I’m thrilled to announce significant enhancements to our RISE with SAP commercial packages. These improvements are designed to accelerate digital transformation and bring the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to all our customers.

Since launching RISE with SAP in January 2021, we’ve partnered with thousands of customers across various industries and geographies in their journey to cloud ERP. During this time, we’ve witnessed dramatic shifts in the global business landscape:

• AI and generative AI have become top priorities for executives.
• Business and supply chain risks have intensified.
• ESG regulations have expanded across regions.
• Companies are increasingly reliant on their partner networks.

In response to these changes and valuable customer feedback, we’ve revamped our RISE with SAP offering to better serve our growing customer base.

Packages Designed for Every Need

With RISE with SAP, we continue to offer two main packages to help transform business at your preferred pace and timeline:

• RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, premium: This augments SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition with access to SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), features for low-code application development, additional capabilities for generative AI, CFO suite, SAP Datasphere, and SAP Business Network.
• RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, premium plus: This extends the premium edition with advanced sustainability features, expanded access to generative AI capabilities, and CFO solutions.

AI for All

I’m particularly excited to announce that all RISE with SAP customers will now have access to Joule, our recently announced AI copilot natively integrated into SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, which helps revolutionize the way users interact with their SAP business systems.

Joule serves as a productivity tool that can make every touchpoint count and every task simpler. The AI copilot can significantly enhance the end user experience, allowing interactions in natural language. It helps elevate outcomes for end users and businesses alike by generating insights grounded in the business data, enriched by the business context, and tailored to the end user’s role. It can quickly sort through and contextualize data from multiple systems to surface smarter insights. This democratization of AI capabilities is a game-changer for businesses of all sizes.

AI has significant potential to accelerate business processes and optimize decision-making. We are constantly innovating to deliver more AI-powered business processes that can effect better outcomes for our customers. To enable our customers to pilot these AI-driven innovations, we are including SAP AI units for our premium edition customers. These AI units will enable customers to pilot already delivered, advanced AI innovations like SAP Cash Application, SAP Business Integrity Screening, and SAP Field Service Management. Further, there are many more AI innovations planned on our road map, including sales order fulfillment, transportation management, business partner maintenance, and more.

Data-Driven Decision-Making

All business decisions need to be grounded in accurate and timely data. With this in mind we’re including SAP Datasphere in the premium edition for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, providing seamless access to mission-critical data from both ERP and third-party sources. This can help supercharge insights and support more informed decision-making across the organization.

Additionally, SAP Analytics Cloud for planning is now part of the premium edition, empowering customers to enhance their financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting using data from their entire system landscape.

Streamlined Supplier Collaboration

SAP Business Network is now also included in the premium edition, enabling customers to create a networked ERP with a supplier portal. This helps simplify spend compliance, improve cash flow, and drive business value by facilitating closer collaboration with suppliers and automating procurement and invoice transactions.

Personalized Onboarding

To help ensure a smooth transition to cloud ERP, we’ve introduced embedded launch activities in every RISE with SAP package. The embedded launch activities include personalized onboarding support through an assigned SAP advisor. The advisor helps customers to navigate the implementation road map and can provide education on the overall journey, RISE with SAP Methodology, the clean core strategy, and initial setup of tools and services. Through initial personalized one-on-one calls and a series of recorded enablement content, the advisor helps ensure the customers are set up for success.

These enhancements reflect our commitment to providing cutting-edge solutions that address the evolving needs of businesses in an increasingly complex global landscape. By integrating AI, improving data accessibility, and streamlining supplier collaboration, we’re empowering our customers to make more informed decisions and drive innovation in their respective industries.

I’m incredibly proud of these improvements and excited to see how they will transform our customers’ businesses. As we continue to innovate and adapt to the changing business landscape, we remain committed to supporting our customers’ success every step of the way.

Learn more about RISE with SAP and the available packages and add-ons available to help you transform your business here.

Maura Hameroff is head of Product Marketing for RISE with SAP.

Worldwide, women-owned businesses foster equality and economic development that helps lift communities, reduce poverty, improve environmental sustainability, elevate diversified consumer choices and voices, and contribute to more balanced, equitable, and holistic decision-making on broader issues.

It has been challenging, though, for women entrepreneurs and their businesses to be visible in the global marketplace. Equally, it had been difficult for buyers dedicated to diversity and inclusion to identify best-in-class women-owned suppliers.

Not-for-profit WEConnect International, with help from SAP partner Premikati Inc. and SAP experts, worked to develop a solution to expedite and simplify connecting member-buyers with member-suppliers and vice versa while reducing barriers and opening doors for women entrepreneurs to the international value chains.

Connecting US$4 Trillion in Purchasing Power with Women-Owned Businesses

Women own 33% of all privately held businesses worldwide but earn only 1% of the total spend. Many organizations have a clear mandate and mission to seek out women-owned companies. Still, organizations have no easy means of discovering qualified women-owned suppliers in the vast international marketplace. Similarly, women-owned businesses have no clear path to a seat at the table in the conventional system dominated by legacy corporate giants and complex, often rigid government agencies.

WEConnect, helmed by CEO and co-founder Elizabeth Vazquez, stepped in with a vision to bridge the gap with a solution connecting a formidable member-buyer network with a collective annual purchasing power of $4 trillion with women-owned businesses in 135 countries.

A Solution to Lower the Barriers to Supplier Onboarding

Vazquez realized the original WEConnect solution did not allow suppliers and buyers to find each other easily, it was cumbersome for suppliers to apply for certification, and the staff had problems registering and certifying global businesses because the solution only supported one language, English. A new solution had to eliminate those barriers and provide targeted, comprehensive, user-friendly searching for buyers while integrating seamlessly with buyers’ existing technology.

As a lean nonprofit with no IT department, WEConnect relied on the expertise of Premikati, a wholly women-owned business, and SAP, a member-buyer, to design and build WECommunity, the organization’s new, mobile-enabled solution, which helps deliver on its mission to drive revenue to women-owned suppliers around the world. “We wanted to go straight to, what platform is the most commonly used amongst our member buyers for managing their suppliers?” Vazquez recounts. “And it was an obvious decision that SAP was the go-to platform for most of our member-buyers. They use some form of SAP or multiple SAP offerings.”

Improved Search Increases Supplier Onboarding

WECommunity is a trusted self-service solution that allows “buyers and suppliers to find each other efficiently and effectively,” Vazquez explains. In addition to accomplishing that essential goal, WECommunity makes the organization’s robust network of worldwide member-buyers available in 10 of the most common languages among members. The mobile-optimized solution also includes a portal that enables women supplier members to easily register their businesses and initiate requests for certification using just their smartphones.

All the improvements, including added security features, have driven a 95% increase in certified and registered women-owned businesses in the WEConnect database. WECommunity’s streamlined, user-friendly functionality has also made WEConnect more appealing to buyers, and the organization has seen a 91% increase in membership.

100% Increase in Spending on Women-Owned Businesses

Since the launch, WECommunity-tracked spending with women-owned businesses outside the U.S. has doubled, from $4 billion to $8 billion, and the impact of those dollars has rippled far beyond the pockets of business owners. “I am obsessed with moving as much money into the hands of women as quickly as possible because of how they reinvest in their employees, families, and communities,” Vazquez says. Proving her point: in 2021 alone, the certified women-owned businesses in WEConnect’s network created 24,000 new jobs.

Preparing for a Future of Innovation

WEConnect, a 2023 SAP Innovation Award winner, looks forward to scaling its solution to accommodate more suppliers and buyers while continuing to leverage data analytics to empower women-owned businesses. But WEConnect won’t stop there – AI and machine learning are next for added efficiencies, accuracy, and automation as the organization and its membership expand. Vazquez explains that the organization is actively conversing with SAP and other member-buyers: “How do we all collaborate? How do we use AI and machine learning to find the women suppliers of the world, get them up to speed on what it takes to compete for larger contracts, and make it easier for them to connect with buyers?”

With boundless ambition and limitless imagination, the future is bright for women-owned businesses and the families and communities they support.

Timo Elliott is vice president and global innovation advocate for SAP BTP at SAP.

The Support Accreditation course serves as a comprehensive resource for customers and partners engaging with SAP’s support channels and services, providing a detailed overview of our support offerings and tools.

In this interview, Dennison John, support center network head and managing director of SAP Labs Latin America, shares insights on the latest advancements in this fundamental training. 

Q: Can you provide a recap of the Support Accreditation course and its importance for those who engage with support from SAP?  

A: Support Accreditation is a training that covers all the support services and tools offered by SAP. Launched in 2020, the course is continuously updated to align with the evolving nature of our support offerings. It is designed to equip SAP users with all requisite resources they need when engaging with support from SAP. The easy-to-use units can guide you through the material with one-pager snapshots, how-to guides, and interactive quizzes.

Q: What has changed in this updated version of Support Accreditation? 

A: In the second release, we have a dedicated unit on AI. This new unit covers advanced topics such as AI-driven support innovations, proactive and predictive support mechanisms, and deep dives into complex support scenarios. These topics are designed to provide those who take the course with cutting-edge knowledge and skills that can enable them to leverage the latest SAP technologies and methodologies to help resolve issues more efficiently and anticipate potential problems before they arise. 

Q: What specific aspects of AI-guided support are covered?  

A: The new unit on AI-guided support covers a range of topics, including the fundamentals of AI in support, how AI algorithms are used to predict and prevent issues, and the practical application of AI tools like Incident Solution Matching and predictive analytics. It also explores the integration of AI with existing support channels and how AI can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of support operations. The course provides hands-on training and real-world examples of how these AI tools can be used to streamline support processes, reduce response times, and improve overall support quality. 

Participants can leverage AI-guided support tools to improve their operations by using AI-driven insights to predict potential issues before they occur, automate routine support tasks, and provide faster, more accurate solutions to common problems. The course teaches one how to integrate these tools into their daily workflows, enabling them to reduce response times, increase the accuracy of issue resolution, and enhance the overall customer support experience. 

Q: Are there any additional lessons in the second release of Support Accreditation?  

A: Yes, we have several new lessons, including support for our SAP Ariba, SAP Fieldglass, and SAP Concur solutions. As a result, we can confidently assert that the Support Accreditation course can now provide comprehensive learning material for our full suite. 

Q: How does Support Accreditation help in utilizing Real-Time Support more effectively?  

A: The training provides detailed modules on Real-Time Support channels, such as Expert Chat, Schedule an Expert, Schedule a Manager, and Ask an Expert Peer. These lessons help in understanding how to access and use these channels efficiently. By familiarizing one with the functionalities and best practices of these tools, the course helps ensure they can quickly and effectively resolve support issues as they arise. 

Q: What feedback have you received regarding the first release, and how has it influenced the second release?  

A: The feedback from the first release has been overwhelmingly positive, with many appreciating the comprehensive nature of the course and the clarity of the content. However, some suggested deeper dives into specific advanced topics. Additionally, we are continuously refining the course content based on ongoing feedback to ensure it meets the evolving needs of our customers and partners. 

Q: How does SAP measure the effectiveness of the training in improving customer and partner interactions with SAP support?  

A: We measure the effectiveness through several key metrics, including feedback, course completion rates, and the impact on support case resolution times. We are delighted by the significant number of customers and partners who have completed the accreditation. Within the initial six months, we have surpassed 3,500 customers and partners who have successfully completed the course and obtained a record of achievement. This certification demonstrates their comprehensive understanding of the course material.  

We encourage all to provide feedback on the content and their overall learning experience after completing the course. Additionally, we analyze data on support case resolution times to assess if there has been an improvement in efficiency and effectiveness as a result of the training. This comprehensive evaluation helps us continuously refine the course to better meet the needs of our customers and partners. 

Q: How does the course address self-service and case prevention strategies?  

A: Support Accreditation includes comprehensive units on self-service and case prevention strategies. These units provide participants with tools and techniques to help proactively address potential issues before they escalate to support cases. Topics covered include using SAP Knowledge Base Articles, leveraging automated tools for common problem resolution, and implementing best practices for maintaining system health. By focusing on these strategies, the course can empower all to minimize downtime and improve system performance, leading to more efficient operations. 

Q: How does the training contribute to the long-term success of SAP customers and partners?  

A: The course contributes to the long-term success of SAP customers and partners by providing them with the skills and knowledge needed to help optimize their use of SAP support services. This can lead to more efficient issue resolution, reduced system downtime, and better overall performance. For partners, the course can help them deliver superior service, build stronger client relationships, and achieve better project outcomes. For customers, the course helps foster self-sufficiency and confidence in managing their SAP systems, ultimately driving business growth and success. 

Leonardo Mauhs is part of Customer Support at SAP.