BUSINESS NEWS 9 - The World Management

02 May

SAP Named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Carbon Accounting and Management Applications 2026 Vendor Assessment

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SAP is proud to be recognized as a Leader for the second time in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Carbon Accounting and Management Applications 2026 Vendor Assessment (doc #US54117126, April 2026). The report noted, “SAP’s ERP‑embedded approach unifies financial, operational, and sustainability data into a single, trusted foundation.”

The IDC MarketScape evaluated 17 application and software vendors delivering carbon accounting and management solutions. The IDC MarketScape examined how well they support credible emissions measurement, strong data governance, corporate-, product-, and supplier-level visibility, and standards-based reporting.

SAP is ideal for organizations seeking to run sustainability as a core business discipline by embedding carbon and broader sustainability management directly into ERP processes. This approach helps reduce the inefficiencies, risks, and inconsistencies created by fragmented, stand‑alone tools while enabling AI‑driven insights grounded in governed, transactional data.

We believe this recognition reflects SAP’s commitment to helping organizations act on carbon data across the enterprise. SAP Sustainability solutions support scalable carbon emissions calculation, regulatory reporting, supplier collaboration, and decarbonization planning while embedding emissions insights directly into business processes, investment decisions, and day-to-day operations.

IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of technology and suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each supplier’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures supplier product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term. The Strategy score measures alignment of supplier strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5- year timeframe. Supplier market share is represented by the size of the icons.

The importance of robust carbon management

Sustainability is an enterprise-wide responsibility and a strategic opportunity. Organizations must reliably measure, allocate, and act on carbon to manage risk, lower costs, and improve performance.

Regulatory requirements demand a shift from estimates to actuals. Assurance expectations continue to rise as evolving legislation penalizes the use of estimates, turning data gaps into direct financial exposure. Sustainability disclosures now require finance-grade evidence trails that spreadsheets cannot provide. With carbon increasingly impacting margins, cash, and liabilities, finance teams must find a way to forecast exposure and govern risk.

At the same time, leadership teams need a single, quantified view of carbon impact to understand implications, align priorities, and enable confident, informed decision-making.

This shift is already materializing through carbon pricing mechanisms. The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), now in its definitive phase, places a carbon price on certain imports based on their embedded emissions. It aims to promote fair competition and more sustainable global trade practices. Declaring companies can report using supplier actuals or EU default values. However, relying on EU default values can increase costs over time, creating a clear incentive to move to actual data to reduce exposure and protect market access.

As regulators set clearer expectations and assign a direct price to carbon, emissions now carry measurable financial risk. Companies must extend financial rigor into emissions quantification, applying the same discipline, controls, and assurance used in financial reporting.

SAP extends financial rigor to carbon

Unlike point solutions built solely to calculate carbon emissions, the SAP Green Ledger solution can serve as the accounting layer for carbon. It applies the financial principles of double-entry accounting to carbon emissions, helping to bring structure, controls, and traceability to carbon data. Natively integrated with cloud ERP finance through SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), it enables companies to import, post, allocate, and analyze carbon emissions with the same rigor and discipline that finance applies to monetary accounting.

For ERP‑centric organizations, SAP Green Ledger can preserve and extend financial rigor into this regulated, non‑financial domain. It helps strengthen data integrity and auditability, support assurance-ready reporting, and create a consistent foundation for carbon data across the enterprise.

As a result, organizations can reduce compliance costs and regulatory risk, embed sustainability directly into cost centers and financial processes, and gain clearer insights to support better business decisions. Native integration makes the approach both trustworthy and scalable, allowing carbon to be governed, managed, and acted on as a core component of enterprise performance.

A future-ready carbon ecosystem

Robust businesses govern finance through strong controls, reconciliations, and audit trails, typically grounded in ERP systems. Until recently, carbon emissions existed outside this system, treated as a sustainability metric rather than a governed business variable. Bridging this gap requires an ecosystem that connects carbon calculation, data exchange, and accounting—anchored in finance. According to IDC, “The three-tier approach of better applications, richer data, and smarter AI enables companies to not only ‘record’ and ‘report’ their sustainability efforts but also take informed, data-driven actions.”

SAP supports this through a modular, ERP-native approach that adapts to different levels of maturity. Organizations can begin by calculating reliable corporate and product footprints using primary data wherever available, then bring those emissions into finance to post, allocate, and govern carbon with the same controls applied to monetary values.

As requirements grow, the ecosystem extends to supplier data exchange, consolidation across entities, advanced analytics, and scenario modeling—allowing companies to connect carbon with cost, performance, and planning. Sustainability reporting and disclosure are supported on top of this foundation, using governed, auditable data already embedded in enterprise systems.

SAP uses AI across the carbon lifecycle to help map and enrich emissions factors, streamline ESG report preparation, and analyze carbon data at scale—supporting stronger controls, faster reporting, and more informed financial decision‑making.

This is a defining moment for businesses as they take the critical step of integrating carbon management into finance. SAP remains committed to providing an ERP-integrated carbon ledger that empowers companies to comply with evolving regulations, govern performance with rigor, and make decisions that drive sustainable, long-term growth.

Learn more about carbon accounting at SAP.

Stephen Jamieson is chief marketing officer of SAP Sustainability.

02 May

BUSINESS NEWS

Agentic AI Will Change the Market

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It won’t be long before AI agents will write code and transform legacy applications for use in the SAP cloud. Sonja Liénard, head of ABAP platform at SAP, talks about the future of SAP’s iconic ABAP programming language and ABAP platform.

Liénard is an information scientist and business informatics professional who joined SAP in 2012. As senior vice president and head of ABAP platform at SAP, she is responsible for ABAP and all matters related to ABAP platform. In this role, she is also the head of ABAP AI and thus globally responsible for the latest developments and innovations in this domain.

In this interview, she discusses ABAP, the role of AI in development, how agentic AI will transform legacy applications, and what’s next.

Q: What is ABAP, exactly? How would you explain it to someone who might have heard of it but doesn’t really know what it is? And why is ABAP so important for enterprise software?

A: ABAP has a very long history at SAP. It is the company’s first and only proprietary programming language and turned 40 in 2023—an unusually long run in the fast-changing world of software.

What sets ABAP apart from other programming languages such as Java or C++ is that it was specifically designed for building and optimizing the business applications that large enterprises rely on every day. Among its many features is a high level of abstraction, which makes it very easy for developers to write or extend business software. It also reduces complexity because security concepts, authorization checks, and quality controls are already embedded in the language. This allows developers to focus entirely on the business logic—that is, on the tasks they want the program to perform.

Over the years, ABAP has evolved to keep pace with how companies deploy software. The newest version is ABAP Cloud, which has a restricted language scope and is designed to support development in what SAP calls a “clean core.” This is essential for running our cloud products. Enterprises still operating in a non-cloud environment can use ABAP Cloud to prepare the code in their on-premise systems or in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition in such a way that it can also be run in the cloud.

Beyond its role as a programming language, ABAP is also a platform. ABAP platform is the foundation that underpins all of SAP’s core solutions, from older installations such as SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) to on-premise solutions, SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

Q: Will ABAP continue to play a crucial role for SAP customers?

A: Yes, both in terms of the programming language and the platform ABAP is still highly relevant. The programming language looks very different to the way it did 40 years ago of course—because we have continuously refined it over the years—but it still forms the backbone of SAP’s core ERP solutions and extensions. There are roughly five million registered ABAP developers worldwide today, with around two million actively developing.

Through ABAP Cloud and our dedicated ABAP AI team, ABAP has evolved into a modern development language for business solutions. I don’t know of any other programming language that covers this scope. It is used globally. Almost all the world’s 100 largest companies are SAP S/4HANA customers, and underneath it always runs ABAP platform.

Q: How will AI shape ABAP development going forward?

A: For me as head of ABAP platform, this is one of the questions that intrigues me most. AI has completely disrupted the technology market. This of course also impacts the SAP developer portfolio and how we customize and extend our solutions. We have therefore invested in AI-powered efficiency tools, such as a chat assistant that explains code on the fly. Another is “ghost texting,” a feature that generates code suggestions while the developer types.

In the coming years, AI agents will be able to generate code—including at the scale demanded of large enterprises—and even build entire solutions. We believe that the next wave of AI will not just assist programmers but take on many of the routine tasks they perform today.

A crucial question for SAP is: how can we leverage AI to translate legacy code into modern code without losing the underlying business logic that makes each system unique? A lot of our customers are still operating older solutions, including those based on SAP ECC. So, we need to provide a clear migration strategy and the right tools to simplify and accelerate their move to the cloud.

That’s why we’re currently developing a service that will work for everyone—regardless of which system version they run. The aim is to bundle all of SAP’s ABAP AI capabilities into a single offering that can boost developer efficiency and allow custom code to be migrated. Ideally, this service will be agent-driven—as “agentic AI.”

Q: What is agentic AI?

A: Agentic AI works with so-called “agents.” Agents have specialized capabilities, can communicate with each other, exchange results, and thus solve highly complex tasks together. How they collaborate varies based on the complexity of the use case.

Most approaches involve an “orchestrator,” a lead agent that manages other agents to complete a particular task. The orchestrator does not have to call on the individual agents in a fixed order—rather, its greatest strength lies in intelligently combining the agents in dynamic, adaptive networks.

So, it’s no longer just about making human developers more efficient. When agents are powerful enough, they can build entire applications and thus take on part of the developer’s tasks. In our case, agentic AI can support the very complex task of transforming code, accelerating it significantly and reducing complexity.

This approach relies on different agents that focus on different aspects of the task: for instance, one agent specializes in explaining custom code; another makes code changes; and a third estimates the effort of a transformation project. When these agents collaborate, that’s when the real magic of agentic AI happens.

AI will radically change the role of developers. Despite continuing to set the direction, they will increasingly focus on business logic rather than on the coding itself. They will work with the code generated by AI systems, checking that it is correct, secure, and aligned with the problem they’re trying to solve. Thought leadership, however, will remain firmly with people. Developers will continue to decide what matters and communicate their instructions to AI through good prompts. The entire AI domain is extremely dynamic and evolving at astounding speed. Powerful solutions are already available today, so this isn’t a distant vision—it’s already upon us.

Q: How do customers benefit from agentic AI?

A: Agentic AI will deliver significant value in transforming legacy applications and custom extensions into cloud solutions from SAP, and thus the latest ERP versions. In February 2026, we extended our existing custom code management app with AI features that help developers understand what the code is doing and what changes are needed to future-proof it. And, of course, AI also provides recommendations on how the code can be extended. In the future, we will complement all this with agents. However, this will take some time, as we refuse to compromise on quality and security.

We are also investing in the developer experience with ABAP platform to make it as easy to use as possible. Here, agentic AI will help reduce the complexity that has built up over decades of development.

Q: Should we be worried about security?

A: No, we deliberately allow sufficient time before any release to make sure that quality and, above all, security meet a high bar. Don’t worry: AI won’t take control and generate or integrate solutions unilaterally or unchecked. Humans will remain in charge every step of the way and will always have the last word when it comes to ensuring that code complies with our standards.

Q: Where are we now and what’s next?

A: ABAP AI tools aimed at boosting developer productivity have been available since February 2025, and we are now building agentic AI in the ABAP context. However, it’s early days and agentic AI still must prove itself in practice. As I see it, though, it will transform the market.

As part of our road map, we released SAP-ABAP-1, a custom-trained, specialized AI model, on the generative AI hub in early January 2026. This model is specifically designed to explain ABAP program code.

Next, we plan to make all ABAP AI tools available as an independent side-by-side service. In a subsequent phase, we will transition the use cases embedded in those tools to agents.

In addition, we are expanding our cloud-based ABAP development into additional development environments (IDEs), especially ABAP development tools for Visual Studio Code. So, the team will also tap into the AI tools available there as part of our push toward agent-driven development.

This first appeared on the German SAP News Center.

30 April

BUSINESS NEWS

Five Make-or-Break Moments for Your AI Ambitions in 2026

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Let me start with a simple experiment: Ask a generative AI tool to count the words in a document. It will likely be off by 10%.

In a blog post, that’s tolerable. In a financial disclosure, a regulatory filing, or a supply chain commitment, it is simply unacceptable.

Generative AI is statistical. Answers to enterprise level problems are a lot more deterministic. The distance between 90% and 100% accuracy is not incremental. In our world, it is existential.

In 2026, AI is no longer evaluated on novelty. It is evaluated on precision, governance, scalability, and business impact. As organizations move from pilots to scaled programs, five moments will define whether they capture lasting value or expose themselves to avoidable risk. I have seen these moments play out across every major market I oversee.

1. The governance moment: when agents become digital coworkers

The first moment arrives when AI stops being a tool and starts being an actor.

Agentic AI systems plan, reason, orchestrate with other agents, and execute workflows autonomously. They touch sensitive data and influence decisions at scale. If you are not already governing them as you govern your human workforce, you are exposing your organization to risk.

Agent sprawl will mirror the shadow IT crises of the past decade, but the stakes are categorically higher. Enterprises must establish agent lifecycle management, clear autonomy boundaries, policy enforcement, and continuous performance monitoring. Every board needs to answer three questions: Who is accountable when an agent makes the wrong call? How are decisions audited? When does the machine escalate to a human?

Geopolitical fragmentation compounds this urgency. Sovereign cloud, sovereign AI, and data localization are no longer theoretical concerns. They are regulatory realities in markets from New York to Frankfurt to Riyadh to Singapore. Governance in the age of AI is less about controlling risk at the edge and more about embedding deterministic control into probabilistic intelligence. That is a C-suite mandate, not an IT project.

2. The data foundation moment: when the last mile is the only mile that matters

The second moment is quieter, but it is where most enterprises will ultimately win or lose.

AI is only as reliable as the data and processes it operates on. Fragmented master data, siloed systems, and over-customized ERP landscapes introduce unpredictability at the worst possible moment: when AI provides a recommendation that affects your customers, your cash flow, or your compliance position.

Enterprise AI value will not come from generic large language models trained on internet-scale text. It will come from intelligence grounded in your enterprise data—orders, invoices, supply chain records, financial postings—embedded directly in your processes. Relational foundation models optimized for structured business data will outperform generic LLMs in forecasting, anomaly detection, and operational optimization.

The question every board should be asking is not only “What AI can we add?”, but also, “Is our data estate ready, or are we layering probabilistic intelligence onto fragmented foundations?”

3. The employee interaction moment: when the interface disappears

The third moment happens in your employees’ daily workflows, and it will accelerate faster than most organizations expect.

In 2026, we are moving from static application interfaces to generative user interfaces. Instead of navigating between systems, employees express intent: “Prepare a briefing for my highest-revenue customer visit this week.” AI agents orchestrate the workflows, assemble the context, and surface recommended actions.

But adoption is not automatic, and trust is not given. Employees will embrace AI teammates only when they are confident that outputs respect governance boundaries, reflect real business rules, and deliver measurable gains. Role-specific AI personas tailored for the CFO, the CHRO, the head of supply chain, built on trusted data and embedded in familiar workflows, are what will close the adoption gap.

Organizations that invest in AI-native architecture will accelerate ROI. Those that bolt AI onto legacy interfaces will struggle with trust, usability, and scale. This is a design decision with strategic consequences.

4. The customer moment: when intelligence becomes a competitive moat

AI proves its enterprise value most visibly at the customer edge.

Trained on your own data, your own policies, and your own interaction history, customer-specific intelligence compounds in ways that competitors cannot easily replicate. This is especially powerful in exception-heavy environments: dispute resolution, claims handling, returns management, service routing. AI that can classify cases, surface relevant documentation, recommend policy-aligned resolutions, and learn continuously from outcomes transforms these high-cost, high-friction processes into sources of competitive differentiation.

In 2026, your customers will not reward novelty. They will reward reliability, relevance, and responsiveness. Organizations that use AI to absorb complexity, without losing control over outcomes, will build moats that generalist tools cannot breach.

5. The strategy moment: when you decide how far to go

The final moment is the one that falls squarely on leaders.

AI adoption is not a single journey. It requires leaders to orchestrate three layers in parallel:

Embedded AI: Persona-driven productivity gains built into core applications for immediate returns
Agentic AI: Multi-agent orchestration of complex, cross-system workflows
Industry AI: Deeply specialized applications co-developed to address the highest-value challenges specific to your sector

The trap is false sequencing: focusing only on embedded AI leaves value on the table and jumping to deep industry transformation without governance and data maturity multiplies risk. The organizations that will lead are those that align ambition with readiness and invest in clean core architecture, modern data foundations, and cross-functional AI ownership, while moving decisively from pilots to programs.

The leadership test

In 2026, the winners will not be those with the most AI features. They will be those who treat AI as a core operating layer, governed like a workforce, grounded in trusted data, tailored to employees and customers, and calibrated to the realities of their industry.

The gap between 90% and 100% is precisely where enterprise value lives. It is also where leadership is tested. The decisions you make in the coming months will determine whether AI becomes your most powerful source of durable advantage or your most expensive lesson in misplaced confidence.

This is the moment to move with precision.

Manos Raptopoulos is global president of Customer Success Europe, APAC, Middle East & Africa, and a member of the Extended Board SAP SE.

30 April

BUSINESS NEWS

With AI, Fast-Growing Companies Could Compete on Innovation, Not Size

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For 50 years, if you weren’t a billion-dollar company, you could not afford to run your business with the same precision, depth, and intelligence as the world’s best.

The software itself wasn’t the barrier; the operational weight around it was: dedicated data centers, expensive hardware, annual upgrade cycles that consumed months of IT resources, and the specialist teams to keep it all alive.

SAP Business AI and SAP Cloud ERP have completely changed the economics of enterprise software. The heavy infrastructure disappeared into a subscription. A 200-person company can now run its core business processes as efficiently as a global enterprise, on a predictable monthly cost, without an army of IT staff.

AI accelerates this further. What took months of configuration and specialist knowledge can now be activated through natural language and intelligent automation. The deep industry expertise SAP spent 50 years encoding into its software is now accessible to businesses of all sizes.

“John Boos is a 137-year-old company, with 137 years of tech debt,” said Britt East, CIO at John Boos & Co. “To make matters more complex, we are growing incredibly fast. Every quarter is a record quarter! SAP Cloud ERP will be the backbone of our business in perpetuity, giving us a standard and scalable foundation to support growth while also unleashing our workforce with real AI use cases that make their lives a lot easier and the company as a whole more successful.”

The real value of SAP Business AI is that a midsize manufacturer in Stuttgart or a growing logistics company in Dallas could access intelligent business operations at speed and price point they can afford.

Won’t AI then replace software altogether?

Think of it this way: GPS system is genuinely intelligent. It calculates optimal routes, adapts to real-time traffic, and reroutes dynamically. But it is only as good as what backs it—the data underneath it, like accurate roads, turn restrictions, and governance for local speed limits, timeframes for live incident feeds and so on. Without the structured, maintained, trusted data layer, the intelligence has nothing to work with—it would confidently lead you off a cliff.

Software is not being replaced by AI. Software is becoming AI’s superpower.

With deep process and industry knowledge, semantically rich business data and enterprise-grade governance built in, AI gets what it lacks on its own to deliver reliable, battle-proven, trustworthy, repeatable, and auditable results—every time. Agents are probabilistic. They predict, they infer, they move fast, and that is powerful. But it means that the more AI agents you deploy, the more valuable your underlying software systems become.

And the cost? Running a stack of AI tools adds up to significant infrastructure investment, fast. However, serious software companies, including SAP, have already embedded their AI directly into their platforms, and they often co-develop with leading AI providers, so you are not choosing between AI and SAP. You’re choosing SAP with AI already inside it.

“Many companies used to delay decisions because ERP felt too complex,” shared Tobias Siebler, CEO of FULCRUM Consulting Germany. “That has changed. With SAP Cloud ERP, you can start small, get live quickly, and still have a setup that grows with the business, including the current and new AI capabilities as they become available.”

The new stack: What this actually looks like

Imagine a shipping company that processes 10,000 orders a day. Traditionally, humans monitored exceptions, chased suppliers, and rerouted freight when things went wrong. Today, AI agents can scan the full order pipeline in real time, flag anomalies, draft supplier communications, and propose rerouting options—all within the governed environment of SAP’s supply chain data. Humans are irreplaceable in making the final call, but the agents do the legwork.

With Joule, work starts with what needs to be accomplished, not which system to open. Teams move from intent to execution in real time. Decisions are shaped by data, operational capacity, financial constraints, and customer demand. AI agents handle coordination across workflows. People make the calls that matter. The whole process runs on the unmatched human ability to make decisions based on multifaceted considerations, supported by auditable, structured data.

That is the model. AI can’t replace the system. AI operates inside the system, supervised by humans and connected to real business data, constrained by real business rules and governance, delivering real business outcomes.

AI needs rich, structured, semantically meaningful business data to perform. SAP has 50 years of exactly that.

For fast-growing companies: SAP GROW Fast

Markets shift. Expectations evolve. Technology accelerates change. Naturally, our customers demand quicker and better results. SAP GROW Fast services are designed to help customers go live with AI-ready SAP Cloud ERP with speed and predictability. The deployment of finance and spend core capabilities for SAP Cloud ERP, as well as other SAP solutions on the way, can be done in months, not quarters. And from there, the business can expand into the rest of SAP Business Suite fast, all activated with AI from day one.

Companies taking advantage of SAP GROW Fast are gaining compound advantages with a platform that becomes more capable with every AI advancement that SAP and its partners embed into it. The companies that are waiting? They will be implementing what the leaders deployed today—three years from now.

The human element is not going away, it’s going up the stack

As we disrupt everything we do and work with AI to achieve better, faster business outcomes, SAP partners become key change agents. All around the globe, SAP partners are being enabled to extract business value quickly for our customers with the AI-ready SAP GROW Fast services. This is a step-by-step change into a world of AI-first business value adoption and should be leveraged by all our partners.

“Many organizations still assume that SAP is designed exclusively for large enterprises,” explained David Bayón Esporrín, go-to-market director of the Global SAP Practice at INETUM. “In reality, that perception no longer reflects today’s market. With SAP Cloud ERP, and especially with SAP GROW Fast, companies of almost any size can optimize core business processes and harness the power of AI to accelerate growth in a simple and cost-effective way.” (See the full video interview.)

We are living through a platform shift, not unlike the one the internet created. The businesses that thrive will be the ones that move with intention, combining the intelligence of AI with the governed, structured, operationally rich foundation that enterprise software provides.

The great equalizer is here. The only question is: How fast do you want to use it to your advantage?

Santina Franchi is president of the Corporate Segment at SAP.
Guido Beuningen head of AI and Public Cloud for the Corporate Segment at SAP.

30 April

BUSINESS NEWS

TSG Hoffenheim and SAP Expand Co‑Innovation to Advance AI in Professional Football

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TSG Hoffenheim and SAP are deepening their longstanding collaboration to jointly explore and validate the next generation of intelligence‑driven football operations.

As one of the German Bundesliga’s most forward‑thinking organizations, TSG Hoffenheim is working closely with SAP in a co‑innovation setup to pioneer and test new AI capabilities within SAP Sports One. The focus is on assessing how AI can support football‑specific processes such as scouting and video analysis.

29 April

BUSINESS NEWS

Live AI Use Cases Show How SAP Delivers Trusted Orchestration and Smarter Execution for Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management

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A ginger shot, fresh off the line, was the first stop for many visitors at SAP’s booth at Hannover Messe. But the real takeaway was seeing AI in action. From mixing the ginger shot to packaging and warehouse delivery, visitors saw how SAP is turning AI ambition into real-world manufacturing execution, delivering end-to-end supply chain management processes, and building the resilience every manufacturer needs.

Held from April 20–24, Hannover Messe is the world’s leading industrial trade fair.

On day one, Christian Klein, CEO of SAP SE, stopped by the SAP booth before joining German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and other industrial leaders on the center stage to discuss the importance of moving from AI ambition to real-world execution.

And visitors to the SAP booth experienced that shift firsthand, following the production of the ginger shot.

Packaged in a neat blue box, the ginger shot was refreshing but that wasn’t the only takeaway. The real takeaway was how SAP’s new set of AI-powered manufacturing and supply chain innovations can deliver connected end-to-end supply chain business processes powered by AI.

Supply chain orchestration

From AI and data and then using SAP’s agentic AI, visitors saw what supply chain orchestration looks like in practice. SAP uses agentic AI, trusted data, and applications to help manufacturers sense, analyze, and act in real time.

At the booth, visitors saw human operators interact with an ANYbotics robot through Joule using natural language to run live, remote field service inspections; Uhlmann’s high-tech glass-fronted packing machine, PacXplorer, in action opposite the CNC machine from DMG MORI that was creating spare parts for the PacXplorer; and, at end of the production cycle, AIMBO’s robot handling the picking and packing of the ginger shot. Both AIMBO and ANYbotics are part of SAP’s growing network of physical AI partnerships.

In addition to many tours held in German and English, day one also saw tours in Japanese, Chinese, and Portuguese—Brazil was the partner country at Hannover Messe 2026.

Equipped with headphones to block out the noise of the crowds at the booth, visitors heard how SAP’s AI can deliver trusted orchestration and smarter execution for manufacturing and supply chain management.

Live AI use cases demonstrate functions and benefits

Operations and insights use case

Here, visitors experienced SAP’s vision of supply chain orchestration. In this vision, supply chain orchestration acts as the nerve center of the enterprise. It uses external alerts such as natural disasters, port congestions, or supplier routes to optimize enterprise logistics and planning using agents.

Benefits can include faster response times with AI-assisted monitoring and automated alerts; improved decision-making with data-driven, operational decisions powered by integrated business AI capabilities; and seamless integration with end-to-end connectivity from supply chain planning through to manufacturing execution and quality control.

Top AI functions

Production Planning and Operating Agent can assist with order release and real-time monitoring.
A physical AI robot inspects hazards, analyzes inspection data, and identifies root causes.
Supply optimization analysis helps summarize insights, analyze, and explain the time-series optimization planning run.

Smart production use case

DMG MORI demonstrated production at its CNC machine—as part of an end-to-end process—from engineering to planning to production.

As the white robotic arm of the CNC machine silently moved the pusher spare part after the milling process, visitors learned about the benefits of integration, from design to tool management, CNC programs to SAP Digital Manufacturing as part of a seamless, integrated process. The production operator dashboard offers the operator on the machine AI capabilities and insights to operational and maintenance information.

The process then continues through to logistics execution with SAP Logistics Management, which helps combine warehousing and transportation capabilities for smaller warehouses. This features an AI-powered logistics assistant that can cut through the noise, automatically gathering, summarizing, and prioritizing critical shipment information. It can also provide real-time shipping prices, bringing to life trusted orchestration and smarter execution.

Top AI functions

Joule with SAP Logistics Management uses natural language to help streamline warehouse and transportation operations.
Joule’s integrated AI agents can provide manufacturing information and support decision-making throughout the workflow.

Intelligent packaging use case

Uhlmann’s PacXplorer and SAP highlighted a fully integrated, high-speed packaging line from SAP S/4HANA, to SAP Digital Manufacturing, down to Uhlmann’s automation layer to produce the packaged ginger shot. The ginger shots were moved away from the line by a mobile autonomous robot from Symovo. This use case showed visitors how SAP supports regulated industries such as pharma and life sciences.

Highlighted benefits include increased operational speed with higher throughput thanks to decreased order processing time, built-in regulatory compliance, reduced manual intervention, inventory transparency, and data integrity across the entire production chain.

Top AI functions

Condition monitoring-led services can enhance asset uptime and service efficiency by combining AI-driven insights and seamless collaboration across the service ecosystem.
AI-empowered flow analysis enables quick process modeling and engineering optimization.
Intelligent exception handling is embedded in agent-driven processes.
Joule’s integrated AI agents can support decision-making throughout the workflow.
Joule can help power order and line insights.

Humanoid use case

At the final stop before getting their ginger shots, visitors watched an intelligent humanoid robot perform physical tasks at the end of the packaging line, bridging the gap between digital planning and physical execution, highlighting SAP’s Project Embodied AI.

Benefits of humanoids include increased operational speed with higher throughput due to a decreased order processing time; increased business uptime and cost efficiency especially in areas dangerous or difficult for humans; inventory transparency with real-time data integrity across the warehouse; and physical-digital alignment eliminating misalignment between planning and execution.

Top AI functions

Joule and Joule Studio can enable robots to understand the physical world, make autonomous decisions, and learn from their environment for smarter operations.

More than a quick refuel

At the end of their visit, visitors got so much more than a quick refuel to slake their thirst. Following the creation of the ginger shot from recipe development and planning to production with mixing, filling, and packing, visitors came away with a clear understanding of how SAP is connecting insight to execution with trusted orchestration and smarter execution. And, it is this trusted orchestration and smarter execution that is building the resilience every manufacturer needs in today’s world.

29 April

BUSINESS NEWS

The New SAP AppHaus Walldorf Opens Its Doors for Customers

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On April 16, 2026, SAP officially opened its newest creative space for customer co-creation, SAP AppHaus Walldorf.

After months of renovation and designing the new creative space together with architects and facility management, the new SAP AppHaus Walldorf opened its doors for SAP employees in the region. It is an important milestone towards an outstanding, integrated customer experience on the Walldorf campus. The opening started with a fireside chat with Álvaro Wiedling, head of Customer Engagement Services MEE; Andreas Wendel, head of SAP Innovation Experience Services; Dennis Kecskemeti, head of SAP Innovation Experience; and moderated by Kathrin Tarnai-Sindl, head of Customer Engagements for APAC, EMEA, and MEE.

Visitors such as Dirk Haeussermann, managing director SAP Germany, joined the event to get first impressions of the new space: “The new SAP AppHaus Walldorf is a very friendly and inviting collaboration space that is a perfect setup for our customers and partners to explore the newest innovations. It inspires them to move on into real, live solutions.”

The opening celebration

For the opening, the SAP AppHaus team decided to not cut a red ribbon, but tell a little story. After uncovering an old Chinese gong, Kecskemeti officially opened the new SAP AppHaus Walldorf with a loud and clear gong stroke. He explained that the gong was one of the signature pieces from the previous creative space in Heidelberg. There, it had a classic, traditional Chinese design and its sound was used during many workshops, meeting breaks, and events. When the team prepared the move from Heidelberg, it was immediately clear that the gong had to be taken to Walldorf. It went through its own small transformation, being redesigned and given a modern look to perfectly fit into the new space. When its deep sound was heard in the new SAP AppHaus Walldorf environment it was a worthy setting to start the new chapter in its new home.

From now on, the gong will be an integral part of SAP AppHaus Walldorf, where the team continues to run innovation workshops. Together with SAP customers and partners, it is all about framing the right business problems, turning insights into blueprints, and piloting ideas fast. This is especially relevant for AI solutions and the business opportunities brought about by agentic AI. Along the dedicated innovation toolkit for AI, the SAP AppHaus team supports customers of all industries to explore use cases and design them based on the latest SAP technologies. That way, SAP customers can learn, adapt, and scale with confidence.

The integrated Walldorf campus experience

Now at SAP headquarters, the new SAP AppHaus Walldorf offers customers a collaborative, hands-on space to explore SAP innovation. Together with the SAP Experience Center, the show floor, S-Factory, and S.Mart Store, SAP’s Walldorf campus takes customers on a truly holistic journey, from inspiration to real impact. It shows visitors not just what SAP can do, but offers them the opportunity to explore and design solutions with the latest SAP technologies, such as SAP Business AI, to use the innovation potential for their respective business. Along its human-centered innovation approach, the SAP AppHaus helps teams turn ideas into solutions and make innovation real, especially when it comes to AI- and agentic AI-infused use cases.

“Our new innovation service offerings represent a significant evolution in how we support our customers’ digital transformation. By combining the inspirational power of our SAP Experience Centers with the interactive, hands-on SAP AppHaus workshop formats, we’re able to guide customers at every stage of their transformation journey and create measurable value quickly,” Wieldling says. “What truly sets this approach apart is our commitment to involving business stakeholders and end users from day one. This helps ensure that the use cases we identify and solutions we design have genuine business relevance and real-world applicability—ultimately delivering outcomes that matter to our customers.”

The work with customers

At the heart of what the SAP AppHaus offers are three core services: innovation service, explore service, and design service. Depending on the customer’s needs, these can be extended, for example, with different workshop formats, such as for SAP Business AI, SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), or Joule. In a networked way, customers also get direct access to product experts who are involved where they add the most value.

New beginnings

“For many people, the SAP AppHaus Heidelberg was more than just a workplace or a workshop location. It felt like working in a startup environment to build and design new solutions together with customers and partners. So, there clearly is a nostalgic look back on shared memories,” Tarnai-Sindl says. “At the same time, the campus in Walldorf brings new energy and opportunities. You feel more strongly that you’re part of a bigger whole and have the chance to meet and connect with many colleagues and people more easily. It’s a move from a very familiar environment into a larger context, with a sense of new beginnings.”

The first comments on the guest wall in SAP AppHaus Walldorf seem to prove her right: “Cool new space!”, “Finally!”, and “How inspiring, open, and well designed.”

How is the SAP AppHaus set up to work with customers globally?

The SAP AppHaus Network plays an important scaling role on an international level. It consists of more than 20 SAP partners that work closely with the market units, have established their own SAP AppHaus locations, and are fully trained in the human-centered innovation methodology as well as latest workshop formats, such as the Joule Agent Discovery Workshop also offered in the specialized innovation toolkit for AI.  All members are empowered early on with the latest methods, tools, and knowledge, allowing them to act as agile front-runners and co-innovation experts. They support customers regardless of their digital maturity, guiding them to explore new use cases and unlock tangible business value for customers around the world along SAP’s human-centered approach to innovation.

In addition, SAP AppHaus and the SAP Partner organization jointly launched the SAP AppHaus Alliances initiative. It is specifically designed for large SAP Global Strategic Services partners that work with key customers worldwide and are empowered to use the SAP AppHaus AI workshop formats.

Imke Vierjahn is SAP AppHaus Network communications lead.

28 April

David Coulthard at Goodwood Members Meeting

BUSINESS NEWS

From Track to Tech: David Coulthard at SAP Sapphire 2026 in Orlando and Madrid

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SAP is excited to announce that former Formula 1 Driver and Grand Prix Winner David Coulthard will be a special guest together with Mika Häkkinen at SAP Sapphire 2026, appearing at both the Orlando and Madrid events. Visitors will have the opportunity to experience Coulthard and Häkkinen live at the Services and Support Center, where performance, precision, and innovation come together.

With a distinguished career in Formula One, Coulthard is known for his consistency, race intelligence, and deep understanding of high-performance environments. His presence at SAP Sapphire brings valuable perspectives on how precision, teamwork, and data-driven decision-making translate from the racetrack to the world of business.

Performance meets innovation

Throughout his career, Coulthard demonstrated the importance of preparation, adaptability, and collaboration—qualities that strongly resonate with SAP’s Services and Support organization. At the Services and Support Center, attendees can experience how these same principles help businesses navigate complexity, accelerate outcomes, and maintain peak performance.

Coulthard and Häkkinen will share insights from their time in Formula One, offering perspectives on competition at the highest level, the evolution of technology in racing, and the critical role of teamwork in achieving success.

Event highlights

Visitors to the Services and Support Center can look forward to several exclusive opportunities:

Experience Coulthard and Häkkinen live in the Formula One Racing Simulator at the Race of Legends.
- May 13 in Orlando at 1:00 p.m.
- May 20 in Madrid at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

Join theater sessions featuring voices from the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team.
- May 13 in Orlando with Michael Taylor at 11:30 a.m. (SER1257)
- May 20 in Madrid with Laura Goodrick at 11:00 a.m. (SER1342)
Take part in exclusive interviews with Coulthard and Häkkinen.
- May 13 in Orlando at 10:30 a.m. (SER2893)
- May 20 in Madrid at 2:00 p.m. (SER1553)

A unique experience with SAP Services and Support

The Services and Support Center at SAP Sapphire is designed as a hub for inspiration and interaction. With Coulthard and Häkkinen on-site, visitors can expect engaging sessions, real-world insights, and hands-on experiences that connect motorsport excellence with business innovation—brought to life by SAP’s Services and Support organization.

Join us in Orlando and Madrid

Whether attending SAP Sapphire Orlando or Madrid, this is a unique opportunity to experience two of Formula One’s most respected drivers up close—and to explore how SAP helps organizations achieve peak performance. Don’t miss the chance to meet Coulthard and Häkkinen at the Services and Support Center and discover how insights from the world of Formula One can inspire your business transformation journey.

Get our sessions into your personal agenda:

SAP Sapphire 2026 Orlando services and support sessions
SAP Sapphire 2026 Madrid services and support sessions

28 April

BUSINESS NEWS

How NEC Is Becoming an AI-Native Enterprise with SAP

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What does it take for a 125-year-old technology company to reinvent itself for the AI era? NEC is already taking that step, moving from continuous transformation to AI at scale.

Founded in 1899, NEC Corporation is one of Japan’s leading technology companies, operating globally across IT services, telecommunications, and digital infrastructure. Over the decades, the company has continuously adapted to new waves of technological change, but today’s shift is different. Artificial intelligence is not just another innovation cycle; it is redefining how organizations operate at their core.

For NEC, this means rethinking not only technology, but also how work gets done, how decisions are made, and how value is created.

In a recent conversation with Thomas Pfiester, head of Customer Engagement & Adoption and member of the Extended Board of SAP SE, NEC CIO Toshihiko Nakata shared how the company is approaching this challenge and why becoming an AI-native enterprise requires more than technology.

28 April

BUSINESS NEWS

From Policy Debate to Practice: BSI Vice President Thomas Caspers on C3A, Cloud Sovereignty, and SAP

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Since the signing of the cooperation agreement in 2024, SAP and the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) have been working together to translate secure digitalization into concrete solutions.

As a global player in the software and technology industry, SAP is a key enabler of digital sovereignty in Germany and across Europe. With the introduction of the BSI’s new C3A criteria and the growing importance of resilient cloud infrastructures, digital sovereignty is now entering a phase of practical implementation.

I spoke with Thomas Caspers, vice president of the BSI, about these developments and the role of the technology partnership with SAP.

Martin Merz and Thomas Caspers. Photo courtesy SAP — Martin Merz and Thomas Caspers; photo courtesy of SAP.

Q: Digital sovereignty is currently one of the central themes in German and European digital policy. Why is this topic gaining such strong momentum right now?

A: The debate is clearly driven by geopolitical factors. For us, the key issue is ensuring that Europe remains capable of taking action. That is precisely what digital sovereignty is about and, by the way, what cybersecurity in general is about as well: being prepared rather than reacting only when a crisis occurs.

The question is not limited to where data is stored. We take a systemic view of the overall picture: Will critical data centers remain operational? Is qualified personnel available? Are supply chains secured? Can services continue to be used even if the underlying conditions change suddenly? This ability to act is at the heart of the debate.

With the C3A, we are now consolidating the criteria that, from our perspective, enable the self-determined and secure use of cloud services, not only in public administration but far beyond that.

Q: With the C3A criteria catalogue, the BSI is now making its requirements for autonomous and self‑determined cloud usage public. What is new or distinctive about this?

A: Much of this is not fundamentally new for cooperation partners such as SAP, with whom we have worked closely for many years. We have been applying these criteria in practice for a long time and continuously refining them as technology evolves. What is new is that we have now systematically documented them and made them publicly available as a guiding framework.

The C3A do not have direct regulatory effect, but for the first time they create a high level of transparency for the market. It becomes clear which requirements cloud providers must meet if cloud customers or public authorities want to use cloud services in a self‑determined and secure manner. These requirements include technical, operational, and now also legal criteria. This comprehensive, systematic perspective is what is new and particularly important.

Q: What role does cooperation with technology providers such as SAP play when translating these requirements into concrete architectures and operating models?

A: A very important one. SAP was one of the first partners with whom we intensified cooperation in this context. Of course, there are formal rules and defined exchange formats for this collaboration. But in practice it quickly became clear that we are in almost continuous dialogue.

In developing the C3A, we also drew on experience gained from projects such as Delos Cloud and SAP Cloud Infrastructure. This kind of direct cooperation is essential, especially as technology, security requirements, and sovereignty considerations are evolving so dynamically.

For us, it is crucial to work with companies where implementation can happen closely, trustfully, and quickly. This applies equally to established cloud topics and to new technologies. If we want innovation to be usable in a secure and controlled way and if Germany is to remain competitive in digitalization, this kind of early and reliable coordination between supervisory authorities and industry is indispensable.

Q: From your perspective, what demonstrates that digital sovereignty is more than just a political concept and can actually be implemented in practice?

A: For me, this is evident wherever requirements are not only defined, but actually tested and implemented in practice and where the resulting products and services then succeed in the market. This applies, for example, to the question of how cloud infrastructures can be brought to a level where they are suitable even for particularly critical environments.

It must be absolutely clear which criteria apply and how they are fulfilled technically, organizationally, and not least physically.

A concrete example is Delos Cloud as a sovereign cloud for public authorities in Germany. In cooperation with SAP, the BSI is working to transfer Microsoft cloud technology into a model that can be operated securely and self‑determinedly under German requirements. This clearly demonstrates that digital sovereignty is not merely claimed, but must and can be implemented architecturally, organizationally, and regulatorily.

That is where the value of cooperation lies. When requirements are clear, we can work together with companies on architectures, operating models, and security measures.

Q: Resilience is a key topic in the current debate. What must a sovereign cloud model be capable of in the event of geopolitical disruptions or failures?

A: It must remain operational. For us, resilience means having options and being prepared for difficult scenarios so that operations can be maintained in the event of a crisis. In our current scenarios, we assume that a minimum level of operation must be ensured over an extended period.

This explicitly includes situations in which original providers or supply chains are no longer available in their existing form at short notice.

In other words, we must consider not only normal operations, but also exceptional circumstances. Anyone who takes digital sovereignty seriously must also be prepared for scenarios that no one hopes to see. That is precisely why issues such as continuity of operations, availability of personnel, and supply‑chain resilience play such a central role in the C3A.

Q: How important is the interaction of national standards such as between Germany’s BSI and France’s ANSSI for a shared European understanding of digital sovereignty?

A: This interaction is essential. Germany and France play a special role in the European debate because both countries are working very concretely on criteria, standards, and implementation models and are putting them into practice.

What we learn in Germany feeds into the European discussion, and of course we also benefit from exchanges with our partners in France and other European countries. If Europe is to make progress on digital sovereignty, it needs national innovative strength, reliable partnerships, and at the same time a shared strategic direction. This is also crucial for creating a scalable market for European companies such as SAP one that encourages investment in innovation.

Q: What should public authorities, companies, and cloud providers prepare for in the coming years?

A: The requirements will become more concrete, more verifiable, and more systemic. The first question is what is technologically possible, but this must be followed by the question of how robust, transparent, and controllable an offering actually is. This applies to technical aspects as well as operational and legal ones. We have to consider the entire stack.

If we are able to make technologies usable in a secure and sovereign manner, then we should do so. That means clear standards, a holistic approach, and the ability to bring new technologies into use in a controlled way across the full stack.

Martin Merz is president of SAP Sovereign Cloud.