SAP acquired Silicon Valley-based Taulia in March of 2022. Three years on, the fintech is helping customers unlock liquidity, and save big on costs as a result. Thomas Mehlkopf explains how.

The SAP Taulia portfolio offers solutions for working capital management and supply chain financing, as well as a network for buyers, suppliers, and financial institutions.

Mehlkopf is global chief revenue officer for Treasury and Working Capital Management at SAP, and is responsible for marketing and rolling out the solutions for these domains to customers.

Q: Three years ago, we announced that the Taulia products would be integrated into the SAP portfolio. What’s the status?

A: After acquiring Taulia, we pushed ahead with three main priorities to align with SAP Business Suite. The first was the integration of the portfolio into SAP Business Network so that, where suppliers and buyers both run SAP Taulia solutions, they can utilize the network to benefit from early payment options and supply chain finance.

We also worked on integrating the solutions into SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and released the SAP Taulia solutions for receivables financing and payables financing on SAP Cloud ERP in February 2025. These are particularly relevant for small and midsize enterprises that want to grow and that need quicker payments to do so. The current focus is on the U.S., Canada, UK, DACH, and Singapore markets, with the goal of making this functionality available in additional countries soon.

Our third priority was to embed SAP Taulia Virtual Cards into SAP Ariba solutions. The cards enable buyers to pay their suppliers sooner — even before they issue an invoice — using a “pay on purchase order” transaction. This ensures that the supplier in question has sufficient cash flow to fulfill the order.

Back in 2022, Taulia was described as a growth opportunity for SAP and for customers. Could you tell us how SAP Taulia is performing?

SAP Taulia already has several customers that finance billions through the platform, thereby improving both their own liquidity and that of their suppliers. My team’s objective is to increase that number and to continue scaling up, and we’re making good progress. Over the last three years, the volume of transactions processed with SAP Taulia has risen steadily from US$500 billion to US$800 billion.

Customers are benefiting from this progress: one large enterprise in the oil and gas industry saved almost €700,000 within a single month of going live. Extrapolated to a full year, that’s annual savings of almost €8 million. So, the business case for customers is definitely there.

You presented the first AI use case in SAP Taulia at SAP Sapphire in 2025. Can you tell us about its value for customers?

The AI use case relates to our “insight to action” approach and helps companies plan and improve their cash flow. SAP Taulia has already been using artificial intelligence for some time to forecast supplier behavior around early payments. By combining this insight with data from an app on SAP Business Technology Platform that provides transparency on free cash flow, the AI use case will give customers tips on how to improve their liquidity. It also runs through various scenarios showing them ways to influence it. Information like this is especially important for CFOs — never more so than in times of uncertainty.

Are there any other recent announcements you would like to share?

Yes, another important update is that SAP Taulia is now part of SAP’s cloud ERP packages for the public cloud, SAP Finance Base and SAP Finance Premium, as well as the private cloud, SAP Cloud ERP Private. This means that we can quickly show customers the positive business case for their transformation of using SAP Taulia to improve their cash flow and achieve savings.

In times of global crisis, trade tariffs, and supply chain disruption, why are the SAP Taulia solutions so vital for cash flow?

Cash is still king, especially in a crisis. An article published recently in German business newspaper Handelsblatt reported that net debt among the 40 companies on Germany’s DAX stock market index has increased eight percent to €227 billion since the pandemic. Clearly, financing is a major issue, particularly given that interest rates have risen so sharply. Many companies borrowed when interest rates were low and are now having to refinance their loans at higher interest rates, which puts enormous pressure on their finance teams. SAP Taulia solutions can help by providing the funding that businesses need.

Given the impact that trade tariffs have on the supply chain, it is vital that companies carry out liquidity planning and scenario analysis. They need to think about where they will manufacture their products in the future, what effect that choice will have on revenues, and how they can use SAP Taulia to improve their cash flow.

Which reference customers are already benefiting from this?

SAP Taulia customers include Henkel, Airbus, Nissan, AstraZeneca, Kimberly-Clark, and Bridgestone.

One customer has enabled early payments to suppliers totaling over €5 billion since the start of the program, which has led to an improvement in cash flow of more than €1 billion during this period.

Your pledge is “to create the future of finance together.” What does that involve?

We want to team up with our partners and customers to influence the transformation of corporate finance. That includes working with banks and implementation partners and integrating SAP Taulia into a swathe of SAP solutions. Together, we offer customers a comprehensive portfolio of treasury and working capital solutions, ranging from payments and cash management to financial risk management.

One key aspect of our road map is our treasury and payment portfolio, which covers topics such as the future of payments. We are also working to integrate new technologies, including blockchain and digital currencies, so that we can offer our customers innovative payment and financing solutions.

As I reflect on this year’s SAP Sapphire event, I’m filled with excitement about the future of supply chain management.

The innovations we unveiled represent a fundamental shift in how businesses can approach their operations in an increasingly complex global landscape. The positive energy from our customers and partners reinforces my belief that we’re on the right path with our AI-first, suite-first, network-centric strategy.

Unifying the supply chain ecosystem

The cornerstone of SAP’s latest offerings is the significant enhancement to the SAP Supply Chain Management and SAP Cloud ERP solutions. These improvements create a more unified and intelligent ecosystem for supply chain management, addressing the multifaceted challenges businesses face today.

Key innovations strengthen end-to-end business processes in SAP Business Suite. The simple handover of complex product data — such as bill of materials, recipes, or material price estimations — streamline the transition from product development to production with SAP Integrated Product Development. Additionally, the integration of service orders into SAP Digital Manufacturing enables advanced manufacturing processes for service and repair processes. Changes in production orders are seamlessly synchronized with the shop-floor execution for highly adaptive processes.

Launched in February, SAP Business Suite is a comprehensive set of integrated solutions, combining cloud ERP, business applications, SAP Business Data Cloud, and SAP Business AI – powered by the SAP Business Technology Platform. At Sapphire, SAP introduced cloud suite packages designed to align with specific line-of-business needs. The SAP Business Suite package for SAP Supply Chain Management offers a comprehensive, AI-driven, and network-enabled solution to help customers integrate data, operational processes, and supply chain functions, delivering greater flexibility, transparency, and responsiveness while supporting sustainability initiatives and metrics.

The introduction of smart guided execution in SAP Digital Manufacturing supports compliant manufacturing in life sciences, chemicals, and regulated fast-moving consumer goods businesses, through intelligent process guidance and a new electronic batch record system. This helps ensure traceability and compliance while reducing errors and improving overall production quality.

Customers in asset-intensive industries, such as utilities, travel and transportation, and energy and/or natural resources, benefit from advanced asset health monitoring capabilities in SAP Asset Performance Management.  An enhanced management of time series data  and Internet of Things (IoT) device integration is enabled based on SAP’s partnership with Cumulocity. This allows businesses to leverage real-time data for predictive maintenance and asset optimization, potentially reducing downtime and maintenance costs.

By introducing connected supply chain processes that bridge various SAP applications and cloud ERP, SAP is offering improved data flow, AI-driven insights, and end-to-end process optimization across supply chain and core business functions. This integration is not just about connecting the dots, but creating a seamless flow of information and actions that can transform business operations.

How Joule and agentic AI are revolutionizing supply chain management

Our commitment to AI-driven solutions was evident in several key innovations. SAP’s AI copilot, Joule, is poised to transform supply chain operations. By the end of the year, Joule will enable supply chain planners — for example, demand or supply planners — to quickly and easily interpret supply planning results through intelligent analysis of demand, inventory, and supply planning in SAP Integrated Business Planning. This capability will significantly enhance decision-making processes in supply chain planning.

Simultaneously, SAP’s expansion of agentic AI across SAP Business Suite marks a significant leap toward autonomous supply chain operations.

Key agents announced include:

• Maintenance Planner Agent: Streamlines maintenance planning and coordination
• Shopfloor Supervisor Agent: Proactively manages shop-floor disruptions, such as machine failures, and performs necessary rescheduling to maintain productivity
• Field Service Dispatcher Agent: Autonomously schedules and optimizes service orders in SAP Field Service Management

These agents, set for general availability in the fourth quarter of 2025, promise to transform planning into a proactive, continuous process by monitoring various data sources, surfacing relevant context, and recommending actions.

Enhanced SAP Business Network capabilities for supply chain orchestration and sustainability

SAP announced significant enhancements to SAP Business Network, the world’s largest B2B platform facilitating over US$6.3 trillion in annual commerce across 190 countries. These new capabilities are designed to revolutionize supply chain orchestration by providing unprecedented visibility, efficiency, and compliance in supply chain processes.

New improvements include more streamlined compliance and quality control for mass upload of certificate documents for suppliers and buyer-controlled document mandates for specific certifications.

To enhance supply chain efficiency and sustainability, new advanced logistics collaboration features offer enhanced greenhouse gas emissions tracking with actual transportation data integration and extended ocean freight support with new tendering and dispute handling functionalities.

Another key improvement focuses on enhanced asset management, with cloud-based ERP integration for better synchronization control, bi-directional integration of materials and models, and automated equipment creation through AAS file uploads and integration of quality inspection checklists.

All enhancements are scheduled to be available by the end of 2025, offering businesses across industries the opportunity to simplify tracking of critical certifications, improve compliance, reduce delays, and support regulatory adherence and sustainability goals across the supply chain.

By integrating actual transportation emissions data, businesses gain more accurate carbon footprint analysis, empowering them to better balance operational efficiency with environmental responsibility.

SAP Business Network Commerce Automation, with data federation, is planned to be available in Europe and KSA by the end of the third quarter of 2025. Additionally, SAP Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration, with data federation, is scheduled to be available in Europe and KSA by the end of the fourth quarter of 2025.

The road ahead

As we continue to roll out these new capabilities throughout 2025, I’m more convinced than ever of SAP’s commitment to ongoing innovation to drive value for our customers. In a world where global uncertainties, risks, and disruptions require a delicate balancing act between adaptability and productivity, SAP Business Suite for supply chain management stands out. It leverages intelligence and all relevant internal and external data to provide the insights needed to make the right decisions, enabling business to adapt and thrive.

Our vision is clear: a future where supply chains are not just reactive systems but proactive, intelligent networks that can anticipate disruptions, optimize operations, and drive business growth.

I’m excited about the journey ahead and look forward to seeing how these innovations will transform businesses across industries.

For those who couldn’t join us at SAP Sapphire, I encourage you to join us at SAP SCM Connect in October, where we’ll dive deeper into these innovations and showcase even more exciting developments in our innovation road map.

Dominik Metzger is president and chief product officer of SAP Supply Chain Management.