
Seamlessly integrating support features in a product, service, or system gives users easy access to directly request assistance within the interface, without needing to contact a support team or leave the platform. Built-In Support can include contextual, AI-assisted, self-service options like help application-specific documentation, troubleshooting tools, knowledge bases, and FAQs or real-time options like live chats with support engineers.
For example, WalkMe solutions and Built-In Support—layered over multiple applications in a business workflow—can provide real-time, proactive, in-app guidance to users, helping to significantly reduce the need for live assistance or support tickets.
“Context significantly enhances the quality of support. Built-In Support works like a pit stop at a racetrack. The repair crew is right where the action is. The interruption is brief and far less disruptive than taking your car to the workshop, ensuring a smoother return to your activities. In the context of your company, this helps you win your business race.”
Wilhelm Jütte, Chief Product Owner, Customer Support, SAP
None of the tools and processes that we deploy to implement a proactive and preventative support strategy are sustainable if our teams are not tuned to a proactive mindset. I believe high-performing support teams deliver the best results with a combination of human-machine collaboration, in a culture that promotes a forward-thinking, outcome-driven, service-oriented, and data-driven mindset.
At the end of the day, the best issue is the issue that we can prevent. Proactive and preventative support is not just about solving problems, but about creating peace of mind for end users, customers, partners, and support engineers so every customer receives custom care, even before they need help.
“Knowledge management within support is not just about enabling self-service through portals to deflect incoming tickets, but about eliminating the need to come to the support portal in the first place.”
Derek Matthews, Technical Support – Procurement Chief Innovation Officer, SAP
Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.
Learn about the feature highlights in April 2025 with SAP Datasphere! We delivered three great releases this month, so let’s check out my top features:
1. Analytic Model
– Stacking of analytic models
– Replacement of a fact source
– Measure dependency graph
– Measure default formatting
2. Data Validation
3. Microsoft SQL Server in Replication Flows
4. Deep retry of Task Chains
Key Moments:
00:22 Stacking of analytic models
00:48 Replacement of a fact source
01:01 Measure dependency graph
01:15 Measure default formatting
01:31 Data validation
01:54 Microsoft SQL Server in Replication Flows
02:12 Deep retry of Task Chains
To learn more about SAP Datasphere, visit: https://sap.to/60552f7sL
Join our SAP Datasphere community to always stay up to date: https://sap.to/60572f7sF
Check out our product roadmap for SAP Datasphere: https://sap.to/60592f7sN
SAP currently offers two major versions of its flagship ERP solution, SAP S/4HANA: on-premise and cloud-hosted.
