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.

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.

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. 

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

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.

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 10^th 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.

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.

In today’s digital landscape, visibility into your SAP solutions is paramount, not just a luxury. Enter the customer insights dashboard, a strategic tool within SAP for Me designed to transform complex data into clear insights and, ultimately, into informed decisions.

SAP for Me: tailored digital gateway

SAP for Me transcends the typical portal; it’s your customized digital gateway to holistic SAP insights. Every aspect, from system landscapes to support services, is tailored to meet the distinct needs of your role and responsibilities.

SAP for Me is more than a portal — it’s your gateway to intelligent support.

Thomas Pfiester, member of the Extended Board of SAP SE and head of Global Customer Engagement & Services

Customer insights dashboard: comprehensive SAP viewfinder

Residing in SAP for Me, the customer insights dashboard delivers a comprehensive, customizable view of your SAP environment—whether you’re managing hybrid settings, tracking case trends, or preparing for contract renewals. It empowers users to:

• Obtain a 360° view across all SAP engagements
• Analyze support data, product portfolios, renewals, and system landscapes
• Review historical support cases for quality, volume, and trends
• Leverage customizable filters and automated reporting for precise insights

This tool is designed to both report data and to transform it into actionable intelligence, enhancing leadership clarity and decision-making confidence.

What’s new: continuous enhancements

SAP is committed to continuously refining the customer insights dashboard to cater to evolving needs. Notable recent enhancements include:

• Benchmark capabilities through peer group comparison
• On-demand generation of detailed reports like support insights report and case overview report
• Increased visibility with partner case statistics and onboarding milestones

These updates are meticulously designed to deepen insights and streamline strategic processes. Additional planned updated include:

• Deeper engagement metrics from SAP Enterprise Support Academy
• Advanced AI-driven insights for smarter, quicker decisions
• CPU consumption and memory consumption for private cloud: Access performance metrics for private cloud environments

Data without insight is noise. SAP for Me turns it into action.

Anja Schneider, senior vice president and global head of Premium Engagement & Advisory at SAP

Accessing the dashboard

Starting with this powerful tool is straightforward via three ways:

• Use the direct link: me.sap.com/reporting
• Use the reporting icon:
  • Log into SAP for Me
  • Click on the reporting icon on the left menu bar
• Use the customer insight dashboard card:
  • Log into SAP for Me
  • Navigate to the Services & Support then Diagnostics, Reporting & Analytics
  • Click on the customer insights dashboard card

In all three cases, ensure your S-user ID is authorized to access the necessary features (get more information in SAP Note 3336856).

Why it matters

With comprehensive visibility, your approach shifts from reactive problem-solving to proactive strategic planning. The Customer Insights Dashboard equips you with the clarity to forecast and act effectively, supporting your role as a strategic leader within your organization.

When support is transparent, it’s not just reactive — it’s strategic.

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

Turn insight into strategic action

For CIOs, IT administrators, and support leaders, the customer insights dashboard is more than a tool; it’s your strategic command center embedded within SAP for Me. Experience how it turns insights into impactful actions today.

• SAP for Me portal: Access the customer insights dashboard through the SAP for Me portal
• Getting started guide: Learn how to effectively use the dashboard with this video tutorial
• Customer insights dashboard portal: All relevant information can be found in the reporting portal

Check it out today and discover how insight becomes impact.

Oliver Huschke is vice president of External Engagements, Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.

From boardrooms to shop floors, companies are moving quickly to embed AI into their operations. The goals are clear: drive efficiencies, reduce costs, and deliver smarter, faster, more personal customer experiences.

This makes a lot of sense given that today 89% of businesses are expected to compete primarily on CX. However, the results aren’t always matching the hype.

A recent Gartner study found that while enterprise AI adoption is rising, real impact is often elusive. The reason? Many businesses are still operating with disconnected systems and disjointed data. Without a strong foundation, AI can’t deliver what it promises.

Siloed systems aren’t just a technology problem—they’re a business barrier.

The CX Disconnect: When Fragmentation Undermines Intelligence

Too many organizations still rely on a patchwork of tools for customer experience, supply chain, finance, and HR. While these point solutions solve individual challenges, they create friction and disconnect across the business. In an AI-powered world, friction is the enemy.

AI thrives on complete, clean, and contextualized data to function effectively. If your marketing, sales, service, and fulfillment teams cannot see the same data in real time, or trust that it’s accurate, your AI strategy will not be set up to succeed.

With the best intentions to embrace AI in an effort to achieve incredible efficiency, instead, customers will still lose valuable time on manual integration, inconsistent customer experiences, and AI outputs that are only as good as the (fragmented) data feeding them. The delightful experience aspirations turn into trust lost and frustration all around.

Modular Innovation, Meet Enterprise Intelligence 

SAP has reimagined enterprise management with SAP Business Suite, representing a fundamental shift from traditional ERP systems to a modular, composable architecture that integrates AI, data, and applications into a unified platform.  

Grounded in harmonized, semantically rich data, this architecture allows businesses to make sense of data that has traditionally been scattered across systems and trapped in silos, so AI has the comprehensive data it needs to quickly generate meaningful insights.

SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) with native integration of SAP Databricks, serves as a data backbone for business AI. It seamlessly connects all SAP data and third-party data and provides integrated governance to enable real-time AI-driven decision making.  

Companies do not lose precious time locating and preparing data for AI. AI systems work on trusted, contextualized data, not just generic data. This produces accurate, reliable, and actionable AI recommendations that enable organizations to scale AI innovation rapidly across business domains. 

SAP BDC is the foundation for Joule, SAP’s AI copilot that acts as an intelligent orchestrator across the entire business suite. SAP BDC ensures that Joule has structured business context for natural language processing and that its outputs are accurate so that Joule can provide always-on assistance to break down silos between business operations. 

For example, when a customer service or sales representative handles a complex order issue, Joule can: 

• Check real-time supply chain constraints

• Respond to RFPs faster
• Personalize the response by pulling in relevant customer history from CRM systems
• Speed response with automated case routing and research

The results are faster resolutions, happier customers, empowered employees, and incredible business outcomes with less effort and overhead.

CX + AI + ERP = Real Results

Integrating CX AI with core ERP systems enables end-to-end process optimization that was previously impossible with fragmented systems. When CX systems connect natively to back-office systems, organizations gain: 

• Real-time personalization powered by operational data
• Intelligent workflows that prioritize high-value customers
• Predictive insights that help teams act before issues arise

The numbers speak for themselves. According to an Enterprise Strategy Group report, customers using this approach reported these benefits:

• Up to 60% reduction in the number of issues service and support teams deal with due to fewer manual errors, automated self-service support functions, automated self-service, and AI chatbots
• 25% to 50% improvement in time to resolution for issues that did require service or support resources
• 25% to 70% improvement in productivity of digital marketing and customer operations teams
• 50% to 90% improvements in sales team productivity by offloading smaller transactional sales, faster quote generation, and streamlined order management
• 20% to 40% increase in productivity of business operations due to less time spent on invoices, payments, shipments, and returns and more informed decision-making

This is not just incremental change; it’s enterprise transformation, driven by customer needs and powered by AI.

The Future of Intelligent Enterprise Operations 

Embedded CX AI within a composable business suite represents a bright future that takes the possibility of AI and makes it a reality. 

• Businesses can seamlessly orchestrate intelligence across all functions, delivering experiences that feel effortless to customers while optimizing operations behind the scenes. 
• Artificial intelligence won’t just automate individual tasks, but also orchestrate entire business ecosystems to deliver superior outcomes.  
• Maintaining enterprise-grade reliability and enabling modular innovation will allow organizations to adapt to changing market conditions while creating competitive advantages. 

With the rise of AI, businesses face a pivotal moment in time. Taking advantage of all that technology has to offer demands more than point solutions and departmental optimizations; it requires unified platforms, complete clean underlying data, and a clear unified strategy.

Jessica Keehn is chief marketing officer of SAP Customer Experience.