WALLDORF and NEW YORK — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced Bain & Company, one of the world’s leading management consultancies, is now successfully running all of its core financials in 40 countries on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

This marks a milestone for Bain & Company since the firm embarked on an enterprise resource planning (ERP) modernization project in 2020.

Choosing the Cloud to Support Future Growth

Having grown significantly over two decades, Bain & Company now operates globally in over 65 offices. This growth, both organic and through acquisitions, led to a rise in manual and localized back-end processes, in addition to the challenges of integrating acquired businesses into the wider company. For these reasons, Bain & Company made the choice to migrate to the cloud with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

“SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition was the best ERP option to meet our needs because of its standard processes, latest industry best practices and continuously delivered innovation, and I believe that adopting an SaaS solution will help future-proof our technology stack as we continue to grow,” Bain & Company Chief Information Officer Ramesh Razdan said. “We’ve already completed our first year-end close on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and are very pleased with the results we’ve seen. I’m confident that we’re on course to deliver significant value from this implementation in the coming years.”

A Strategic Opportunity to Optimize Business Operations

In implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition across its global business in 40 countries, Bain was determined to realize the full potential of its new ERP system. From the outset, the program was owned by stakeholders from across both business and technology functions with the goal of fully standardizing core processes end to end and enabling its global users to deliver desired business outcomes with the new technology.  

Using its own ERP transformation teams and digital transformation expertise to deliver a “business-led” technology transformation of this magnitude, Bain worked together with SAP to design and deliver its end-to-end “SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition modernization program.” Additionally, Bain also invested in significant change management and training efforts to ensure global users were ready to harness the full value of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

“We treated this as a business-led transformation in the same way we advise our clients,” Bain & Company CFO Steve McLaughlin said. “We standardized many processes to create real business value and execution efficiency. For example, we simplified and standardized our chart of accounts enabling us to utilize SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, group reporting to provide the management reporting our leaders need to make timely decisions. Our business leaders and finance team have owned our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition journey from day one, which was a real key to our initial success and knowing we have more to do.”

Successful “Big Bang” Implementation Across the Globe

Bain is now live globally with fully standard processes following a big-bang implementation across 40 countries. Today, it has a system built around a standardized core, which has enabled faster and better-informed decision-making, automated processes that will lead to reduced manual work, quicker onboarding of acquisitions, and seamless ERP upgrades and innovation.

“Bain & Company and SAP have been long-standing partners,” said Scott Russell, chief revenue officer and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. “We are delighted to support them in their journey to the cloud so that they are poised to continue transforming their business as well as the businesses of our joint customers. I look forward to seeing Bain & Company fully utilize all the latest innovations, including industry best practices and new technologies like generative AI, available to them through SAP solutions.”

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About SAP

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According to Albert Einstein, “Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” He had a point! The same is true of business.

Successful businesses keep moving and evolving, especially in times of rapid change and macroeconomic uncertainty. And given the current volatility, business transformation is no longer optional; it’s imperative.

Knowing this, we launched RISE with SAP in 2021 not as a technical IT migration approach, but as a comprehensive solution designed to drive broad business transformation. With 6,000 customers having selected RISE with SAP, we know we cannot stop moving either. And I was thrilled to share at SAP Sapphire this year how we are taking the RISE with SAP experience to the next level and improving services and delivery for customers end-to-end.

Here are some key takeaways.

Evolving How We Engage with Customers

Navigating the transformation of today’s complex system landscapes and business processes is like orchestrating a symphony with countless instruments and moving parts. To succeed, we need to keep refining our engagement approach to better manage the intricacies of our customers’ complex architecture at an unprecedented level of detail.

To this end, we’re making a lot of changes in how we engage with customers, including strengthening the role of the enterprise architect (EA). The EA harmonizes all elements and guides the customer throughout their cloud journey.

Enhancing Methodologies

We know the biggest challenge for any cloud transformation is to make the system landscape more agile and enable innovation — quickly. We’ve been listening and have introduced solutions. For example, our RISE with SAP Methodology is a significant step forward in creating a consistent experience for all RISE with SAP customers, independent of their individual cloud journeys. Now, a dedicated enterprise architect guides customers through the RISE with SAP Methodology to enhance onboarding and provides transparency throughout the project with key milestone checks, q-gates, and checklists that ensure consistent quality and more predictable timelines throughout the implementation process.

This new offering is included in our SAP RISE Migration and Modernization program, which is designed to give customers the confidence to migrate even the most complex ERP systems to the cloud. By enabling our customers to integrate and extend SAP S/4HANA with a clean core approach, we ensure our customers experience better maintainability and lower total cost of ownership.​ Because legacy ERP systems often carry technical debt and, let’s face it, code is also a liability not just an asset. The more code you have, the more you have to optimize, debug, and modernize. And this is something we all need to actively work against.

Introducing Partner Training and Validation

We are also making it easier for RISE with SAP customers to identify partners to help with complex SAP S/4HANA Cloud transformations. It is essential for our partner ecosystem to follow the RISE with SAP Methodology as well. For customers to onboard successfully, there needs to be a close alignment between SAP, the customer, and implementation partner. This is why we are training and validating partners to use the RISE with SAP Methodology and will collaborate closely with partners to provide consistency and quality.

We are also introducing the RISE with SAP Validated Partner recognition, which verifies a partner’s adherence to the RISE with SAP Methodology and our q-gates, giving businesses the confidence to know that they are fully leveraging the potential of cloud-based innovations from SAP. Almost 90% of all SAP implementations are overseen by partners, so training and validating them is a key part of our strategy to ensure consistency and quality for customers.

Building a Seamless End-to-End Tool Chain

As a former SAP CIO, I’ve felt the challenges (and pain) of large-scale transformation. I know the pressure CIOs are under to show tangible business outcomes quickly. It’s why true business transformation requires a holistic approach, not a simple technology lift and shift.

We deliver the most complete business transformation suite in the industry. With the range of capabilities on offer today — including SAP Signavio, SAP LeanIX, and SAP Cloud ALM solutions as well as SAP Business Technology Platform — we have an amazing set of tools to bring out the best in businesses. Now, we are bringing them more closely together as one end-to-end seamless tool chain to make it easier to manage the process, system, and data landscape holistically.

With our recently announced agreement to acquire WalkMe, we plan to further strengthen our ability to deliver successful business transformation across applications, processes, systems, and people. ​WalkMe will help us incorporate user-centric adoption, enablement, and productivity capabilities alongside our Business Transformation Management portfolio of SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX solutions. And WalkMe’s AI capabilities will complement our process AI with user intelligence, improving the capabilities of our generative AI copilot Joule to help people get work done faster.​

SAP Business AI: New Frontier for Business Transformation

In 2024, SAP Sapphire has been an opportunity for us to showcase how we are introducing in a new era of optimized business operations, with all the IT complexity concealed behind intuitive, AI-powered user experiences.

We highlighted the progress we are making embedding Joule throughout our enterprise portfolio and the enormous potential we see for AI to support both customers and partners in their RISE with SAP journey. I was thrilled to announce that starting in Q4 of 2024, customers and partners can leverage generative AI-powered assistance for their RISE with SAP clean core success plan.

We are also bringing new consulting capabilities to Joule, aimed at simplifying SAP implementations for partners. The new consulting capability draws insights from SAP product documentation and the SAP community to provide consultants with vital information and is planned to be available in the second half of this year.

Business Transformation: More Than an IT Project

At SAP, we understand that true business transformation is more than an IT project. It requires a holistic approach and not a simple technological lift and shift. That’s why we are putting the people, methodologies, financial incentives, tools, partner practices, and SAP Business AI in place to ensure our customers not only have compelling reasons to move to the cloud, but also a compelling experience.

Learn more:

• Watch the replay of the Customer Keynote at SAP Sapphire
• Read all the announcements in the SAP Sapphire News Guide

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE leading Customer Services & Delivery.

After intensive preparation, 24 European national soccer teams will be presenting themselves at the upcoming European Championship. Besides concentrating on training and match practice, they’ll be analyzing their opponents and discussing tactics and game plans. Germany’s coaching team is relying on technology-driven support from the sports management solution SAP Sports One.

Sights Set on the European Championship

“SAP Sports One enables us to efficiently share tactical insights and key information about our next opponents with our players. And by accessing the software on a tablet, we can even give them the latest updates in the changing room shortly before kickoff or at half time,” says Benjamin Glück, assistant coach to the German national A-team.

“SAP’s sports management suite is very important to the national soccer team as a central platform for collecting and analyzing data and for presenting the insights gained from that data to our players,” explains Glück. “We use the video and visualization functions in SAP Sports One to help us illustrate findings about our opponents and their key players. These features make conveying tactics and preparing for specific matches much easier and clearer.” The German team also uses analytical insights to prepare for penalty scenarios. In SAP Penalty Insights, goalkeepers can study the behavior of potential penalty-takers, such as which area of the goal they usually aim for and even how these preferences change under pressure. Conversely, penalty-takers can gain insights into the tactics of their opponents’ goalkeepers.

The coaches and analysts of the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußball-Bund, or DFB) work with data created within SAP Sports One as well as data and analyses from third-party sources. The SAP solution serves as the central platform for consolidating and analyzing all the data.

An SAP App for All Players

Germany’s national players stay in close contact with their coaches and analysts through the SAP Sports One messaging app – SAP Team One – which they have on their phones. Among other things, the mobile app is used to pass on match preparation information, such as opponent analyses, annotated clips, and videos.

The players also use the mobile app to share information about themselves. For example, they complete questionnaires about how intense they perceived the last training session or match, how well they slept, and how they are feeling overall. Their responses are used to generate an RPE (rating of perceived exertion) value. By gauging each player’s general health and well-being in this way, coaches can manage intensity levels according to each individual’s situation. Both the DFB and the player’s home club monitor this RPE value to guard against overtraining and injury. SAP Analytics Cloud can draw on data from SAP Sports One to create player-specific reports that are forwarded to the player’s home club after courses, tournaments, and matches the German team takes part in.

DFB and SAP: An Established Partnership

The DFB is a familiar name around the globe. With almost 7 million members spread across more than 25,000 clubs, it is the world’s largest national sports federation. At the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, which Germany won, the country’s national team was already using SAP Match Insights, a prototype of the solution that is now part of SAP Sports One. This prototype helped the DFB evaluate large volumes of data for match analysis for the first time.

Today, more than 1,000 DFB users – players and the “teams behind the teams” – work with SAP Sports One. “Our successful collaboration with the German national team was a key factor in SAP’s decision to turn the prototype we developed for the DFB into a standard product. Now, clubs and associations in 19 countries are using SAP Sports One,” says Fadi Naoum, senior vice president and head of Development, SAP Sports One. More joint projects followed, including the development of SAP Penalty Insights and SAP Challenger Insights, a mobile app that helps teams prepare for upcoming matches. On the horizon of this co-innovation partnership are plans to leverage the power of AI to make the functions in SAP Sports One even more efficient.

Shaping the Future

In addition to Germany’s national men’s and women’s soccer A-teams, the DFB manages 12 junior and U21 teams, too. “The challenge for us is to keep a close eye on the pool of talented young players we have and to help them reach their full potential,” says Christofer Clemens, the DFB’s head of Scouting, Match Analysis, and Diagnosis. “Our coaching teams watch an average of 1,500 games every season and identify a large number of gifted talents in the process. To qualify these players, the coaching teams compile a huge volume of scouting reports, which we manage in SAP Sports One. These qualitative insights are vital for us. However, at the moment, the task of judging the development of a player or comparing individual players based on that information is time-consuming,” says Clemens. “We’re hoping that AI will make the complex task of analyzing these vast amounts of data much simpler for us.” Alongside scouting reports, the DFB plans to use publicly available data sources and match statistics to complete player profiles.

“Another area where the DFB sees enormous potential for AI is in analyzing opponents before international matches,” says Martin Vogelbein, a member of the DFB’s Scouting, Match Analysis, and Diagnosis team and project lead in managing the SAP Sports One solution. SAP Sports One is already helping the DFB prepare for big games, he explains, but the plan is to go a step further and use AI to automatically analyze insights from opponents’ past matches.

“We are hoping that SAP’s AI copilot, Joule, will bring enormous benefits in terms of consolidating match reports. That would minimize the manual tasks our match analysts need to complete and reduce the time it takes to get answers to a range of key questions we have when preparing for games,” says Vogelbein. Typical questions are: What patterns are visible in the opposing team in different phases of the match? What does this tell us about the team’s strengths, weaknesses, and about the options we have? “We already have a huge amount of information – particularly qualitative data – available to us before games. SAP Challenger Insights, a component of SAP Sports One, allows us to visualize insights from that information and discuss them with the team. But, looking ahead, AI-driven analyses could help us prepare key background information for our players even more easily,” says Vogelbein.

Clemens and Vogelbein are very pleased with the results so far. “We see enormous potential in our work with SAP on the AI-driven evaluation of information that is relevant for scouting and match analysis. The prototypes SAP has presented to the DFB look very promising, and we are looking forward to using them live soon.”

Top image courtesy of Thomas Böcker

BARCELONA — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) announced that RHI Magnesita (LSE: RHIM), has chosen the RISE with SAP solution to rebuild and streamline its technology infrastructure for continued growth in the refractory industry.

A global leader in refractories, RHI Magnesita provides essential parts of the infrastructure that we use and need in our everyday lives. Supplying high-grade refractory products, systems and solutions, RHI Magnesita has 47 main production sites across the world, and ships its products to more than 100 countries.

With its vision to sustainably manage heat to build a better world, RHI Magnesita needed a technology foundation that would allow end-to-end interaction across its customers, suppliers and business partners across all geographies, end markets and product lines. Choosing to implement a multi-tier landscape consisting of both SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, RHI Magnesita is now equipped to redefine all its technology processes and landscape.

Ticiana Kobel, Executive VP Legal & Digital Transformation at RHI Magnesita, stated, “With the revamped digital landscape that we will shape together with SAP, RHI Magnesita will transform into a digitally fortified company, centered around our customers and driven by data. The transition to SAP S/4HANA Cloud marks a pivotal moment in RHI Magnesita’s journey toward unparalleled efficiency, agility, and innovation which will enable us to unlock real-time insights, streamline operations, and enhance decision-making across our global network.”

With SAP S/4HANA Cloud, RHI Magnesita will have one unified view of its operations and supply chain, reducing its infrastructure footprint, and poises itself for better integration of future acquisitions while delivering cost savings. 

“RHI Magnesita is embarking on a true digital transformation that will see the streamlining of several landscapes that will allow it to leverage the cost savings, scalability and flexibility that comes with moving to the cloud,” said Alexander Klaeger, President of SAP MEE. “Already a leader in the industry, I’m excited to see RHI Magnesita use SAP S/4HANA Cloud to sustainably provide infrastructure the world needs.”

Visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP at @SAPNews.

Media Contacts:
Elisabeth Wursche, +43 664 620 74 27, elisabeth.wursche@sap.com, CET
Lesa Plingen, +49 6227 76 9000, lesa.plingen@sap.com, CET
SAP Press Room; press@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ.  Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP’s 2023 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
© 2024 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices.