In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly displacing and disrupting employee skill sets, it’s imperative to help current – and future – employees bridge the gap between the skills that AI demands and the skills they currently have. While corporations focus on reskilling their current workforces, educators around the world are hard at work developing and delivering courses to equip today’s students with the skills required to thrive in a world increasingly defined and driven by AI.

A recent World Economic Forum survey reported that cognitive skills, such as creative thinking, analytical thinking, and technology literacy, a type of critical thinking skill, are forecast to be the most sought-after employee skills by 2027.

Collaboration between academia and industry is essential to deliver these skills at speed to students. That’s why the SAP University Alliances program has been forging partnerships with educational institutions for 25 years, with more than 2,800 institutions currently working with SAP to educate tomorrow’s talent with SAP skills.

One of these partners is HEC Montréal, a prestigious, internationally recognized business school with a long history of creating innovative learning approaches to equip students with SAP skills.

Two decades ago, HEC Montréal pioneered ERPsim, a revolutionary and hugely successful educational tool immersing students in a real-life business scenario within SAP. Today, an estimated 30,000 students a year learn with ERPsim.

In an interview, Professor Pierre-Majorique Léger of HEC Montréal talked about the latest collaboration between HEC Montréal and SAP: Business Builders, the next generation of SAP gamified learning.

Business Builders: Game On with SAP Analytics Cloud

Business Builders is a gamified learning tool that can develop STEM skills and helps students sharpen their analytical, critical, and creative thinking skills using the SAP Analytics Cloud solution.

Professor Léger says educators are caught up in the generative AI tsunami and need to “rethink a new pedagogical approach for students to develop data analytics and data literacy skills while at the same time recognizing that ChatGPT, for example, makes it super easy for students to circumvent doing the tasks themselves.”

Business Builders is one solution to that problem.

The game can be played either face-to-face or in virtual teaching sessions, either synchronously in a single session or over several sessions.

Students find themselves in one of three scenarios in a fast-paced, competitive game with interactive, realistic learning scenarios. There is no chance of resorting to ChatGPT or a similar AI tool to win. Instead, students must demonstrate data-driven decision-making skills and apply visualization techniques to make informed decisions.

In each game, students take on roles such as marketing or product researcher, financial analyst, or supply chain analyst. Each game has multiple stages, with subsequent stages demanding greater skills and knowledge.

The stages comprise 10 business questions targeting different levels of skills and knowledge. The business questions are designed for students with little or no data analytics skills as well as those with more advanced data visualization and manipulation skills.

As part of the game, students use SAP Analytics Cloud to visually analyze the data and identify the best graphical representations to answer the questions.

Real-Life Problems with Realistic Data

The game uses vast synthetic data sets to make the business decision-making process as authentic as possible. “The notion of synthetic data is important,” Professor Léger explains, “because sometimes reality is too complex to bring into the classroom and does not serve the pedagogical process. Based on experience with ERPsim, creating a realistic synthetic data set that is as close as possible to reality is the best way to go.”

Business Builders currently offers three game scenarios offering a diverse range of real-life problems that students can solve using SAP Analytics Cloud: environmental, social, and governance; supply chain resilience; and international expansion.

According to HEC Montréal, the most-played scenario to date is supply chain resilience. This scenario involves a real-life problem where the Panama Canal gets shut down due to climate change, affecting the shipment of holiday gifts from Southeast Asia to the United States. Students are tasked with deciding how to reroute the containers and prioritize products to minimize the impact of this event.

A Win-Win for Students, Educators, and Employers

“It is the challenge of our generation of professors faced with generative AI to come up with a novel way to teach students about data analytics,” Professor Léger says. “We have found a way of using gamification to engage students in leveraging what they know about analytics and mathematics to become business builders. Using data to get insights and solving problems on the best technology that exists – SAP Analytics Cloud. And the best thing of all, it’s free for lecturers and their students around the world.”

To guide students through the game scenario questions and help optimize the learning experience, educators have access to tailor-made training materials. Instead of taking a hit-and-miss approach with the data and platform features, these tailor-made training materials help lecturers deepen the learning experience. Students can understand how insights are uncovered and how to make informed business decisions based on analysis of data sets and data visualizations.

SAP has also created a handbook about the basic concepts of data visualization and storytelling in SAP Analytics Cloud. Available in a slide-deck format, educators can refer to the theoretical aspects while students are getting hands-on practical experience in SAP Analytics Cloud.

Since its launch in July 2024, more than 300 educational institutions have registered for access to the Business Builders game and an anticipated 2,500 students will use SAP Analytics Cloud to compete with their peers in the game by the end 2024.

With technology accelerating at an ever-increasing speed, the good news is that educators can register and get up and running with Business Builders free of charge in a just matter of days. Find out how on the Business Builders website.

The devastating COVID-19 pandemic exposed some of society’s most precarious fault lines, like in our healthcare systems, supply chains, and social support systems. People who once felt secure – those with stable jobs, access to food, and reliable safety nets – suddenly faced the harsh reality of vulnerability.

Once perceived as a distant issue, food insecurity became a lived experience for millions as economic instability, layoffs, and shortages spiraled out of control. Even in the most affluent countries, the cracks became visible. In March 2020, a former refugee, Amine Diare-Conde, watched as social service agencies and food banks in his adoptive country of Switzerland were shuttered, risking enormous food waste and adding to the 745,000 people already living below the poverty line in one of the world’s most prosperous nations.

Meanwhile, an unprecedented lockdown created drastic shifts in consumer demand, and surplus food and other necessities accumulated in warehouses while families went hungry, amplifying another existing crisis: food waste. Millions of tons of food are lost annually in Switzerland alone, and food waste worldwide accounts for a quarter of the environmental impact of the entire food system.                                

As the pandemic wore on, Diare-Conde saw an opportunity to tackle two urgent challenges simultaneously – feeding people in need and reducing food waste. He founded Essen für Alle (EfA), an entirely volunteer-run non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to eradicating hunger in Switzerland by redistributing surplus food to anyone who needs it. Essen für Alle means “food for all.”

The Right Partners, Across Generations, at the Right Time

Diare-Conde found an unlikely IT lead in then-thirteen-year-old Matthias Beeler, who coded the software that got EfA up and running, collecting and distributing food at its first location in Zurich. As the organization continued to grow, Beeler’s heroic, homegrown solution was struggling to keep up with increasingly complex logistics – coordinating the shifts of hundreds of volunteer workers, tracking the intake and distribution of thousands of pounds of food and other supplies, and keeping secure records – especially, Diare-Conde explained, since EfA’s IT lead was often otherwise occupied with school and homework.

EfA needed a secure, scalable, user-friendly solution that would help maximize the organization’s resources and supplies and, therefore, impact. Enter Keywan Nadjmabadi, who brought Diare-Conde a possible solution: perhaps Nadjmabadi’s employer could sponsor the organization’s new software and build EfA a cloud-based technology foundation. Nadjmabadi’s employer? SAP Switzerland. Diare-Conde was quickly convinced. SAP jumped on board, and within five months EfA’s new software, created using SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), went live.

Streamlining Aid, Maximizing Reach

In the short time since, EfA’s user-friendly, cloud-based, mobile-optimized solution has streamlined food distribution and volunteer management – enabling the distribution of around 900 tons of food and the management of 10,000 volunteer shifts – while offering 360-degree visibility for planning and oversight and providing advanced analytics to enable further process innovation and optimization.

Of particular importance to EfA’s clients were the new solution’s stringent protocols for safeguarding sensitive personal data. “Many clients come to us asking if we can guarantee that [their] details will be kept securely, and I can say we work with SAP so we have everything we need to guarantee secure data handling,” Diare-Conde said.

By leveraging the SAP BTP AI-enabled business optical character recognition (OCR) capability, new clients experience a seamless registration process with a passport scanner that securely captures their personal information, while returning clients benefit from a smooth and efficient check-in experience.

The scalable, cloud-based SAP BTP solution that runs on a database as a service means that EfA’s technology solutions can quickly and efficiently evolve with the organization. “We are constantly working on enhancements and improvements to the existing solution,” Nadjmabadi said. SAP BTP was instrumental in integrating and connecting the entire EfA landscape.

For now, every Saturday, volunteers from a database that has grown to 1,000 members distribute 20 tons of food to 2,000 people at up to five locations across Switzerland. And, Beeler explained, EfA’s impact is even more significant than these numbers suggest because some recipients are collecting food for an entire family, meaning that the organization’s dedicated volunteers serve as many as 10,000 people each week.

A Beacon of Hope

Unfortunately, demand for EfA’s services will only be increasing. In 2023, 30,223 refugees applied for asylum in Switzerland, up 20% from 2022. Diare-Conde plans to keep pace: “We will cover almost all of Switzerland soon.” And the NGO isn’t stopping there – the organization is currently exploring a partnership with a prominent German food bank.

But given that food waste is estimated to account for 8% to 10% of global greenhouse gases, EfA’s impact is already reverberating beyond Switzerland’s borders by directing thousands of tons of food that might otherwise be wasted onto the plates of people in need and by blazing a bold trail that others may follow.

Technology Serving People

The human side of technology is about ensuring that technology serves people, not vice versa. Known for his thought leadership in intelligent automation and digital transformation, Pascal Bornet said: “It’s about designing and implementing technology with empathy, understanding how it impacts individuals and society. Doing so enables a future where innovation benefits everyone – ethically, inclusively, and sustainably.”

The Full Episode

Learn more about how Essen für Alle is feeding Switzerland and tackling food waste by the ton:

• Thought leadership podcast: Essen für Alle IT Leads Beeler and Nadjmabadi and AI and Automation Expert Bornet sat down with Thulium CEO Tamara McCleary to discuss how technology can be of service to humanity.
• Practitioners’ video: Diare-Conde, founder of Essen für Alle, shares how a talented teen equipped with tenacity and technology created a solution that reduces food insecurity and waste at the same time.

Explore more success stories of customers leveraging SAP BTP to solve a problem innovatively:

• Brigada Carcarae: Through geo-referencing and image records, Brigada Carcarae modernized its operations and work with real-time data for monitoring and analysis. Learn how SAP helped Brigada Carcarae achieve its goals of preventing forest fires, salvaging and reestablishing apiaries, and reviving and replanting forests.
• Canton of Zurich: Learn how the Canton of Zurich expedited compensation processing and payments during COVID-19 using SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation.

For the full Essen für Alle episode and the on-demand Better Together: Customer Conversations series, visit sap.com/btp.

Timo Elliott is VP and global innovation advocate for SAP BTP at SAP.

In September 2024, SAP celebrated the first anniversary of Joule, our generative AI copilot. Over the past year, Joule has rapidly evolved, supporting business processes across customer experience, procurement, human resources, and more. Today, we are thrilled to announce that Joule is expanding its capabilities even further – it is now available in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and supply chain management applications.

This marks a significant step in transforming how businesses operate by simplifying everyday tasks and making interactions more efficient and intelligent.

Starting today, you can use Joule to help optimize your interactions with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, the SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain solution, and SAP’s product data management solutions. Additionally, SAP Asset Performance Management customers are invited to explore early access to Joule through the SAP Early Adopter Care program.

Joule in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition: A Transformative Experience

Joule Is Now Available in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

Joule is now seamlessly integrated in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition as part of the November 2024 release after being in early adoption since February this year. This isn’t just another tool – it is a transformative experience designed to help address the everyday challenges customers face. This integration offers a more intuitive way for users to interact with SAP solutions. Instead of manually searching for information or navigating multiple interfaces, users can simply ask Joule for what they need – whether it’s insights on business data or guidance on performing specific tasks.

Joule Helps to Simplify Your Work

Joule is a part of the broader vision of autonomous ERP, which offers businesses ready-to-run cloud business solutions powered by AI. Through the embedded AI features in GROW with SAP, businesses can simplify everyday work processes while scaling efficiently.

Supported by Joule, SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition users can work faster, smarter, and more efficiently, all while maintaining control over crucial decisions and data.

You can use Joule for:

• Quick navigation: Find and quickly navigate to applications for your next task.
• Instant insights: Get fast insights on critical business data, such as purchase orders and outbound deliveries.
• Enablement content: For those needing help, Joule can guide users to relevant enablement content, speeding up task completion.

A recent study showed that businesses using AI-powered tools like Joule experienced a 30% reduction in time spent on administrative tasks. This saving of time allows employees to focus on more strategic activities that drive value.

Customer Experience and Feedback: AGILITA AG

Several customers have already tested Joule through the SAP Early Adopter Care program. Their experiences with Joule give us valuable insights that help us continuously enhance our solution.

Swiss and German-based IT services and consulting company AGILITA AG has already tested Joule as a GROW with SAP customer. As both a customer and a partner of SAP, AGILITA AG is uniquely positioned to understand the value of the latest AI solutions in GROW with SAP and help other customers realize these values for their own businesses.

According to Thomas Neuhaus, head of Digital Experience at AGILITA AG, “When we started using Joule at AGILITA, we quickly observed significant improvements in our operations. Joule has made it incredibly easy for our employees to find the SAP applications they need for their daily tasks and access help documentation quickly when required. This has streamlined our workflows, allowing our team to interact with SAP systems seamlessly and retrieve important information much faster.”

Joule in Supply Chain Management: Building Resilience

Supply chains are becoming increasingly complex, driven by global disruptions, unpredictable demand patterns, and other evolving challenges. To address these issues, businesses require AI-driven supply chain solutions that enhance agility and resilience. With Joule now integrated into supply chain management processes, SAP’s vision of AI in supply chain management is empowering customers to transition their supply chains from digital to adaptive and, ultimately, to autonomous systems. This vision comes to life when you look at what Joule can now do for you and the skills it will gain over the coming months to help you build a more resilient supply chain.

How TE Connectivity Leverages Joule for Supply Chain Planning

TE Connectivity is a global industrial technology leader creating a safer, sustainable, productive, and connected future. It offers a broad range of connectivity and sensor solutions that enable the distribution of power, signal, and data to advance next-generation transportation, renewable energy, automated factories, data centers, medical technology, and more.

SAP Integrated Business Planning is used across the organization to enable more than 1,500 supply chain professionals to manage the demand and supply of the different business units of TE.

According to Luis Rocha, IT director for SAP Integrated Business Planning Solutions at TE Connectivity, “We are excited about the future capabilities that Joule brings to TE, such as explaining planning results, quickly highlighting key constraints, and autonomously comparing different scenarios. These features will empower us to make better supply decisions with significantly less effort.” 

TE’s IT team has activated Joule in SAP Integrated Business Planning and has done first tests with the help documentation use case. They confirm how easy it is to engage with the copilot and how relevant it is to do contextual querying of SAP Integrated Business Planning features– it speeds up the investigation of requirements and the adoption process.

Joule will be available for research and development (R&D) functions via SAP’s product data management solutions and for planners via SAP Integrated Business Planning. For those that want to explore Joule to improve the health of their assets, you can now register for the SAP Early Adopter Care program for Joule in SAP Asset Performance Management.

See examples of Joule in action in your supply chain:

• Joule for SAP’s product data management solutions
• Joule for SAP Asset Performance Management
• Joule for SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain

How to Get Started with Joule

For more information on how to activate Joule, please contact your SAP support contacts directly to identify the channel and regional prerequisites. To learn more about how these tools can streamline your operations and drive efficiency, visit the SAP Help Portal for detailed information about SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, product data management, and SAP Integrated Business Planning.

To learn more, see AI in GROW with SAP, supply chain management, and SAP’s AI copilot Joule.

By integrating generative AI tools like Joule into everyday operations, businesses can simplify complex tasks, make faster decisions, and focus on what truly matters – driving growth and innovation. As we move forward, we’re committed to helping companies not only meet today’s demands but also thrive in the face of tomorrow’s uncertainties. Together, we’re shaping a future where technology serves as a true partner in building stronger, more agile organizations.

Jan Gilg is president and chief product officer for Cloud ERP at SAP.