SAP’s “Source from Ukraine” initiative, launched in March 2023, has a clear goal: to increase spending with Ukrainian companies while also generating business benefits for SAP. This shows SAP’s deep understanding of social responsibility as an integral part of its commitment to a sustainable future.

The initiative aims to activate procurement spend as a means to support Ukrainian suppliers in rebuilding their businesses. Beyond sourcing for quality goods and services, SAP has a focus on integrating ESG (environmental, social, and governance) principles into decision-making as is standard with its procurement policy.

It highlights SAP’s commitment not only to sourcing products from Ukraine, but also to promoting social change.

Built-In Sustainability 

In implementing the initiative to attract more suppliers from Ukraine, SAP initially focused on the IT sector and conducted a rigorous selection process. So far, suppliers, including industry leaders like Softserve, Unicsoft, and Luxoft, have been selected. SAP’s commitment extends beyond services to include product areas, where notable Ukrainian companies producing innovative environmentally sustainable products have been discovered.

At SAP Spend Connect Live in Vienna, Austria, held in October 2023, Ukrainian manufacturers Rekava, Mol’far Tea, and Releaf Paper showcased their sustainable and innovative products. Rekava, for example, specializes in producing biodegradable candles made from recycled coffee grounds, while Mol’far focuses on minimalism and ethical environmental practices in tea production. Releaf Paper is the world’s first manufacturer of paper made from fallen leaves, promoting sustainable products such as paper bags. By supporting these unique Ukrainian companies, SAP is not only contributing to the economic reconstruction of the country, but also sustainability efforts.

One of SAP’s tier one suppliers, ABC Premium, has taken an important step by offering Rekava candles within its purchasing catalog, available to SAP employees on the SAP Ariba Buying solution.

Strong Alliances for Reconstruction

At the outset of the project, the NGO Impact Ukraine helped SAP connect with Ukrainian suppliers. It focuses on microfinance, procurement, and recruitment from Ukraine. The collaboration is facilitated by the voluntary engagement of professionals from the technology, healthcare, and finance sectors. With Impact Ukraine’s support, SAP and other organizations can further advance their goals regarding procurement from Ukraine.

SAP’s commitment to promoting innovation, sustainability, and economic growth through partnerships with Ukrainian companies not only fulfills its aspirations for procurement with purpose, but also contributes to making the world a better place.

Helping the World Run Better 

The “Source for Ukraine” initiative builds on global efforts to integrate social enterprises and diverse suppliers into SAP purchasing opportunities. Beyond SAP’s own internal purchasing efforts, the SAP Corporate Social Responsibility (SAP CSR) team is also investing in social and sustainable procurement ecosystems alongside public, private, and social sector partners like the European Commission, Deloitte, World Economic Forum’s Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship, and Social Enterprise World Forum’s People and Planet First verification.

Consider that US$5.3 trillion in annual commerce is transacted on SAP Business Network. If we can help create a small shift in procurement spend to organizations prioritizing people and planet like Releaf Paper, we could collectively increase investment in sustainable development in a way that is not possible through corporate philanthropy alone. To join our efforts, please e-mail: csr-global@sap.com.

Elena Parker is chief revenue officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network, MEE, at SAP.

BARCELONA — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced Otto Group’s Bonprix, a leading international fashion company, has successfully completed its implementation of the SAP BW/4HANA and SAP Datasphere solutions.

One of Germany’s top four online fashion shops, Bonprix now operates a dynamic multi-cloud data landscape that enables it to integrate both on-premise and cloud data sources in one single platform.

Based in Hamburg, Germany, Bonprix has over 16 million active customers in more than 25 countries. The company looked to SAP solutions for a simplified IT architecture, a faster time-to-market in business decision-making process and a self-service-enabled semantic layer to respond to market changes and ensure customers have access to the latest catwalk trends.

Supported by SAP services and partners, including Beratungscontor, Bonprix implemented its analytics stack on SAP Datasphere and the SAP Business Warehouse application. By deploying SAP Datasphere as a cloud-based data platform to SAP BW4/HANA, Bonprix gains access to a powerful analytical platform that  bridges data across finance, sales, logistics and customer relationship management between transactional SAP data and end users.

“The Bonprix business intelligence data based on SAP solutions is adeptly designed for the future, leveraging the robust capabilities of SAP BW/4HANA at its core to manage and efficiently process vast volumes of data,” said Sergio Lopez Nunez, Bonprix senior BI engineer. “When paired with SAP Datasphere, which offers extensive multi-cloud access, it enables the seamless integration of data from diverse sources. In essence, the Bonprix BI data platform is not only a cornerstone in daily operations but also a strategic asset in the relentless pace of technological change, ensuring that Bonprix is well-equipped to continue promoting responsible trade that inspires, now and into the future.”

Having already implemented SAP Business AI solutions – specifically, the Document Information Extraction business service – Bonprix already has experienced significant efficiency gains by automatically extracting relevant data from incoming invoices, reducing manual data entry errors and accelerating the overall invoice processing workflow.

“As one of Germany’s top online fashion shops, Bonprix’s digital transformation journey is impressive as they continue to make millions of customers happy,” said Sven Mulder, managing director of SAP Germany. “The adoption of SAP Datasphere and SAP BW/4HANA marks the beginning of Bonprix’s successful cloud journey. They’re now empowered to make real-time, data-driven decisions, positioning the brand to expand into new markets with style.”

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

Media Contact:
Lesa Plingen, +49 622 776 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.

BARCELONA — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Roca Group, one of the world’s leading bathroom fixtures and design companies has selected SAP S/4HANA and the RISE with SAP solution as it embarks on its next phase of digital transformation, focused on integrating and standardizing its IT systems.

A family-owned business with over 100 years of heritage, a presence in 170 markets, and more than 21,500 employees and nearly 80 factories globally, Roca Group  had embraced digitalization to remain competitive and relevant in the dynamic sanitary industry. Having made several acquisitions over the years, Roca Group saw RISE with SAP as the ideal solution to consolidate various IT systems into one IT landscape. Roca’s decision in choosing SAP S/4HANA Cloud was driven by the desire to increase efficiency and the ability to make informed, real-time, data-driven business decisions.

“Roca Group’s strategy is based on a long-term future vision supported by innovation, technology and sustainability,” said Albert Magrans, CEO of Roca Group. “Moving to SAP S/4HANA enables Roca to leverage the last technology and innovations of SAP software to boost our digital transformation. We are looking forward to faster execution speed, the enhancement of functionality with the Joule copilot, real-time analytics and further innovations from SAP and its ecosystem.”

“Roca Group and SAP have collaborated closely for a number of years, with Roca trusting SAP with multiple SAP implementations,” said Manos Raptopoulos, VP of SAP Europe, Middle East and Africa. “Roca’s IT strategy is fully aligned with its business transformation with SAP solutions as an integral part of this strategy. Our close partnership allows our teams to have real-time insight into their business transformation, allowing for seamless integration of SAP solutions as they embark on their SAP S/4HANA Cloud journey.”

In choosing SAP S/4HANA Cloud and various cloud solutions from SAP, such as SAP Customer Experience, SAP Ariba and SAP SuccessFactors solutions, Roca Group continues to be well-positioned to leverage SAP’s integrated suite of solutions that will enhance customer experience and potentially open up new business opportunities. In adopting a clean core approach, the group will have a single platform for its production centers and logistics platforms, tapping onto the SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain solution for demand and production planning, and the SAP Transportation Management application for transport management. With these solutions implemented, the operations already using them have seen a cubic capacity of their transports rise by 10%.

Additionally, Roca plans to use SAP SuccessFactors to improve learning programs, manage global payroll and enhance the employee self-service portal through SAP’s suite of solutions in addition to travel expense management with SAP Concur solutions.

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

Media Contacts:
Belén Martinez, +34 914 567 220, belen.martinez@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.

To increase visibility for organizations and enable more accurate data and insights, we introduced updates to our procurement, business network, and external workforce platforms at SAP Sapphire Orlando last week.

With new integrations for SAP Ariba solutions, SAP Business Network, and SAP Fieldglass solutions, as well as the incorporation of new generative AI features, we aim to automate and streamline procurement, supply chain, and external workforce management processes. These innovations will help empower organizations to access real-time spend data and focus on proactive decision-making, ultimately increasing their visibility and effectiveness.

As businesses continue to embrace advanced technologies, the integration of responsible, relevant, and reliable business AI and Joule, SAP’s natural language, generative AI copilot, into the SAP suite of solutions represents a significant leap forward in optimizing business processes and accelerating strategic initiatives. By harnessing the power of supply chain data alongside business AI and generative AI, we are setting the stage for practical procurement and workforce scenarios to thrive.

Joule Combined with SAP Ariba and SAP Analytics Cloud Can Improve Procurement Processes and Supply Chain Planning

Digital transformation has brought on endless potential for procurement teams, as embedded generative AI and increased access to data across the supply chain can lead to better visibility into spend. That is why we’re announcing further integration of Joule into our procurement solutions.

Later this year, Joule will be generally available in SAP Ariba solutions. Through this update, sourcing managers can utilize intelligent product and supplier recommendations to develop proposal requests. The combined platform will consider cost-effectiveness, sustainability ramifications, compliance regulations, and previous transactions.

Another new generative AI-based feature in SAP Ariba solutions will migrate data from SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to help provide customers with a 360-degree buying user experience to enable a simple, agile, and collaborative process to identify products and skills in the same purchase order, otherwise known as spend bundling. Buyers can describe their purchasing needs with natural language prompts, and the system will deliver intelligent and personalized recommendations. This will help increase flexibility for buying materials and services, creating a collaborative and straightforward process from searching for products and services through order fulfillment.

To this end, we revealed a version of our generative AI-powered SAP Spend Control Tower during a session with Blackstone at SAP Sapphire. The command center, which can provide a single location for enterprise-wide spend analytics, can identify tail spend, improve compliance, and constantly identify rapidly increasing costs. This will help create meaningful value for organizations by increasing end-to-end visibility to drive efficient spend performance. Find out how to take advantage of the solution’s native connections to other SAP applications and improved insight to action here in this video.

Optimizing SAP Fieldglass with Generative AI to Mitigate Risk

HR departments and procurement teams often struggle to collaborate, creating silos that limit the ability to identify proper external candidates who can fill skills gaps in organizations. The latest update to SAP Fieldglass solutions will introduce embedded AI to help reduce risk and increase the value of the external workforce.

We are leveraging generative AI to produce scope of work (SOW) descriptions, job descriptions, and job description translations for external workers, automatically identifying the required skills and qualifications for each organization. This will help remove data silos to enable total workforce management, an organizational strategy to provide visibility into all temporary and permanent employees.

Additionally, SAP Fieldglass solutions enhanced with generative AI can rank candidates based on salary preference, skills, and experience. Procurement teams can then identify the best candidates in an unbiased manner to reduce the time to hire, ultimately accelerating strategic decision-making. These added facets will help enhance planning and preparation for all external talent scenarios.

Introducing New Enhancements to SAP Business Network

One of the highest priorities for any supply chain professional is to ensure their people, processes, and technology are resilient. Supply chain resilience extends beyond being able to withstand disruptions – it includes visibility into all activity and agility to react quickly to find and secure alternative sources of supply.

In fact, SAP was recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Multi-Enterprise Supply Chain Commerce Network 2023 Vendor Assessment* and by TrustRadius as a top supply chain software for visibility.

Our latest modernization of SAP Business Network helps enhance customers’ communication channels with trading partners for increased visibility and agility. Improved integrations between SAP Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration and SAP Business Network Material Traceability can allow suppliers to share product genealogy data to help ensure full traceability and compliance across the supply chain. Additional links between SAP Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration and SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration will help automate updates for inbound deliveries, simplifying management of carrier appointments and shipments.

Enhancements to the SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration solution will help increase access to millions of supplier profiles from whom alternative products can be found. These new features across SAP Business Network solutions will work to reduce silos between and within organizations, resulting in significant time and cost savings with fewer manual steps in processing work orders.

Strategic Investment Across the SAP Suite of Solutions

SAP has augmented integrations across its entire portfolio of spend management and business network solutions, aiming to improve efficiency. By investing in technology that provides catered and end-to-end solutions, customers can have all-encompassing visibility to all business processes, from procurement of raw materials to delivery of the final product.

What we shared at SAP Sapphire will only improve relationships between buyers, suppliers, logistics providers, and service providers across the supply chain, developing a larger view of all functions and employees. This will lead to better decision-making, increased productivity, and improved agility.

Manoj Swaminathan is chief product and technology officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP.

*Source: “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Multi-Enterprise Supply Chain Commerce Network 2023 Vendor Assessment,” #US49948423, December 2023.