AWS and SAP Expand Collaboration to Advance Digital Sovereignty Across Europe


New sovereign cloud collaboration combines SAP enterprise applications expertise with AWS cloud infrastructure, enabling customers in highly regulated industries to pursue AI innovation


WALLDORF — Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), and SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today unveiled plans to make SAP Sovereign Cloud capabilities available on the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, a new, independent cloud for Europe backed by a planned €7.8 billion investment from Amazon.

The collaboration builds on the companies’ longstanding partnership and SAP’s comprehensive new approach to digital sovereignty and AI innovation. SAP Sovereign Cloud capabilities are security-hardened cloud solutions from SAP, aligned with industry standards for regulated industries and governments. The collaboration will focus on uniting these capabilities and SAP’s deep enterprise expertise with AWS infrastructure and operational expertise to meet customers’ evolving digital sovereignty needs across Europe.

SAP Sovereign Cloud: Embrace the cloud — without compromise

“We’re delighted that SAP Sovereign Cloud capabilities will be available on the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. This will give organizations more choice in how they meet their sovereignty requirements while leveraging best-in-class cloud technologies,” said David Brown, vice president of Compute and Machine Learning at AWS. “SAP and AWS share a mutual vision – we want to ensure that our customers have access to some of the most advanced sovereignty solutions available, so organizations can focus on innovation and driving tangible outcomes. We’re looking forward to our ongoing collaboration with SAP and seeing the ways that organizations across Europe will innovate with the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.”

The AWS European Sovereign Cloud, which is set to launch its first AWS Region in Brandenburg, Germany by the end of 2025, is designed to give public sector organizations and customers in highly regulated industries further choice. The offering can help these organizations meet their unique digital sovereignty needs, including data residency, operational autonomy, and resiliency requirements. SAP Sovereign Cloud capabilities are already available on AWS in Australia and New Zealand (since 2023), the UK (since 2024), Canada and India (since 2025), and the addition of SAP’s capabilities to the AWS European Sovereign Cloud is a significant milestone for customers across Europe.

SAP Sovereign Cloud empowers organizations to innovate more securely, comply with local laws, and scale on their own terms. SAP Sovereign Cloud on AWS European Sovereign Cloud solutions will initially include SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP Cloud ERP. These solutions will provide customers with a secure foundation for managing critical business processes and sensitive data, while supporting compliance with relevant regulations.

“With our expanded SAP Sovereign Cloud offerings, we’re enabling customers across all industries to harness the full power of cloud innovation and AI,” said Thomas Saueressig, Member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Customer Services and Delivery. “By deploying the SAP Sovereign Cloud portfolio on the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, customers gain access to our comprehensive suite of sovereign cloud solutions, further strengthened by our trusted, long-standing partnership with Amazon Web Services.”

The AWS European Sovereign Cloud will be separate and independent from AWS’s existing Regions and will have no critical dependencies on non-EU infrastructure. Backed by strong technical controls, sovereign assurances, and legal protections, customers can benefit from the full capacity of AWS with the same industry-leading security, resilience, and expansive service portfolio available in existing Regions.

AWS and SAP have been innovating in the cloud together for more than 16 years.  This new collaboration builds on that history to support customers’ digital sovereignty requirements and accelerate their digital transformation in Europe.

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About Amazon Web Services

Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any workload, and it now has more than 240 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, media, and application development, deployment, and management from 120 Availability Zones within 38 geographic regions, with announced plans for 10 more Availability Zones and three more AWS Regions in Chile, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.

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About SAP

As a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, SAP (NYSE:SAP) stands at the nexus of business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP to bring out their best by uniting business-critical operations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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Future-Proofing Your Business with People Intelligence

In an era defined by constant disruption, business leaders face a formidable challenge: aligning their people strategy with business goals amidst unpredictable workforce dynamics. From surging turnover to rapidly shifting skill requirements, the pressure on human resources has never been greater.

The key to navigating this complexity and building a resilient, future-proof organization lies not in guesswork but in harnessing an organization’s most valuable and often underutilized asset: its people data. By adopting a data-driven approach to HR and talent management, HR can evolve from a reactive administrative function into a proactive, strategic driver of business success.

A unified view of your workforce

The first and most significant hurdle for many organizations is the prevalence of data silos. When critical workforce information is scattered across disconnected HR, finance, and operational systems, it is impossible to get a clear, holistic view of the organization. This fragmentation is a major barrier to progress, leading to inefficiencies and compromised decision-making and preventing leaders from seeing the critical connections between their people and business outcomes.

Establishing a HR analytics dashboard as single source of truth for all people-related data is the foundational step. By harmonizing data from across the enterprise, leaders can gain real-time visibility into workforce composition, compensation equity, and internal mobility. This unified view fosters a culture of transparency and provides the clarity needed to make confident, data-backed decisions about organizational structure and talent management.

Turning data into insight with AI

Simply collecting vast amounts of data is not enough. The true power is unlocked when that data is transformed into actionable, forward-looking intelligence. This is where artificial intelligence (AI) and people analytics become essential. The adoption of these technologies is accelerating as well. According to IDC’s Human Capital Management Survey, 59% of HR talent teams and people leaders are strategizing around new use cases for AI-backed workforce analytics.*

Take a data-driven approach to HR and talent management with People Intelligence

AI-powered applications can analyze complex data sets to identify patterns, trends, and provide tailored recommendations. This allows HR leaders to forecast talent upskilling and reskilling needs, identify employees at risk of attrition, and understand the drivers of engagement so they can proactively address issues before they impact the bottom line.

Driving strategic results across HR

When a foundation of unified data is combined with the power of SAP Business AI, the strategic impact can become tangible across all HR functions, driving better employee experiences.

First, consider employee engagement and retention. Disengagement is a critical issue, with companies facing a 92% likelihood of performance-related revenue losses when employees are disengaged.** A data-driven approach helps uncover the root causes of turnover by analyzing feedback, performance, and compensation data. This allows organizations to address issues related to skills, workforce composition, or compensation, improving retention and building a more engaged workforce.

Second, in the face of a growing skills gap, data is indispensable. The World Economic Forum predicts that 59% of the global workforce will require reskilling by 2030 to meet changing demands.*** The People Intelligence package in SAP Business Data Cloud allows organizations to map the skills their workforce has against the skills they will need, identifying critical gaps with precision. AI-enabled intelligence applications can then help create personalized learning paths for employees, ensuring that training investments are targeted, effective, and directly aligned with future business needs.

Finally, a data-driven strategy revolutionizes the hiring process. By analyzing metrics like time-to-fill, quality of hire, and source effectiveness, organizations can streamline recruiting, reduce bias, and make stronger hiring decisions. This not only enhances the quality of hires but also creates significant efficiencies and time savings, freeing up teams to focus on building relationships with top candidates.

The path to building a resilient and competitive organization is paved with data. By breaking down silos, leveraging the power of AI, and applying insights across the employee lifecycle, businesses can transform their people strategy. This evolution elevates HR into a critical strategic partner, capable of guiding the organization with clarity and confidence. In today’s landscape, a data-driven people strategy is no longer a future aspiration but a present-day necessity for success.

Interested in learning more about how People Intelligence can transform your HR strategy? Hear from experts on the latest trends shaping the future of talent and learn more about the latest AI and data-driven innovations in SAP SuccessFactors solutions.


Ponti Manolides is a growth priority marketing lead for Learning & Talent at SAP SuccessFactors.

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*IDC, “Spotlight: Optimize Engagement and Business Impact to Maximize the Potential of Your Talent Practice” August 2025.
**IDC, “Webinar: Reimagining Talent: The Power of AI, Skills, and People Intelligence,” 2025.
***World Economic Forum, “The Future of Jobs Report 2025,” January 7, 2025.

SAP Global Line of Business Partner Excellence Awards: 2025 Winners and Finalists

The SAP Global LoB Partner Excellence Awards are an SAP partner recognition program focusing on valuable contributions towards achieving SAP’s cloud growth ambitions through the following lines of business: HCM, SAP Customer Experience, Spend Management, and Supply Chain Management.

Complementing the SAP Pinnacle Awards, SAP’s premier global partner recognition program, the SAP Global LoB Partner Excellence Awards allow more granular recognition for achievements within the specific lines of business.

The four lines of business reward partners in the following five categories: Indirect Sales and Customer Success, Partner Solution Success, Delivery Quality, Sales Success – Large Enterprise, and SAP Business AI – Customer Adoption. For each category, partners are selected based on data and key performance indicators, ensuring all eligible partners are considered for this prestigious recognition.

Here are the SAP Global LoB Partner Excellence Awards 2025 winners and finalists:

HCM

SAP Global HCM Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Indirect Sales and Customer Success

  • Winner: NTT DATA
  • Finalist: IBM
  • Finalist: EPI-USE

SAP Global HCM Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Partner Solution Success

  • Winner: OpenText
  • Finalist: Workforce
  • Finalist: Qualtrics

SAP Global HCM Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Delivery Quality

  • Winner: EPI-USE
  • Finalist: Accenture
  • Finalist: HR Path

SAP Global HCM Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Sales Success – Large Enterprise

  • Winner: Accenture
  • Finalist: Deloitte
  • Finalist: PwC

SAP Global HCM Partner Excellence Award 2025 for SAP Business AI – Customer Adoption

  • Winner: NTT DATA
  • Finalist: PwC
  • Finalist: EPI-USE

SAP Customer Experience

SAP Global SAP Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Indirect Sales and Customer Success

  • Winner: All for One
  • Finalist: NTT DATA
  • Finalist: Netconomy

SAP Global SAP Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Partner Solution Success

  • Winner: Coveo
  • Finalist: SEW
  • Finalist: DataXstream

SAP Global SAP Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Delivery Quality

  • Winner: Sybit
  • Finalist: Querplex
  • Finalist: All for One

SAP Global SAP Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Sales Success – Large Enterprise

  • Winner: Accenture
  • Finalist: Deloitte
  • Finalist: EY

SAP Global SAP Customer Experience Partner Excellence Award 2025 for SAP Business AI – Customer Adoption

  • Winner: Accenture
  • Finalist: NTT DATA
  • Finalist: Capgemini

Spend Management

SAP Global Spend Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Indirect Sales and Customer Success

  • Winner: NTT DATA
  • Finalist: Deloitte
  • Finalist: Delaware

SAP Global Spend Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Partner Solution Success

  • Winner: Blackline
  • Finalist: Vertex
  • Finalist: Icertis

SAP Global Spend Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Delivery Quality

  • Winner: Deloitte
  • Finalist: PwC
  • Finalist: IBM

SAP Global Spend Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Sales Success – Large Enterprise

  • Winner: Accenture
  • Finalist: Deloitte
  • Finalist: IBM

SAP Global Spend Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 for SAP Business AI – Customer Adoption

  • Winner: Deloitte
  • Finalist: PwC
  • Finalist: Accenture

Supply Chain Management

SAP Global Supply Chain Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Indirect Sales and Customer Success

  • Winner: NTT DATA
  • Finalist: Deloitte
  • Finalist: Westernacher

SAP Global Supply Chain Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Partner Solution Success

  • Winner: DSC Software AG
  • Finalist: TeamViewer
  • Finalist: Prospecta Software

SAP Global Supply Chain Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Delivery Quality

  • Winner: Deloitte
  • Finalist: Accenture
  • Finalist: NTT DATA

SAP Global Supply Chain Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 for Sales Success – Large Enterprise

  • Winner: Accenture
  • Finalist: Deloitte
  • Finalist: PwC

SAP Global Supply Chain Management Partner Excellence Award 2025 for SAP Business AI – Customer Adoption

  • Winner: Deloitte
  • Finalist: NTT DATA
  • Finalist: Infosys

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ADP and SAP Collaborate to Elevate the Global Payroll Experience

ROSELAND, N.J. and WALLDORF ADP, a global leader in HR and payroll solutions, and SAP SE (NYSE: SAP), a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, are partnering to enable shared clients to run ADP Global Payroll in the cloud.

This collaboration marks the next milestone in the longstanding partnership between ADP and SAP and illustrates a shared commitment to help enterprises transform their payroll operations.

Run core operations with confidence using a ready-to-run cloud ERP from SAP

Working in close partnership with the professional services team from SAP, ADP has seamlessly upgraded the first wave of 50 global payroll clients to SAP Cloud ERP.

“This achievement is a testament to the power of collaboration and the shared vision between ADP and SAP,” said Frank Smits, senior vice president of ADP Global Payroll. “Together, we are setting a new standard for global payroll, empowering organizations to focus on supporting their people and driving growth.”

Maryann Abbajay, chief revenue officer of SAP SuccessFactors said, “Every business depends on flawless payroll to run smoothly. The SAP and ADP partnership delivers cloud innovation to transform how organizations manage their most valuable resource: their people.”

Through the partnership, clients can benefit from:

  • Global reach: Payroll solutions supporting millions of employees through ADP Global Payroll in over 140 countries
  • Trusted expertise: Combining ADP and SAP’s leadership in payroll and enterprise cloud technology
  • Future-ready payroll: Providing security and scalability for global enterprises
  • Accelerated cloud migration: Successfully partnered to migrate first wave of clients in less than 12 months

The partnership offers ADP a reliable and scalable technological foundation for its global payroll solutions to meet the specific client needs in each country. This includes ADP localized templates and expertise, managed services and additional HR offerings. As part of ADP’s continued investment in the global payroll experience it provides clients, the partnership leverages ADP’s well-established expertise in payroll implementation, managed services and compliance, laying the groundwork for integrated AI assistance to boost productivity.

To learn more, visit ADP.com.

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About ADP (NASDAQ: ADP)

ADP has been shaping the world of work with innovation and expertise for more than 75 years. As a global leader in HR and payroll solutions, ADP continuously works to solve business challenges for our clients and their workers, from simple, easy-to-use tools for small businesses to fully integrated platforms for global enterprises—and everything in between. Always Designing for People means we’re focused on just that—people. We use our unmatched AI-driven insights and proven expertise to design innovative solutions that help people achieve greater success at work. More than 1.1 million clients across 140+ countries rely on ADP’s exceptional service to support their people and drive their business forward. HR, Talent, Time Management, Benefits, Compliance, and Payroll. Learn more at ADP.com.

About SAP

As a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, SAP (NYSE: SAP) stands at the nexus of business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP to bring out their best by uniting business-critical operations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

Note to editors:
To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this platform, you can find high resolution material for your media channels.

For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:
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This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP’s 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
ADP, the ADP logo, and Always Designing for People, are trademarks of ADP, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.
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UiPath Goes Live with SAP Cloud ERP Private

WALLDORF SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that UiPath Inc. (NYSE: PATH), a global leader in agentic automation, has successfully gone live with an SAP Cloud ERP Private solution as part of its strategic digital transformation initiative.

Run your core operations with confidence using a ready-to-run cloud ERP from SAP

The company achieved 93% clean core in solution design and 88% clean core across the overall implementation, advancing its goals to modernize ERP, a component of its ongoing journey toward operational excellence.

As part of UiPath’s growth strategy, the company targeted ERP as a critical area of transformation, taking an automation-first approach to streamline and standardize its operations. As a global company, UiPath needs to comply with multi-GAAP reporting across different geographies. By moving to the cloud, UiPath is now able to connect fragmented systems, cut time and resources spent on billing cycles, and simplify complex multi-GAAP reporting processes—including order to cash, lead to cash, finance, procurement and human resources.

“Our transformation efforts are centered around two key goals—how can we leverage automation to improve customer experience and, in doing so, make our teams and overall business more efficient and agile,” UiPath CFO and COO Ashim Gupta said. “Modernizing our ERP system was a strategic move to meet those two goals, enabling greater agility and efficiency through the automation and standardization of key processes and workflows. SAP Cloud ERP Private gave us the ability to do just that with the added benefit of a frictionless transition with minimal disruption, positioning us for future growth and innovation.”

The high clean core scores reflect UiPath’s commitment to adopt best practices from SAP and minimize custom code to help ensure long-term agility and ease of innovation. The implementation was delivered on time and within scope, supported by a collaborative effort between UiPath and SAP. With SAP Cloud ERP Private now live, UiPath is well positioned to accelerate its automation-first vision and drive continuous innovation across its global operations, enabling scalable growth, improved compliance and enhanced user experience across its enterprise functions.

“UiPath’s successful go-live with SAP Cloud ERP shows how next-generation ERP, when combined with intelligent automation can deliver tangible business outcomes: faster processes, leaner operations and the ability to scale globally,” said Jan Gilg, chief revenue officer and president, SAP Americas and the Global Business Suite. “This is what disciplined execution and an outcomes-driven transform looks like in an AI-first economy, which is why we’re proud to partner with UiPath on their journey.” 

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This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP’s 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
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Factory-X: How SAP Is Driving the Digitalization of Mechanical Engineering

With the Catena-X collaborative data ecosystem, the automotive industry has successfully demonstrated how sovereign data exchange works. Factory-X now transfers these proven principles to mechanical engineering—from the supply chain to the shop floor.

Europe faces a crucial challenge: while the region has been successful for decades with the principle of “quality over cost,” other continents are catching up in quality while also pursuing aggressive pricing strategies. “We must maintain quality while simultaneously reducing costs and becoming even more flexible in meeting our customers’ needs,” explains Georg Kube, head of Industry Data Ecosystems at SAP SE.

The answer may lie in the data that has been collected in German factories and SAP systems for decades. “Europe’s great asset compared to America and Asia is our historical knowledge of how good processes and good products work,” Kube says. “This systemic knowledge—how to machine, how to manufacture, how to set up the right processes—resides in European companies, typically in SAP systems.”

This data forms the foundation for data-driven business models based on the “data flywheel” principle: the more data that flows into a system, the more new data is generated—a self-reinforcing effect that can provide European companies with a decisive competitive advantage.

Manufacturing-X: Germany’s answer to global challenges

Factory-X is part of a larger vision: Manufacturing-X, an industry-wide initiative by the German government launched as part of the Industry 4.0 platform. The goal is to promote digital ecosystems and establish an international standard for data exchange.

Manufacturing-X is based on the fundamental principle of data sovereignty and addresses a classic dilemma: companies need data from others for digitalization but want to protect their own sensitive information. The solution is a legally and technically secured framework in which data can be shared in a controlled manner without owners losing control over it.

The initiative encompasses various industry-specific projects: Catena-X for the automotive industry was the pioneer, followed by Factory-X for mechanical engineering, Chem-X for the chemical industry, and Semiconductor-X for the semiconductor industry.

Overcome the challenges of disconnected, fragmented business processes by leveraging data from an industry network

From horizontal to vertical integration

While Catena-X revolutionized horizontal supply chain processes in the automotive industry, Factory-X goes a step further. “Factory-X extends the proven Catena-X concepts to additional industries and brings vertical integration down to the shop floor,” says Nadine Kanja, solution head for SAP Industry Network Automotive and Catena-X.

SAP shares consortium leadership for Factory-X with Siemens and coordinates the work of 47 consortium members. What’s special: while Catena-X viewed the factory as a single block, it’s at the center of Factory-X. “The shop floor is our central focus because that’s where machines with their own suppliers and maintenance requirements are located,” Kanja explains.

New use cases drive greater manufacturing flexibility

“The goal is to extend supply chain flexibility to the manufacturing area,” Kanja says. “When technical problems arise or customer needs change, manufacturers must be able to pivot quickly. However, factories aren’t exactly known for their flexibility—machines are permanently installed and hardwired. Rebuilding all of this is an enormous effort.”

This is exactly where Factory-X comes in. The initiative aims to bring flexibility directly into manufacturing—not just logistics—through new concepts like modular production, manufacturing as a service, and on-demand manufacturing. “This is an essential part of Factory-X: the flexibilization and automation of actual production processes,” Kanja explains.

Factory-X focuses on use cases that fall under the motto of “individualization and customer centricity.” These include:

  • Collaborative information logistics: Optimizing information flows between partners
  • Condition monitoring: Monitoring the condition of equipment and machines for proactive, data-based maintenance decisions
  • Modular production: Flexible production concepts for changing requirements
  • Manufacturing as a service: On-demand manufacturing through digital marketplaces

Concrete business benefits

The Factory-X use cases promise measurable improvements for various business models. Condition monitoring, for example, enables proactive maintenance instead of reactive repairs. This not only reduces production costs and downtime but also opens up new digital service revenues for machine manufacturers from their installed base.

Manufacturing as a service revolutionizes capacity utilization: production companies can automatically receive orders through digital marketplaces that match their capabilities and available capacities without extensive sales activities. Standardized data models even enable the economic production of individual pieces (“lot size 1”), which means individualization without cost disadvantages.

Another competitive advantage lies in access to new partners. Through the open data ecosystem, companies can collaborate with supply chain partners without needing existing business relationships, as standardized mechanisms make integration faster, more secure, and more cost-effective.

Technological innovation: MX-Port as key

Factory-X extends the Manufacturing-X initiative not only thematically but also technologically. In addition to the established Data Space protocols from Catena-X, Factory-X introduces the MX-Port concept, which additionally builds on the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) Framework and Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC-UA).

“The existing protocols have a relatively high technological overhead to negotiate each time who can see what,” Kube explains. “In mechanical engineering, there are many use cases where this is not necessary. Therefore, we supplement the existing protocols with a second one that has similar characteristics but with less overhead.”

This dual-technology strategy enables companies active in both the automotive industry and mechanical engineering to flexibly use the appropriate technology for each case.

The path to the future

Factory-X is designed as a development project until mid-2026 and will then transition into a stable operational phase. The vision is ambitious: a digital ecosystem that strengthens the competitiveness of European industry while enabling new data-driven business models.

“What we’re building in Factory-X can also be scaled to the other data spaces of Manufacturing-X,” Kanja explains. Mechanical engineering thus becomes a testing ground for a comprehensive transformation of European industry.


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SAP Recognized as a Strategic Leader in the 2025 Fosway 9-Grid™ for Cloud HR

We are thrilled to share that SAP has once again been named a Strategic Leader in the 2025 Fosway 9-Grid™ for Cloud HR. This report provides a multi-dimensional model to help organizations compare and choose the best cloud HR and learning tech provider in the European market to meet their business needs.

According to Fosway, vendors recognized as Strategic Leaders provide a rich suite of capability across a broad scope of features and have the sophistication to meet the needs of complex enterprise-scale customers. Strategic Leaders also have strong market performance and customer advocacy.

“The Cloud HR market remains fiercely contested and continually innovative,” said Dr. Sven Elbert, head of Analyst Services at Fosway Group. “The solution providers that thrive in this environment are the ones that maintain their momentum, expand their scope and sophistication, and leverage AI to gain competitive edge, as SAP has done and continues to do. SAP SuccessFactors is again named a Strategic Leader in 2025.”

Innovation that delivers impact 

This recognition underscores SAP’s commitment to innovation for its community of over 10,000 SAP SuccessFactors customers worldwide. Over the past year, SAP has delivered significant advancements across SAP SuccessFactors HCM, many supported by AI, designed to help customers close skills gaps, boost productivity, and support their people at every stage of the employee journey.

The SAP SuccessFactors first half 2025 product release introduced over 250 new capabilities designed to increase efficiency, elevate the employee experience, and drive business impact.

At SAP Sapphire Orlando in May, SAP unveiled several new solutions and product enhancements, including:

  • The People Intelligence package in SAP Business Data Cloud can harmonize customers’ people, skills, finance, and business data into AI-driven workforce insights, enabling HR and business leaders to make smarter, more proactive decisions.
  • The Performance and Goals Agent, our first HR Agent, equips managers with critical insights to help foster more productive conversations with employees.
  • SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management, our new HR service delivery solution, can accelerate ticket case resolutions with AI, allowing employees to quickly get answers to their questions reducing the administrative burden on HR teams.
  • WalkMe for SAP SuccessFactors HCM helps accelerate adoption of SAP SuccessFactors solutions by offering users in-app, contextual guidance while also giving HR teams the insights they need to continuously optimize workflows.
Foster success across your organization with AI-enabled human capital management solutions

Building on this momentum, last week SAP completed its acquisition of SmartRecruiters, a leading talent acquisition software provider. This move further strengthens SAP’s ability to help customers attract and retain top talent in today’s highly competitive market.

Delivering value for customers worldwide

Organizations of all sizes are rethinking how they manage their people—balancing efficiency with innovation, global consistency with local needs, and business growth with employee experience. In Europe, SAP is a trusted partner in this journey, helping companies tackle complex workforce challenges and prepare for the future of work.

Frit Ravich

Family-run snacks company Frit Ravich S.L. transformed its HR operations and reinforced its company culture, built on innovation and belonging, by choosing SAP SuccessFactors solutions. Now, with plans to become a skills-driven organization and double its sales, Frit Ravich is adopting AI in conjunction with SAP SuccessFactors solutions to expand career development opportunities and improve the employee experience.

“The Joule copilot will change the way we interact with our people on a daily basis. This does not mean that we’ll lose out on direct contact with them, but rather it will make HR interactions faster, more accessible, and more convenient, with 24×7 access,” said Rebeca Montilla, talent manager, Frit Ravich S.L.

Menzies Aviation 

As a global leader in aviation services “working above and below the wing,” Menzies provides a myriad of services, including ground services, fueling, air cargo handling, and executive services, together with comfortable lounges at more than 295 airports in 65 countries.

By choosing SAP SuccessFactors solutions, Menzies now has a unified platform to help it attain data-driven insights for business agility and provide a modern employee experience with opportunities for learning and career development.

Today, Menzies no longer needs to estimate how many employees it has at any given time. Having a single source of data means that it can pull up this information at the push of a button for the present as well as the historical past for comparison. “We can start to see trends, so we can start to understand what our future models would look like as well,” said Sarah Mackinlay, senior vice president of People Projects & Integrations at Menzies Aviation. “Being able to have business insight and business data to make decisions has been really important on our continued journey with SAP SuccessFactors and supporting our global strategy.”

“For us, this journey is about having a single source of truth with global consistency, data insight, and visibility yet maintaining local data ownership. Data security and integrity are at the very core,” she added.

Powering workforces for the future

As organizations face growing skills gaps, heightened employee expectations, and pressure to do more with limited resources, SAP continues to introduce new solutions to help customers tackle their most pressing business and workforce challenges. Join us at Success Connect at SAP Connect, October 6-8 in Las Vegas—or virtually on October 9—to explore how our latest advancements can drive real impact across your organization.

Learn more about SAP SuccessFactors HCM.


Lara Albert is chief marketing officer at SAP SuccessFactors.

Join us in Las Vegas or virtually this October to discover how to maximize your SAP solutions

About the Fosway 9-Grid™ 
Fosway Group is Europe’s #1 HR industry analyst. The Fosway 9-Grid™ provides a unique assessment of the leading learning and talent solutions available to organizations in EMEA. The analysis is based on extensive independent research and insights from Fosway’s Corporate Research Network of over 250 organizations, including BP, HSBC, PwC, RBS, Sanofi, Shell, and Vodafone.
Visit the Fosway website at www.fosway.com for more information on Fosway Group’s research and services. 

Businessman in an modern sky office by night with beautiful city skyline view .

Cloud ERP Insights from an Industry Expert at Westernacher

Moving to cloud ERP is not just investing in new software. It is committing to changing how your business operates.

Run your core operations with confidence using a ready-to-run cloud ERP

That is the reality. Behind all the talk of faster deployments and streamlined processes lies a deeper shift. It requires rethinking your data, core processes, and how teams work together. And this shift does not begin at go-live. It begins months earlier, with the questions asked and the foundations put in place.

Many companies still approach cloud ERP as an IT upgrade. But the success of these programs rarely comes down to just technology. It comes down to how well you prepare, how you approach process standardization, data readiness, governance, and change leadership.

Even with the best intentions, challenges still show up. Teams struggle to balance global templates with local needs. Subject matter experts do not always have the time to fully participate. Expectations around timelines and automation can be misaligned from the start.

In a recent episode of the Future of ERP podcast, Abhishek Vasudevan, head of SAP S/4HANA at Westernacher, shared his perspective on what separates successful ERP transformations from the rest — from the most critical prerequisites to the common mistakes and what ERP looks like when it truly enables the business.

Breaking down business challenges and expectations

“Disconnected systems cause poor integration, data delays, and isolated teams,” Vasudevan explained. “The fragmentation creates barriers to real-time data visibility and integration, forcing reliance on manual work to piece together information from disparate sources. This slows decision-making and enforces artificial walls between business functions.”

Switching to an integrated, modern cloud ERP platform helps businesses break down barriers and provides real-time, cross-functional data flow.

Vasudevan also highlighted a critical hurdle: “There is a clear disconnect between how legacy users operate and the demands of moving to an integrated ERP system. The key question is whether the workforce can adapt to these changes and take on the challenges of adopting a new system and new ways of working.”

But one misconception is expecting a fully integrated ERP to be operational quickly by simply activating system functions. Faster implementations — which can sometimes take weeks or months instead of years — depend heavily on an organization’s ability to standardize processes across sites while retaining competitive differentiators.

“Success requires a phased “crawl, walk, run” approach focusing on processes, people, and standardization,” further explained Vasudevan.

Before a company ever starts configuring a system or training users, there is foundational work that must be done to set the stage for success. These are the conversations and actions that happen behind the scenes — months before go-live — that ultimately determine whether the implementation will deliver value.

Essential prerequisites for a successful ERP implementation

An effective cloud ERP adoption starts long before go-live. Based on extensive experience across industries, Vasudevan outlines six critical areas organizations must focus on early:

  1. Start with your data: Data is often the Achilles’ heel of ERP projects. Companies must start by understanding where their data lives, how clean it is, and whether it covers all critical business processes. That means assessing your sources early, ensuring completeness, and working with ERP experts to understand what fields matter and how your data should be structured.
  2. Understand the technical preparation, especially for upgrades: Even if you are doing what feels like a technical upgrade — like moving from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA — there is still deep preparation involved. Organizations must think through customer-vendor integration, system sizing, platform readiness, and historical data decisions. These technical topics are not just backend items; they directly affect the ability to execute a project smoothly.
  3. Rethink and standardize your processes: ERP implementations are a golden opportunity to simplify operations and remove legacy complexity. The more standardized processes are across regions, business units, and functions, the easier it becomes to scale and automate.
  4. Set up strong governance from the start: You need the right structure in place to guide the program, enable fast decisions, and stay aligned. That includes a clear steering committee, empowered business leads, and a process for how deviations will be evaluated and approved.
  5. Identify your internal change agent: Your system integrator will support change management, but someone from within your organization must to champion the change. This person should understand how things work today and be able to work across teams to bring clarity and alignment.
  6. Start identifying key and end users and prepare a plan for them early: Do not wait until testing or training to engage end users: start early. Understand their day-to-day, shape the design through day-in-the-life scenarios, and roll out MVPs that invite feedback.

Listen to the full podcast episode here: How Can Cloud ERP Serve as a Strategic Catalyst for Digital Transformation

Coming up, we will explore the most common challenges businesses face during and after ERP implementation. From data readiness gaps to change resistance, we will unpack the patterns that often derail projects — and how to stay ahead of them.

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How Customers Win with SAP’s Proactive, Autonomous, and Seamless Support

SAP Business AI can boost productivity with technology that aligns with the AI strategies of our customers—ranging from building effective agents to managing intelligent systems.

Among the many announcements at SAP Sapphire in 2025, the company unveiled new innovations, partnerships, and integrations that can deliver real-time, proactive assistance. For example, SAP’s AI copilot Joule is now available to users across SAP and non-SAP systems. SAP also expanded its agentic AI footprint across SAP Business Suite by introducing Joule Agents for multiple use cases and an evolving AI Foundation as the AI operating system designed to simplify development, enabling developers to build, deploy, and scale solutions with ease.

Discover how the newest AI agents can help your whole business run faster

The impact of AI on the delivery of customer support at SAP

As announced in Q2 this year, SAP’s simplified, tiered, services-and-support engagement model will be generally available in early 2026. Here, SAP’s customer support is a centerpiece of the Foundational Success Plan, delivered via the proven SAP Enterprise Support offering included in every SAP cloud solution subscription. The Foundational Success Plan can support in-house teams by helping to onboard and run solutions, keep business continuity, and drive ongoing value. It includes customer self-service options, application lifecycle management solutions centered around SAP Cloud ALM, and preventative mission-critical support. With the plan, SAP turns on Joule for a customer’s business and supports the team ramp-up with learning journeys for SAP Business AI.

When it comes to customer support in general, agentic AI can redefine the support process by moving beyond scripted responses and basic automation. It can assess situations, make decisions, and take action—often before the customer even knows there’s an issue. SAP’s customer support harnesses agentic AI to help deliver smarter assistance, faster resolutions, and a stronger human–tech partnership.

We focus on elevating support experiences for customers and improving support delivery for engineers by employing a combination of agents and assistants. For example, we use autoresponders and smart log analyzers to help process issues, while configuration advisors, language services, and proactive notifiers can guide customers toward self-service solutions. At the same time, our support engineers rely on co-pilots to help summarize cases, recommend solutions, escalate using intelligence, assist with communications, and create a continuous feedback loop for learning. For strategic customer support, we use tools like feedback collectors to help capture customer insights and channel recommenders to help ensure that every interaction is handled in the right channel. Together, these innovations can redefine support as faster, smarter, and more human.

The impact for customers

When it comes to SAP Business AI, we build trust and create customer confidence by being relevant, reliable, and responsible. Unlike traditional AI that only suggests answers, agentic AI can reason, decide, and take action. For customers to feel confident, they expect accuracy, reliability, and transparency from the system.

As we support and guide our customers, we recognize that while agentic AI is a game-changer, it is not a magic pill. Coupled with ethical and responsible AI, real impact comes from SAP’s business expertise and a deep understanding of what our customers truly need. When knowledge is combined with AI to infuse autonomy and interoperability in our agents, we can unlock the ability to simplify processes, remove friction, and deliver experiences that feel effortless.

AI technology amplifies human insight and delivers delightful user experiences, but when it comes to business AI, it is our domain expertise that fuels SAP Business AI into a tool for creating genuinely easy, productive, and meaningful experiences for our customers.


Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.

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SAP Recognized as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud HCM Suites for 1,000+ Employee Enterprises

We’re proud to announce that SAP is a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud HCM Suites for 1,000+ Employee Enterprises for the 10th consecutive time.

SAP was once again recognized for its ability to execute and completeness of vision. Gartner defines cloud HCM suites for 1,000+ employee enterprises as cloud application suites that deliver functionality for attracting, developing, engaging, retaining, and managing employees.

SAP SuccessFactors HCM provides global HR cloud software to over 10,000 customers worldwide, from startups and mid-sized companies to large enterprises. With a strong global core, embedded AI capabilities, and a robust partner ecosystem, SAP SuccessFactors empowers organizations with the technology to help unlock their workforce potential. By combining skills intelligence and flexible HCM solutions, our solutions can enable organizations to stay future-ready and continuously adapt in an ever-changing world.

Shaping the future of work

At SAP Sapphire in May, we announced several exciting innovations and new product offerings designed to transform how HR and business leaders manage, empower, and support their people, including:

  • Performance and Goals Agent, our first HR agent, equips managers with critical insights to help foster more meaningful and productive conversations with employees.
  • WalkMe for SAP SuccessFactors HCM can accelerate adoption of SAP SuccessFactors solutions by offering users contextual guidance while also giving HR teams insights into where there may be gaps.
  • People Intelligence package in SAP Business Data Cloud helps unify customers’ people, skills, finance, and business data into AI-driven workforce insights—enabling HR and business leaders to make smarter, more proactive decisions that drive measurable outcomes.
  • SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management, our new HR service delivery solution, can accelerate ticket case resolutions with AI, giving employees self-service tools to quickly get answers while freeing up HR teams from time-consuming tasks.

Our first half 2025 release also brought over 250 new innovations designed to address any business need and help organizations stay ahead of the curve, including Joule on mobile, redesigned candidate and alumni journeys in recruiting and onboarding, an enhanced user experience in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, and more.

As organizations continue to face growing skills gaps, SAP is committed to helping its customers attract and retain top talent in an increasingly competitive landscape. On September 11, SAP completed its acquisition of SmartRecruiters, a leading talent acquisition software provider, further strengthening the ability to support customers across the entire hire-to-retire journey.

Driving impact across industries

Customers across industries and sizes are unlocking measurable value from the SAP SuccessFactors HCM portfolio.

  • American Honda, a subsidiary of Honda Motor Company Ltd., is powering EV innovation with a skills-based talent strategy. “The business AI capabilities in SAP SuccessFactors solutions empower us to be a better company, automotive producer, and mobility leader. These tools will give our associates the flexibility to gain efficiencies and the opportunity to upskill and reskill as needed, creating an interconnected environment where they can perform at their best,” said Tim Grimminger, HR Data and Technology manager, American Honda Motor Company Inc.
  • Galicia, a leading bank in Argentina, is transforming its HR operations with SAP SuccessFactors solutions. “Incorporating AI technology greatly simplified the hiring experience for both the candidates and the recruiters who perform these tasks,” said Florencia Varise, Analytic Hub and IT Ecosystem lead, Galicia.
  • Capgemini, a global business and technology partner, is building a skills engine to support the employee lifecycle. “Skills are at the core of our company, as they support both clients and employees. Our promise to ‘get the future you want’ means thinking about future client needs and employee skills and career development. SAP SuccessFactors HCM is key in our skills-first approach to our people experience transformation,” said Jihane Baciocchini, vice president and head of Talent Acquisition, Capgemini.

Unlocking workforce potential

Looking ahead, we’re excited to continue delivering innovations that help our customers increase organizational agility and productivity, accelerate growth, and make every employee a success story.

Join us at Success Connect at SAP Connect, October 6-8 in Las Vegas, Nevada, or virtually on October 9, to learn about our latest innovations and how to build a workforce that’s ready for what’s next.

Read the full Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud HCM Suites for 1,000+ Employee Enterprises report.


Lara Albert is chief marketing officer at SAP SuccessFactors.

Join us in Las Vegas or virtually this October to discover how to maximize your SAP solutions

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from SAP.

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