With the powerful virtual tethers we feel binding us to our smartphones and gadgets, we can easily forget that some technologies provide freedom to others, such as low-vision and blind people.
“We create devices that promote independence,” Alejandro Erick Franco, CIO and vice president of Information Technology at American Printing House for the Blind (APH), said in an interview at SAP Sapphire. This includes APH’s Monarch tablet-style braille reader, which also renders images via equally finger-friendly “tactile graphics.”
Despite years of technological investments, companies continue to struggle to get the most from their data. In a global survey of 1,200 business and technology leaders, 55 percent cited poor data quality as their biggest challenge. Nearly half struggle to harmonize data across multiple ecosystems.
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With even more investments being made in AI, it’s more important than ever for customers to have a solid data foundation.
That’s why in February of this year, SAP introduced SAP Business Data Cloud. This fully managed SaaS solution unifies and governs SAP and third-party data, enhancing decision-making and AI value. Databricks is natively available in SAP Business Data Cloud, which provides data and AI professionals access to industry-leading data engineering, AI, and machine learning capabilities within a single solution.
SAP Business Data Cloud momentum
Since the initial launch, we’ve made progress to support customers and advance their business data fabric journey.
Several have already adopted SAP Business Data Cloud and expect significant benefits. For example, Swedish steel distributor Tibnor is the first live SAP Business Data Cloud customer and plans to integrate SAP data with non-SAP sources so it can respond more quickly to changing market conditions.
Dag Åselius, senior IT advisor and longtime former CIO at Tibnor, said: “We’ve always tried to stay ahead of the curve in our industry. SAP Business Data Cloud opens new opportunities for integrating external data quickly — something we couldn’t even imagine just a few years ago.”
This customer momentum builds on a successful pre-launch beta program. SAP received positive feedback from those customers that saw benefits across the board, including a 20 to 50 percent improvement in data models. Moreover, the beta community agreed that SAP Business Data Cloud will allow them to get greater value out of existing investments in SAP Datasphere and Databricks.
SAP Business Data Cloud and Databricks momentum
SAP is bringing the power of Databricks into SAP Business Data Cloud with SAP Databricks, now generally available on Amazon Web Services. The allows us to serve the needs of a broader community of data and AI professionals and provides customers benefits:
Simpler access to all data: Easily connect to contextual SAP data using zero-copy Delta Sharing and blend with third-party data
End-to-end AI and machine learning: Develop AI and machine learning models with end-to-end lifecycle management from data prep and experimentation to deployment
Pro-code environment: Write Spark scripts, run SQL analysis, or create machine learning models in any notebook
Trusted data foundation: Build intelligent insights on a unified and trusted data foundation that governs and protects data and AI assets
Together, SAP Business AI and SAP Databricks offer powerful, complementary AI and machine learning capabilities.
For example, SAP Business AI allows customers to embed AI directly within their business processes. It also helps customers develop and expand AI models trained on their SAP data and deploy them directly into business processes for closed-loop decision-making.
Additionally, SAP Databricks provides a comprehensive workbench for data preparation and machine learning experimentation, as well as predictive, AI, and machine learning modeling. Customers can use SAP Databricks to develop customized AI and machine learning models on harmonized SAP and non-SAP data, tailored to their unique requirements.
Get started with SAP Business Data Cloud
Today, SAP is introducing a promotional offer to help customers get started. We will offer SAP Databricks services at a discounted consumption rate for a limited time through April 30, 2026. This will accelerate SAP Databricks workloads by allowing customers to consume more capacity at no additional cost.
Irfan Khan is president and chief product officer of Data and Analytics at SAP.
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Spend few minutes scanning social media, watching television, or perusing neighborhood shops this past month, and you’ll see companies and communities across the globe showing up to celebrate Earth Day.
Or, more specifically, to celebrate the astonishing beauty of the planet we share and to leverage an opportunity to inspire individual action to ensure a livable, thriving world for everyone.
Earth Day 2025, themed “Our Power, Our Planet,” was a reminder of the unique role we can each play in building a more sustainable future. While not everyone may feel an immediate connection to the topic of climate action — other social issues may more deeply influence the choices we make and the actions we take to leave our mark on the world — it is clear that the health of the planet has an effect on every aspect of life, from the economy to our everyday well-being.
Employees at SAP are encouraged to bring their best, whole selves to work. One program making this possible is the Acceleration Collective. The Acceleration Collective is a virtual pro bono consulting program delivered with SAP social impact partner MovingWorlds on the TRANSFORM Support Hub. The program pairs employees with social enterprises — for example, impact-led organizations prioritizing people and planet over profit — to help solve business challenges that organizations are experiencing.
Pro bono consulting for people- and planet-first companies offers employees the chance to explore what is possible at the intersection of their professional experiences and their personal values. Not only does the Acceleration Collective allow employees to influence solutions to problems they see in the world, it also allows them to gain new expertise in a practical way, especially in areas like sustainability.
In honor of Earth Day, we are sharing stories of mutual learning and leadership development from pro bono engagements that have empowered SAP employees to partner with impact businesses focused on advancing sustainable practices and driving meaningful change for the world.
Alliance of learning and leadership
Late last year, Youssef Zekhnini, a Customer Success Manager in the Netherlands, took on a project working on a team of employees and representatives from CycleUp Textiles. A circular social enterprise that helps the environment by diverting textiles from landfill and upcycling them into luxury goods, CycleUp also empowers marginalized individuals in rural Ireland through training and skill development in the art of upcycling.
Collaborating with the CycleUp team and engaging with their mission provided Zekhnini with “valuable insights into how sustainable business models can positively affect a wide range of people within a community,” and helped him realize “that these models are often more complex than they appear.”
Their work together offered a focused opportunity for Zekhnini to strengthen his leadership skills, which “really highlighted the importance of clear communication, teamwork, and decisiveness,” challenging him “to step up, stay focused, and lead collaboratively in order to deliver a meaningful and impactful result.”
In just a few months, Zekhnini was able to gather new learnings about himself and the capacity for leadership that exists inside all of us, and more deeply understand what is possible when businesses are built and run with sustainability at their core.
Journey of insights and impact
For Sydney, Australia-based Jason Luo, an enterprise architect, and Felicity Zare, a Customer Success partner, their work with Circular Cities Asia helped them understand sustainability “as both a mindset and a practice” and reframe it as “a long-term growth opportunity, not just a compliance topic,” respectively.
In his reflection, Luo shared how the stories of specific families that have benefited from this client’s mission “crystallized the human dimension of sustainability” for him.
“I realized that ethical practices and community empowerment are not trade-offs but foundational pillars for modern enterprises,” he said. “Sustainable business models succeed when they are rooted in authentic relationships and local context. Sustainability requires balancing ambition with empathy, innovation with inclusivity, and vision with adaptability — lessons I’ll carry forward in all future endeavors.”
Circular Cities Asia helps to foster circular innovation in Asian cities by building capacity and testing eco-solutions on university campuses through community, mentorship, and hands-on projects. Their SAP pro bono team supported them with the prioritization of key customer segments, the development of value proposition canvases, and the design of targeted pitch decks. Beyond these deliverables, “the insights, knowledge, and expertise [the SAP team] brought to the table were invaluable, allowing us to refine our strategy [and gain] a fresh perspective on how to align our operations with future growth and sustainability goals.”
Zare, who felt an extra special connection to this organization, as she has family from South East Asia, also shared that participating in the Acceleration Collective “helped sharpen facilitation skills” and that for her, “translating our SAP knowledge into actionable strategies for a small, impact-driven team was a valuable stretch opportunity and reinforced the need to lead with clarity, empathy, and structure.”
Luo echoed this sentiment, articulating that a key takeaway from his experience was “the importance of adaptive communication — translating complex ideas into actionable steps for both our client and my peers.”
Their journey together enabled Circular Cities Asia to focus and amplify their impact and offered their pro bono consultant team from SAP the kinds of insights and skill development that will support them as their careers continue to grow inside of SAP and beyond.
Through their experiences working with CycleUp Textiles and Circular Cities Asia — social enterprises uniquely focused on shaping the future of sustainability — Zekhnini, Luo, and Zare have done more than just invest in their own growth. They have aligned their careers with their personal values and applied their skills in ways that can leave a lasting impact on the planet.
As environmental degradation and resource depletion continue to pose significant challenges, the world of business needs more leaders who are committed to participating in the creation of real change. These stories can show that pro bono consulting offers a stepping stone to meaningful collaboration and partnership that helps employees not only develop a growth mindset, but also a deeper understanding of what it looks like to drive sustainability from within a business.
As more SAP employees across the globe take on the opportunity to work alongside extraordinary, inspiring social entrepreneurs through pro bono consulting, these ripple effects will continue to spread, driving innovation, encouraging collaboration, and empowering future leaders to tackle the most pressing issues of our time.
Erin LaBarge is program lead of Global Employee Engagement Strategy for SAP Corporate Social Responsibility at SAP.
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WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) announced that REWE Group has chosen the RISE with SAP journey to migrate its IT infrastructure to a cloud-based platform and modernize its IT processes across finance, accounting and human resources.
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With 16,000 food retail stores and travel agencies across 21 countries, the Germany-based REWE Group impacts and nourishes 50 million customers across Europe each week. Aligned with REWE Group’s mission to deliver the best performance, REWE digital, the IT unit of REWE Group, will migrate 73 SAP software systems to Google Cloud over several years. SAP S/4HANA Cloud allows REWE Group to benefit from greater infrastructure scalability, IT landscape efficiency and the ability to flexibly adapt its technological resources to business requirements in real time.
Guido Hoepfner, COO of REWE digital, said: “This is a significant step forward in the digital transformation of the entire REWE Group. Through our deepened partnerships with SAP and Google, we are taking the harmonization of processes and the standardization of the company’s technical operating models to a new level. By introducing leading cloud solutions from SAP, we are aligning ourselves with the technological market standard. This allows us to continue setting the pace for digitalization and innovation in retail and tourism.”
Harmonized and standardized IT processes are crucial for REWE Group’s digital transformation, as it modernizes its business processes and increases operational synergies. SAP S/4HANA Cloud helps REWE Group streamline its existing on-premises systems and leverage more of SAP’s innovations in the future, including artificial intelligence. REWE digital expects to significantly reduce its hardware and operating costs by standardizing its IT infrastructure.
“RISE with SAP offers the REWE Group a perfect opportunity to further advance its cloud integration and digital transformation. We are excited to be part of this critical transformation for the company. By migrating to the cloud, the REWE Group will benefit from our continuous developments, including innovations in artificial intelligence, and take the next step into the future,” said Alex Klaeger, president Middle and Eastern Europe at SAP.
The next generation of workers is stepping into an environment unlike anything that came before it—where AI tools evolve faster than curriculums and job descriptions shift with every product update. According to a LinkedIn study, 34% of employees—particularly younger professionals—say they feel overwhelmed by the pace of change, citing a desperate need for support in adapting to new technologies and digital ways of working.
In response to this mounting pressure, SAP has launched SAP Learning Hub, student edition—a no-cost global program that can provide students and academic educators with all the curated resources needed to get and stay certified and stand out with proven skills in the latest SAP innovations. It offers guided learning resources, including expert-led live sessions, access to practice systems to get hands-on experience, and two SAP Certification exam attempts.
Empower your potential with SAP Learning Hub, student edition
Available globally since April 2025, the program is designed to close the gap between classroom theory and real-world readiness, giving students access to all resources they need to future-proof their career with the latest skills and credentials.
Closing the global skills gap—one student at a time
The need for a program like this has never been higher. With AI-related course enrollments spiking by 117% in the last year alone and increased fears of digital obsolescence, students and early-career professionals are looking for practical, on-the-job experience—not just theoretical knowledge—to empower them to meet change with adaptability, not anxiety.
The timing of this initiative is critical, too. IDC projects that by 2026, over 90% of organizations will suffer from a shortage of IT skills, costing them trillions in missed opportunities. Employers are struggling to find graduates who not only understand digital technologies but can also use them effectively from day one. Dr. Katharina Schäfer, global head of SAP University Alliances, believes SAP Learning Hub, student edition will help bridge this skills gap: “SAP Learning Hub, student edition simplifies lesson planning and instruction for lecturers while also ensuring students gain practical experience with the latest SAP technologies to prepare them for today’s job market.”
Students, educators, and employers alike win
Designed for students, the site offers self-paced content and guided and tailored learning to help gain practical skills. Along with accessing the latest practice systems for SAP solutions, students can connect directly with SAP experts in live sessions to cover more complex topics. With SAP Learning Hub, student edition, students can gain the confidence to work on key SAP projects, drive innovation with their proven proficiency, and continuously develop the skills to stand out to employers.
Beyond students, the benefits of SAP Learning Hub, student edition extend to lecturers who can now have access to guided, practical resources to help empower their students to graduate with an SAP Certification. “This program lowers the barrier for me to teach with real SAP tools,” said Nancy Jones, a lecturer and curriculum developer. “My students are walking away not just with knowledge—but with proof that they can apply it.”
The solution can also give companies a powerful new lever to tap into certified, workforce-ready talent—many of whom have been trained in the technologies they use on a daily basis. HR leaders and hiring managers can also benefit from an efficient recruitment process by easily identifying candidates with validated SAP expertise. This also helps reduce the need for extensive training, shorten onboarding times, and ensure the company’s readiness for future challenges—a win for all.
Overcoming with future-ready skills
SAP Learning Hub, student edition arrives at a time when AI and digital transformation are redefining job requirements. This digital solution can give young talents—and the educators who support them—an effective way to keep pace. In doing so, they’re laying the foundation for a more resilient, skilled workforce that’s ready to meet the challenges and opportunities of the modern economy head-on.
In our journey towards the triple crown of strategic procurement, we’ve explored how SAP Spend Control Tower can provide crucial insights and how SAP Ariba Category Management helps transform these insights into robust strategies. Now, we arrive at the final and perhaps most critical phase: action.
This is where the rubber meets the road, where well-crafted plans deliver tangible results. Enter SAP Ariba Sourcing, the powerhouse solution that can turn procurement strategies into reality.
The triple crown of procurement: It includes insights (from SAP Spend Control Tower), planning (with SAP Ariba Category Management), and action (with SAP Ariba Sourcing). In this article, we’re focusing on action and SAP Ariba Sourcing.
The power of precision execution
In the world of procurement, even the most brilliant strategy is only as good as its execution. SAP Ariba Sourcing is designed to help quickly bridge the gap between planning and results, empowering your team to act with precision, speed, and intelligence.
Let’s dive into how SAP Ariba Sourcing can bring your procurement strategies to life.
Seamless integration with category management
One of the most powerful features of SAP Ariba Sourcing is its tight integration with SAP Ariba Category Management. This connection helps ensure that the objectives and strategies developed in the planning phase are seamlessly carried forward into the execution phase.
Imagine your category managers have identified a need to diversify suppliers in a critical component category to reduce risk. With SAP Ariba Sourcing, this strategy can be immediately visible to the sourcing team, helping to guide their actions as they create and manage sourcing events.
AI-powered supplier selection
SAP Ariba Sourcing can leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to help select the right suppliers for each sourcing event. The system can analyze your existing supply base, market data, and your specific requirements to suggest suppliers that best fit your needs.
Simplify management for the entire sourcing lifecycle with a unified platform and a global network of suppliers
For instance, if your strategy calls for reducing carbon emissions in your supply chain, AI can highlight suppliers with strong sustainability credentials. Or if you’re looking to mitigate geopolitical risks, it can suggest suppliers from diverse geographical regions.
Real-time market intelligence
In today’s volatile market, having access to real-time market intelligence is crucial. SAP Ariba Sourcing can provide up-to-date information on market trends, pricing, and supplier performance, allowing your team to make informed decisions during negotiations.
For example, if there’s a sudden spike in raw material prices, your sourcing team can immediately adjust their negotiation strategy, potentially saving millions in costs.
Collaborative sourcing events
SAP Ariba Sourcing can enable truly collaborative sourcing events. Multiple stakeholders can participate in the process, from defining requirements to evaluating bids. This helps ensure that all relevant perspectives are considered, leading to better outcomes.
Picture a scenario where you’re sourcing a new IT system. With SAP Ariba Sourcing, your IT team can provide technical specifications, your finance team can set budget parameters, and your legal team can ensure compliance requirements are met—all within the same platform.
Advanced analytics and reporting
The solution can provide powerful analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing you to track the progress and success of your sourcing events in real-time. You can easily measure how well your execution aligns with your strategic objectives and make data-driven decisions to course-correct if needed.
For instance, you can track savings against targets, monitor supplier diversity metrics, or assess the impact of your sourcing decisions on risk profiles—all with the click of a button.
Continuous improvement loop
Perhaps most importantly, SAP Ariba Sourcing helps close the loop in the triple crown strategy. The results and insights gathered from sourcing events can feed back into SAP Spend Control Tower, providing fresh data for analysis and informing future strategy development in SAP Ariba Category Management.
This can create a virtuous cycle of continuous improvement, where each iteration of the process becomes more refined and effective.
The human element in action
While SAP Ariba Sourcing can bring powerful technological capabilities to the table, it’s crucial to remember that it’s designed to augment, not replace, human expertise. The solution can empower your sourcing professionals to focus on high-value activities like relationship building, complex negotiations, and strategic decision-making.
For example, while AI might suggest a list of potential suppliers, it’s your sourcing team’s expertise that will determine which suppliers are the best fit for your company’s culture and long-term goals.
Looking ahead: The future of strategic sourcing
As we conclude our exploration of the triple crown of strategic procurement, it’s clear that we’re at the cusp of a new era in procurement. With solutions like SAP Ariba Sourcing, we’re not just improving our execution—we’re reimagining it.
We’re moving from siloed decision-making to collaborative action, from gut-feel negotiations to data-driven engagements, from reactive purchasing to proactive value creation. We’re creating a future where procurement is a true strategic partner, driving innovation, sustainability, and competitive advantage for the entire organization.
The triple crown of strategic procurement—insights, planning, and action—represents a holistic approach to procurement excellence. By leveraging SAP Spend Control Tower for insights, SAP Ariba Category Management for planning, and SAP Ariba Sourcing for action, organizations can create a powerful, continuous cycle of improvement.
As we face an increasingly complex and volatile business environment, this approach provides the agility, intelligence, and precision needed to not just survive, but thrive. The race is on, and with the right tools and strategies you can be poised to win the triple crown of strategic procurement.
Are you ready to take action and transform your procurement function? The finish line awaits, and with SAP Ariba Sourcing, you’re equipped to cross it in style.
Sudy Bharadwaj is global vice president of Strategic Engagements for SAP Finance and Spend. Cindy McKendry is director of Corporate Communications for Finance, Spend, and Supply Chain at SAP.
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Organizations rely on cloud solutions from SAP to power their most critical business processes. Yet too many IT teams find themselves caught in an endless cycle of maintenance, monitoring, and firefighting, leaving little room for the strategic work that truly moves business forward. SAP Cloud Application Services can change this equation.
Cloud solutions promise simplicity: turn them on, and they just work. But behind every successful cloud transformation lies a complex web of operational challenges. Businesses adopting cloud solutions, whether public or private, still need to address topics such as testing, application performance, security, monitoring, integrations, service and change requests, and issue resolution.
The reality? Cloud solutions eliminate hardware and infrastructure concerns, but the day-to-day operational workload remains. Without proper management, businesses face risks such as downtime, inefficiencies, and an inability to scale.
SAP Cloud Application Services can help put an end to this struggle. The offerings of expert-managed services are designed to help run, optimize, and innovate cloud applications—giving businesses the tools to help unlock the full potential of their business, human capital, and technology investments.
Optimize your business and encourage innovation with help from SAP Cloud Application Services
When businesses run on cloud solutions from SAP, our 24×7 cloud operations can provide more than just monitoring. We can also help to actively prevent issues before they impact your operations and to respond rapidly when minutes matter. Problems can not only be fixed but also anticipated—that’s the beauty of SAP Cloud Application Services.
Offered through an outcome-based, modular subscription model, the offerings can deliver hands-on support for smooth cloud operations. For IT teams, this can mean more time to focus on strategic innovation and business transformation, instead of being overwhelmed by routine maintenance. They can leverage SAP’s deep solution expertise to help ensure continuous security updates, proactive monitoring, intelligent automation, and data-driven optimization.
More importantly, SAP Cloud Application Services can help resolve key challenges associated with cloud-based operations, such as:
Expert-supported application management: Comprehensive cloud application management from SAP helps ensure stable and reliable operations and business continuity across the cloud landscape.
Interconnectivity and integration: Data and processes can flow with greater reliability and speed across cloud environments without losing business context.
Intelligent monitoring and performance optimization: Cloud applications can work together in ways that proactively prevent downtime and performance bottlenecks.
Issue resolution and incident management: Technical issues can be swiftly identified and resolved early.
An AI-first approach: The fusion of built-in AI and cloud application management can enable companies to focus more resources on solving business challenges effectively.
Security and compliance: Security, compliance, and governance standards can be maintained consistently and with confidence.
Automated testing: Regression, performance, or integration testing can be automated to help make innovation less burdensome for IT teams and the overall business.
Where more freedom drives a more strategic focus
All over the world, companies, such as Atem Distribuidora de Petróleo S.A. (Atem), are already opening the door to integrated, automated operations in the cloud with SAP Cloud Application Services.
“The unified engagement between the SAP Cloud Application Services offerings and our partner helped us deliver our upgrade of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition in a very short timeframe,” shares Nayara Araujo, IT systems manager at Atem Distribuidora de Petróleo S.A. “This project is key to our innovation plan and will enable us to continuously enhance our software landscape for many years to come.”
The close relationship that Araujo describes led to a cloud environment that’s reducing the company’s energy consumption by 80% and data footprint by 87.5%. Business operations have also been improved—for example, monthly financial closing time has fallen by 40%.
Atem’s success underscores the importance of having a single point of accountability, supported by:
Predictable costs: Annual service packages are transparent, fixed-price, and outcome-based.
Guaranteed performance: The offerings are backed by contractually binding service-level agreements and 24×7 global support.
Embedded AI and automation: Intelligent monitoring, proactive issue resolution, and continuous improvements are included.
Continuous innovation: Cloud applications are aligned with the organization’s goals and SAP’s evolving road map.
Comprehensive governance: SAP manages everything from monitoring to security and compliance.
Atem didn’t need to deal with multiple vendors. Instead, SAP’s and the partner’s expertise, global support, and standardized service delivery were immediately accessible through one channel. This advantage led to 25% faster upgrades, 30% better usability, and 100% AI readiness.
With cloud success comes AI-driven innovation
Cloud success is more than increased uptime; it’s also about unlocking what’s next. With AI redefining everything in our world, businesses need clean, connected, and continuously managed data and AI-ready, intelligent, and scalable IT environments more than ever.
SAP Cloud Application Services can transform cloud operations into a foundation for AI-driven innovation. With intelligent monitoring, automation, and built-in AI capabilities, businesses can accelerate AI adoption, improve critical business KPIs, and scale dynamically with confidence, control, and continuous innovation.
Take the next step toward a smarter, AI-powered future today. Learn how SAP Cloud Application Services can maximize your cloud investment and contact your local service account executive to get started.
Arndt-Alexander Boehnert is global vice president for SAP Cloud Application Services at SAP. Stefan Krampen is lead architect for SAP Cloud Application Services at SAP.
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50Hertz, part of Elia Group, plays a crucial role in managing the high-voltage grid in the north and east of Germany, covering nearly one-third of the country’s infrastructure. As a transmission system operator, 50Hertz maintains a stable energy supply for the region while actively integrating renewable energy sources to support Germany’s ambitious energy transition plans.
With more than 1,500 employees at 50Hertz alone, the company has a well-defined digitalization strategy in place that focuses on sustaining a clean core system. To meet this objective, it chose to utilize the no-code tool, SAP Build Apps, which aids its transformation journey with SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP).
50Hertz’s citizen developers implemented a mobile application for the company’s specialized maintenance electricians that significantly reduced both the manual effort and the risk of errors. This mobile application supports them by maintaining and calculating the master data of power circuits, which are represented in the SAP system as functional locations.
Why 50Hertz decided to use SAP Build Apps
In 2023, 50Hertz conducted an analysis of its plant maintenance processes. In summary, it concluded that it was time-consuming to create new entries in its plant maintenance system and fill in master and operational data. A lot of manual effort was invested in maintaining data in Excel files and value calculations for technical objects were prone to errors. Due to the complexity of the process, the responsibility for certain areas could only be shared between a few technicians.
Develop enterprise apps with drag-and-drop simplicity
After collaborating with the SAP AppHaus team in Berlin, the company identified a use case for its future accounting solution and evaluated different scenarios. Ultimately, the innovative capabilities of SAP Business Technology Platform convinced the 50Hertz expert team because the platform would allow them to scale up a new solution once it’s successfully piloted and rolled out across the entire corporation.
What’s more, in SAP Discovery Center, they discovered the “Keep the Core Clean Using SAP Build Apps with SAP S/4HANA” mission, which provides guidance and support with a repeatable actionable use case to solve exactly that. The analysis showed that SAP Build Apps could not only help enhance operational agility and speed responses to business requirements, it could also integrate seamlessly with existing SAP S/4HANA architecture.
Martin Glatzel, enterprise architect at SAP AppHaus Berlin, expressed his satisfaction with the collaboration with the 50Hertz team: “With only very limited support from our side, the 50Hertz citizen developers succeeded in using SAP Build Apps to solve their defined use case. Their four new apps will have an immense impact on the efficiency of the important high-voltage grid maintenance work in the future.”
What the maintenance apps improved
SAP Build Apps enabled the team of 50Hertz citizen developers to implement the new maintenance applications with very limited support from SAP. Today, they cover the following maintenance tasks:
The electric circuit display app shows circuit attributes.
The circuit section display app allows users to look for a specific circuit and select it. All circuit sections of the selected circuit are shown, and users can view corresponding attributes and characteristics.
The circuit section adjusting app allows users to search for a specific circuit and select it. All circuit sections of the selected circuit are displayed, and users can modify corresponding attributes.
The circuit section design app allows users to select a circuit and create a circuit section by entering and saving necessary requirements and attributes.
After rolling out the new apps to the specialized electricians, they have benefited in different ways, such as:
About 15% shorter process duration for maintaining functional locations and a significant reduction in the use of both paper- and Excel-based process steps.
10% faster onboarding of new technicians because the app is very easy to use, leading to quick adoption by its end users, the specialized electricians.
Intuitive search for technical locations based on historical data.
Automatic calculation of business-critical numbers, thus improving accuracy significantly.
Looking back
Looking back, the 50Hertz team appreciates the opportunity to develop complex apps with SAP Build Apps in relatively short timeframes. Christian Salewsky and Desiree Possi, both working for the Maintenance Systems & Processes department at 50Hertz, shared about their experience: “While we still had to code at least to some extent in JavaScript and learn to keep track of all the different flows, the overall project experience was encouraging. The detailed product documentation allowed our team to grasp the basics quickly. Once we used the standard functionalities of SAP Build Apps, calculating electronic data became very simple. We found clear explanations of all the functions, and the tabular presentation of data was very helpful, too.”
Imke Vierjahn is communications lead at SAP AppHaus.
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WALLDORF— SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced KMD A/S, one of Denmark’s largest IT companies and a subsidiary of NEC Corporation, is moving its KMD Opus platform to SAP S/4HANA Cloud through its RISE with SAP journey on Microsoft Azure.
Modernize your SAP ERP and unlock business value by leveraging the full potential of SAP Business Suite
“The agreements with SAP and Microsoft primarily ensure long-term stability for our Opus solution. Opus customers will benefit from the most innovative technologies and a secure and compliant data and cloud setup. This will empower us to enhance the quality of our solution, and to provide even greater value in public administration, whether it concerns payroll, debtors or finances,” said Jan Gaardboe Jensen, Senior Vice President, KMD.
As a major player in the Danish IT market with operations in various European countries, KMD develops and delivers IT solutions and services, focusing on digitalization and IT infrastructure for municipal, state and business segments. By entering into a technology and cloud agreement between KMD, SAP and Microsoft, KMD will be enabled to elevate the operation of KMD Opus, its ERP system offering used by thousands of public employees in Denmark for managing payroll, debtors and finances.
By migrating to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, KMD is looking to develop a new user interface with increased AI integration to bring more automation to repetitive tasks and greater access to data-driven insights, making reporting easier and more accessible to users.
“For the past 27 years, KMD and SAP have worked together to digitize the public sector,” said Mikkel Stavnsbo, Managing Director, SAP Denmark. “It’s exciting to see KMD embark on its next chapter with a focus on new innovative technologies and automation with cloud services from SAP, such as AI. The shift to the cloud unlocks more opportunities for us to work together to contribute to an even better run society,” he added.
Business innovation can have a tremendous impact economically, environmentally, and socially—not just for companies but also for communities and the world around us.
Businesses that have participated in the SAP Innovation Awards over the years have supported innovative solutions that meet challenges inside and outside their organizations. For instance, one previous award winner in the energy sector achieved sustainability with a new supply chain solution. Another previous winner in home appliance manufacturing successfully dismantled organizational silos to deliver better customer service.
That’s why I’m especially pleased to announce the groundbreaking winners of the 12th annual SAP Innovation Awards.
The SAP Innovation Awards have been honoring future-minded companies for 12 years. Here are this year’s winners.
This year, 217 companies entered the competition. Of that group, 46 were selected by our judges as finalists and 23 as winners.
Representing a variety of industries, the winners have demonstrated creativity, tangible outcomes, and, of course, innovation by applying SAP products and cloud technologies for the betterment of their customers, community, and organizations.
As technology constantly evolves, opportunities arise that can make the world a better place through sustainability, customer experience, and more. The winners demonstrate creative and innovative ideation that takes advantage of the following tools to make an impact:
Applications: Integrating and optimizing core business processes with SAP applications to generate semantically rich data that drives global economic growth
Data: Centralizing unmatched data from SAP and non-SAP sources into a unified semantic layer to unlock insights, advanced analytics, and AI capabilities
AI: Powered by accurate data, harnessing AI and generative AI to deliver a unique advantage in cross-function collaboration and enable smarter decisions and transformative outcomes
What comes with winning an SAP Innovation Award?
Award winners receive global recognition, which can add to their organization’s reputation and credibility with current and potential customers and the community. They’re also honored with a tribute event, trophy, and the option of choosing a $1,000 SAP4Good charitable donation voucher or an admission ticket to SAP Sapphire in Orlando, Florida, May 19-21, or in Madrid, Spain, May 16-28.
To everyone involved
I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the 2025 SAP Innovation Awards, especially the organizations that submitted applications and the participating SAP teams. I look forward to reading about the innovations presented at this year’s event that continue to positively transform business and the world.
Interested in participating in 2026?
In addition to global recognition, praise, and prizes, your organization will have the opportunity to receive:
Unique resources: Receive access to marketing materials, including full digital packages, and other branded support to help promote your greatest achievements.
Best of breed collaboration: Collaborate with other leading companies and industry leaders that are at the forefront of innovative change.
Inspiring stories: Learn about the accomplishments and creative genius of past winners and finalists to motivate your teams to foster a culture of innovation and strive for excellence.
Stay in the know
Subscribe to the SAP Innovation Awards newsletter for details on next year’s event. Want more inspiration? Watch this video and start planning how to leverage your innovative ideas for 2026.
Stephan de Barse is president of the SAP Global Business Suite Organization.
Image courtesy of SAP employee Rudragouda Sanakal.
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