Nearly 1,400 customers and partners came together in Las Vegas, Nevada, to witness the power of SAP’s spend management and business network solutions at SAP Spend Connect Live. Best of all, attendees left with new ways to enhance productivity, strategically collaborate, ensure effortless compliance, and gain critical business insights.

If you missed out on the action, we unveiled the following cutting-edge innovations in our market-leading solutions:

• SAP Ariba Intake Management is our newest solution that helps automate procurement request creation and orchestrate routing and support across diverse procurement landscapes and complex workflows. It can connect different systems into one central location for procurement inquiries and status updates, so employees can adhere to your organization’s policies and comply with necessary regulations.
• SAP’s generative AI copilot Joule will be seamlessly integrated across SAP Ariba solutions, SAP Business Network, and SAP Fieldglass solutions. Joule can enable users to manage their most important tasks quickly and accurately across all areas of SAP’s spend management portfolio.  
• The promote subscription for SAP Business Network can empower suppliers to find new business, improve match potential, and build relationships with buyers using the network catalog. Available early next year, it includes generative AI tools to help suppliers load their full suite of offerings into the network catalog faster and with enhanced product descriptions and summaries. 
• New analytics capabilities in SAP Fieldglass solutions can deliver next-level insights into your external workforce for reporting, analytics, and market insights all within SAP Fieldglass.

Read this article from my colleague Manoj Swaminathan to learn more about our latest spend management and business network enhancements.

Leading brands such as Goldman Sachs, Kraft-Heinz, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Uber, and Warner Music Group joined us at the event to share how they revolutionized their spend management processes with our solutions. Check out SAP Spend Connect Virtual to hear these stories and view breakout sessions, strategy talks, and solution deep dives. This free, virtual event is your opportunity to learn from SAP experts, customers, and partners.

Thank You, IDC

As a leader in spend management software, SAP is dedicated to helping our customers increase control and business resilience by comprehensively managing all sources of spend. Hard work pays off, as SAP has retained the No.1 position for market share with 49.6% of 2023 market share for Travel and Expense Management Software, according to the IDC Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares 2023 (doc #US51658524, August 2024) report. This is growth from our 2022 market share of 49.4%. 

Also exciting, SAP has retained the No.1 position for market share for Procurement Applications according to the IDC Worldwide Procurement Applications Market Shares 2023 (doc #US52580824, September 2024) report. IDC estimates that SAP holds a 27.3% market share for 2023, maintaining the top spot ahead of the next six vendors combined.

Additionally, we’re honored to win two IDC SaaS CSAT awards for Accounts Payable and Contract Lifecycle Management. These awards recognize the leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors in each application market, across 23 markets, that receive the highest customer satisfaction scores based on IDC’s SaaSPath Survey.

Our Customer Awards Reach New Heights

Every quarter, G2 highlights the top-rated solutions in the industry, chosen by the source that matters most: our customers. Q3 was our most successful quarter yet regarding G2 honors, with SAP Ariba, SAP Business Network, SAP Concur, and SAP Fieldglass bringing in a whopping 93 awards across multiple categories at the Fall 2024 G2 awards!

SAP was named a Leader in the following categories:

• SAP Ariba is a G2 Fall 2024 Leader in Procure to Pay, Strategic Sourcing, and Supplier Relationship Management.
• SAP Business Network is a G2 Fall 2024 Leader in Supply Chain Business Networks.
• SAP Concur is a G2 Fall 2024 Leader in Expense, Travel & Expense, and Invoicing.
• SAP Fieldglass is a G2 Fall 2024 Leader in Vendor Management.

What’s more, SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, and SAP Fieldglass have also won Buyer’s Choice awards from TrustRadius. Winners of a Buyer’s Choice award are determined by 75% of reviewers selecting a solution for best capabilities, best value for price, and best customer relationship.

We couldn’t be more grateful to our customers for partnering with us on their spend management transformation journeys, and we’re honored that the feeling is mutual!

Winning awards from our customers is awesome, but winning with customers is extra special. Last month, customer and SAP Spend Connect Live in 2024 speaker Daniel Chapman of Warner Music won a SIG Future of Sourcing award in the Innovation in Sourcing category: “Creating Harmony in Music Procurement: Warner Music Group and SAP.” This award recognizes organizations and individuals that show innovation, leadership, and transformation in categories critical to the sourcing industry, and we couldn’t be happier about this win.

Last but definitely not least, I want to congratulate our customer Capgemini for winning a prestigious SuperNova2024 award from Constellation Research in the Future of Work: Human Capital Management category. The award recognizes Capgemini’s innovative use of SAP Fieldglass Contingent Workforce Management to optimize its global external workforce, resulting in improved efficiency, cost savings, and quality standards.

New Developments on the Horizon

With 2025 just around the corner, I want to thank our customers for betting big on themselves by investing in our cutting-edge spend management and business network solutions. In a time marked by supply chain disruptions and ongoing economic uncertainty, it’s all too easy for businesses to stick with the status quo. However, SAP customers are different. They tackle obstacles head-on, transforming them into opportunities. And their foresight to plan for the future is why they will continue to be successful.

Thank you for choosing SAP to help solve your biggest challenges. I enjoyed seeing so many of you at SAP Spend Connect Live and I can’t wait to catch up with the rest of you on the road.

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

Gartner has named SAP a Leader in 2024 Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce, for the tenth time in a row. SAP remains the only vendor to be consistently positioned as a leader since 2014.

SAP supports businesses globally with a powerful commerce solution fit for the future. At a time when commerce trends are evolving faster than ever and customer demands continue to rise, SAP Commerce Cloud remains a reliable foundation for agility, speed, and stability.

Businesses across industries are using the solution to boost profitability and achieve sustainable growth. Carhartt, an iconic brand crafting durable, premium workwear since 1889, uses SAP Commerce Cloud to create an omnichannel e-commerce presence that matches the brand’s legacy of quality and accessibility. As Carhartt continues to expand its reach and transforms from workwear leader to fashion icon, the brand can exceed customer expectations.

“Carhartt’s job is to get products into the hands of hardworking folks, when and how they want them. SAP Commerce Cloud helps us do just that. We needed a solution that could stand up to task during the busiest times of the year,” said Donavan Marchywka, director of Digital Solutions for Carhartt Inc. “SAP Commerce Cloud holds up from an infrastructure and performance standpoint. The solution reacts to traffic so customers can connect with our products. When we transformed our e-commerce experience on SAP Commerce Cloud, not only did we get the benefits of this new technology, but we also got the chance to rethink the design of our site—and do it right.”

In addition to Carhartt, notable B2C brands and household names from Nestlé to Nokia use SAP Commerce Cloud to stay ahead of the competition in increasingly saturated and competitive markets. B2B leaders such as Miele and HORSCH keep industries moving by using the solution to stabilize and scale their e-commerce marketplaces.

Startups and innovators setting out to create a more sustainable future — like MVV Enamic and Online Metals — are using it to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) and new technologies as they emerge.

Even public sector and government organizations, including Christchurch City Council, are creating standout experiences with SAP Commerce Cloud.

These brands join others, such as  ALDO, Cintas, Mitsubishi Fuso, and Coca Cola HBC, that rely on SAP Commerce Cloud to drive profitable growth for their businesses.

SAP Commerce Cloud is part of the SAP Customer Experience portfolio. The combination of integrated solutions spanning commerce, marketing, sales, and service empowers businesses to connect with their customers in the moments that matter most. The SAP Customer Experience portfolio also turns AI innovations into real business outcomes with intelligent tools that employees, customers, and other users are using every day.

To learn more about SAP’s position as a Leader and see in-depth analysis of the digital commerce landscape from Gartner, read the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce here.

Ritu Bhargava is president and chief product officer for SAP Customer Experience.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce, Mike Lowndes, Sandy Shen, Jason Daigler, Aditya Vasudevan, 6 November, 2024.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
SAP was recognized as SAP Hybris in 2014, 2016, and 2017.

With 2025 just around the corner, HR leaders are looking for ways to drive results using powerful technologies like business AI to advance skills in the workforce, improve productivity, and deliver greater efficiency. Some organizations are accelerating outcomes from HR transformations by implementing AI-based capabilities in SAP SuccessFactors HCM to gain an edge over the competition. 

“We are on the brink of a revolution in HR technology,” SuccessFactors Chief Revenue Officer Maryann Abbajay said, speaking to customers recently at SuccessConnect. “AI and other new intelligent technologies are transforming the way we work. Organizations are acutely aware that having the right skills today and cultivating these skills for the future is crucial to stay ahead. So, we must focus on our people – and the technologies that enable them to bring out the best in themselves.”

SAP research found that the top three reasons why HR leaders want to use skills data across their people practices are to match people to opportunities, develop members of their organizations, and have workforce planning that makes sense based on skills. Additionally, a sample of more than 4,000 employees revealed that time savings, quality, and efficiency are the top three most desired outcomes when it comes to AI at work.

Speaking at SuccessConnect, HR leaders from five forward-thinking organizations – L’Oréal, Eurobank, BT Group, American Honda, and SAP – shared insights from their HR journeys and how new advancements in HR tech are putting people at the center of business.

L’Oréal Creates a Future-Fit Organization with Skills and Learning

Global beauty brand L’Oréal keeps its people strategy as forward-thinking as its brand. “This People Vision is to be the most inclusive, innovative, and inspiring people company,” said L’Oréal Deputy Chief Human Relations Officer Isabelle Minneci. “To remain forward-thinking, we leverage this unique people culture, which cares for each individual, and we embed diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of our HR fundamentals.”

L’Oreal’s HR community drives three actions to advance a challenger mindset within the workforce. It builds a skills-driven organization to foster people and business growth. It invents new ways of working and harnesses the best of tech to deliver inspiring people experiences. And it leads transformation for HR and rest of the organization to remain agile. 

L’Oréal uses cloud-based solutions from SAP SuccessFactors – including SAP SuccessFactors Learning – to inspire amazing people experiences. For a future-fit workforce, L’Oréal invests €120 million each year in learning as it continually reskills its employees to boost agility and innovation. “Thanks to SAP SuccessFactors,” Minneci said, “we have linked the skills with the jobs and with our learning program, which enables us to really offer personalized learning journeys for our employees and to make sure that we prepare the future.”

Eurobank Ensures Compliance and Empowers the Workforce

Eurobank is one of Greece’s largest employers, with about 6,500 employees and €81.5 billion in total assets under management. It uses cloud-based solutions from SAP SuccessFactors HCM to help ensure compliance with local labor legislation, support more strategic decision-making, and deliver on its promise of a great employee experience.

Eurobank began its journey with SAP SuccessFactors over six years ago, said Maria Tachataki, head of People Technology and Internal Communications, Eurobank SA. “We have increased efficiency and eliminated paper usage,” she said. “Most of all, we have enhanced our people empowerment by providing more accountability, responsibility, and work mobility. SAP SuccessFactors has been our ally and our companion in an ongoing journey of growth and transformation.”

In April 2022, a new Greek labor law required local banks to implement a digital work card that integrated with the Ministry of Labor’s platform for real-time monitoring of work schedules, shift planning, and overtime. Effectively, it meant Eurobank’s employees needed to clock in and out at their specific work times – or the bank would incur steep penalties. The company needed a digital solution that was accurate, reliable, efficient, and scalable. It had to have seamless integration with the SAP SuccessFactors platform, payroll, and the Ministry of Labor’s platform. And it needed to have very detailed monitoring and audit trails. Eurobank chose SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking and leveraged SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) for flexibility and connectivity. As a result, it now reports 99% performance (an improvement of 75%) and 45% reduction in instances when employees forget to clock out. Read more here.

“For us the next move is AI and skills, in terms of more strategic workforce planning,” Tachataki said. “We aim to transition from merely filling positions with people to focusing on talent and strategic workforce planning based on upskilling, and skills taxonomy. This is our next big challenge.”

BT Group Builds the Digital Colleague Experience

Global telecommunications company BT Group is accelerating its HR transformation with the infusion of AI to build its Digital Colleague Experience. Recently, the organization unified core HR by moving its UK payroll of 80,000 colleagues to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll, using SAP BTP for extensibility and innovation. The launch of the AI copilot Joule and generative AI early adopt program is another highlight in what the company’s HR Technology Director Nick Hawkes described as an “incredibly busy 12 months.” As he noted, “This is an exciting phase for us. Those digital foundations within HR were really important. We’ve gone from four HR systems, three payroll systems, down to one, which was an important milestone.”

“We’ve been on the AI journey a little while now,” he continued, underscoring BT’s commitment to security through the establishment of a responsible AI team and guardrails to evaluate and implement acceptable AI use cases. Working collaboratively with BT’s legal teams, data governance, and SAP has given the company’s HR team an edge for advancing AI use cases that elevate the employee experience. “Having those levers to pull really allowed us to achieve a quick rollout,” he said, referencing SAP Business AI.

In the shift to becoming a skills-based organization, BT aims to implement the talent intelligence hub, which can provide organizations a centralized system for skills for SAP SuccessFactors solutions, to help drive better planning and strategic workforce planning across the organization. Hawkes is optimistic about how AI will enhance the BT’s Digital Colleague Experience: “We can see in the data a 40% increase in efficiency in terms of what Joule brings to the organization, so we’ll double down on that.”

American Honda Charts Digital Journey with People-Centric Focus

American Honda is on a journey to become a carbon-zero company by 2050 – in effect, evolving from a hardware-defined company to a software-defined company. “It’s a transformation we view internally as the second founding of Honda. That means digital experience is very important,” said Rich Richardson, senior vice president, Human Resources, American Honda, describing how the new strategic direction is leading to increased focus on the employee experience. “We have developed a plan to engage our associates on a digital journey that has a number of tenets critical to making sure our associates are at the center.”

In January 2023, American Honda went live with SAP SuccessFactors HCM to provide seamless access to HR information and opportunities for upskilling. To ensure the best outcomes for its AI journey, American Honda established a Responsible AI Council to govern AI usage, evaluate use cases, maintain standards, and foster communication and transparency across the organization.

This year, the company joined an SAP early adopter program to learn how AI can accelerate its vision for a future-ready workforce. “We have four use cases that we’re piloting right now with 850 associates. They’re around Joule, compensation insights, enhanced writing, and goal creation. We’ve been getting feedback along the way with those pilots, and we’ve seen some really good results,” Richardson said.

Employees in the pilot share overwhelming positive feedback on the AI-based innovations, reporting 80% favorable feedback overall. To ensure a great employee experience that benefits all employees, Richardson wants to further understand why employees might be hesitant to fully embrace the new AI-led tools: “When we can uncover that – whether its communication, change management, or on the technical side – we think we can have a really positive rollout of these use cases to our associate population and, ultimately, save time and energy and effort.”

SAP Accelerates a Skills-First Workforce with AI

For SAP, a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, a strong people culture is integral to its mission to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. “At SAP, people are very close to our heart. And that goes back to our founder, Hasso Plattner,” said SAP Chief People Officer Gina Vargiu-Breuer, recalling Plattner’s observation that “we can be proud of our culture because our culture is very much one of customer-centricity, innovation, and people.” 

SAP’s People Agenda, essential to its transformation to a cloud-first company, comprises three pillars: SAP’s growth culture, a skills-led people ecosystem, and game-changing people technology. The People Agenda is underpinned by a strong foundation: a people-centric work environment that is nurtured by employee well-being, safety, and health as well as diversity and inclusion to create a feeling of belonging at SAP. 

To build a skills-led people ecosystem, SAP is using the AI capabilities of the SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite to gain visibility into the skills of the workforce and improve the employee experience. With the AI-powered growth portfolio in SAP SuccessFactors talent and learning solutions, SAP is currently focused on increasing skills transparency to help employees focus on growth and career opportunities.

“In the growth portfolio, we are relying on AI,” Vargiu-Breuer said. “Without having a market-centric skills taxonomy and without having skills transparency across the entire workforce, it’s very difficult to have, for example, personalized learning and career development opportunities. So, AI is absolutely essential.” 

Making Every Employee a Success Story

As these inspiring stories show, SAP customers are using HR technology to support their people agendas and drive HR transformation in their organizations. By advancing productivity and the employee experience, customers are harnessing the power of SAP SuccessFactors solutions to make every employee a success story.

Watch SuccessConnect Virtual on demand.

In the dynamic day-to-day activity of some of the world’s busiest airports – whether Miami or Mumbai, Santiago or Stockholm, or many other hubs – the 55,000-plus employees of Menzies Aviation are engaged to ensure that you complete your journey safely, efficiently, and on time. As a global leader in aviation services “working above and below the wing,” Menzies provides a myriad of services, including ground services, fueling, air cargo handling, and executive services, together with comfortable lounges at more than 295 airports in 65 countries.

Menzies Aviation delivers time-critical logistics that annually result in 1.3 million aircraft turns, 3.2 million aircraft refueled, and 2 million tons of cargo handled. Already in its third consecutive year of double-digit growth since the pandemic, Menzies accelerates its market momentum through a mix of strategic partnerships, contract wins, and acquisitions. And demand for modern, efficient passenger and cargo services is ever increasing. In fact, the global airport services market is forecast to grow from US$196.96 billion in 2024 to $570.12 billion in 2032.

Ask the employees of Menzies Aviation what they like about their jobs, and they’ll likely tell you that it’s the variety and pace of work in an environment where every day is different and every action matters.

Sarah Mackinlay, senior vice president of People Projects & Integrations at Menzies Aviation, says that outstanding teamwork is at the heart of Menzies’ success: “There isn’t one person who can do their job alone. You need a team of people to prepare, load, and push back an aircraft. Everybody working positively together drives that excellence. It’s that united vision of wanting to safely provide the best possible service.”

This team spirit inspires employees to work toward their full potential to achieve exceptional service. To empower its employees to deliver safe and trusted aviation services that are integral to its mission, Menzies is on a transformative journey to harness the power of technology for greater productivity and business agility. Menzies now provides employees in 53 countries with an improved employee experience – a result of its global HR transformation to adopt the cloud-based capabilities of SAP SuccessFactors HCM.

Putting “People, Passion, and Pride” at the Center of Business

With a proud heritage that dates to 1833, Menzies has always been a business that is about people, Mackinlay underscores. The company aligns its business and people strategy on three pillars: people, passion, and pride. “From a people strategy point of view, we’re very much focused on three key drivers: making Menzies a great place for our people to work; being passionate about growing our employees and growing our own leaders; and taking pride in getting the basics right,” she says. “That third pillar is where my focus is at its strongest. By doing that, it makes [Menzies] a great place to work, and it gives people the opportunity to lead, learn, and grow.”

By choosing SAP SuccessFactors HCM, Menzies now has a unified platform to help it attain data-driven insights for business agility and provide a modern employee experience with opportunities for learning and career development. “My job is an enabler for so many other things within our organization,” Mackinlay says. “Providing a solution that supports our frontline employee or manager in the business to do their job more efficiently, smoothly, and easily – those things are what really excite me.” 

Unlocking Business Insights from Global Visibility of Data

Menzies had previously relied on a mix of people processes and platforms, and struggled to make sense of its people data, which was siloed in disparate systems in various regions. “The simple question of ‘How many employees do you have?’ we couldn’t answer that at the click of a button,” says Mackinlay, noting the critical nature of seasonal travel fluctuations that impact the workforce. “That could take us several days to a week to be able to go out to all our regions and check and validate those numbers, because data was held across multiple systems and spreadsheets.”

Already experienced working with the SAP SuccessFactors Learning solution since 2015, along with SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals for graded management across the business, Menzies Aviation had selected SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central as its core HR system, but the implementation was very gradual in the early years and by the end of 2022 the solution had been rolled out to just 11 countries. In early 2023, Menzies began its transformative journey to leverage the broad benefits of cloud HR. Working with EPI-USE as its implementation partner, it accelerated the global rollout by prioritizing a defined baseline consistency model over more detailed, country-specific customizations. It also benefited from pre-delivered localization capabilities, such as language support, local best practices, and automated legal and regulatory updates. In one year, 52 countries were up and running on SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, integrated with the SAP SuccessFactors Learning, SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals, and other core business systems, making it the source of truth for employee data where live.

October saw the latest location join this journey when Hong Kong went live with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central and SAP SuccessFactors Learning. Utilizing this momentum, Menzies is now expanding its use of the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll solution, which is already available to its workforce in the UK and will soon include Portugal and Hong Kong.

“We’re a small team, but each person contributed an exceptional effort, both in time and skill, to bring the organization together around this transformation – that includes stakeholder buy-in, mapping and cleansing the data, all the quality checks, and communicating clearly and openly with HR teams around the business to ensure adoption and change management,” says Mackinlay, who is optimistic about what the next phases of Menzies’ cloud HR journey will bring. “There were some long days, indeed, but as a team we can be proud of what we’ve accomplished so far – and the benefits to the business are already becoming apparent. This is the real foundation for what we can go on to achieve next and having the support of the local HR teams continues to be critical to the success of the rollout.”

Today, Menzies no longer needs to estimate how many employees it has at any given time. Having a single source of data means that it can pull up this information at the push of a button for the present as well as the historical past for comparison. “We can start to see trends, so we can start to understand what our future models would look like as well,” says Mackinlay, who values the improved reporting capabilities that provide greater visibility into the business – which, for example, helps the teams to understand the type of work people are doing and how their time and effort contribute to the business. “Being able to have business insight and business data to make decisions has been really important on our continued journey with SAP SuccessFactors and supporting our global strategy.”

Menzies is reaping the benefits of moving towards one global solution, which include consistent and standardized HR processes across its multiple countries and territories of operation, role-based authorizations for data access, worldwide regulatory compliance with localization, simplified maintenance for a single solution, and ease of integration with other HR processes and functions. As Mackinlay summarizes, “For us, this journey is about having a single source of truth with global consistency, data insight, and visibility yet maintaining local data ownership. Data security and integrity are at the very core.”

One Stop for Employee Experience

For Menzies Aviation, the journey gains momentum as more employees engage with the platform, opening the way to transform how work is done. Currently, Menzies is focusing its effort to elevate the employee experience by introducing self-service capabilities for all employees, giving them access to their own data and streamlining HR service delivery with efficient, real-time processes for workflows and approvals.

More than two-thirds of Menzies employees perform their work away from a desk, so communication with these employees for routine employment matters can be challenging. The new self-service capability is the next part of Menzies’ journey enabled by its SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central base platform. Menzies is partnering with other core business systems to create a new one-stop entry point for all employment-related information, including upcoming shifts, holidays, and tools to support employees in their day-to-day roles.

A key benefit for HR teams is that it frees them to focus on more value-added work. As Menzies continues to grow and hire new employees, it plans to look for digital solutions to accelerate the recruiting and onboarding processes. Menzies is also excited to explore how AI-enabled technologies can further support the HR team – including adopting Joule, SAP’s AI copilot, and using generative AI.

“We’re a people business,” Mackinlay says. “We want our HR teams to be with our people. It’s a journey that we’re on – and we’ve been on since 2015 – to enable our HR teams to have the tools to be more employee facing and available to support our employees as they grow and develop their potential towards an exciting career at Menzies Aviation.”

Find out more about SAP SuccessFactors HCM.