BUSINESS NEWS 46 - The World Management

03 April

Beyond the Omnibus Headlines: How Businesses Should Respond

The recent EU Omnibus package may propose to ease the reporting burden for companies in the EU, but many headlines have in fact triggered uncertainty and alarm.

If we can cut through the noise, proactive business leaders can not only prepare for these changes but seize the opportunity to drive strategic business value and even transformation.

My key takeaways for business:

Large companies still have to report, while SMEs can gain an advantage through voluntary reporting
Streamlined and integrated data management remains key for compliance and business value creation
Get ahead by starting today

Sustainability regulations have been on a rollercoaster ride lately. To address concerns about the administrative burden, harmonization, and competitiveness, EU lawmakers have undertaken critical reviews of key policies, most notably the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

Initial reactions to the Omnibus package ranged from celebratory to cautionary, with some media outlets pointing out “costly confusion” and even “catastrophic changes.” The slightest changes to any regulatory framework can spark confusion, but there is no need to panic. While still subject to final approval, the Omnibus package should provide companies extra time to prepare and reduced metrics to track.

Despite these proposed changes, business leaders should ensure their data management systems are equipped to handle the required sustainability metrics. Systems and processes for data management need to be instituted, KPIs identified, stakeholders managed — all of which takes time. As a rule of thumb, auditors recommend two years of preparation time before a reporting deadline hits. From automated collection and reporting to insights that drive measurable business value, an integrated data system has the potential to make sustainability data so much more than a mere component of compliance.

What are the changes in the Omnibus?

The Omnibus adjusts compliance thresholds, shifts reporting timelines, and removes the burden of CSRD reporting for small and midsize enterprises. Proposed changes include:

Companies not yet required to report on FY 2024 will have a two-year delay (until 2028) before they must report with the CSRD
Companies must have 1,000 employees and €50 million net turnover, or €25 million balance sheet to meet CSRD reporting threshold
Limited assurance requirements are implemented in place of reasonable assurance
Sector-specific reporting mandates have been eliminated
Value chain data is only required from suppliers that also meet the reporting threshold
Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) due diligence intervals increased from each year to every five years

All proposed changes are still subject to final approval.

What remains untouched in the Omnibus proposals?

Large European companies — those that were required to report with the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) — are still required to report with the CSRD this year for FY 2024, and are required to continue reporting despite the proposal. The pool of companies required to report will still expand, but now with a two-year delay and the timeline for non-EU parent companies has not changed. Companies with a two-year delay will still need to start preparing at least 12 months ahead of their new reporting deadlines.

Supply chain emissions, double materiality assessments, KPI identifying and tracking, and transition planning are all still fundamental to the CSRD. Supply chain data insights are still requirements of the CSDDD and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).

The metrics on which companies are required to report are likely to be reduced and simplified, but regulatory compliance still remains a data challenge that requires integrated solutions. For companies that are no longer required to report, voluntary reporting can prove beneficial if data insights are deployed strategically. With the right solutions, sustainability data can unlock valuable insights to improve business performance.

How can sustainability data improve business performance?

With all the new compliance measures businesses have to navigate, it can be easy to get reporting tunnel vision and lose sight of the wider goal: sustainable business outcomes and value creation for the business.

Rigorous sustainability reporting should drive operational efficiency. Combined with a wealth of sustainability data, supply chain scrutiny and systems analysis lay the groundwork for deriving strategic business value. For example, sustainability data supports effective risk management through visibility into risks and their strategic and financial impacts, lowers costs by creating efficiency gains, and provides the insights needed to take action.

Collecting and managing data to comply with sustainability regulations requires data management software. The bare bones solution is the helpful, yet error-prone, Excel spreadsheet, while at the opposite end of the data management spectrum is the ERP-centric system.

The spreadsheet might manage to painstakingly serve the compliance function, but it lacks the ability to provide real-time insights that align sustainability goals with financial goals. What’s worse is that after data is collected and reported, it lives — and dies — on the spreadsheet, offering no added value, and certainly driving no business transformation.

In contrast, by using an ERP-centric system, data needed to comply with sustainability regulations can be pulled, aggregated, and integrated into business systems like finance, procurement, and HR. In fact, an ERP-centric system can provide access to as much as 85 percent of the quantitative data required for CSRD compliance.

ERP systems are the catalyst for strategic business transformation and streamlined regulatory compliance. ERP combined with SAP Sustainability solutions can provide access to sustainability data that permeates all business functions. Business leaders obtain the necessary insights to reduce carbon and material usage, accelerate CSRD compliance, and accurately measure the financial and sustainability impact of their decisions.

Get ahead by starting today

To stay ahead of current and upcoming regulations, streamlined and integrated management of data from operations and supply chain is essential. An ERP-centric approach can drive both sustainability and financial performance, with compliance being just the tip of the iceberg for ERP-centric sustainability data benefits.

Even with CSRD timelines extended for some companies, forward-thinking businesses have much to gain by continuing CSRD-aligned sustainability reporting now. This delay offers an opportunity to develop a strategic, technology-enabled approach to sustainability reporting that drives long-term business value.

Take action now and leverage SAP Sustainability solutions to transform your data management and sustainability reporting, ensuring your business not only complies but thrives in the evolving regulatory landscape. To learn even more about the Omnibus changes and how an ERP-centric system can benefit your business, read SAP’s latest white paper on mastering CSRD.

Sophia Mendelsohn is chief sustainability and commercial officer at SAP.

02 April

BUSINESS NEWS

SAP Named a Leader in 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Transportation Management Systems

by twm@twm.com.sg 0 Comments

For the 11th consecutive year, SAP has been recognized as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management Systems.

We believe this recognition represents SAP’s unwavering commitment to building sustainable, risk-resilient supply chains capable of withstanding the ever-shifting landscape of logistics operations.

A Gartner Magic Quadrant is a culmination of research in a specific market, offering a wide-angle view of the relative positions of the market’s competitors. SAP’s positioning as a Leader is based on our ability to execute and completeness of vision.

Our winning strategy

As global logistics continues to face complex and volatile conditions, companies require a 360-degree view of their operational processes. Businesses are now managing more data and disruptions than ever before while simultaneously striving to meet sustainability goals. At SAP, we understand the critical need for greater visibility to effectively manage demand shifts, evolving consumer expectations, and local regulations. Our transportation management strategy takes into account key trends affecting businesses, enabling us to deliver innovative solutions tailored to their needs.

SAP Transportation Management is a holistic, end-to-end solution that empowers businesses to efficiently manage their transportation operations. In an environment where many factors are beyond your control, you need a solution that can adapt to changes in routes, carriers, or demand, putting the power back in your hands. To achieve this level of control and agility, SAP Transportation Management leverages AI and a single-view, panoramic platform.

Innovative AI use cases
Data-driven insights, powered by AI, lead to faster decision-making and increased efficiency. Our AI-first strategy helps businesses remain responsive and proactive, ensuring a smooth flow of goods even — and especially — in the face of disruption. From automated goods receipts processing to conversational planning, AI drives new avenues for growth while providing improved productivity for transportation operations.

Supply chain convergence strategy
SAP’s logistics portfolio orchestrates processes between SAP Transportation Management, SAP Extended Warehouse Management, SAP Yard Logistics, and SAP Business Network for Logistics on a cohesive cloud platform. This single view across the logistics function helps eliminate blind spots and reduce complexity. With the power of SAP Business Network, businesses can maintain a constant understanding of the operational landscape and collaborate with carriers in real time.

Why companies choose SAP

Today, companies worldwide and in dozens of industries trust SAP Transportation Management to enhance their logistics management strategy.

Unparalleled partner ecosystem
Digital collaboration is key to building relationships with implementation and technology partners. Our unmatched partner ecosystem enables point-to-point connection at every step. The ecosystem includes implementation and technology partners in every region of the world, providing support for SAP Transportation Management customers. Furthermore, SAP Business Network for Logistics allows businesses to transact on a continuously expanding network of partners, tapping into collective expertise and resources to ensure on-time delivery of goods while meeting sustainability goals. The true power of the network lies in streamlined communication and collaboration.

End-to-end visibility
Risk identification and mitigation is only possible with a comprehensive view across every point of the supply chain. SAP Transportation Management provides crucial data to other parts of the organization, from warehousing to customer service and accounting. Its planning capabilities allow organizations to promptly respond to disruptions such as production delays, carrier shortage, or delays at suppliers. Additionally, organizations can model constraints to ensure that transportation operations adhere to relevant laws and regulations, from customs to environmental regulations. Lastly, in combination with SAP Business Network, SAP Transportation Management includes visibility to goods in transit, providing stakeholders the necessary information to drive performance and customer satisfaction.

Recent innovations

The latest releases of SAP Transportation Management include new capabilities, such as:

Generative AI in the transportation cockpit, leveraging natural language for conversational planning, providing more human-centric work environment, and adapting to individual user needs
AI-assisted goods receipt analysis for faster freight receiving, reducing manual efforts and waiting times and improving productivity
Freight planning based on not just cost or time constraints, but also on minimizing CO2 emissions with the ability to allocate CO2 data down to the item level
Expanded 3D load planning capabilities
Continued enhancement of advanced shipping and receiving, orchestrating communication between SAP Transportation Management and SAP Extended Warehouse Management
Industry-specific innovations expanding on integration for just-in-time (JIT) and just-in-sequence (JIS) processes

Learn more about transportation management solutions from SAP.

Till Dengel is global head of Product Marketing for Logistics and Asset & Service Management at SAP.

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, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

02 April

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BUSINESS NEWS

The Transformative Power of SAP Business Network

by sherwin@eyeconz.com 0 Comments

New research from IDC shows how SAP Business Network can speed up product and order delivery, accelerate go-to-market speed, and deliver significant ROI to drive procurement success.

In today’s interconnected business landscape, procurement and supply chain management have evolved from back-office functions to strategic drivers of success. As organizations seek to build resilient, efficient, customer-centric supply chains, the adoption of innovative technologies becomes crucial. Enter SAP Business Network—a game-changing platform that’s revolutionizing how companies procure products and services and manage their end-to-end supply chains.

A recent IDC white paper, sponsored by SAP, titled “The Business Value of SAP Business Network—for Buyer Organizations,” reveals the remarkable impact of SAP Business Network on buyer organizations. The findings, based on in-depth interviews with existing customers across various industries, showcase the impressive improvements in efficiency, cost savings, and revenue growth. Let’s delve into the transformative power of this technology and how it’s reshaping the procurement landscape.

Accelerating revenue growth through agility and transparency

When organizations can better monitor and share global trend data across teams, they can respond to market demands quicker and accelerate their go-to-market strategy. According to the research, SAP Business Network empowered these organizations to:

Launch products and services 30% faster than before
Monitor global trends and redirect stock to high-demand areas with agility
Share real-time data and analytics across teams for quicker market responses

The result? An average annual revenue gain of $66 million, or $1.2 million per 100 trading partners. This impressive growth contributes to an average three-year ROI of 404% for organizations using SAP Business Network, with a payback period of just 14 months.

Maximizing efficiency from partner onboarding to order processing

Global supply chain success relies on making repetitive, but essential, tasks as efficient as possible. The respondents indicated that SAP Business Network delivered substantial improvements in this area:

Partner onboarding time reduced by 70% (from 54 days to 16 days)
Invoice processing time cut by 59% (from 16.3 days to 6.7 days)
Percentage of invoices processed without exception increased from 64% to 89%
60% reduction in full-time equivalents (FTEs) responsible for invoice-related processes

These efficiency gains were particularly significant given that procurement team sizes have remained steady despite increased focus on business strategy and execution. By automating repetitive tasks and providing real-time data for informed decision-making, SAP Business Network freed up team members to focus on strategic initiatives.

Similar effects were felt in procurement and supply chain planning, where respondents reported the number of FTEs necessary for these activities decreased by 19% and 47%, respectively.

Realizing millions in total cost savings

SAP Business Network provides capabilities to help streamline operations, reduce manual interventions, and optimize resource allocation across various functions. The result, as found through the research, was significant cost savings across departments for interviewed companies.

IT maintenance: Average annual savings of $6.59 million
Warehouse and logistics: Cost reductions totaling approximately $6.5 million annually
Inventory management: Optimized stock levels, with one pharmaceutical respondent reducing on-hand safety stock by 50%

In total, respondents experienced average annual cost savings of $13.58 million through reduced operational costs and improved efficiency.

Streamlining operations for enhanced performance

The impact of SAP Business Network on operational efficiency was truly impressive:

Unified IT infrastructure: Elimination of multiple systems, leading to streamlined operations
Enhanced supplier collaboration: Freeing up team members for strategic tasks
Improved order tracking and shipment utilization
Better demand forecasting and stock management

Real-world success

The transformative power of SAP Business Network is best illustrated through the experiences of its users. One pharmaceutical company reduced its on-hand safety stock by half, while others reported significant improvements in transportation processes and demand forecasting.

These success stories underscore the network’s ability to deliver tangible benefits across various industries and business functions. Real-time data and analytics helped companies respond to shifting market demands and capitalize on new opportunities, allowing organizations to launch products and services and get to market on average 30% faster than they did previously.

The findings from the IDC white paper paint a compelling picture of the potential of SAP Business Network to revolutionize procurement and supply chain management. By enabling faster go-to-market strategies, improving operational efficiency, and delivering substantial cost savings, the network is helping organizations thrive in an increasingly complex business environment.

As we look to the future, it’s clear that platforms like SAP Business Network will play a crucial role in shaping the next generation of procurement and supply chain excellence. Organizations that embrace this technology stand to gain a significant competitive advantage, driving growth and innovation in ways previously unimaginable.

Next steps

Ready to explore the potential impact of SAP Business Network on your organization? Here are some resources to help you get started:

Download the full IDC white paper for an in-depth look at the findings.
Watch the webinar replay featuring representatives from SAP and IDC discussing key findings from the business value study.
Try out the business value calculator developed by IDC for a personalized organizational assessment of the ROI SAP Business Network could deliver for your company.

Stay tuned for upcoming insights that will highlight the benefits of SAP Business Network specifically for suppliers, complementing the buyer-focused insights presented here. The future of procurement is bright, and SAP Business Network is leading the way in unlocking procurement and supply chain management potential and driving business success.

Tony Harris is SVP and head of Marketing & Solutions for SAP Business Network.

29 March

BUSINESS NEWS

Unleashing Manufacturing’s Potential: SAP’s Vision for an Adaptive, AI-Driven Future

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In an era of rapid technological advancement and increasing complexity, the manufacturing industry faces unprecedented challenges. Companies worldwide must adapt to market changes while maintaining highly cost-efficient and productive supply chains. To thrive in this dynamic landscape, businesses need innovative strategies and technologies that go beyond isolated efficiency gains.

At SAP, we believe in empowering manufacturers to bring out their best. By connecting processes beyond the silos of individual functions and by converging and contextualizing critical data, we are laying the foundation to leverage cutting-edge technologies like generative and agentic AI. This strategy helps businesses build more sustainable, resilient networks that are adaptive to overcome unforeseen risks and seize bold new opportunities.

This vision will be on full display at Hannover Messe 2025, the world’s leading trade fair for industry, where we will showcase how SAP is revolutionizing manufacturing through the following key areas.

New paths with SAP Business Suite

SAP Business Suite offers a comprehensive solution that transcends traditional ERP systems. By leveraging seamlessly integrated, end-to-end supply chain processes in the cloud, supported by context-rich business data and real-time analysis, artificial intelligence and predictive algorithms, we help companies manage their supply chains efficiently while responding to new requirements with agility.

In an era of mass customization, this agility is crucial for maintaining competitiveness. Transparent access to manufacturing data allows companies to manage their production capacities more flexibly and recover from short-term supply disruptions better. We empower companies to meet new customer requirements promptly and efficiently, reducing costs and shortening time-to-market for new products.

One example is Siemens Energy digitalizing service operations with SAP Field Service Management. This optimization of the entire service order process — from customer demand to spare parts planning and finally technician and tool planning, dispatching, and execution — allows manufacturers to streamline their operations and enhance overall efficiency in a single, unified experience.

Applications that drive excellence

In manufacturing, downtime is costly. That’s why our digital applications play a key role in vertically connecting machines and devices through critical manufacturing data with enterprise processes. By optimizing production processes, reducing downtime, and increasing transparency, we’re turning reactive maintenance into a predictive strategy.

SAP Digital Manufacturing provides manufacturers with the ability to coordinate complex and short-term changes to customer orders on the shop floor across multiple functions, ensuring smooth operations. Our new embedded IoT technology based on our partnership with Cumulocity AG in SAP Asset Performance Management allows operators to monitor asset health with plug-and-play simplicity. Meanwhile, the integration of SAP S/4HANA for product design and sourcing and SAP Integrated Product Development for collaborative product data management is enhancing collaboration with direct material suppliers, orchestrated through the SAP business network.

Real-world success stories, like SMA Solar Technology AG, demonstrate the tangible benefits of our solutions. SMA Solar achieved a 15 percent increase in supply chain workforce productivity, 10 percent improvement in overall supply chain planning costs, and 10 percent lower inventory carrying costs and stock turnover rate using SAP Digital Manufacturing for electronics manufacturing.

The power of data

To enable automation in mass production with individualized requests, companies need real-time integration of operational, sustainability, and business data. SAP provides real-time access to data-driven insights, eliminating delays and silos with instant access to unified data across SAP and non-SAP systems. This enterprise-wide operational alignment connects supply chain data with finance, human resources, and other business areas, streamlining processes and reducing costs.

SAP Business Data Cloud further enhances this capability by providing a comprehensive platform for data management and analytics. Moreover, our AI-powered predictions and insights help improve sustainability by optimizing energy consumption, eliminating waste, and minimizing environmental impact.

Integrating AI for greater efficiency

Companies today need to redefine their business management by integrating automation and AI-driven decision intelligence into their business processes. SAP solutions enhance productivity and efficiency across all business processes, from product development to execution and continuous process improvement.

SAP Integrated Business Planning (SAP IBP) offers planning analytics, what-if simulations, and real-time information for sustainable and risk-resilient decision-making. The new AI-assisted planning capabilities with SAP’s co-pilot Joule in SAP IBP allow supply chain planners to customize Excel add-in planning views using natural language commands, streamlining daily tasks and strategic decisions.

Joule revolutionizes SAP IBP by introducing intuitive conversational search, navigation, and transactional capabilities. By harnessing natural language processing, it effortlessly interprets user queries and instantly retrieves relevant information, significantly enhancing overall user productivity. This ability allows even highly experienced planners to understand the outcome of complex optimization and machine learning-based planning algorithms revolutionizing their user experience and ultimately increasing user adoption of these advanced AI-based technologies.

In SAP Digital Manufacturing and SAP Asset Performance Management, machine learning-guided visual inspection enables the execution of multiple inspection tasks such as for production and maintenance quality or even automates the process entirely, reducing human errors, improving product quality, and lowering operational costs.

Joule in SAP Integrated Product Development facilitates help-content discovery with conversational access to development documentation, covering idea-to-market processes such as collaboration, formulation, and handover. Users can inquire naturally, access relevant documentation, and receive concise summaries, enhancing efficiency and decision-making.

For the manufacturing industry, SAP Field Service Management with AI provides technicians quick access to equipment service history and key job details, improving diagnostics and first-time fix rates. This increases operational efficiency, reduces downtime, and enhances customer satisfaction.

Lastly, the integration of Joule with SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration allows transportation planners to use simple natural language searches to find order details and reduce manual errors by autonomously cross-referencing multiple data sources.

Join SAP at Hannover Messe 2025

Visit SAP in Hall 15, booth C19 at Hannover Messe 2025 to discover how our modern manufacturing, supply chain, and cloud ERP solutions can help your business, regardless of its size. Experience firsthand how we’re maximizing the impact of technology, running resilient and sustainable supply chains, and unlocking the power of business networks.

Meet our experts and industry-leading partners to learn how manufacturing and supply chain processes in the cloud can help you succeed in an AI-enabled world. Together, let’s bring out your best and shape the future of intelligent, sustainable manufacturing.

Dominik Metzger is president and chief product officer for SAP Supply Chain Management at SAP.

28 March

BUSINESS NEWS

SAP Named a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Source to Pay Suites

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As the chief product officer for our spend management solutions, I am proud to share that Gartner has recognized SAP as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Source to Pay Suites.

This recognition, we believe, is a testament to our unwavering commitment to delivering innovative, comprehensive solutions that empower businesses to optimize procurement processes and enhance bottom-line results.

We feel it serves as validation for the strength of SAP Ariba offerings, and our continued focus on delivering experiences premised on data, intelligence, and suite. We believe that in a dynamic and unpredictable world, a partner with the breadth and depth of SAP is uniquely positioned to unleash success on these principles across your business, and we are humbled by this recognition.

SAP’s source-to-pay offerings and investment focus areas

SAP Ariba has been a leader in the development of cloud-based technologies that help buyers and suppliers collaborate to unleash the power of procurement. As the first product to offer these services in a multitenant cloud framework, SAP Ariba has developed deep functionality to handle complexity, while its focus on user experience has enabled simplicity. This has allowed an offering that can span all industries, all geographies, and all spend types. Our global customer base is proof of this achievement.

Our future focus is on ongoing innovation and improvement across our portfolio. Building use cases for intelligence is at the heart of our product strategy and defines the next generation of user experience for our products. Unparalleled applications in spend management have enabled our globally diverse customers to bring all spend under management: direct, indirect, MRO, and services. This provides the world’s largest, unmatched dataset for procurement and is the fuel for the delivery of an unrivaled AI roadmap.

SAP’s AI copilot J oule simplifies complex tasks across the source-to-pay process. Each use case has been built to enhance productivity, allowing procurement organizations to achieve more with less. Joule’s agentic AI framework will be directly applicable and available for spend applications from SAP, allowing customers to build agents that can operate on data from across their business landscape.

While companies today are sometimes told to mind their business, SAP realizes that no business does business alone. Our product road map is predicated on collaborative trading partner experiences through SAP Business Network, the largest supplier network in the industry, operational in 190 countries. This is exemplified by SAP Ariba Category Management, a new product built with an AI-first mindset. Its category agents have value because they are business network-aware and process-aware; the product is integrated across the network and source-to-pay suite, as it helps develop a category strategy and then monitors execution.

SAP Spend Control Tower offers comprehensive visibility across all spend systems, with zero integration effort for data originating from SAP cloud ERP solutions, SAP Ariba solutions, SAP Fieldglass solutions, or SAP Concur solutions. Broadly speaking, this is fundamental to the overall strategy for SAP Business Data Cloud, ensuring all business applications speak the same language and enabling an unrivaled AI roadmap for the SAP Business Suite.

At the same time, SAP recognizes that the world of software applications is heterogenous. Our own application partner network is continuously expanding. And while SAP won’t develop capabilities to solve every problem, our customers still want an orchestrated suite experience, even when non-SAP products are involved in the workflow. That is why we have invested in the development of SAP Ariba Intake Management. Businesses need to automate procurement requests with one common workflow, regardless of how many applications are involved. And where SAP applications are involved, this suite experience is increasingly in-built, again with zero effort required for integration. Capabilities from SAP Fieldglass and SAP Taulia are being directly embedded into SAP Ariba to provide a unified experience.

Real-world impact

The power of source-to-pay solutions from SAP is best illustrated through the experiences of our customers. American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), a global specialty retailer, faced challenges in managing its high volume of suppliers and invoices. By implementing SAP Business Network and SAP Ariba solutions, AEO achieved 85 percent purchase order compliance (five percent above target), 75 percent invoice-count compliance for 48,000 annual invoices, and over $780 million in spend transacting on SAP Business Network.

Nick Bonacci, senior manager of Procure-to-Pay Services at AEO, noted, “SAP Ariba solutions and SAP Business Network help AEO simplify our procure-to-pay processes in several key ways. Through the use of SAP’s intuitive applications, compliant purchasing protocols are now embedded into our broader organization, helping us maximize cost savings, optimize working capital, and strengthen vendor relationships.”

Similarly, Adani Enterprises Limited, implemented SAP Business Network and SAP Ariba solutions, achieving 94 percent first-time-right invoices in digital channels, 4,000 hours saved in one year in processing invoices, and over 8.5 million pieces of paper saved in one year with supplier digitalization.

Mukesh Ralhan, group head of Business Excellence and Strategic Initiatives at Adani, commented, “We process close to 100,000 purchase orders every year, with more than US$20 billion of spend. That’s huge for a company. Without SAP software such as SAP Ariba solutions supporting a single platform, that would not be possible.”

Looking ahead

SAP remains dedicated to delivering solutions that help businesses navigate the complexities of modern procurement. Our focus on customer success, coupled with our deep industry expertise and innovative technology, positions us to continue leading the way in source-to-pay solutions.

Learn more about source-to-pay solutions from SAP here.

Read the full Gartner Magic Quadrant for Source to Pay Suites report.

Manoj Swaminathan is president and chief product officer for SAP Intelligent Spend Management and Application Foundation Services at SAP.

28 March

BUSINESS NEWS

Efficient Quality Management in the Automotive Industry with Catena-X and SAP

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Managing recalls in the automotive industry is often costly and a logistical nightmare. German car manufacturers alone set aside reserves of €1.4 to €1.8 billion per year for such cases. However, thanks to a collaboration between SAP and Catena-X, significant cost savings can be achieved, and the efficiency of recalls can be drastically improved or avoided.

Catena-X is a collaborative data ecosystem developed specifically for the automotive industry as part of the Manufacturing-X program. It enables companies along the entire supply chain to exchange data securely without giving up their data sovereignty.

“Quality management is traditionally one of the areas where data exchange is associated with the greatest inhibitions,” explains Hagen Heubach, global vice president and head of Discrete Industries at SAP and a member of the Catena-X e.V. Executive Board. “Neither manufacturers nor suppliers like to talk about possible defects. Therefore, this was an obvious use case in the context of industrial data exchange with Catena-X, which also has significant financial implications.”

A concrete example of the success of this collaboration is a recall action in which a preliminary analysis showed that 1.4 million vehicles were affected. However, after the exchange of field and production data made possible by Catena-X, it turned out that only 14 vehicles actually had to be recalled. This precise error analysis was made possible by comparing field data provided by the OEM manufacturer and production data from the suppliers of the individual parts.

By using Catena-X and SAP Quality Management, errors can be detected early and recall actions carried out more precisely, leading to significant cost savings.

This bilateral exchange also strengthens the trust relationship between OEMs and suppliers. The technical requirements of Catena-X allow each partner within the ecosystem to make its data available to any other partner for a specific purpose and for a limited time. The sovereignty over the data remains with the one who shares it. Field data, or the data produced by the vehicle on the road, are particularly valuable for suppliers as they allow conclusions to be drawn about how their parts perform under different conditions on the road.

27 March

BUSINESS NEWS

Unlocking Cloud Innovation: How Organizations Achieve More with SAP Preferred Success

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With so much technology already in place, adding cloud solutions can feel like just another layer of complexity. But the real challenge isn’t the solutions themselves—it’s making them work smarter, faster, and with greater impact.

According to a Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study commissioned by SAP, interviewed SAP customers found a way to tap into the guidance, expertise, and support they need to navigate challenges and achieve their cloud ambitions. And it all began with the expanded editions of the SAP Preferred Success offering.

A vice president of financial systems from a financial services company succinctly described the impact in an interview for the Forrester Consulting study: “The expanded editions of SAP Preferred Success have opened new doors for us. We can use the time saved by working with the SAP product specialist to focus on new functionality and dive deeper into existing features like never before.”

Implementing, adopting, and optimizing cloud solutions can be a struggle for many organizations. Why? Their internal teams often lack the time and expertise to leverage the solutions fully. At the same time, the rest of the business is stuck searching for external technology partners to manage applications and wrestle with customizations that slow down progress.

But here’s the good news: expanded editions of SAP Preferred Success can provide direct access to SAP product specialists who can give tailored guidance, enable proactive monitoring, and accelerate problem-solving.

Impact backed by real-life customer experiences

The expanded editions of SAP Preferred Success can go beyond smoothing the cloud adoption experience; they can also offer a strategic advantage that helps transform business operations. For the TEI study, Forrester Consulting interviewed SAP customers using the expanded editions—many of whom faced similar challenges, including limited expertise, resource constraints, and difficulty optimizing cloud solutions.

With access to comprehensive services such as how-to guidance and in-depth expertise, new-feature activation, prescriptive solution reviews, and proactive monitoring, surveyed organizations reported:

65% higher internal SAP team efficiency, saving US$1.3 million over three years: Regular check-ins with SAP product specialists can empower internal teams with direct access to training materials, insights on upcoming releases, and proactive issue prevention.
50% lower application management service costs, worth $1 million: Organizations can significantly reduce reliance on external service partners by equipping internal teams with advanced SAP expertise.
Optimized customizations, worth $408,000: Leveraging SAP’s standard design frameworks and expert guidance help streamline custom development efforts, minimize rework, and improve system performance.

Beyond the numbers, the true value of the expanded editions is reflected in real-world stories. In fact, an HR platform architect of a manufacturing company shared with Forrester Consulting: “When we face an issue, the SAP product specialist gives us a direct and clear answer within one day, and sometimes within hours. Also, the expanded editions of SAP Preferred Success give us access to a whole network of highly skilled SAP experts.”

The cloud’s potential continues to expand

As cloud technology evolves, its potential continues to grow. Yet, realizing its full value requires more than just technology—it demands the right expertise and guidance. Backed by real-life customer experiences analyzed by Forrester Consulting, it’s clear that strategic advantage is available through the expanded editions of SAP Preferred Success.

Learn more about the full impact of the expanded editions of SAP Preferred Success in the 2025 Forrester Consulting study, “The Total Economic Impact™ of the Expanded Editions of SAP Preferred Success.”

And if you’re ready to take the next step, ask your SAP sales representative about including the expanded editions of SAP Preferred Success in your quote.

Gokhan Nalbantoglu is head of Global Sales for Cloudified Services at SAP.
Peter Roberts is SVP and chief product owner for SAP Preferred Success at SAP.

26 March

BUSINESS NEWS

Retail’s Biggest Challenge: A Data-Driven Vision for the Future

by cybersite 0 Comments

In today’s retail landscape, customer expectations have never been higher. Shoppers want to move effortlessly between in-store visits, mobile browsing, social commerce, and digital marketplaces, expecting every interaction to be seamless and personalized.

Behind the scenes, retailers struggle to deliver these experiences due to fragmented, outdated, and incomplete data that makes real-time decision-making nearly impossible and hampers engagement, operational efficiency, and, ultimately, profitability.

The hidden costs of disconnected data

When retailers’ data exists in silos, the problem is compounded from all angles. With sales, inventory, marketing, and customer engagement data living in separate systems, retailers lack the clear view of customer behavior and business insights they need to respond with critical actions in real time. Lack of context within the data means businesses struggle to extract meaningful insights.

Consider the impact:

Limited inventory visibility leads to stockouts and overstocks, frustrating customers and eroding profits.
Lack of real-time insights hinders personalized customer engagement, diminishing loyalty.
Disconnected operations make omnichannel fulfillment—such as buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) or hassle-free returns—difficult to execute smoothly.

At a moment when retailers must optimize every facet of their business to remain competitive, a unified data strategy isn’t optional—it’s essential.

A data-driven future: Turning insights into action

To break these silos, retailers need a unified data foundation—one that consolidates insights across all customer touchpoints, enabling real-time intelligence and business agility. SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC), as recently announced, is an integrated solution that can bring data together from all sources, owned and external, to help create a single, trusted source of truth.

With SAP Business Data Cloud, retailers can have the total picture of data from sales, inventory, marketing, loyalty, service, and near-real-time statuses of third-party logistics.

With this holistic view, retailers can:

Enable seamless cross-channel fulfillment, such as buy online, pick up in-store or return anywhere.
Optimize operational efficiency for everything from intelligent sourcing and promotional planning to inventory visibility and availability across sales channels.
Personalize customer engagement by leveraging data-driven insights to boost loyalty and increase revenue.

By shifting to a data-first approach, retailers can move beyond managing transactions to driving intelligent, customer-centric experiences for long-term loyalty and growth.

Why physical stores still matter—more than ever

Despite the rise of e-commerce, more than 80% of retail interactions still take place in physical stores. Brick-and-mortar locations remain central to the retail journey, yet, as retailers’ largest cost center, they also encompass the biggest operational challenges—from inventory carrying costs to labor and store operations.

Although today’s consumers are fluid in how they shop—researching products across multiple platforms or buying online and picking up in-store, for example—they still expect accurate, real-time visibility into inventory wherever they engage. In this landscape, data is the lifeblood that allows retailers to orchestrate orders, manage workflows, and ensure that customers can trust the information they see. Yet, according to a new report released today from SAP Emarsys, 51% of U.S. brands say their organization suffers from “dark data,” which is data that is collected but not effectively used.

To remain competitive, retailers must harness real-time transactional insights to optimize store efficiency, maximize revenue, and provide seamless customer interactions.

Bringing it all together: Intelligent order management

Retailers don’t just need data—they also need actionable, real-time intelligence that helps them drive smarter decision-making. That’s why SAP is integrating advanced order management capabilities as part of our broader data-driven customer experience strategy. SAP has a long history of helping thousands of retail and B2C customers manage vast amounts of data. Today we’re tailoring this expertise, trusted by market leaders worldwide, to help meet the scale, flexibility, and time-to-value required by fast-growing organizations.

As part of the SAP Order Management Services bundle, we are launching the SAP Omnichannel Sales Transfer and Audit solution today at Shoptalk in Las Vegas, Nevada. This modular, cloud-native solution can empower retailers with real-time visibility into transactions and inventory, helping to reduce friction and improve customer satisfaction. SAP Omnichannel Sales Transfer and Audit can unify POS data from multiple systems, process high-volume transactions in real time, and help ensure inventory accuracy across all channels to improve stock availability, financial reporting, and customer engagement—without the burden of complex, custom-built integrations.

Apart from omnichannel sales and audit capabilities, the SAP Order Management Services bundle also includes additional modular, cloud-native capabilities including SAP Order Management foundation and the SAP Order Management solution for sourcing and availability. The SAP Order Management Services bundle is natively connected with SAP S/4HANA, which can enable retail and consumer products organizations and other consumer brands to unlock real-time inventory visibility, streamline fulfillment, and reduce operational costs without complex and costly custom integrations. And, integrated with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, retail, fashion, and vertical business, announced at NRF earlier this year, the cloud-native capabilities of the SAP Order Management Services bundle can be even more scalable, secure, compliant, and affordable, enabling retailers to realize value more quickly than ever before.

Other benefits of SAP Omnichannel Sales Transfer and Audit include:

Seamless POS integration can connect multiple POS systems with different data structures, working to eliminate silos and ensure data accuracy.
Real-time inventory updates help keep omnichannel inventory accurate so customers can trust what they see online matches what’s available in-store.
Smarter data processing and configurable data transfer and aggregation help update inventory, financials, and even loyalty programs effortlessly.
Optimized sales data validation process can automate checks that are executed through configurable workflows.

By embracing a unified data strategy, retailers can eliminate complexity, reduce costs, and unlock new opportunities for growth—all while delivering the frictionless experiences today’s consumers expect.

Hornbach: The future of omnichannel retail in action

For Hornbach, one of the largest DIY stores in Germany, the idea of interconnected retail is more than just omnichannel. It needs to be able to add new channels quickly—and to maintain a seamless customer experience over all channels. Hornbach adopted SAP Order Management Services as a foundation for this vision, enabling the flexibility to address new markets quickly, connect new systems, process orders rapidly and efficiently, and adopt new innovations. With the addition of SAP Omnichannel Sales and Transfer Audit, the Hornbach team expects to get more visibility in day-to-day operations, like checking fraud detection and the completeness of transactions.

“The most exciting thing will be the combination of all these new technologies we’re seeing: artificial intelligence, event-driven architecture, as well as native cloud solutions,” said Carsten Mueller, head of Enterprise Architecture and Security, Hornbach. “The combination will give Hornbach great power in the next year.”

The future of retail is data-driven

The retail industry is evolving at an unprecedented pace, with AI redefining how businesses operate and interact with customers. According to the same SAP Emarsys report, 89% of U.S. consumer product marketers believe AI will be essential for engaging new customers. However, the effectiveness of AI hinges on the reliability and accuracy of the data it processes.

Retailers that embrace AI-powered data intelligence will lead the next era of omnichannel excellence. The future isn’t just about connecting data—it’s about activating it in real time to drive seamless customer interactions.

To stay ahead, retailers must:

Invest in AI-driven analytics to predict demand, optimize pricing, and personalize engagement at scale.
Implement intelligent order and transaction management to automate fulfillment, reduce friction, and improve supply chain agility.
Leverage AI-powered customer insights to create hyper-personalized experiences that drive loyalty and lifetime value.
Enable real-time inventory intelligence to ensure products are available where and when customers need them.

As omnichannel complexity grows, brands that fail to unify their data risk falling behind. SAP Business Data Cloud and intelligent order management solutions can provide the foundation for a future-proof transformation. As AI continues to evolve, retailers must shift from reactive decision-making to proactive, predictive commerce, where every transaction is optimized for efficiency and profitability.

The future of retail is here. Those who harness AI to unify, analyze, and act on their data will define the next generation of customer experience and retail success. I’m excited to partner with companies navigating this transformation and empower them to seize new opportunities for success.

Want to learn more? Stay tuned to see how leading retailers are leveraging SAP’s data-driven approach to optimize their operations and stay ahead of the competition and learn more about SAP’s solutions for retail.

Balaji Balasubramanian is president and chief product officer for SAP Customer Experience and Consumer Industries.

26 March

BUSINESS NEWS

Improved Data Quality Enables AI and People Analytics at Edgewell

by jennychua@twm.com.sg 0 Comments

Strategic decision-making practices in HR rely on accurate and accessible people data for talent acquisition, performance management, employee engagement, compliance, and more. Plus, having a “clean” data foundation is an imperative to take advantage of AI-driven tools. To set itself up for future success and better service and manage its over 7,000 employees around the world, U.S.-based Edgewell Personal Care embarked an 18-month-long project to improve its HR data quality within its SAP SuccessFactors solutions.

Edgewell’s portfolio of more than 25 well-known personal care brands, including Schick, Banana Boat, Wilkinson Sword, and Wet Ones, drove $2.25 billion in net sales in 2024. The company relies on a people-first culture that enables the right environment for employees to be efficient and the company at large to “win the shelf,” as Colin Emery, director of Global HR Systems at Edgewell, puts it.

In 2022, Emery was tasked with establishing a People Analytics function at Edgewell, but he quickly realized that the underlying data he needed was inaccurate. “Our system of record was no longer the system of record. We didn’t actually have one,” Emery explains. At that time, the company’s HR data accuracy was just 37% for key data fields within the Position and People Profile.

Since Edgewell was formed in 2015, Emery says, it has relied on the “infinite configurability” of SAP SuccessFactors solutions to scale, systemize, and standardize the company’s HR systems across the world. While the solutions were working as designed, the data housed in them wasn’t being maintained properly, causing a backlog of inaccuracies to flow downstream. “It was clear that the quality of our data within SAP SuccessFactors was less than perfect in some parts of the world, particularly in countries where we don’t have SAP SuccessFactors Payroll integrated,” he says.

Knowing that high data quality is crucial for effective decision-making, reporting accuracy, a painless user experience, and future innovation—but not having the budget or time to engage external resources—Emery decided to develop Edgewell’s methodology in-house to tackle the issue.

Upskilling to establish HR data champions

After identifying the priority data fields that needed to be cleaned and maintained to have the most impact on data quality, Emery turned to the people who owned and best understood the data: the HR business partners (HRBPs). To ensure the success of the data quality project, the HRBPs needed to buy in. This required a mindset shift and significant change management, he says, since not all HRBPs felt responsible for maintaining the data in the SAP SuccessFactors solutions and some needed training to understand systemized HR processes.

To help with the transition, Emery established an HR data steward program to upskill Edgewell’s HRBP community. Designated data stewards receive weekly reports and are tasked with personally resolving the data errors or informing an appropriate colleague. They are trained on the causes and consequences of the inaccuracies and how to remedy them, empowering the data stewards to become experts and educate other HRBPs. Upskilling the HRBPs helped them shift from a reactive to a more proactive mindset, which was a critical factor in the data quality project’s success, Emery says.

Case in point: the number of data inaccuracies has decreased from 2,700 to just a handful. “It’s a tiny, tiny fraction of what it was,” Emery says. “That’s based on the fact that the HRBPs are getting it right the first time, instead of making errors that need to be fixed.”

The project began in the U.S. and eventually flowed to Europe, LATAM, and APAC. Now, Edgewell’s data accuracy consistently holds at 96%–97%, Emery says.

Quality data drives quality decision-making

The success of its data quality and data steward project is clear, and now Edgewell can reap the rewards of a clean HR data foundation. This has had profound effects on the reliability of the company’s HR reporting, for which Edgewell uses stories in SAP SuccessFactors solutions. “There’s a massive advantage to using stories when we’re using live, in-the-moment SAP SuccessFactors data,” Emery says, adding that the ability to send a link that is accessible based on existing role-based permissions makes sharing the data simple and fast. Edgewell uses stories to look at data around inclusion and belonging, leadership, tenure, talent acquisition, and more, sharing the insights with company leadership, HR leaders, and HRBPs.

This data-driven culture has helped Edgewell identify areas of improvement and make strategic HR decisions. For example, in looking at the data, the People Analytics team uncovered a short-term turnover issue for specific roles and locations. Based on this insight, Edgewell’s HR function created a new candidate experience to help improve and systemize recruiting and onboarding processes. Called “Joyful Journey,” the program also doubles as a way for the company to share about itself and attract talent to the organization. “We never would have known that was the right thing to do without the data,” Emery says. “That then led us to invest time, effort, and dollars in those processes, which immediately made a positive impact on short-term turnover.”

“Over the last three years, we have been providing data and explaining its importance by cleaning up the data within the system to make it more meaningful to us,” Emery adds. “For us, it’s never going to be data for data’s sake. It has to be about what the actions that this data suggests.”

Ready for the future

Not only does Edgewell’s impressive data quality equip its leaders with actionable insights, but it creates a strong foundation for the personal care company to take advantage of HR innovations, especially considering that many, like AI, require clean data to work properly. AI copilots and agents, like Joule, are only as good as the data they run on, which is why data quality and data governance initiatives are becoming business imperatives.

In that case, Edgewell is ahead of the curve. “When I started working on People Analytics three years ago, I knew that we had to focus on [cleaning up the data] first to prepare for super automation and the AI tools that were coming,” Emery says. “It will set us up in good stead for the next iteration of tools.”

Discover how SAP SuccessFactors solutions enable companies to maintain quality HR data, which is crucial for efficient HR management, future innovations like AI, and overall business success.

Gillian Hixson is an integrated communications specialist at SAP.

25 March

BUSINESS NEWS

Celebrating the Next Era of Travel and Expense at SAP Concur Fusion

by cyrus@ascelade.com 0 Comments

At SAP Concur Fusion 2025, SAP showcased AI-driven innovations and a strategic partnership, enhancing travel and expense management with improved visibility, automation, compliance, and spend insights while driving efficiencies and enriching employee experiences.

As our world demands organizational adaptability at warp speed, business travel also is transforming in a fast-paced and complex environment. At our annual flagship event for SAP Concur users and experts, we delved into the power of AI, sharing insights and experiences. Whether customers and partners attended in person in Seattle, Washington, or virtually, they all gained new perspectives on how to navigate the complexities of tomorrow’s business landscape with confidence.

Global participation and experts on-site

Customers and partners joined SAP Concur Fusion from all over the world, representing 75 countries. At the Seattle Convention Center, attendees could explore the new Fusion Pavilion in the exhibition hall and talk to SAP Concur experts and 43 exhibiting partners. We offered over 180 unique learning opportunities including Ask the Expert and breakout sessions, micro forums, and product trainings to explore how SAP Concur solutions can deliver innovation in travel and expense while unlocking efficiencies.

Debut: Integrating Joule with SAP Concur to enhance user experience

During the event’s day one keynote, we announced new generative AI innovations and an expanded partnership with American Express.

SAP is embedding its generative AI copilot Joule into SAP Concur solutions, bringing the portfolio one step closer toward a fully automated travel and expense management process.

In the Concur Expense solution, Joule will help answer employees’ questions and work to ensure that expense reports are ready for submission with minimal effort. For example, Joule can assemble a timeline view of expenses, review for mistakes or missing expenses, and make recommendations for how best to complete the expense report. General availability is expected in the second quarter of 2025.

In the Concur Travel solution, Joule will be embedded to help plan locations for off-site meetings, providing meeting location recommendations and high-level flight and hotel cost estimates based on meeting attendees’ origination points. Once the meeting site and hotel options are selected, Joule will create an e-mail template to send to team members with a link to book directly in Concur Travel. Joule with Concur Travel is now in the SAP Early Adopter Care program with general availability expected later this year.

Automating expense management in Concur Expense

On stage, we also announced an expanded partnership with American Express to help simplify expense management for shared customers. SAP Concur and American Express are launching a real-time authorization data capability whereby American Express Corporate Card purchases automatically generate and categorize expenses in Concur Expense at the time of spend. This feature will first be available for meal expenses. It also will include mobile notifications that send the employee expense policy reminders in the moment.

We also are working to expand access to our integration with Mastercard, which automates expense entry at the time of purchase, so more Mastercard customers can benefit from a simpler and more efficient experience.

Additionally, American Express Global Business Travel has integrated its hotel marketplace, featuring over 2 million properties across 180 countries with competitive rates, into the new Concur Travel solution, providing customers with access to comprehensive hotel content, including negotiated programs and preferred partner rates.

Announcing SAP Concur Innovation Award winners

On day two of the event, we celebrated the remarkable achievements of our SAP Concur Innovation Award winners. These companies have leveraged SAP Concur solutions to revolutionize their travel and expense processes, enhancing efficiency and visibility. The 2025 winners include L’Oréal Groupe, which streamlined user provisioning between HR and expense systems, and Weatherford, which automated its global travel and expense program, significantly improving data integrity and compliance.

UST, Coca-Cola, E.ON, and Mayekawa also have demonstrated exceptional innovation. UST consolidated its T&E processes; Coca-Cola unified its travel booking and expense systems; E.ON automated data collection for GDPR compliance; and Mayekawa reduced its finance team’s workload by more than 12,000 hours. These successes highlight the transformative power of SAP Concur solutions in driving business efficiency and growth. We are very proud to recognize these exceptional organizations as 2025 SAP Concur Innovation Award winners.

Move to future T&E: Spotlight on generative AI

SAP Concur is creating a world where travel and expenses practically manage themselves. At SAP Concur Fusion, we shared with customers and partners how we continue to deliver on that journey—with touchless, intuitive experiences enabled by industry-leading SAP Business AI and close partnerships with top payment providers. The Concur Travel and Concur Expense solutions are part of SAP Business Suite, SAP’s comprehensive portfolio of integrated solutions that combines our core cloud ERP and line-of-business applications, fueled by unmatched business data and actionable AI.

Chris Juneau is SVP and head of SAP Concur Product Marketing.