As a pioneer of spend management software, SAP has been on the cutting edge of how to best comprehensively manage company spend and supplier relationships.

Like at home, identifying every dollar you spend and getting the most out of it is more critical than ever for your business. And as we continue to roll out SAP Business AI technology, the teams behind SAP solutions are working on ways to help you reduce the time spent on mundane tasks so you can focus on executing your strategy, unlocking spend potential, and unleashing efficiency.

The first quarter of 2024 was among the most productive in my 18 years at SAP. We debuted new AI capabilities in various SAP spend management solutions. Check out some of these highlights:

• SAP Ariba Category Management: We’ve incorporated generative AI-enabled features that can assist category managers by generating recommendations in the solution’s category segmentation, market dynamics, and cost structure tools.
• Scoutbee Discovery: SAP partnered with Scoutbee, a leading AI-powered supplier intelligence and discovery platform, to launch Scoutbee Discovery. This SAP endorsed app can rapidly identify qualified suppliers that meet specific criteria and can help advance strategic business imperatives. Watch the recording of me participating in a recent LinkedIn Live with the Scoutbee team.
• Concur Request: Now, this service uses generative AI to help provide intelligent cost estimates for trip planning.
• ExpenseIt: Users can upload receipt images to the ExpenseIt solution, which taps AI to help automatically create a new expense with several key fields prepopulated. Plus, ExpenseIt can now itemize hotel folios using generative AI.
• Generative AI search: A new capability within Concur Support allows SAP Concur customers to type questions in natural language and get quick answers using generative AI, without submitting a support ticket.

SAP’s market-leading spend and business network solutions are getting even smarter, working to unlock greater value for our customers. We have many resources devoted to spend management and that’s why we continue to deliver innovation in spend management.

And we are only getting started. By the end of 2024, SAP Business Network is planning the following enhancements:

• Generative AI RFI/RFP responses in SAP Business Network Discovery: With generative AI-enabled responses for postings in SAP Business Network Discovery, suppliers will be able to respond to RFIs promptly and more accurately, helping to save time and reduce costs associated with manual labor and resource allocation.  
• Catalog enrichment using ChatGPT recommendations: This feature can enable suppliers to generate and improve product descriptions and overall catalog quality based on prompts and keyword recommendations from ChatGPT. 
• Intelligent error simplification using generative AI: This feature uses machine learning and a large language model to interpret and categorize invoice rejection reasons, allowing suppliers to reduce the number of failing invoices, improve rapid invoice submission and payment, and optimize cash flow.

For more on how AI is transforming business networks, read this recent article from my colleague Joern Keller.

But What Are Our Customers Saying?

Each quarter, G2 highlights the top rated solutions in the industry, chosen by the source that matters most: customers. Spring 2024 is no different, and once again our suite of spend and business network solutions scored extremely well.

• SAP Fieldglass is a G2 Spring Leader in Vendor Management.
• SAP Ariba is a G2 Spring Leader in Procure to Pay, Purchasing, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, and Contract Lifecycle Management.
• SAP Concur is a G2 Spring Leader in Expense, Travel & Expense, and Invoicing.

What’s more, G2 recently announced its 2024 Best Software Award winners, with SAP Fieldglass and SAP Concur receiving high honors:

• SAP Fieldglass came in at No. 26 in G2’s Best Software Awards across all products and No. 12 in G2’s Best Software Awards for best midmarket products.
• SAP Concur came in at No. 4 in G2’s Best Software Awards for the account and software product category.

My colleagues are also getting their flowers. Etosha Thurman, chief marketing and solutions officer of Intelligent Spend and Business Network, and Steve Seide, global head of Adoption for Intelligent Spend and Business Network, were named Top Procurement Pros in the Supply & Demand Chain Executive 2024 Pros to Know awards. A big congratulations also goes out to Darcy MacClaren, CRO for SAP Digital Supply Chain, who received a Pros to Know Lifetime Achievement award.

Driving Success for Our Customers

Hearing me spotlight our direct and indirect procurement, external workforce, and travel and expense management solutions is one thing. Seeing them in action is something way more powerful. Here are a few recent customer success stories to take in:

• American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), a leading global specialty retailer offering high-quality on-trend clothing, accessories, and personal care products through its portfolio of brands, needed to evaluate indirect purchasing processes and vendor relationships to maximize efficiency. See how SAP Business Network for Procurement and SAP Ariba solutions helped simplify processes and deliver compliant purchasing protocols across the company.
• Power provider to over 900,000 electric customers, Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company (OG&E) faced challenges with the complexity of third-party and cross-department management of contingent workers. After transitioning SAP Fieldglass solutions to internal management, OG&E gained the visibility to make more informed financial decisions, like supplier negotiations.
• 2024 SAP Innovation Award winner Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, launched a large-scale quality initiative powered by SAP Business Network to help mitigate product defects in a highly complex supply chain. Now, using SAP Business Network, suppliers complete predefined quality tests and document them before confirming or sending an order. This enables Vestas employees to be warned in advance of any quality issues further up the supply chain, so they can take corrective action.
• Most KUKA employees are based in Germany, where tax regulation is complex and submitting hotel and entertainment expenses is anything but simple. The KUKA team worked together to develop a simple process using SAP Concur solutions, connected to SAP ERP, that allows employees to create hotel and entertainment expenses seven times faster with fewer errors and fewer rejected expense reports.

Join Us at SAP Sapphire!

SAP Sapphire & ASUG Annual Conference is June 3-5 in Orlando, Florida, this year and I can’t wait to meet with customers, partners, and my fellow colleagues. This is the best event in the industry in my opinion and you don’t want to miss out. Join us by registering on the SAP Sapphire event website, where you can also save your spot at the SAP Sapphire Virtual and SAP Sapphire Barcelona events. See you there!

Jeff Collier is chief revenue officer for SAP Intelligent Spend and Business Network.

As businesses adapt to digitalization, they encounter various trends reshaping tax compliance. From emerging business models to governments’ digital initiatives, the tax landscape is undergoing significant transformation.

Authorities are starting to involve themselves in business transactions, disrupting well-established business processes and taking control of the invoicing flow between suppliers and buyers. As a result, they have the data needed to prevent tax evasion and start auditing taxpayers automatically or even auto-populating tax returns moving toward tax bills. Additionally, sustainability efforts and climate change regulations further impact tax regulations.

Amid these shifts, SAP can provide peace of mind to navigate complexities efficiently. By understanding the evolving tax landscape, businesses can leverage SAP solutions to help streamline compliance processes and drive automation to capitalize on emerging opportunities.

SAP solutions for global tax management are tailored to help address modern tax challenges. SAP S/4HANA Cloud can provide transparency and compliance on a global scale, enabling businesses to embed tax requirements in processes.

Through localized solutions that offer standardized but flexible business processes, a complete suite of solutions facilitates efficient tax management, from e-invoicing to statutory reporting and overall tax compliance. With SAP technology and expertise, businesses can achieve greater accuracy and agility in tax compliance, paving the way for sustainable growth and competitive advantage.

To help tax professionals prepare for and become valuable members of tax transformation projects, SAP is introducing a new course: Unlocking Tax Transformation with SAP.

The course is designed to equip professionals with the knowledge needed to navigate today’s tax landscape and learn new capabilities that can be leveraged as part of SAP S/4HANA-enabled transformations to simplify tax compliance.

The course offers practical strategies to learn about the different tax types, global developments and their business relevance, and the importance of technology with a focus on SAP S/4HANA and SAP solutions for global tax management. It begins on April 30 and enrollment is now open. By enrolling in this course, tax professionals can gain valuable insights into industry best practices and leverage the latest SAP innovations to help optimize their tax processes.

In a time of rapid change, SAP supports businesses on their journey to tax compliance and growth. Through collaboration with SAP and a commitment to continuous learning, businesses can navigate the complexities of taxation with confidence and achieve their long-term objectives.

Erika Buson is part of Product Marketing for Global Tax Management and Entity Close at SAP.

Publication of SAP SE, Walldorf,
pursuant to Sec. 62 para. 3 sent. 2 half sent. 1 UmwG

– Information about upcoming merger –

1. It is intended to merge Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (local court of München, HRB 124384) as transferring company in the course of a simplified group merger into SAP SE as acquiring company. Therefore, the assets of Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung in its entirety together with all rights and obligations are transferred to SAP SE with effectiveness as of 1 January 2024, 0:00 a.m. (“effective merger date”). From the effective merger date to the date of the expiry of Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung pursuant to Sec. 20 para. 1 No.2 UmwG
   all acts and businesses undertaken by Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung shall be deemed to have been undertaken for the account of SAP SE.

   SAP SE is the sole shareholder of Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung. A merger resolution of the acquiring company SAP SE is not necessary pursuant to Sec. 62 para. 1 sent. 1 UmwG. A resolution of the general meeting of Shareholders of SAP SE on the approval of the merger agreement is also not required because SAP SE as the acquiring company holds the share capital of Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung in full. Since SAP SE holds all shares in Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, the preparation of a merger report, a merger audit and an audit report is not required pursuant to Secs. 8 para. 3 sent. 3 no. 1 a), 9 para. 2, 12 para. 3, 60 UmwG.

2. The stakeholders of SAP SE with a combined holding of one-twentieth of the share capital of the company are herewith advised of their right to request the convention of a general meeting to decide on the approval of the merger (Sec. 62 para. 2 sent. 1, para. 3 sent. 3 UmwG).
3. A resolution of the shareholder’s meeting of Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung on the approval of the merger agreement is not required pursuant to section 62 para. 4 sent. 1 UmwG because SAP SE is the sole shareholder of Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung.
4. As of the date of this announcement, the following documents can be assessed by the links below:
   1. The draft merger agreement between SAP SE and Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung.
   2. The annual financial statements and, where required, the annual reports of the companies who are parties to the merger for the fiscal years 2021, 2022, 2023:

      2021 SAP SE Statutory Financial Statements and Review of Operations (HGB)
      2022 SAP SE Statutory Financial Statements and Review of Operations (HGB)
      2023 SAP SE Statutory Financial Statements and Review of Operations (HGB)
      2021 Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung Financial Statements
      2022 Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung Financial Statements
      2023 Hybris Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung Financial Statements

SAP SE, April 26, 2024

The Board of Directors

Today we’re introducing a new customer onboarding experience and quality check enhancements in RISE with SAP Methodology. After April 1, 2024, all customers subscribing to RISE with SAP for the first time will go through this improved experience at no additional cost.

RISE with SAP is a managed cloud offering that can enable customers to unlock continued innovation and transformation by modernizing their business-critical systems and processes in a highly collaborative and measurable way. This offering includes the newly announced RISE with SAP Migration and Modernization program that helps bring renewed focus on the cloud transformation journey by enabling smooth, secure migration of on-premise SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) and SAP S/4HANA customers to the cloud. The key pillars of the program are the RISE with SAP Methodology, transformation incentives, and the innovation road map. The program features offerings tailored to each customer’s unique starting point. Its components are differentiated for SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA customers and can run with a clean core approach, taking advantage of the latest innovations in RISE with SAP.  

The cornerstone of the program is the RISE with SAP Methodology. The methodology captures the best practices of successful implementations from thousands of RISE with SAP customers over three years and is designed to provide a consistent approach – from planning to go-live to ongoing operations and evolution – that can meet customers’ business transformation goals. Whether through SAP or partner-led engagements, customers can get a clear path with specific implementation stages and success KPIs to be able to take advantage of speed, agility, and all the benefits of the cloud.

Today we’re adding enhancements to the RISE with SAP Methodology, including a new onboarding experience and quality checks throughout the project implementation phases. All new RISE with SAP customers will go through this onboarding experience at no additional cost. The new experience provides guided enablement by SAP-assigned onboarding advisors and related tools and services to help customers implement their cloud ERP solutions with clarity and confidence. The onboarding advisors can guide customers through the overall process aligned with the RISE with SAP Methodology and prepare them to get started with their implementation. The new experience also helps simplify best practice implementation of the clean core, helping to make it a more central, actionable, and measurable standard of all implementations. This helps ensure all RISE with SAP customers can benefit from business agility, faster innovation cycles, and improved value realization. 

The new improvements to the RISE with SAP Methodology include:

• Expert onboarding guidance through embedded launch activities: A dedicated SAP advisor can deliver 1:1 enablement sessions to help educate customers on the RISE with SAP Methodology, clean core strategy, and related tools for implementation. Also, there are role-based, recorded enablement sessions covering business process best practices, solution architectures, and other strategic topics leading up to the go-live milestone. Check out this blog on embedded launch activities to get a full view on what enablement resources are delivered through this new onboarding experience with RISE with SAP. 
• Clean core-focused success plan, runbook, and quality checks: We’ve developed a clean core success plan with clear milestones and KPIs. The clean core success plan is now added to the SAP Activate road map viewer, where customers – with the support of SAP advisors and partners – can review the recommended actions in uniquely created road maps, aligning their needs with best practices to help continually unlock business value faster. We’re also adding new quality gate checks to validate that the actual implementation is in line with recommended clean core best practices before customers proceed to the next project phase. The outcome of the quality gate is the SAP clean core report with feedback and recommendations on how to implement the clean core strategy. These recommendations are recorded and tracked via the updated runbook in the SAP Cloud ALM solution. To learn more, read a blog post on this topic. 

We’ll continue to deliver more tools, templates, training, and oversight to help make it easier for customers to execute an optimal migration or transition to the cloud and achieve their business objectives. Coming later this year is the RISE with SAP system transition workbench. This tool will help the technical implementation of migrating to cloud ERP by providing digital access to SAP-approved best practices and guidance for migrations, automation of tasks, health, and system checks. Stay tuned as we get ready to share more on this in the coming weeks.   

To learn more, join us for our upcoming webinar on May 23, where we will go deeper into this new onboarding experience in the RISE with SAP Methodology. Register here.

Panda Priyadarsana is SVP and GM of Customer Services & Delivery and head of Cloud ERP at SAP.

Photo courtesy of SAP employee Juelma Guerreiro.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of life sciences and healthcare, a new breed of heroes has emerged – visionaries that are revolutionizing the industries through innovative SAP technology. From the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) for drug discovery to building an intuitive mobile app to help Parkinson’s disease patients track symptoms, technology plays a pivotal role in creating a healthier world.

With the integration of cutting-edge technologies, organizations can leverage data-driven insights to make informed decisions, accelerate time-to-market for new treatments, and ultimately improve patient care. Life sciences and healthcare companies are at the forefront of innovation and competitive advantage by embracing changing industry trends and harnessing technology’s power.

The SAP Industry Heroes program was launched in 2023 to celebrate companies that leverage technology to transform their business in innovative ways. Healthcare and life sciences heroes have harnessed the power of technology to transform the traditional patient paradigm into an adaptive, customer-centric frontier.

Astellas

Astellas Pharma Inc. is a leading pharmaceutical company dedicated to advancing healthcare through innovative therapies and cutting-edge research. Focusing on addressing unmet medical needs, Astellas develops and markets a wide range of healthcare solutions across various therapeutic areas, striving to improve the health and well-being of patients globally. With RISE with SAP and SAP SuccessFactors solutions, Astellas is building an internal environment that will leverage globally integrated data to unlock the organization’s full potential.

DXC Technology

DXC Technology is a global IT services and solutions company known for its expertise in digital transformation, enterprise applications, cloud computing, and cybersecurity. With a focus on enabling clients to thrive in the digital era, DXC offers a wide range of technology and advisory services tailored to meet the diverse needs of businesses across industries. A mobile app built on the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) and SAP Business AI is enabling individuals with Parkinson’s disease to keep clinicians informed about their symptoms, accompanied by a clinician dashboard – and generative AI query extensions are also in development. The innovative solution aims to improve the quality of life for these patients and their caregivers and marks a huge step forward in using AI to support clinical decisions.

Gilead Sciences

Gilead Sciences, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company that has pursued and achieved breakthroughs in medicine for more than three decades, with the goal of creating a healthier world for all people. The company is committed to advancing innovative medicines to prevent and treat life-threatening diseases, including HIV, viral hepatitis, COVID-19, and cancer. Gilead operates in more than 35 countries worldwide, with headquarters in Foster City, California.

Gilead’s digital transformation journey includes a bold migration to SAP S/4HANA with segmentation and SAP Ariba and continues to expand its reach with SAP BTP and cutting-edge solutions such as SAP Intelligent Clinical Supply Management, SAP Cell and Gene Therapy Orchestration, and SAP Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences.

Most notably, Gilead and SAP are co-innovating on SAP Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences. This groundbreaking add-on will support continued compliance with regulatory standards across regions and jurisdictions with emphasis on highest quality and safety standards for Gilead’s products, further safeguarding patient wellbeing across the globe. Integrating SAP Ariba solutions, including SAP Business Network, Gilead aims to create a globally interconnected platform, enhancing collaboration between suppliers and buyers while optimizing its global procurement operations.

Additionally, SAP and Gilead are collaborating on co-innovating jurisdiction control checks using SAP Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences. The add-on will perform control checks on manufactured batches of pharmaceutical products, helping life science organizations to maintain compliance with regulatory standards across multiple regions and jurisdictions. This safeguard checklist will further support the quality and safety of products.

SAP celebrates these organizations’ outstanding efforts, collaboration, and dedication to driving successful business outcomes with technology. The innovations streamline research processes, enhance efficiency, and improve patient care, ultimately revolutionizing how healthcare and life sciences companies operate.

SAP Innovation Days for Life Sciences & Healthcare are taking place in Palo Alto, California, from April 24- 25, 2024, and Newton Square, Pennsylvania, from April 29-30, 2024, celebrating industry heroes and bringing attendees together to discuss leveraging technology to drive business outcomes. Get more information on the events here.

One of the perks of my job is that I get to spend a considerable amount of time with our industry partners. Whether I’m talking with a startup software company or an established global service partner, two words — two letters actually — are the hot topic of almost every engagement lately: artificial intelligence, specifically business AI.

As we navigate this brave new world of business AI, SAP partners are playing an essential role as equal parts technology disrupters, trusted advisors, and innovation multipliers. They work and live at the edge, breaking technology rules with every new solution and innovation they bring to the table. These companies are passionate about their AI-driven solutions, which will provide what SAP manufacturing customers want most for their businesses nowadays: more efficiency, accuracy, and agility in their production operations and supply chains. Their energy and passion are positioning them to redefine the rules of engagement regarding how partner ecosystems work.

It doesn’t matter what kind of partner you are — you could be on the build, implement/service, or sell sides of the SAP partner ecosystem, the opportunities to innovate, and co-innovate with SAP and other partners, solutions that bring value to customers in discrete manufacturing industries are as limitless as our imaginations. It’s an exciting time to be an SAP industry partner.

Innovative Solutions from SAP and Partners Give Our Manufacturing Customers a Competitive Edge

Giving our manufacturing customers the business AI solutions they need to thrive in highly competitive and often volatile markets is an absolute must. Whether those solutions are developed by an SAP partner, SAP itself, or collaboratively is secondary.

This new drive to co-innovate on our customers’ behalf is creating opportunities for partners to develop and deliver industry innovations in three areas of discrete manufacturing:

1. Solutions that enable efficient, accurate, and agile manufacturing and supply chains by integrating processes, removing data silos, and seamlessly connecting manufacturing and supply chain applications with the whole of the business.
2. Solutions that improve decision-making by using AI to analyze data from internal and external sources in context and produce insights that increase manufacturing operations’ resilience and help customers strike the right balance among cost, sustainability, and customer satisfaction.
3. Solutions that promote collaboration within a business ecosystem. Many of the company executives I’ve spoken with recently wanted to talk about Manufacturing-X, the growing cross-industry initiative in which companies across various manufacturing value chains come together within a global business ecosystem to define a standard that enables them to share production and supply chain data across platforms and technology to further increase resilience, sustainability, and competitiveness.

We are bringing this customer-focused, partner-driven approach to life this week at Hannover Messe, bringing center stage the latest, most compelling innovations to emerge from SAP and our partner ecosystem, across both discrete and process manufacturing — many embedded with business AI.

Some of the showcases that have been developed collaboratively in action include:

• Modular manufacturing that orchestrates production cells with a hard independent fleet manager
• High-speed bottling that captures traceability data and in-line quality assurance
• A centralized operations control center that manages an offsite process production line
• AI-enhanced visual inspection and guided instructions during component assembly
• A quick guided journey through an Industrial Metaverse, showing how assets inside a power plant can be intelligently and remotely managed

SAP partners are playing an integral part in our presence at Hannover Messe, just as they are in our overarching industry vision. Partners including Accenture, Camelot ITLab, Cideon Software & Services, FORCAM, Kinexon, Systema, and TeamViewer are all exhibiting their solutions alongside their SAP counterparts, demonstrating the true power of partnership and innovation at every turn.

By leveraging resources like the new SAP AI Launchpad and generative AI hub, our partners will introduce industry innovations that will add immediate value for customers in the discrete and process manufacturing space. Hence, they have the intelligent digital tools they need to be future-ready.

Kinexon’s OS extension to the SAP Digital Manufacturing solution is one example. Kinexon OS orchestrates the shop floor and automates previously manual processes, improving production speed, quality, and asset utilization. It is providing customers with an essential pathway to modular production and autonomous manufacturing.

For those of you at the event, stop by the SAP space and experience innovation and partnership in perfect harmony firsthand. An electric injection molding machine developed by Fanuc with support from partner Syntax will be cranking out made-to-order drinking vessels.

Come enjoy a cup of inspiration on us. It’s a small but meaningful taste of what’s possible for partners in our collaborative, customer-focused, and business AI-driven cloud ecosystem.

Sven Denecken is senior vice president and chief marketing and solutions officer for Industries & CX at SAP.