Imagine building high-voltage transmission lines across remote terrain on volcanic ground with steep escarpments, earthquake-prone areas, and geothermal hotspots. Then, add the challenge of building on protected wildlife areas and engaging with inhabitants of politically sensitive community lands.

Managing abundance

These are just some of the challenges facing KETRACO, Kenya’s electricity transmission company, as Africa’s energy sector is undergoing a shift from a centralized power system to a more diversified, renewable-energy-based grid.

“Renewable energy is abundant. The real challenge is how to manage, integrate, and stabilize it,” Dr. Njogu Kimando, energy expert at KETRACO, said, speaking at the TAC Insights conference for SAP for Energy and Utilities in Toulouse. “The energy transition is not constrained by capacity, but by our ability to manage complexity in real time.”

Geothermal power generated in the Great Rift Valley provides about 40% of electricity in the region, making Kenya Africa’s largest geothermal producer. About 24% is generated by hydro power from rivers. The rest of the demand is met by wind power coming mostly from Lake Turkana, Africa’s largest wind farm, as well as solar. The fastest growing sector, solar is widely used in rural homes and businesses. Kenya has one of the highest household solar adoption rates in the world.

While renewables reduce costs, support climate alignment, and provide energy security, challenges include drought-induced water shortages, sun and wind variability and grid instability.

Lack of synchronized intelligence

In the traditional grid, power is generated at a few centralized plants, creating a stable source of supply that is easy to control based on demand forecasts. The renewables (REN) grid, on the other hand, fluctuates with the weather, requiring real-time monitoring, rapid balancing, and more dynamic system control.

The core challenge in modern power systems is not the absence of data, but the lack of unified, real-time visibility across fragmented systems. This lack limits the ability to make timely and coordinated operational decisions. 

“We’re constantly balancing supply and demand,” Kimando explained. “We have limited real-time visibility across generation sources, transmission assets, and demand patterns.”

As renewables expand, KETRACO’s role has evolved from simply building and operating transmission lines to managing power flows in real time, coordinating variable energy generation, and ensuring grid stability and reliability. The company is relying on digital systems to accomplish these tasks.

Kimando outlined the company’s new, integrated smart grid infrastructure. Forming an end-to-end digital value chain, it functions as the digital twin foundation for the grid and links operational technology with enterprise systems and advanced analytics.

Data is captured by SCADA, an industrial control system for infrastructure and utility networks, and is securely routed through SAP Business Technology Platform middleware to SAP S/4HANA, which serves as the enterprise backbone. It is here that operational data is translated into structured business processes. 

From data to decisions

“We’re relying on SAP technology to transform that raw data into predictive, actionable intelligence,” said Kimando, citing asset lifecycle management and outage reduction metrics as examples of ways to shift from reactive maintenance to predictive grid reliability. “Digital transformation is no longer a technology choice, but a strategic necessity. It’s a balancing game: values versus risks.”

For KETRACO, the goal is to unlock the full value of renewable energy while avoiding the escalating risks of operating in a complex and dynamic power environment. Inaction leads to grid instability and operational inefficiency, underutilization of energy investments, rising costs, and exposure to regulatory and compliance risks. Action based on data analytics leads to improved financial efficiency and better CAPEX decisions. It also leads to enhanced operational resilience with reduced outages and faster system recovery.

“Together, this strengthens our strategic positioning for the energy transition and ESG compliance,” Kimando explained.

The next frontier

At KETRACO, AI is considered a capacity multiplier, enabling a crucial shift from resource-intensive grid expansion to intelligence-driven grid optimization. 

“AI is helping us achieve more with the same workforce. We’re enabling engineers, not replacing them,” the expert shared. “Automation is enabling our people to focus more on predictability and decision making.”

In addition, AI supports long-term sustainability goals because simulating scenarios before investing reduces errors and costs. It also enables self-optimized grid operations, reducing manual interventions and improving collaboration and integration among regional power systems and cross-border energy flows.

KETRACO’s role is to transmit electricity across Kenya and connect the country to the wider East African power market. Its importance is growing as Kenya has become a REN hub, expanding its geothermal, wind, and hydropower generation. Without its transmission infrastructure, much of Kenya’s renewable energy could not be delivered efficiently to consumers or neighboring countries.

In closing, Kimando summarized how digital transformation is changing the way power is managed, stabilized, and optimized: REN presents a system challenge, not a technological one. Technology must align to operations and strategy, control is achieved through visibility and integration, and partnerships accelerate scale and execution.

“The future grid will not be defined by how much power we generate, but by how intelligently we manage it,” he concluded.

How will organizations attract and develop the AI-native workforce they’ll need tomorrow when entry-level roles are shrinking today? Here’s the future-ready, early talent strategy you need.

Fewer opportunities for early talent 

The job marketplace has contracted significantly for those with less than five years of professional experience. Research published by SAP shows that openings in the 10 most common entry-level job titles declined by 35% in just one year, from 2024 to 2025.*

Budget constraints, hiring freezes, and uncertainty around the ROI of early talent as AI increasingly takes on routine and manual tasks are among the reasons cited by HR leaders today.  

Applications skyrocket  

AI is also having a major impact on the recruitment process. With such limited opportunities available, more than half of early talent candidates use AI to help them land a job—a process that now takes eight months on average and involves more than 300 job applications.*

HR is feeling the pressure managing the candidate pipeline, with the number of applicants per early talent job opening doubling since 2021. A high volume of candidates are submitting AI-generated résumés and applications, and it’s becoming much harder to detect high-fidelity signals around skills, fit, and potential. 

It’s a painful scenario for everyone involved. Fragile and unsustainable. And the implications will be profound for enterprises that don’t act quickly.  

HR leaders voice concerns  

Playing out the current trajectory to its natural conclusion, what happens when all the fresh talent eventually dries up? Already, HR leaders are alarmed by this risk. “Ultimately, if we stop investing in early talent, we will wind up eliminating our talent pipeline,” one global head of early talent programs at a high-tech organization told researchers.*

A senior HR director at a high-tech organization commented: “If we continue down this path and don’t provide a way for early talent to get started, it’s going to lead to massive skill shortages in the future.” 

Widespread reductions in early talent hiring will lead to skills gaps that will prove expensive to remedy. Organizations will struggle to build company capabilities, retain knowledge, and develop future leaders.  

But by far the most common concern from leaders was around not seeing early talent as AI-native. If the AI capabilities of this cohort are overlooked, companies may miss out on a key opportunity to scale AI innovation and adoption across the business.  

What’s the answer?  

Today, there’s an opportunity for HR leaders to be more intentional and strategic, to reimagine their approach to early talent from the ground up. With the right early talent strategy, organizations can gain a competitive advantage.

Here are three steps to consider. 

Step 1: Rethink entry-level roles 

Traditionally, junior employees have mainly been given routine, repetitive tasks. Combined with frustratingly slow career progression, the result is eroding morale and commitment.  

This approach must evolve. The nature of work is changing rapidly, and early talent no longer need to take on those routine tasks. These employees need the opportunity to develop at speed and to be supported in performing work that meaningfully addresses business challenges.  

HR has the chance to reshape entry-level positions, to provide support, guidance, and tools to enable junior staff to contribute in more impactful ways. This may involve them working with proper guidance to support more critical projects, interacting with customers, and even owning some tasks end to end. 

This approach not only enables early talent to contribute more positively to the business at an earlier stage, but when combined with clear goals, regular feedback loops, and occasional coaching, it also fosters greater engagement and commitment. 

Step 2: Support your strategy with technology 

Hiring and developing early talent have become more complex—from deciphering AI-generated applications, to redesigning roles and meeting their aspirations in a fast-changing business context. And with the nature of early talent work shifting, leaders need tools to help understand the new capabilities that will predict long-term success and demonstrate the value of early talent initiatives.  

Here’s where technology can help. During the hiring process, technology can help employers see beyond the noise of AI applications and rediscover the meaningful signals they need to create candidate shortlists and strengthen hiring decisions. Meanwhile, technology can also help to maintain engagement with other high-potential candidates who applied—for when the next opportunities arise.  

Once early talent begin work, today’s technology can help you track their participation in early talent programs and progression towards their goals. It also helps facilitate individualized learning opportunities and demonstrate the ROI of your early talent investments. For research-based recommendations on the role of technology in early talent selection and development, check out this quick guide. 

Step 3: Reframe the business case for early talent 

As the nature of early talent work is changing alongside the technology used to support them, HR leaders agree that the old business case for early talent investments needs to be reimagined. Many organizations are focused on mitigating critical skill gaps and engaging in large-scale AI transformations. While early talent lack experience, they are eager to engage in continuous learning and understand how to work effectively alongside AI. 

Research also reveals that—as they work alongside modern tools and technologies—early talent can contribute to high-value, meaningful work much faster than in the past.  

A modern early talent business case is one that involves focusing on faster time to meaningful work, reducing critical skill gaps, and leveraging the AI-native capabilities of today’s entry-level workers.  

Build your early talent strategy 

Will HR leaders watch on as a generation of AI-savvy talent remains underused, or act now and build the skills pipelines necessary for a future-ready workforce? 

Get further insights on this topic by reading our report, “Early talent in peril: How HR can strategically select and develop the workforce of tomorrow.” Visit our research library to stay tuned for when phase two of this research gets published later this year. 

Dr. Autumn D. Krauss is chief scientist at SAP SuccessFactors.

*Early talent in peril: How HR can strategically select and develop the workforce of tomorrow, SAP, 2026. 

Salt River Project (SRP) is a community-based, non-for-profit public power utility in Arizona. As the largest electricity provider in the Phoenix metropolitan area, it serves roughly 1.2 million electric customers, covering 2,800 square miles of electric service territory, and manages a 13,000 square-mile watershed that supports central Arizona’s water supply.

“We operate primarily to serve the needs of our customers and communities, so reliability is critical to SRP,” Drake Winfrey, ERP solution architect at Salt River Project, said. “We must ensure that anything we implement within our technology ecosystem doesn’t impact that reliability in any way—and, ultimately, enables our team members to deliver the best possible service.”

WalkMe’s superpower to work seamlessly on top of SAP and non-SAP systems helps ensure technology enables reliability without disruption. SRP’s first encounter with WalkMe was part of its SAP SuccessFactors implementation. At the time, Winfrey was the IT administrator for SAP Concur solutions at SRP and, based on the success of the SAP SuccessFactors implementation, saw an opportunity to add WalkMe in its travel and expense processes.

“Our employees only travel maybe once or twice a year, so no matter how user-friendly the system may be, there’s always going to be some pain points and friction,” Winfrey said. And, for those who travel frequently, the SRP team knew they could benefit from in-app guidance to ensure processes were completed quickly and accurately.

It was a perfect use case for WalkMe’s digital adoption solutions. At SAP Sapphire Orlando, Winfrey shared five wins that Salt River Project experienced by applying WalkMe to its processes.

1 Greater process efficiency

At SRP, there are several standard expense reports that employees can submit in Concur Expense, such as personal mileage, safety gear, and telework.

To improve process efficiency, Winfrey built WalkMe “Smart Walk-Thrus”—step-by-step solutions that guide users through a series of actions to help complete a task—that direct SRP employees through the report completion and submission process. “With WalkMe, we automate some of the fields and fill in critical information for the user, taking away some of those hidden dependencies,” he said.

This proactive, in-flow guidance not only creates a simplified user experience for SRP employees when submitting expenses, but it has domino effects on IT support overhead. Since employees get the in-app guidance they need as they’re completing key steps, they submit reports accurately the first time, reducing support tickets or time spent correcting inaccurate submissions. “We’ve eliminated a lot of the support tickets and hand-holding we saw previously,” Winfrey said.

2 Risk mitigation and improved compliance

Winfrey applied WalkMe solutions in SRP’s payroll system to help with policy reinforcement. By adding in-app reminders, especially during important times of the year like holidays, SRP ensures employees are following procedures, boosting data and process accuracy.

When users log in to the system, they see in-app pop-up messages to remind them about key dates, such as time card due dates and approval timelines, and can opt to take action immediately or receive a reminder. If the user opts to act, they’re automatically redirected to the company’s time and attendance system via another WalkMe solution. “WalkMe solutions are very simple to build and deploy—and very effective compared to e-mails or chasing down people at the end of the pay period,” Winfrey said. He knows this for a fact because he can use WalkMe analytics to see how many users have viewed the in-app reminder and how many have clicked through to the time card. “It’s all reportable,” he said. “There are a lot of metrics behind the scenes that you can use to understand trends and find ways to improve the experience.”

3 Faster cycle times

Making changes to enterprise-wide systems can take time, as organizations are often constrained to the development cycles set by the IT department. “At SRP, we have monthly releases, so unless it’s a critical update or fix, getting a change is usually going to take a few weeks,” Winfrey said. “But with WalkMe, I can build and deploy content in 15 to 30 minutes.”

This agility is especially powerful for real-time communication and keeping the employee experience seamless. For example, Winfrey explained how SRP can instantly support users during routine system updates or maintenance windows. When a specific tile requires temporary maintenance, Winfrey’s team can immediately place a real-time message directly over the feature. This keeps employees informed and guides them to alternative workflows, ensuring business continuity and a smooth user experience while IT completes its work behind the scenes.

4 Boosted cost efficiency

Empowering employees with self-service support “frees up their time for more value-added activities. By achieving this impact, my team can deliver enterprise-wide value without increasing headcount,” Winfrey said.

“We use WalkMe and the analytics it provides to look at different pages and see where the friction is and what processes are causing issues,” he explained. “Then we look at the support tickets and say ‘Okay, these are the same questions we get on this screen every time, so we’ll build a self-support solution.’” A user can then see those top support questions in the flow of work and get guided assistance. As a result, they’re able to complete the task themselves. No help ticket required.

5 Enhanced digital user experience

Optimizing the digital employee experience means empowering employees with the digital tools and support needed to perform at their best. SRP uses WalkMe to anticipate user needs and ensure seamless change during major UI transitions. Using highly visual, contextual callouts like targeted Launchers that connect users to resources, eye-catching ShoutOuts for feature adoption, and Banner Reminders for critical updates, the team delivers personalized support that provides a unified, consistent user experience across multiple enterprise applications. “There’s just a lot of flexibility and, honestly, a lot of creativity” about the solutions they can deploy, Winfrey said.

What’s more, WalkMe solutions exist on top of current system landscapes. “As we continue to see everything moving to the cloud, it’s all about clean core,” he added. “I think we’re going to be limited on what we can customize going forward.”

What’s next for WalkMe at SRP

Salt River Project is building on its success with WalkMe solutions and establishing a center of excellence to better balance central governance and cross-departmental collaboration. “In order to scale it, we really have to start building department-level WalkMe experts who know how to develop impactful content,” Winfrey said.

It’s clear: with WalkMe, Salt River Project can improve process efficiency, strengthen compliance, accelerate change, reduce support burden, and create a better digital experience for employees. As SRP expands its internal WalkMe expertise, it is positioning itself to scale those gains across the business while maintaining the high operational standards the organization is known for.

The Autonomous Enterprise is no longer a concept. It is being built and deployed right now. For SAP partners, this is a defining moment.

Across industries, customers are moving from pilots to production. They are investing in systems that can run pricing, orders, fulfillment, and service end-to-end, with AI actively driving decisions and outcomes. They are not looking for more tools. They are looking for results.

This is where SAP has a clear point of view. Customer experience (CX) only works when it is connected directly to execution.

SAP Customer Experience is integrated with SAP Cloud ERP across pricing, order management, fulfillment, billing, and service. AI operates inside these processes using real business data. That means every customer interaction can reflect what the business can deliver.

This is the shift now underway, and it is creating immediate opportunities for partners.

SAP partners are the ones who bring this to life. They take product capabilities and turn them into working solutions that improve conversion, increase fulfillment accuracy, and reduce service cost.

The next wave of growth will be led by partners who move quickly and build on this foundation.

Customer experience is now measured by what gets done

Customer experience is no longer judged by engagement metrics alone. It is judged by outcomes. Customers expect:

• Accurate pricing at the moment of purchase
• Real product availability, not estimates
• Orders that are fulfilled as promised
• Service that resolves issues without repetition or delay

When these things work, the experience works. When they fail, the problem is immediately visible.

AI is increasing the speed of every interaction. It is also exposing execution gaps faster than ever before. If pricing, inventory, or order data are inconsistent, customers see it instantly.

This is why customer experience and execution can no longer be separated.

AI is now driving actions, not just insights

AI is already acting inside key business processes. As seen in the SAP Sapphire 2026 Innovation News Guide, in SAP CX today:

• Marketing, content, and campaign assistants can orchestrate segmentation, content creation, and optimization based on live performance signals.
• Commerce, merchandising, shopping, and order management assistants can connect discovery, conversion, and fulfillment to real-time inventory and pricing.
• Sales assistants help guide deal qualification and deal execution by linking pipeline signals to pricing, availability, and fulfillment data.
• Case and service management assistants help automate routine interactions while maintaining full context across orders, entitlements, and history.

These are not future scenarios. These capabilities are available and in use. But they only work when they are connected to trusted business data.

Without that, AI creates errors at scale. With it, AI drives measurable improvement.

Autonomous CX connects experience to execution

Autonomous CX connects core products and processes across the business, operating on a shared business context. It brings together SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Sales Cloud, SAP CPQ, SAP Service Cloud, SAP Field Service, SAP Engagement Cloud for marketing, and SAP Cloud ERP across finance, supply chain, and order management.

This is not a set of disconnected applications. It is a unified system where customer interactions and operational processes run on the same data foundation. Pricing, inventory, orders, and service are consistent across every touchpoint.

As a result, AI can move from recommendation to execution, working to ensure that every interaction is grounded in what the business can deliver. It can also remove the integration gaps that slow down CX execution.

SAP CX partners are moving faster from projects to outcomes

This shift is changing what customers expect from partners. Customers are not asking for system implementations. They are asking for outcomes such as:

• Faster time to deploy
• Higher conversion rates
• Improved order accuracy
• Lower cost to serve

SAP provides a strong starting point with embedded assistants, standard integrations, and prebuilt industry scenarios. Partners are building on this to deliver complete solutions. This is where differentiation happens.

Where partners are creating value today

The opportunity is not theoretical. It is already visible in active partner work.

Across SAP CX:

• The cloud ERP edition of SAP Commerce Cloud can connect storefront, pricing, ordering, and fulfillment in one model.
• SAP Revenue Growth Management and SAP Retail Execution support trade planning and in-store performance.
• Intelligent applications help package AI use cases across marketing, sales, and service.
• SAP Service Cloud with partner integrations such as Parloa enables automated, context-aware service interactions.

SAP CX partners are turning these capabilities into repeatable offerings. Examples include:

• Industry packages for retail and CPG combining commerce, pricing, and fulfillment
• Preconfigured deployments of SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud that reduce time to go-live
• Integration connectors linking SAP CX with existing commerce, loyalty, and service platforms
• Extensions to CPQ and sales workflows that improve deal margin and approval speed
• Service automation scenarios that reduce manual case handling using real order and entitlement data
• AI-driven discovery connected directly to SAP Commerce and SAP Commerce, order management

These are practical, deployable solutions that can deliver measurable results.

The ecosystem is expanding what’s possible

SAP is strengthening this model through partnerships. Recently announced partnerships with companies such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Parloa, and Vercel enable new interaction models like conversational commerce, AI-driven search, and composable digital experiences.

What matters is that these experiences connect back to SAP for execution. Orders, pricing, fulfillment, and service remain consistent across every channel. This gives partners the freedom to innovate on the experience layer while relying on SAP for reliable execution.

A new economic model for partners

The economics for partners are changing. With Autonomous CX, partners can build:

• Industry solutions that can be reused and scaled
• Implementation packages that shorten delivery timelines
• Extensions and integrations that apply across customers
• Ongoing services for AI optimization and governance
• New offerings built around AI assistants, AI agents, and orchestration
• Higher-value transformation programs that combine AI, data, and process design

This creates a more predictable and repeatable revenue model. It also strengthens long-term customer relationships.

Now is the time to act with SAP CX

Customers are making decisions now. They are selecting platforms and partners that can deliver AI-driven execution across customer experience. They are looking for partners who can:

• Connect CX to ERP processes
• Deliver solutions that work out-of-the-box and scale
• Improve measurable business outcomes

SAP provides the foundation. The platform is in place. The capabilities are real. The next step is execution.

Partners who move now can define the use cases, build the offerings, and lead in their industries. The momentum is already building. This is the moment to accelerate it.

What partners should do next

To move from opportunity to execution, partners can act now.

• See what is available today. Explore the latest AI-driven CX capabilities and partner opportunities in the SAP Sapphire 2026 Innovation News Guide.
• Understand the foundation for Autonomous CX. Learn how SAP connects experience to execution with the SAP Autonomous Suite overview.
• Deepen expertise and accelerate readiness. Gain a stronger understanding of Autonomous CX and partner use cases:
  • Get to Know Autonomous CX
  • Build your Autonomous Suite expertise
• Engage now and shape the next wave. Join the upcoming executive briefing to understand how to position and deliver these solutions:
  • June 18: Autonomous Suite – An Executive Briefing for ERP and CX Partners
• Strengthen credibility and scale impact. Advance your go-to-market and positioning through certification:
  • Positioning the Autonomous Enterprise

SAP is not asking partners to start from scratch. The platform, capabilities, and ecosystem are already in place. The opportunity now is to build, differentiate, and lead.

Karl Fahrbach is chief partner officer at SAP.
Balaji Balasubramanian is president and chief product officer for SAP Customer Experience.

Keeping pace with rapid innovation, especially in the age of AI, can be daunting. For many organizations, the biggest hurdles are knowing where and how to start, what technologies to prioritize, what the investment will cost, and whether it will deliver real value. SAP Discovery Center helps address these questions.

SAP Discovery Center is a site where potential and existing SAP customers can explore SAP Business AI solutions, access pre-built applications and content, and discover use cases, services, reference architectures, and best practices—all free of charge.

The self-service portal offers opportunities to not only explore solutions but get a feel for how SAP technology could work in your organization. Cost and ROI estimator tools prompt users to input information unique to their organization—customizations, hyperscalers, and number of users, for example—and get tangible, personalized use cases to bring back to the business. Maturity assessments use details about an organization’s current platform strategy and architecture landscape to guide users on next steps to achieve the Autonomous Enterprise.

The site also includes missions that provide step-by-step guidance on how to materialize SAP solutions, including what solutions and services may be needed, what the architecture can look like, how other customers are deriving value, and more. For AI specifically, there are almost 400 features and agents available for customers to explore in the SAP Business AI Catalog.

At SAP Sapphire Orlando, two customers using SAP Discovery Center shared the value they’re getting from the site and how it’s guiding their approach to digital transformation.

Agilent

Agilent is a global leader in life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemical markets, producing and supplying analytical laboratory instruments, software, consumables, and services. Looking to avoid manual analysis and late detection in tariff and compliance changes, Agilent turned to SAP Discovery Center. “We have one core principle: do not solve the problem that has already been solved,” Manthan Peshne, chief enterprise architect at Agilent Technologies, Inc., said. SAP Discovery Center allowed Agilent to stay true to this principle.

“We started exploring SAP Discovery Center and we found quite a few good building blocks, essentially in the form of missions,” Peshne said. “We also looked at some composable services which we could assemble together…It’s not a complete solution…but we found a completely unrelated industry and use case that we could use.” Using a mission set in the context of the oil and gas industry, the Agilent team was able to explore how an AI agent could interpret unstructured regulatory signals, extract the tariff context, determine its relevance, and convert that fragmented information into actionable alerts. Not only did Agilent find a solution to its problem, but the SAP Discovery Center mission accelerated design thinking and development for the project.

“We also ended up with an enterprise pattern by building this solution, which gives us a platform where I could replicate this to other scenarios where I have external inputs or signals that we need to capture and put in the context of Agilent data,” Peshne added.

Sutherland  

Sutherland is an AI-driven business transformation company that designs, runs, and automates enterprise operations at scale to help its clients achieve real, measurable business outcomes. A large part of this includes building and delivering production-grade agentic AI solutions on top of leading foundational models.

For Sutherland, SAP Discovery Center has kick-started many projects. “Instead of starting an MVP to see what the problem is and where to start, we have a ready-made solution from which we can pick up from,” Amar Busireddy, SAP enterprise architect at Sutherland Services, said. “It gives us a start somewhere around 20%-30% depending on the scenario.”

Having a starting point boosts confidence, Busireddy said, and enables Sutherland’s consultants to create solutions faster, which means faster time-to-value for its customers. Specifically, the missions available in SAP Discovery Center have helped: “We are using missions to kick-start educating our consultants and with implementing and helping our customers,” Busireddy said. Missions around Joule are plentiful, including how to integrate the AI solution with SAP SuccessFactors solutions, SAP Ariba solutions, and SAP S/4HANA.

“There are many reference architectures given for many problems, which might not be sufficient for us or might not fit our requirements 100%, but that definitely give us the direction on what to use and what not to use. From there, we can plan budget and time,” he said.

SAP Discovery Center: The starting point

The experiences of Agilent and Sutherland show that SAP Discovery Center is more than a resource hub—it is a catalyst for action. By offering practical guidance, reusable missions, reference architectures, and planning tools that help evaluate fit, cost, and value, the site enables organizations to accelerate innovation without starting from scratch. For organizations looking to turn AI ambition into actionable business outcomes, SAP Discovery Center is the place to begin.

SAP has opened its newest data center in Mumbai. The data center reflects the company’s deepening commitment to India, the world’s fastest-growing large economy and home to more than 15,000 employees of the Germany-based enterprise software provider.

With the new data center in India complementing existing ones in Europe, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia, SAP has dramatically strengthened the data federation capabilities of SAP Business Network Commerce Automation, linking together the procurement processes of businesses and their trading partners across the globe.

With this milestone, SAP has delivered on a crucial promise made to a highly consequential set of customers in the Indian subcontinent and beyond. Later this year, the India data center will extend data federation capabilities for SAP Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration as well.

But what is data federation? And why is it so consequential for organizations in India and elsewhere?

Data federation assembles a unified view of data from disparate sources without physically moving or copying it. Trading partners can thus exchange goods and services across international borders while the data underlying those transactions remains stationary. By preserving the integrity of data where it resides, federation facilitates mission-critical operational processes on a global scale while achieving regulatory consistency with compliance requirements that arise at a national level. For example, if a buyer’s data resides in SAP Business Network’s India data center but its supplier’s data sits in the U.S. data center, federation provides both parties with access to each other’s data without impinging on either nation’s policies governing the residency of that data. This becomes especially important as new legislation gathers pace around the world in response to rising concerns over individual privacy, national security and commercial sectors considered sensitive.

Enabled by SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Business Network and its data federation capabilities are now built on the kind of modern, connected foundation required for the next era of cloud-based commerce. Beyond improved scale, resilience, and regional compliance, SAP Business Technology Platform helps create the basis for agentic artificial intelligence, automation, richer analytics, stronger security, open extensibility, and seamless cross-SAP workflows and processes. The result is a network that can not only connect partners globally but also help customers to conduct business more intelligently, respond faster to change, and drive greater value from every interaction across procurement, supply chain, logistics, asset collaboration, and working capital management.

To collaborate with their trading partners on these and other core business processes, companies conducting business in India require a cloud-based platform that provides secure infrastructure for building resilient domestic supply chains while maintaining global connectivity, thus maintaining sensitive procurement, supplier, and manufacturing data within Indian jurisdiction. SAP Business Network furthers these objectives with our newly launched data center in Mumbai, where data is localized in a manner compliant with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) guidelines, with a MeitY-empaneled cloud service provider.

While supporting compliance within an increasingly complex regulatory environment, data federation offers numerous technical advantages as well, especially in hybrid or multi-cloud environments. These benefits include cost efficiency, unified governance and security, and faster response times compared to accessing servers in distant regions. Yet the most valuable competitive advantage provided by data federation may be the most elusive: peace of mind for business leaders amid the ever-looming threat to supply chains posed by disruption.

To counter that threat—whether arising from geopolitical conflict, labor unrest, financial shock, natural disaster, or other upheaval—businesses are turning increasingly to data federation and other cloud-based solutions to extend visibility and instill resilience across their operations and those of their trading partners. With the opening of our new data center in Mumbai, we are incredibly excited to strengthen our relationships with customers throughout India and accelerate the value available to them from SAP Business Network.

For information on SAP Supply Chain Management and how SAP solutions are equipping enterprises with the AI capabilities needed to instill resilience, counter disruption, and foster collaboration, visit sap.com/scm and sap.com/ai.

Jörn Keller is executive vice president and chief product officer of SAP Business Network.

SAP Customer Experience has been recognized as a Leader across multiple categories in the G2 SUMMER 2026 Grid® Reports, earning more than 100 Leader badges across the SAP Customer Experience (SAP CX) portfolio.

The results, which are driven by authentic customer feedback, highlight the strength of SAP CX, particularly in the enterprise segment.

“Earning a Leader position in a G2 Report is highly competitive and rooted in verified customer reviews,” said Godard Abel, co-founder and CEO, G2. “Congratulations to SAP Customer Experience for achieving this distinction. Buyers can be confident this ranking reflects the authentic experiences of real users.”

Following are a few standout achievements:

• SAP Commerce Cloud: Reigned supreme in the commerce space, achieving the coveted #1 Rank in the Enterprise Grid® Report for Order Management. It was also recognized as a Leader for E-Commerce Platforms and Omnichannel Commerce.
• SAP Sales Cloud: Showcased its versatility and power, earning a Leader position in multiple reports for CRM and Sales Analytics. It secured an impressive #2 Rank in the Enterprise Grid® Report for CRM.
• SAP Service Cloud: Named a Leader in the highly competitive Enterprise Grid® Report for Help Desk, solidifying its position as a top-tier solution for customer service excellence.
• SAP Engagement Cloud: Dominated the marketing and engagement space, earning a whopping 51 G2 Summer 2026 badges, including #1 in the Momentum Grid® for Location-Based Marketing and #1 in the Enterprise Grid® for Email Deliverability, up from #3. Also recognized as a Leader in Marketing Automation, Personalization Engines, Customer Journey Analytics, SMS Marketing, and Loyalty Management, with new country reports added across Spain, Italy, and France.

This verified success is powered by pioneering work in agentic AI with Joule, SAP’s generative AI copilot. They’ve moved beyond simple automation to deploy autonomous AI agents that can reason, plan, and act across the entire customer journey.

Customers are enthusiastically adopting these intelligently automated capabilities. The Shopping Agent is transforming keyword searches into conversational discovery and guided purchases, while the Digital Service Agent is autonomously resolving inquiries, improving satisfaction, and reducing contact center load.

The shift to AI-driven engagement is delivering real-world value and simplifying complex processes. Using WalkMe Premium for SAP CX solutions, customers can embed AI-powered guidance directly into workflows, transforming employees into experts. By enabling teams to work smarter and faster across SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Sales Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, and SAP Engagement Cloud, unlocking the full potential of your SAP investment and delivering the exceptional outcomes that customers demand has never been easier. By automating routine and complex workflows with out-of-the-box AI agents, teams are freed to focus on strategic, high-value customer interactions, driving unprecedented efficiency and loyalty.

G2 SUMMER 2026 Grid® Reports: What SAP CX customers are saying

SAP’s commitment to delivering exceptional customer experiences is reflected in the high praise for SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Sales Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, and SAP Engagement Cloud. This recognition is a true testament to the trust our customers place in SAP CX when it comes to powering their most critical business functions.

Here’s what users said about SAP Commerce Cloud:

“I like SAP Commerce Cloud’s ability to handle extreme complexity while unifying diverse business models (B2B, B2C, B2B2C) on a single platform. Its unified approach allows us to manage operations on a single technology stack, eliminating data silos, reducing operation costs, and giving us total visibility into our entire supply chain.”

– Suryakant G, Managing Director (Read more on G2)

“The onboarding resources and SAP support ecosystem make implementation easier, while its AI-driven recommendations, search optimization, and customer behavior insights help deliver more personalized experiences and smarter business decisions.”

– Vedant G., Manager (Read more on G2)

Here’s what users said about SAP Sales Cloud:

“What really clicks for me with SAP Sales Cloud is how effortlessly it syncs sales and marketing data in one smart dashboard. It gives me crystal-clear insights into customer behavior and pipeline status, which is pure gold for crafting targeted, automated email campaigns that feel timely and personal.”

– Grecia L., Marketing Automation Specialist (Read more on G2)

“It addresses inefficiency and lack of visibility in the sales cycle. The main benefit is a faster, more predictable revenue stream, supported by AI and real-time data integration.”

– Kuldeep D., Senior Technical Specialist (Read more on G2)

Here’s what users said about SAP Service Cloud:

“I appreciate its automated processes and great SLA tracking, which helps the team to keep track of time and not miss deadlines. I also like the AI replies that enable quick responses by searching through the knowledge base. The automatic ticket routing is a valuable feature as it aids in queue management, ensuring efficient handling of customer issues.”

– Kelvin E., Support Engineer (Read more on G2)

“SAP Service Cloud addresses the challenge of fragmented customer service data by consolidating all interactions and cases into one platform. This gives me clearer visibility into customer history, helps resolve issues more quickly, and supports consistent omnichannel service.”

– Rekha S, Content Creator (Read more on G2)

Here’s what users said about SAP Engagement Cloud:

“I love how SAP Engagement Cloud personalizes campaigns at scale and automates customer journeys using real-time data and AI insights.” (Read more on G2)

Shaping the future of customer experience, together

The G2 leadership awards validate the SAP CX strategy, while investment in agentic AI defines the future.

Users can share feedback on G2 for SAP Commerce Cloud, for SAP Sales Cloud, and for SAP Service Cloud. 

SAP introduces Joule in SAP for Me, a new, unified entry point to one of SAP’s most widely used customer portals. It’s smarter, simpler, and more intuitive.

SAP for Me is the digital tool for customers and partners to easily interact with SAP and get immediate guidance to the best solution. With this portal, users can access important alerts, metrics, and insights about their SAP product portfolio from a single access point. The integration of Joule in SAP for Me is not just a feature drop or a UX redesign. This is an inflection point in how customers access products, support, and self-service. 

We are moving from a click-and-search portal to a conversational, agent-driven enterprise ecosystem. For users, this is an experiential shift with significant business outcomes. By taking over the tedious work of clicking, searching, parsing, and diagnosing, Joule helps free up IT administrators, consultants, and business leaders to focus on what truly matters: driving innovation and scaling their business.

“The successful launch of Joule in SAP for Me is the result of strong collaboration, innovation, and a shared commitment to improving customer experience. It demonstrates how SAP continues to turn its AI strategy into real, tangible value, delivering solutions that are not only powerful but also practical and user-centric.”

Gerlinde Wallner, Organizational Change Manager and Coach, Strategy & Operations, SAP

What can users expect from this new unified, AI‑powered entry to SAP for Me?

• Effortless navigation across the portal
• Fast access to relevant information
• Advanced self-service with guided support
• Accelerated task execution without needing to know where to click

In their fast-paced business environments, users don’t have to search through complex menus or multiple touchpoints. Joule in SAP for Me can simplify their path to support. They can simply ask, explore, and act to experience personalized, conversational access to support, self-service, and key tasks in SAP for Me.

“Joule is transforming SAP support by making it more intuitive and intelligent. We can guide users conversationally to the right outcome—no searching, no guesswork—accelerate self-service and task execution, and deliver context-aware, personalized support directly within SAP for Me.”

Corinne Reisert, VP, Customer Support Experience SAP for Me, Global Customer Support, SAP

In addition to introducing Joule in SAP for Me, SAP takes advantage of AI-powered agentic case resolution, which brings AI agents into support workflows to help analyze new cases, detect duplicates, suggest routings, and draft responses. For select priority cases, AI agents can recommend replies, which helps reduce manual effort, improve triage accuracy, and shorten resolution timelines. This is available now to SAP customers.For more information, see agentic case resolution.

Joule in SAP for Me is being rolled out in phases as of May 2026, at no extra cost to customers.

“With SAP runs SAP, we show our customers how we scale agents across the enterprise to deliver real outcomes. Joule in SAP for Me exemplifies how conversational and agentic AI can fundamentally transform the way users operate and offer customers a simple and intuitive path to access SAP’s services and support.”

Benjamin Blau, Chief Process & Information Officer, SAP

While Joule in SAP for Me already helps deliver a simpler and more intuitive way to access information, support, and guided actions, this is just the starting point. As SAP continues to advance its AI strategy, customers can look forward to new scenarios, expanded agent capabilities, and deeper integration across services and support processes. This launch establishes the foundation for a more conversational and autonomous customer experience, one that will continue to evolve as SAP brings the next generation of AI-powered innovations to life.

Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Global Customer Support at SAP.