Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, Pandora designs, handcrafts, and markets high-quality jewelry at affordable prices using only recycled silver and gold materials.
The company, which employs 37,000 people and had revenues last year of DKK 31.7 billion (EUR 4.2 billion), can trace its origins back to 1982 and a small family-run shop in Copenhagen.
In the 42 years since then, Pandora has grown into the largest jewelry brand in the world, with jewelry sold in more than 100 countries through retail stores and online.
“Pandora is the brand that’s all about love, and it is about gifting to your loved ones but also celebrating yourself when you have had an amazing achievement,” said Mariane Heidingsfelder, Pandora’s senior vice president of Business Transformation.
SAP has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Master Data Management Solutions, Q2 2025, in which Forrester Research Inc., a leading global research and advisory firm, researched, analyzed, and scored 12 vendors and named SAP a Leader.
The report analyzed SAP Master Data Governance and noted “it stands out for its global, industry-specific solutions, with a focus on SAP S/4HANA integration” and “SAP’s strategy of integrating applications, data, and AI shows its commitment to unifying data into a single source of truth accessible across the enterprise.” The 21 scoring criteria employed by Forrester Research covered two categories: Current Offering and Strategy.
The Forrester report states that “SAP offers remarkable data privacy, security, and global compliance with natively supported governance functions.” And it further points out that “the introduction of its AI copilot [Joule] indicates SAP’s direction toward embedding generative AI across its platform for improved quality, adoption, and management.”
“In the context of SAP business applications, SAP Master Data Governance can offer much more then integration. We have shown this with scenarios embedded into SAP S/4HANA, or with federated master data governance deployments across an application landscape, or with integrated end-to-end scenarios for supplier management across SAP Master Data Governance and SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance,” says Markus Kuppe, vice president and chief product owner of SAP Master Data Governance. “When we look at SAP Business Data Cloud, which provides semantically rich data from various data sources, we see master data often as the most critical data asset. SAP Master Data Governance curates this master data towards a trustful and high-quality treasure and feeds into SAP Business Data Cloud as a data product.”
SAP Master Data Governance allows organizations to create a unified, trusted view of their business to help enable them to work more efficiently and make better decisions. The application is available on-premise as well as in the private and public cloud with support for consolidation, central governance, and data quality management. Customers can establish a cohesive and harmonized master data management strategy across all master data domains to help simplify enterprise data management, increase data accuracy, and reduce total cost of ownership.
Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here .
Founded in 1978 in the San Francisco Bay Area, the company originally known as Orthopaedic Systems Inc. (OSI) became part of the Japan-based Mizuho Corporation in 2002. Mizuho OSI has since grown into a market leader in surgical tables. With a focus on innovation and improving surgical outcomes, the manufacturer is known today for its advanced medical technology and specialty surgical solutions.
What is true for its products also holds true for Mizuho OSI’s internal processes. Striving for operational efficiency, Mizuho OSI sought to modernize its processes. To leverage SAP’s low-code capabilities, the company worked with SAP AppHaus in 2024. Together, they began exploring automation opportunities using SAP Build Process Automation and SAP Build Work Zone. During an initial SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) explore workshop, Mizuho OSI’s IT and business teams took a closer look at the manual fixed asset creation process.
Use case: Approving and creating new fixed assets
The workshop uncovered key inefficiencies in the manual purchase acquisition process, particularly its e-mail-driven workflow involving requesters, approvers, and finance accountants. This approach not only introduced a high risk of errors but also slowed down the process significantly. For high-value fixed asset purchases, the need for additional approvers and supporting details further extended the procurement cycle, highlighting the necessity for a more streamlined and automated solution.
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With guidance from SAP experts, the joint project team designed a streamlined, automated process for fixed asset approval and creation. Leveraging SAP Build Process Automation and SAP Build Work Zone, Mizuho OSI’s in-house IT team successfully developed and deployed a solution using a low-code application framework, accelerating implementation while reducing complexity.
“As we grow from a mid-sized to a large enterprise, tools like SAP Build Process Automation are essential—not only for driving process efficiency but also for extending the reach of our lean IT team,” Lindsay Neill, director of Enterprise Application at Mizuho OSI, said. “We’re grateful to SAP AppHaus and the SAP product team for their guidance throughout the journey—from identifying the right use case to providing the technical support needed to bring this proof of concept into production. The new automated process is a major improvement over our previous manual approach. I couldn’t be happier with the results!”
Measured results
After testing and implementing this new solution, both end users and the project team could measure a reduction in manual effort and observe improved process efficiencies, such as:
40% increase in process efficiency from days of pending response to automatic processing
65% reduction in approval time since asset costs below a certain threshold can be automatically processed
70% decrease in manual efforts, with fewer errors and faster decision-making since human intervention is now only required for exceptions
Mizuho OSI solution diagram
“It’s been a true pleasure collaborating with the team at Mizuho OSI. Their forward-thinking mindset and readiness to challenge the status quo made this collaboration exceptional,” Tina Tuan, director at SAP AppHaus Palo Alto, said. “I’m proud of what we achieved together using SAP BTP and SAP Build solutions and even more excited to see how this success inspires and empowers them to take on future projects with confidence and momentum.”
Through close collaboration between SAP and Mizuho OSI, this project has proven that roadblocks can be overcome with the right partnership. The team successfully implemented an innovative solution for fixed asset approvals, laying a strong foundation for future initiatives leveraging SAP Build solutions and SAP Business Technology Platform. On the horizon is a promising next milestone, somewhat broader in scope, such as material master automation.
One thing is certain, the Mizuho OSI project team is driven by the company’s powerful mindset: Dare to go further. Care to do more.
Imke Vierjahn is communications lead for SAP AppHaus.
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Fueled by a combination of geopolitical tension, economic instability, and significant supply chain shifts, procurement has taken on increasing importance. Procurement has evolved from a function focused primarily on cost-cutting to one that drives value creation and manages global risk. As a result, today’s organizations are forced to reevaluate how they operate, transforming procurement from a back-office function into a vital strategic partner.
In a broad study sponsored by SAP, Economist Impact highlights this continuing shift in perception and performance, revealing a rising confidence in procurement’s ability to make business impact. This is the fourth consecutive year that SAP and Economist Impact have partnered on a study, and the survey includes responses from more than 2,000 C-suite leaders globally.
The report, titled “The Resilient Edge: Procurement in an Era of Polycrisis,” also underscores procurement’s growing influence in advancing AI adoption and sustainability performance. However, the field still faces obstacles in assuming this larger role, including readiness for technology and building a future-proof workforce.
What are the key priorities for the next five years and how will technology shape the procurement operating model?
Still, the overall trend is clear: procurement’s fundamental transformation is putting it in a position to play an important role in business strategy.
Growing confidence in procurement to drive strategic value
Businesses today face a convergence of crises—a “polycrisis”—which includes environmental shocks, shipping delays, and growing regulatory restrictions. Tariffs are the latest disruption, prompting businesses across sectors to seek quick solutions to avoid price hikes.
Weathering this storm requires procurement leaders to take on higher risk as they navigate this uncertainty. The Economist Impact report finds that geopolitical risk has emerged as the top concern for procurement leaders, with 64% listing it as their top focus over the next 12 to 18 months, up from just 30% in 2024. This surge reflects both the growing complexity of global operations and procurement’s expanding influence.
As risk becomes more multifaceted and severe, procurement professionals have a role beyond sourcing supplies at the lowest cost. Instead, they are developing robust strategies to identify, assess, and mitigate risk. This strategic pivot is also reflected in growing cross-departmental trust. In fact, 78% of respondents expressed confidence in procurement’s ability to manage external risk—a 37% increase from last year—signaling procurement’s growing value as a strategic partner.
AI has a central role in procurement
From detecting demand signals and enabling scenario planning to automating routine workflows, AI is dramatically expanding procurement’s capabilities.
The Economist Impact report notes that organizations are prioritizing AI proficiency more than any other skill over the next 12 to 18 months, including predictive analytics, demand forecasting, and managing data bias and privacy concerns. These skills are essential for procurement teams that need to pivot quickly in response to unexpected disruptions.
Most importantly, AI will be at the center of procurement’s continued transformation. An overwhelming 89% of respondents in the study said they are confident in their ability to adopt and apply AI to improve efficiency and productivity. This confidence is grounded in tangible benefits that AI can provide, including identifying early demand signals, optimizing supplier performance, and simulating risk scenarios to support better decision-making
Simply put, AI is no longer optional—it is essential to procurement success and relevance.
Improved environmental results
Sustainability has climbed to the top of corporate agendas, and procurement is now on the front lines of this effort, managing supplier emissions and ensuring ethical labor practices. Over half (53%) of survey respondents named sustainability as their top strategic priority for the next 12 to 18 months.
Cross-departmental collaboration is central to these efforts and has enabled procurement to align with key financial and environmental goals. Tools like ESG scorecards and supplier decarbonization plans are now standard practice for measuring environmental impact. These innovations are helping companies meet rising expectations from customers, regulators, and shareholders alike, while also reducing long-term operational risks.
These developments show that procurement isn’t just supporting sustainability—it’s driving it.
Procurement’s inflection point between strategy and cost-cutting
While cost control remains a key part of procurement’s mandate, the balance for today’s procurement teams is shifting—from tactical cost-saving measures to strategic contributions that enhance agility, foster innovation, and safeguard reputation.
To manage these dual demands, companies are turning to procurement technology, like SAP Ariba Procurement solutions, to address key priorities and reduce siloes across the organization.
On June 26, Etosha Thurman, SAP’s Chief Marketing Officer for Finance and Spend, will join Economist Impact’s webinar “Measuring up: Balancing risks and goals for strategic procurement” to explore how organizations can build procurement strategies that drive measurable outcomes. This event will explore how procurement can balance immediate pressures with long-term objectives—a topic that is more relevant now than ever. If interested, register here.
Gordon Donovan is global vice president of Research, Procurement, and External Workforce at SAP.
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How many companies do you know that use their own products? Not for beta testing, but for the tasks they are designed to carry out? This is exactly what SAP is doing, being both a developer and practitioner of its sustainability software that helps enable and empower companies to integrate sustainability into their operations.
Sustainability is an essential element of SAP’s purpose to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. Our approach is grounded in creating positive economic, social, and environmental impact, always within the limits of planetary boundaries and in full respect of human rights. With the ambition to drive sustainability beyond our net-zero 2030 goals and a portfolio that supports broader action areas such as holistic steering and reporting, ethical business conduct, and social responsibility, it was a natural progression for SAP to become its own customer.
As both an exemplar and enabler, we aim to make our targets and purpose a reality. At the same time, by testing our IT solutions to the limit, we share the lessons learned along the way with the product development teams to continuously improve the SAP Sustainability portfolio.
SAP runs SAP Green Ledger: ERP software for carbon accounting
SAP faces many of the same sustainability challenges as our customers, such as data collection, data management, and compliance with regulatory requirements. Like the many organizations we support, SAP must manage huge volumes of sustainability data, including carbon footprints, material flows, and ESG metrics, working to ensure accuracy, consistency, and accessibility across the value chain. Demands on IT systems are high. They must grapple with collecting, integrating, and sharing data while also assuring quality, traceability, and auditability.
The evolving regulatory landscape represents another challenge, requiring SAP and other organizations to adapt and leverage their systems for compliance and reporting. IT solutions must be scaled and adjusted rapidly to these changing regulations and be able to collaborate seamlessly with supply chain partners.
Beyond these requirements, companies need sustainability data to provide actionable insights to support decision-making and respond to stakeholders. Meeting these challenges head-on requires an IT infrastructure that is innovative, scalable, and designed to evolve as the business advances on its sustainability journey.
“SAP runs SAP” implementation
In practice, SAP’s systems are designed to empower customers to measure, report, and act on their sustainability goals. To enable this, solutions are built into core business systems such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). This helps ensure a solid data foundation and flexible integration of data sets from various business areas such as procurement, finance, supply chain management, and product design. Sustainability-focused tools like SAP Sustainability Control Tower, SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, and SAP Green Ledger can then provide the data, analytics, and insights needed to help drive sustainable decision-making.
“By implementing SAP Sustainability Control Tower and SAP Green Ledger across our reporting ecosystem, we aim to elevate sustainability management to the same standard as financial reporting,” said Dr. Christopher Sessar, Chief Accounting Officer, SAP SE. “These powerful tools will not only streamline and automate our ESG regulative compliance efforts but also generate actionable insights that drive strategic decision-making, accelerating our journey toward measurable sustainability outcomes and long-term environmental value creation.”
Implementation lessons
SAP’s approach has evolved since the first implementation of SAP Sustainability Control Tower in 2022. Early lessons included the need to collect emissions data in a consistent manner, anchor the project in its net-zero program governance, and expand the scope of the project beyond carbon footprint data to include other environmental topics for a more holistic approach.
The next question concerned the IT architecture, organized into three layers. The top layer relates to the collection of raw sustainability, financial, and operational data from various source systems. The middle management layer processes and standardizes the data. Finally, a bottom planning and reporting layer delivers insights for sustainability decision-making.
The rollout began by uploading carbon footprint data into SAP Sustainability Footprint Management across one company code and will increase to five company codes before the system goes live in Q3 of this year. It is useful to note the iterative approach our team has taken, which has allowed for the collection and integration of data from different sources and the testing of use cases including our ability to support businesses amid changes such as those recently initiated by the EU’s new Omnibus package.
The HARTING Technology Group has established itself as a pioneer in sustainability and a leading provider of connectivity solutions for industrial technologies. With the implementation of SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, part of the SAP Sustainability portfolio, HARTING has automated and scaled CO₂ emission calculations for 13,000 materials.
This data-granular, verifiable, one-click solution supports the company on its path to carbon neutrality by 2030.
Challenges and opportunities
HARTING faced the challenge of finding a reliable method to calculate CO₂ emissions across thousands of production materials while meeting customer and supplier expectations regarding sustainability. Leveraging its existing ERP application landscape with SAP and maintaining established green production and renewable energy processes were crucial.
The results are in: See who won the 2025 SAP Innovation Awards
“Conducting our business and protecting the environment are not mutually exclusive. We are convinced that we must consider both to be successful in the long run,” says Dietmar Harting, member of the Board and partner of the HARTING Technology Group.
Innovations for a sustainable future
Considered the connectivity gold standard across various industrial sectors, HARTING required a robust system to accurately assess emissions. SAP Sustainability Footprint Management can automate data collection, scale emission calculations, and create CO₂ transparency throughout the supply chain. “The key to communicating our CO₂ emissions transparently and recognizing potential for reduction lies in the automated calculation and granularity of the data provided by SAP Sustainability Footprint Management,” explains Dr. Stephan Middelkamp, general manager, Quality and Technology at HARTING.
This solution enables HARTING to provide real-time, granular data to support the “GreenLine” label, an environmentally sustainable designation highlighting renewable materials offering up to a 70% CO₂ reduction.
Strengthening sustainable production
With SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, HARTING can now precisely calculate and report product carbon footprints. This capability is essential to address upcoming EU sustainability regulations, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and Digital Product Passport. The solution helps simplify complex data into verifiable, one-click results, promoting sustainable production practices.
Also integrated into HARTING’s sustainability strategy is the use of SAP Responsible Design and Production, which helps the company design products responsibly from the start, reduce plastic taxes, and promote recycling.
“The site-level data derived from SAP Sustainability Footprint Management will drive cleaner production in environmentally friendly facilities while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the impact on water and land life. Green is how we think, green is how we act,” emphasizes Jordy Brinks, global environmental manager at HARTING.
On the path to a greener future
SAP is advancing HARTING’s sustainability journey by enabling the company to design products more sustainably, reduce plastic taxes, promote responsible sourcing, and further recycling practices. With these efforts, HARTING aims to achieve carbon neutrality at all locations by 2030, underscoring its commitment to sustainable growth and environmental stewardship.
“As a family business, we combine consistency with a willingness to innovate and regional loyalty. For us, this means taking responsibility for people and the environment,” Harting says. “We’re not only shaping a livable planet for our future generations, we’re making the future possible. We want to shape the future with technologies for people.”
The HARTING Technology Group continues to drive meaningful change, connecting business success with a greener future and aligning family ideals with sustainability goals.
HARTING at the 2025 SAP Innovation Awards
All of these efforts did not go unnoticed: HARTING has long been recognized as a pioneer in sustainability. This year, it won an SAP Innovation Award in the Sustainability Hero category, leveraging SAP Responsible Design and Production to create 85% of its plastic packaging material from recycled materials.
In close collaboration with the Partner Ecosystem Success organization and as part of the NEXTLEVEL SAP BTP & AI program, SAP AppHaus has built strong alliances with several SAP global strategic services partners (GSSPs). Since early 2024, SAP innovation experts have started to train and enable them to explore SAP Business AI with SAP AppHaus innovation methods.
The launch of the SAP AppHaus Alliances initiative aims to accelerate the innovation process to help bring the latest SAP technologies into the hands of SAP customers.
An initiative to upskill partners in the latest innovation methods
The SAP AppHaus Alliances initiative helps ensure method maturity of SAP partners, upskilling them with the innovation tools and resources they need to conduct workshops on the latest technologies such as SAP Business AI and agentic AI. Currently, the qualification process is exclusively available to partners enrolled in the NEXTLEVEL SAP BTP & AI program. Upskilling partners allows more SAP customers to benefit faster from the latest innovation tools and methodologies made available in the SAP AppHaus innovation toolkit.
SAP AppHaus aims to humanize business software and make innovation real
“In close collaboration with Partner Ecosystem Success, we launched the SAP AppHaus Alliances initiative because we want to bring the power of SAP’s latest technologies, such as SAP Business AI, into the hands of more customers—faster and with real business impact,” Kathrin Tarnai-Sindl, head of SAP AppHaus, said. “To do this, we train global SAP partners in the SAP AppHaus business AI methodology and equip them with curated workshop modules from our innovation toolkit. We are proud to support this important initiative with our proven methodologies and customer co-innovation experience.”
Who joined already?
Since its inception in April 2025, the following partners have already gained the qualification in SAP Business AI methods and tools provided by SAP AppHaus, with more partners joining regularly:
Delaware
Deloitte
DXC Technology
EY
HCL Tech
IBM
KPMG
NTT Data
Looking back and forward
The enablement activities stretch from virtual SAP Business AI inspiration sessions to onsite trainings, for employees and trainers, in different workshop methodologies. Currently, there have been more than 700 attendees, many of them consultants, and 100 AI-related use cases, of which 37 were identified and selected as part of the NEXTLEVEL program. Also, more than 10 SAP-validated partner use cases have been released in the SAP Partner Finder site to be found as so-called accelerator packages.
The different enablement formats are:
90-minute virtual enablement sessions on the latest workshop formats available in the SAP AppHaus innovation toolkit
60-minute virtual business AI Inspiration sessions to introduce and showcase available SAP AI technology
Train-the-trainer sessions on SAP Business AI explore and design workshops
Train-the-trainer sessions on SAP Business AI agent discover and design workshops
What started as a small pilot hosting road shows to partners within the NEXTLEVEL SAP BTP & AI program has evolved into a global initiative that was joined by SAP AppHaus in 2024. Enrolled partners can benefit from the proven co-innovation methodology and focus on use cases with high business value. They can learn how business solutions can be taken to the next level through the latest SAP technologies infused with artificial intelligence.
“The newly-launched SAP AppHaus Alliances initiative exemplifies our commitment to advancing skill development and co-innovation within our ecosystem,” Karl Fahrbach, chief partner officer, SAP, said. “Through strategic collaboration and rigorous training, we are enabling our partners to master and apply the latest SAP methodologies and technologies, such as SAP Business AI. As a result, SAP customers can unlock the full potential of our solutions and drive unparalleled business impact.”
Imke Vierjahn is communications lead for SAP AppHaus.
In a significant move to bolster the study and research of business transformation management, SAP and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have announced a strengthening of their partnership aimed at enhancing industry collaboration and academic excellence. This alliance is set to pave the way for innovative educational and research opportunities, with a focus on equipping students and researchers with the skills needed to navigate disruption and build business transformation as a capability.
Turn business transformation from a project into a core capability
The decision to further strengthen this long-standing partnership was unveiled during a guest lecture at QUT’s Gardens Point campus, where Julian Lebherz, SAP Strategic Advisor, addressed Master’s students enrolled in the QUT Business Process Analytics course. The lecture emphasized the importance of integrating business transformation into standard operations, highlighting real-world applications as well as why some companies are more successful than others at realizing tangible and sustainable value when it comes to deploying business process intelligence solutions.
A key highlight of this collaboration is the nomination of Lebherz as QUT Industry Fellow, underscoring the ambition and momentum of the connection between SAP and QUT. With over a decade of highly specialized experience deploying process intelligence solutions and establishing associated delivery organizations in various industries, he is globally recognized as one of the leading experts in the field. Having served in the steering committee of the IEEE Task Force on Process Mining and co-organizing several international conferences on the subject, Lebherz will contribute significantly to the university’s academic and research endeavors, fostering a deeper integration of industry insights into the curriculum.
“SAP is committed to equipping QUT and its students with the expertise and technology required to turn business disruption into competitive advantage,” Lebherz said. “Business transformation must become a ubiquitous capability, and hence we [SAP] are doubling down by strengthening partnerships with leading organizations.”
The partnership aims to explore various avenues for collaboration, including internship and research project opportunities, executive education programs, and hackathons. These initiatives are designed to provide students and researchers with hands-on experience and exposure to real-world challenges, aligning academic pursuits with industry needs.
Professor Alistair Barros, head of the School for Information Systems at QUT, expressed enthusiasm for the partnership, stating, “QUT’s School of Information Systems is intensifying both research and education of holistic business transformation and enterprise computing, encompassing the continuous flywheel of process execution, intelligence, improvement, and change deployment.”
Professor Moe Thandar Wynn, leader of QUT’s process science group and co-director of QUT’s Centre for Data Science, highlighted the benefits of strong industry ties, noting, “Our researchers and students benefit tremendously from strong industry collaboration. Partnerships like this one enable us to align curricula and research projects closely with real industry needs.”
The announcement marks a significant step forward in QUT’s position as a global leader in business process management and process intelligence. By integrating end-to-end business transformation into the academic curriculum across multiple courses, as well as deepening the connection to real-world outcomes, QUT and SAP are set to redefine the landscape of business transformation education, preparing students to thrive in an era of constant disruption.
Lucas de Boer, Global Marketing Program Lead, SAP Signavio
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At this year’s SAP for Energy and Utilities Conference (EUC) in Rotterdam, Netherlands, leading experts met to discuss current challenges and opportunities in the energy sector.
Daniela Haldy-Sellmann, global VP and head of Energy & Utilities Industries at SAP, spoke about key trends and the role of new technologies and gave her take on the future of the utilities sector.
Q: What do you see as the challenges and opportunities for the energy sector today?
A: In Germany and across Europe, we have a decentralized market in which a variety of players generate, transmit, distribute, and supply power. The challenge for energy suppliers is to make their pricing and services more attractive. So they are no longer just selling electricity or gas, they are also focusing on building customer loyalty and on fostering interaction between themselves and their customers. As for consumers, they want transparency about whether the electricity they are using really is “green,” and whether they can produce energy themselves—by installing solar panels, for example.
Daniela Haldy-Sellmann. SAP for Energy and Utilities, Presented by TAC Insights
Energy suppliers are completely rethinking their offerings as a result, which is also putting pressure on their competitors to become true market leaders and to align their offerings with those of conventional retailers. On the distribution side, we are seeing how more and more energy is being generated outside the grid and then being fed into it—from smaller sources such as residential solar installations to large, new B2B plants. The energy market is in a period of disruption, which is inevitably affecting energy prices and driving the need for products and services that are viable in the long term. With energy providers’ profit margins shrinking dramatically, additional energy services will become their main source of income.
Decentralization was one of the major talking points at the conference. In that context, could you explain what “distributed energy resources” are?
Traditionally, our energy has been generated in large, centralized power plants and sent—in one direction, via a transmission system operator and distribution system operator—to consumers. In the future, the flow of energy will be bidirectional, because now, in addition to large conventional generation plants and a growing number of sustainable alternatives such as onshore and offshore wind parks and solar parks, we also have consumers who produce their own energy and feed it into the grid. Distributed energy resources (DER) refers to the assets that consumers and businesses have for generating power and distributing it through a grid that, in the future, will allow that energy to flow in two directions rather than one.
How does SAP help suppliers manage distributed energy resources?
Manage distributed energy resource business models while seizing new growth opportunities
Our enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can already cover all of a company’s core processes. For transmission and distribution system operators, that means all of their network assets, including power grids, generation plants, and substations, right up to the point of consumption. What we at SAP are now doing is providing transparency for meter operators, grid operators, and energy providers about the systems and devices consumers have installed in their homes. This data used to be highly unstructured. Now, thanks to our measurement concept management component, energy providers can map data for consumers who have an EV charger, solar panels, battery storage, or a heat pump, and use it to plan their capacity. They know, for instance, how much power a solar installation generates and what its maximum capacity is. So when a surplus occurs, they can remove any excess power from the grid or, in the event of a shortage, have their customers feed more energy into it. Depending on the scenario, the SAP software can analyze meter data from the cloud, format it, and make it available. Energy providers integrate this data into their DER platform to provide transparency about consumption and to allow an appropriate level of control over the power entering and leaving the grid.
Which solutions does SAP offer for managing sustainability goals and compliance?
SAP’s sustainability portfolio is extensive. It provides answers to questions such as “What are my supply chain emissions?” and “What emissions does a specific product I supply or manufacture produce?” Having this information means that, first, companies have proof for an auditor of the precise emission values per product. And second, that they can track those emissions to see, for example, how the values change. They can show that they use various technologies, that their products meet all the current environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards, and that they can prepare not only consolidated financial statements but consolidated emissions reports as well. Here, SAP offers SAP Sustainability Control Tower and SAP Sustainability Footprint Management. Then we have the SAP Green Token solution and SAP Green Ledger, which aligns carbon and financial data.
Did SAP present a use case at the conference?
Yes. We presented the Energy Dashboard, which can show me exactly how much energy is being generated overall, how much I am producing, and how I can use it. Whether you’re a consumer, an energy provider, or a transmission system operator, you want an accurate picture of how much energy you have available, or need, to keep the power supply in the area or region you cover stable—because that’s what matters most.
SAP for Energy and Utilities, Presented by TAC Insights
What is SAP’s strategy for utilities?
We help our customers migrate from their existing SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) and SAP S/4HANA IS-U systems to a cloud-based RISE with SAP landscape to help ensure that they have a consistent data layout. The standardized digital core with SAP S/4HANA is complemented by flexible cloud solutions for customer management and more.
The transition in the energy industry is also about shifting toward a greater reliance on renewable energy, phasing out fossil fuels, and helping companies in the sector diversify their product and service portfolios. We are seeing, for example, more and more oil and gas companies expanding into biodiesel and other biofuels. We’re seeing new carbon capture technologies emerge and huge investments in hydrogen, though these need to increase dramatically. And that is exactly what SAP’s strategy is designed to support by providing an application landscape with a clean core model in which the latest innovations can be readily adopted.
What excites you the most about working at the intersection of technology, sustainability, and the utility industry?
I’ve had jobs in many different industries, including automotive, manufacturing, high tech, and healthcare. But the energy sector is where I see the most collaboration and the most disruption. If you look at the net-zero and carbon-neutral targets that we need to achieve in Germany, Europe, and worldwide, and at the money being poured into renewables and green bonds, this is an industry with enormous opportunities for growth and investment. Technology is the backbone of everything, and we at SAP are contributing to the energy transition not only by simplifying processes for consumers, but also by developing technologies that fundamentally change the options that are open to them.
SAP Business Suite helps drive innovation by uniting core business applications, data, and AI capabilities
For businesses today, uncertainty isn’t the exception—it’s the environment in which they operate every day. From supply chain disruptions to shifting market conditions and evolving customer trends, businesses are constantly on their toes about what will happen next.
At SAP Sapphire in 2025, we continued to lay out the vision we’re bringing to life with SAP Business Suite to help companies find confidence amid this uncertainty.
SAP Business Suite is a seamlessly integrated system of applications, data, and AI that can connect and optimize every part of your business, enabling smarter decisions, real-time insights, and intelligent automation. It’s delivered via SAP Business Suite packages tailored to the needs of functions across the business and easily extended with modular add-ons.
SAP CEO Christian Klein used the analogy of a flywheel in his SAP Sapphire keynote to describe the power of applications, data, and AI coming together. The benefits of the SAP Business Suite were presented in sessions throughout the event, including key topics like:
Harmonized SAP Business Suite user experience (UX)
Seamless end-to-end processes
Suite qualities
Structured and guided transformation journeys
Businesses today need resilient processes running seamlessly across different lines of business. As we’ve seen time and again, point solutions can’t solve for the challenges and opportunities of today’s business world. This is why we’ve developed a seamless, integrated suite that can allow our customers to move faster, whether responding to a problem or ensuring readiness when opportunity knocks. Imagine if your key business processes like lead-to-cash or hire-to-retire were harmonized with seamless data flows. That’s key for staying ahead of the competition.
Harmonized user experience
An exceptional user experience within SAP Business Suite is paramount for ensuring seamless interactions and heightened user engagement. By providing a harmonized, intuitive interface, SAP Business Suite can enable users to navigate complex processes with ease, fostering a streamlined workflow that can enhance overall efficiency. The user-centric design places emphasis on simplicity, accessibility, and responsiveness, working to ensure that each module within the suite operates cohesively.
The UX highlights include personalized dashboards, real-time analytics, and adaptive design elements that can respond to user behavior, creating a more engaging and productive environment. Enhanced visualization tools and intuitive controls further facilitate quick decision-making and effective data management, positioning SAP Business Suite as a robust platform for driving business success.
Check out this session from SAP Sapphire, which goes into our strategy for delivering a consistent, integrated, suite-first experience across SAP Business Suite.
At the same time, we are working to improve the experience, efficiency, and intelligence of individual SAP products and solutions.
An AI-assisted smart solution for situations in My Home is planned to be available in preview for beta testing with the August release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. The sign up is already available here.
Seamless, end-to-end processes
An essential part of business transformation lies in optimizing and automating end-to-end processes. As presented at SAP Sapphire’s SAP Business Suite Break-Out, this is a major benefit of SAP Business Suite, which covers the following key processes:
Procure-to-pay
Design-to-operate
Hire-to-retire
Lead-to-cash
Record-to-report
Lead-to-cash, for example, is a process that directly impacts sales performance and involves several stakeholders across functions. In this process, critical information is added via lead generation and along the process into ordering and billing. Every break in this process directly impacts customer satisfaction and profitability.
With the help of embedded AI capabilities and the support of SAP’s AI copilot Joule, companies can accelerate productivity and increase response times.
SAP Business Suite Experience and Seamless Business Processes
Suite qualities
SAP Business Suite offers qualities such as streamlined onboarding and provisioning, effective configuration, extensibility, and advanced analytics.
Provisioning helps ensure rapid deployment of applications, while configuration allows customization to meet specific business needs. Extensibility supports integration with other systems and applications, helping to enhance flexibility. Advanced analytics can provide real-time insights and predictive capabilities, empowering businesses to make data-driven decisions. These attributes can collectively drive efficiency, scalability, and security.
Extensibility and adaptability
SAP systems are highly flexible and configurable, which is why they’re widely used across industries and regions. Robust extensibility features allow customers, partners, and SAP’s own industry units to adapt and enhance the standard software to fit their unique requirements.
With SAP Business Suite, extensions are created for end-to-end scenarios with minimal time to value (TTV), total cost of implementation (TCI), and total cost of ownership (TCO). This enables:
Meta-data-driven, in-app extensions; full-stack, side-by-side extensions; and everything in between
A range from self-service key-user extensions to partner-implemented and -provided extensions
Building on the foundation of a unified extensibility across SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP)-based applications, a wizard for SAP Fiori apps templates and partner-customer reference apps for SAP BTP-based extensibility has been made available.
In addition, partners will have further options to help customers shorten the implementation time. Partners are enabled to package their own extensibility and deploy to multi-customer systems. SAP will also provide an option for partners to promote their own developments on SAP Store for both in-stack and side-by-side extensibility. This can give customers even greater choice to address their business needs.
Join a new era of enterprise management with SAP Business Suite
One further step toward extensions across the end-to-end scenarios of SAP Business Suite is to offer partner and customers true, process-based extensibility, where, for example, field extensibility can be defined consistently along the lead-to-cash process. In this process, customer-specific information can be added at the field-level in lead generation and propagated through the process into ordering and billing.
Common services
SAP Business Suite comes with harmonized document management, which helps enable the sharing of documents and a seamless data flow between the various applications of end-to-end processes that involve various lines of business. The shared attachment service leverages a single UI, which helps further enhance the consistency of the business applications while increasing efficiency. A single service for document management can further reduce the TCO.
Another good example for a central shared service is an AI-based inbound document processing platform for all application scenarios in SAP Business Suite. The application-specific consumption scenarios in lead-to-cash, for example, use the shared service of the SAP Document AI solution for automated document inbound processing during the sales order fulfilment process.
Unlike point solutions, SAP Business Suite helps with harmonizing fundamental compliance and security needs, which are required for audit readiness. The next-generation audit log service offers end users a consistent experience in viewing compliance and security audit log events across SAP Business Suite offerings via a centralized audit log viewer. This highly structured approach of the audit log service can provide several advantages and can better meet compliance and security requirements.
Cross-product analytics
Data products and intelligent apps are core to the value proposition of SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC). They leverage SAP’s understanding of application data at the business process, industry vertical, and geographic level. They act as the one true source of SAP data for line-of-business applications, partners, and customers when working on application integration, AI, and analytics use cases.
SAP Business Suite will bring the experience to a new level, helping to ensure the needs of business users are addressed with intelligent apps for decision-making and actions. Intelligent apps—which are fed by various data products from relevant business domains—can provide comprehensive insight to the business user working in the context of end-to-end business process.
Seamless localization
SAP Business Suite helps ensure seamless localization along the end-to-end process scenarios of the packages, working to meet the unique needs and regulations of each country. These investments will continue across the entire suite, helping to ensure customer choice, regardless of where customers start their journey when opting for one of the packages.
SAP Activate supports your SAP Business Suite transformation journey
SAP offers proven methodologies to help facilitate business transformation to SAP Business Suite, tailored for new customers via GROW with SAP and for existing ERP customers via RISE with SAP.
These methodologies utilize composable SAP Activate road maps for various deployment types, including implementation, adoption, conversion, transition, and upgrades. Thousands of SAP customers employ these road maps during the various stages of their adoption of SAP Business Suite. The road maps are designed to assist customers in achieving their distinct transformation objectives. They help provide a clear starting point and can guide the project team towards the North Star destination of SAP Business Suite.
Customers starting their journey to SAP Business Suite can utilize a single road map or a combination of road maps covering the scope of their deployment to help guide the project team from receiving the initial environment, through the execution of fit-to-standard workshops, to successful go-live and adoption of innovations. This is enabled by the new capabilities for combining the SAP Activate road maps into one cohesive project plan during the initial project setup in SAP Cloud ALM.
Customers can leverage an integrated toolchain and well-defined quality checkpoints to help achieve the objectives of their unique journey. The integrated toolchain enables seamless execution with tools managing customers’ transformation, including SAP Signavio solutions, SAP Cloud ALM, and WalkMe solutions.
Get started now
Ready to dive deeper into the benefits of SAP Business Suite? In this interview, you’ll get additional insights on how to leverage the benefits of SAP Business Suite and what transitions could look like.
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Arpan Shah is SVP and head of Business Suite Product Management at SAP.
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