As a pioneer of spend management software, SAP has been on the cutting edge of how to best comprehensively manage company spend and supplier relationships.

Like at home, identifying every dollar you spend and getting the most out of it is more critical than ever for your business. And as we continue to roll out SAP Business AI technology, the teams behind SAP solutions are working on ways to help you reduce the time spent on mundane tasks so you can focus on executing your strategy, unlocking spend potential, and unleashing efficiency.

The first quarter of 2024 was among the most productive in my 18 years at SAP. We debuted new AI capabilities in various SAP spend management solutions. Check out some of these highlights:

• SAP Ariba Category Management: We’ve incorporated generative AI-enabled features that can assist category managers by generating recommendations in the solution’s category segmentation, market dynamics, and cost structure tools.
• Scoutbee Discovery: SAP partnered with Scoutbee, a leading AI-powered supplier intelligence and discovery platform, to launch Scoutbee Discovery. This SAP endorsed app can rapidly identify qualified suppliers that meet specific criteria and can help advance strategic business imperatives. Watch the recording of me participating in a recent LinkedIn Live with the Scoutbee team.
• Concur Request: Now, this service uses generative AI to help provide intelligent cost estimates for trip planning.
• ExpenseIt: Users can upload receipt images to the ExpenseIt solution, which taps AI to help automatically create a new expense with several key fields prepopulated. Plus, ExpenseIt can now itemize hotel folios using generative AI.
• Generative AI search: A new capability within Concur Support allows SAP Concur customers to type questions in natural language and get quick answers using generative AI, without submitting a support ticket.

SAP’s market-leading spend and business network solutions are getting even smarter, working to unlock greater value for our customers. We have many resources devoted to spend management and that’s why we continue to deliver innovation in spend management.

And we are only getting started. By the end of 2024, SAP Business Network is planning the following enhancements:

• Generative AI RFI/RFP responses in SAP Business Network Discovery: With generative AI-enabled responses for postings in SAP Business Network Discovery, suppliers will be able to respond to RFIs promptly and more accurately, helping to save time and reduce costs associated with manual labor and resource allocation.  
• Catalog enrichment using ChatGPT recommendations: This feature can enable suppliers to generate and improve product descriptions and overall catalog quality based on prompts and keyword recommendations from ChatGPT. 
• Intelligent error simplification using generative AI: This feature uses machine learning and a large language model to interpret and categorize invoice rejection reasons, allowing suppliers to reduce the number of failing invoices, improve rapid invoice submission and payment, and optimize cash flow.

For more on how AI is transforming business networks, read this recent article from my colleague Joern Keller.

But What Are Our Customers Saying?

Each quarter, G2 highlights the top rated solutions in the industry, chosen by the source that matters most: customers. Spring 2024 is no different, and once again our suite of spend and business network solutions scored extremely well.

• SAP Fieldglass is a G2 Spring Leader in Vendor Management.
• SAP Ariba is a G2 Spring Leader in Procure to Pay, Purchasing, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, and Contract Lifecycle Management.
• SAP Concur is a G2 Spring Leader in Expense, Travel & Expense, and Invoicing.

What’s more, G2 recently announced its 2024 Best Software Award winners, with SAP Fieldglass and SAP Concur receiving high honors:

• SAP Fieldglass came in at No. 26 in G2’s Best Software Awards across all products and No. 12 in G2’s Best Software Awards for best midmarket products.
• SAP Concur came in at No. 4 in G2’s Best Software Awards for the account and software product category.

My colleagues are also getting their flowers. Etosha Thurman, chief marketing and solutions officer of Intelligent Spend and Business Network, and Steve Seide, global head of Adoption for Intelligent Spend and Business Network, were named Top Procurement Pros in the Supply & Demand Chain Executive 2024 Pros to Know awards. A big congratulations also goes out to Darcy MacClaren, CRO for SAP Digital Supply Chain, who received a Pros to Know Lifetime Achievement award.

Driving Success for Our Customers

Hearing me spotlight our direct and indirect procurement, external workforce, and travel and expense management solutions is one thing. Seeing them in action is something way more powerful. Here are a few recent customer success stories to take in:

• American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), a leading global specialty retailer offering high-quality on-trend clothing, accessories, and personal care products through its portfolio of brands, needed to evaluate indirect purchasing processes and vendor relationships to maximize efficiency. See how SAP Business Network for Procurement and SAP Ariba solutions helped simplify processes and deliver compliant purchasing protocols across the company.
• Power provider to over 900,000 electric customers, Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company (OG&E) faced challenges with the complexity of third-party and cross-department management of contingent workers. After transitioning SAP Fieldglass solutions to internal management, OG&E gained the visibility to make more informed financial decisions, like supplier negotiations.
• 2024 SAP Innovation Award winner Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, launched a large-scale quality initiative powered by SAP Business Network to help mitigate product defects in a highly complex supply chain. Now, using SAP Business Network, suppliers complete predefined quality tests and document them before confirming or sending an order. This enables Vestas employees to be warned in advance of any quality issues further up the supply chain, so they can take corrective action.
• Most KUKA employees are based in Germany, where tax regulation is complex and submitting hotel and entertainment expenses is anything but simple. The KUKA team worked together to develop a simple process using SAP Concur solutions, connected to SAP ERP, that allows employees to create hotel and entertainment expenses seven times faster with fewer errors and fewer rejected expense reports.

Join Us at SAP Sapphire!

SAP Sapphire & ASUG Annual Conference is June 3-5 in Orlando, Florida, this year and I can’t wait to meet with customers, partners, and my fellow colleagues. This is the best event in the industry in my opinion and you don’t want to miss out. Join us by registering on the SAP Sapphire event website, where you can also save your spot at the SAP Sapphire Virtual and SAP Sapphire Barcelona events. See you there!

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

As businesses adapt to digitalization, they encounter various trends reshaping tax compliance. From emerging business models to governments’ digital initiatives, the tax landscape is undergoing significant transformation.

Authorities are starting to involve themselves in business transactions, disrupting well-established business processes and taking control of the invoicing flow between suppliers and buyers. As a result, they have the data needed to prevent tax evasion and start auditing taxpayers automatically or even auto-populating tax returns moving toward tax bills. Additionally, sustainability efforts and climate change regulations further impact tax regulations.

Amid these shifts, SAP can provide peace of mind to navigate complexities efficiently. By understanding the evolving tax landscape, businesses can leverage SAP solutions to help streamline compliance processes and drive automation to capitalize on emerging opportunities.

SAP solutions for global tax management are tailored to help address modern tax challenges. SAP S/4HANA Cloud can provide transparency and compliance on a global scale, enabling businesses to embed tax requirements in processes.

Through localized solutions that offer standardized but flexible business processes, a complete suite of solutions facilitates efficient tax management, from e-invoicing to statutory reporting and overall tax compliance. With SAP technology and expertise, businesses can achieve greater accuracy and agility in tax compliance, paving the way for sustainable growth and competitive advantage.

To help tax professionals prepare for and become valuable members of tax transformation projects, SAP is introducing a new course: Unlocking Tax Transformation with SAP.

The course is designed to equip professionals with the knowledge needed to navigate today’s tax landscape and learn new capabilities that can be leveraged as part of SAP S/4HANA-enabled transformations to simplify tax compliance.

The course offers practical strategies to learn about the different tax types, global developments and their business relevance, and the importance of technology with a focus on SAP S/4HANA and SAP solutions for global tax management. It begins on April 30 and enrollment is now open. By enrolling in this course, tax professionals can gain valuable insights into industry best practices and leverage the latest SAP innovations to help optimize their tax processes.

In a time of rapid change, SAP supports businesses on their journey to tax compliance and growth. Through collaboration with SAP and a commitment to continuous learning, businesses can navigate the complexities of taxation with confidence and achieve their long-term objectives.

Erika Buson is part of Product Marketing for Global Tax Management and Entity Close at SAP.

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, the success of organizations hinges on their ability to adapt to change and innovate constantly. One key factor that can help organizations stay agile and dynamic is their approach to talent management.

By shifting towards a skills-based approach to talent acquisition and development, companies can build a workforce that is not only capable of meeting current demands, but also equipped to navigate future challenges effectively. Here are three strategies for building a dynamic organization with a skills-based approach to talent.

1. Identify and Prioritize Critical Skills

The first step in implementing a skills-based approach is to identify the key skills that are crucial for the organization’s success. This involves analyzing the current and future needs of the business and understanding the skills that are in high demand in the market. By prioritizing these critical skills, organizations can focus their hiring efforts on candidates who possess or have the potential to develop these competencies.

With the SAP SuccessFactors talent intelligence hub, organizations can have the power and simplicity of a single skills model from recruiting, onboarding, learning, and development, all the way through to performance and succession. It helps to better understand, build, and leverage the skills of workforces. It can connect individual skills, attributes, strengths, and preferences to both people and experiences throughout SAP SuccessFactors solutions.

By creating a comprehensive overview of the skills available within the organization, managers can identify gaps and areas for improvement. This information can inform talent development initiatives, such as training programs or job rotations, to help employees acquire the necessary skills to excel in their roles. For example, within the talent intelligence hub there is a team growth portfolio view, which allows managers to quickly assess skill gaps and search for prioritized skills within their teams.

2. Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning

Building a dynamic organization requires a culture that supports continuous learning and skill development. Organizations can encourage employees to enhance their skills through internal training programs, mentorship opportunities, and access to external resources. By creating a learning environment where employees are motivated to upskill and reskill, organizations can ensure that their workforce remains adaptable and competitive in a rapidly changing market.

AI-enabled learning platforms can deliver personalized and adaptive training programs based on individual skill gaps and career aspirations. SAP SuccessFactors Learning with embedded AI can give organizations a wide range of capabilities that help enhance a learner’s experience with relevant recommendations that are unique to each learner and based on their needs and interests. In addition, SAP SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace has AI-driven recommendations to help match employees with assignments, career opportunities, mentors, and more. This solution considers not only qualifications but also skills, experiences, and preferences, so that organizations can ensure better talent alignment and engagement.

3. Embrace Flexibility and Adaptability

In a skills-based approach to talent management, organizations need to be flexible and adaptable in their recruitment and development practices. This means being open to hiring candidates with transferable skills and potential for growth, rather than focusing solely on specific job titles or qualifications. This can be made possible with technology that supports skills-based hiring.

With SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting, skills can be aligned to job requisitions and skills-based candidate evaluations. This can allow hiring managers to view rankings of candidates and determine the best candidate based on their skill proficiency. In addition, recruiters can leverage generative AI capabilities to help enhance job descriptions, including the proper skills and competences, which helps recruiters hire the best talent for a role. By embracing a more flexible approach to talent acquisition, organizations can build a diverse workforce with a wide range of skills and perspectives, driving innovation and creativity.

A skills-based approach to talent management can help organizations build a dynamic and resilient workforce that is equipped to thrive in today’s fast-paced business environment. By prioritizing critical skills, fostering a culture of continuous learning, and embracing flexibility in recruitment and development practices, organizations can create a competitive advantage through their most valuable asset – their people.

To learn more about how to build a dynamic organization with a skills-based approach to talent, register for this webinar on Thursday, April 25, at 1:00p.m. EST.

Christina Russo is a global director of Product Marketing at SAP SuccessFactors.