In a recent GigaOm benchmark study, SAP Build demonstrated its ability to significantly accelerate application development while reducing costs and efficiently managing production deployments.

The study revealed that SAP Build achieved a remarkable 3x increase in speed of development and a 59 percent reduction in development effort compared to traditional custom development methods. These findings underscore the potential of SAP Build in streamlining development processes and enhancing developer productivity.

The benchmark study evaluated SAP Build and custom development approaches across critical dimensions, including development time, cost, and ease of use. The methodology involved a hands-on assessment and analysis of deploying applications using both methods. SAP Build, a comprehensive platform for business application development and automation, showcased its ability to empower organizations to create enterprise-grade applications through its integrated suite of pro-code, low-code and AI capabilities from its Joule for developers integration.

Key findings from the study include:

• 3x faster project delivery: Projects reach completion in less than half the traditional timeframe through streamlined development workflows, automated service implementation, and integrated testing capabilities.
• 30% boost in development tasks using AI-assistance: The integrated AI assistant streamlined operations and tasks to provide broad value across the development process, with outstanding results at data modeling and synthetic data creation.

These results highlight the substantial business value achieved with SAP Build. By accelerating development timelines, reducing costs, and enhancing developer productivity, it enables organizations to deliver business-critical applications faster and more efficiently. This translates to quicker time-to-market, improved agility, and increased competitiveness.

During the hands-on assessment, GigaOm analysts identified capabilities and characteristics that stand out and support SAP Build advantages when compared to the custom development method:

• Unified development environment: SAP Build provides a cohesive developer experience integrating coding, testing, and deployment tools, streamlining the development process.
• AI assistance: SAP’s AI copilot Joule offers code suggestions, query optimization, and problem-solving support, reducing coding time and improving code quality.
• Pre-built integrations: Out-of-the-box integrations with SAP business applications and third-party services simplify complex system integrations.
• Visual modeling tools: Intuitive interfaces for data modeling and business process design enable rapid prototyping and reduce coding requirements.
• SAP Cloud Application Programming Model: The architectural foundation of SAP Build application development automatically implements enterprise-grade development standards and best practices, enforcing consistent patterns for security, scalability, and compliance.

According to GigaOm’s field analyst: “For teams seeking to improve their development processes, SAP Build offers a practical and efficient solution to address common challenges, such as lengthy development cycles and skill gaps. Its unified environment and automation features allow practitioners to focus on delivering business value, rather than managing technical overhead.”

GigaOm’s benchmark confirms that SAP Build can accelerate development timelines and reduce effort compared to traditional custom development methods. By combining a unified development environment, AI assistance, and pre-built enterprise integrations, SAP Build empowers development teams to deliver secure, scalable applications faster and more efficiently.

To explore these findings in depth, read the full benchmark study here and watch the webinar, “SAP Build vs. Custom Development: Comparing Benefits and TCO,” where we dive into GigaOm’s methodology, discuss the outcomes, and answer questions on transforming your development strategy.

Sid Misra is vice president of Product Marketing for SAP Build at SAP.

WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today shared that one year since Ericsson implemented SAP S/4HANA, the company has reduced project costs by 30 percent and is now looking to leverage AI-driven analytics.

“We are now looking forward to further optimizing and refining our processes,” said Tobias Ralsgård, head of finance digital transformation at Ericsson, one of the world’s leading providers of information and communication technology, with operations in over 180 countries and more than 94,000 employees. “The goal is to establish a more standardized, AI-driven and automated financial environment. This includes utilizing real-time data analysis and AI-driven insights directly within SAP software. Another key area of interest is automated compliance and fraud detection, where AI will help identify suspicious transactions and flag potential regulatory violations,” he added.

Ericsson completed its transition to SAP S/4HANA in 54 hours, setting a new industry benchmark for executing large-scale and complex system projects. With multiple solutions implemented, Ericsson and SAP’s partnership spans technical innovation projects and direct system support across key business areas such as finance, supply chain, HR, procurement and more.

With SAP S/4HANA, the company gained access to the latest business support tools and continuous system updates and improvements and has now launched its next project to fully leverage the software’s standard functionalities, initially focusing on finance. This initiative is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2026.

Instead of a full-scale rebuild, Ericsson opted for a phased approach. Tapping into downtime optimized conversion methodology from SAP that significantly reduces the time required to migrate and convert data to SAP S/4HANA, Ericsson used SAP’s standard tools to sequentially execute the transition instead of setting up a parallel environment.

SAP S/4HANA helps Ericsson continuously evaluate and implement new technologies instead of being constrained by a custom-built system, freeing the company to further optimize its processes, analyze its operations in real time and maintain a competitive edge.

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