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The future's growth engines are midsize businesses. But, they face many of the same business constraints as their larger competitors even as they nurture the innovations and creative ideas that will transform our world. In a constantly evolving, fiercely competitive, and frequently unpredictable industry, midmarket CEOs need flexible, agile tools to run their companies efficiently and advance them to the next level.
Companies eventually discover they need to pivot to a more scalable and capable solution, regardless of whether they have simply reached a point where their current technology or systems aren't keeping up or they have made a fundamental change to their business model, such as moving from selling products to selling subscription services. When that happens, they use cloud-based ERP.
SAP is aware of the requirements for assisting clients in realising the benefits of adopting cloud ERP. Based on our wildly popular RISE with SAP service, SAP is now introducing GROW with SAP, a new option for midsize customers to take advantage of cloud ERP's undeniable advantages.
With GROW with SAP, businesses can adopt these pre-configured, best practises right away, and customers may quickly realise improvements in time and cost efficiency in addition to effectiveness.
Companies need the flexibility to add new clients, products, and services; they also need a technological solution that can keep up with their growth. At SAP, the cloud ERP can scale to support even the most extensive product lines, complex service offerings, and ambitious sustainability goals because SAP already supports the largest enterprises in the world.
The GROW with SAP offering also includes tools and services to speed up delivery at a set rate, delivering a technical go-live in as little as four to six weeks and giving customers the confidence of the quick time to value they want. A global community of experts and free learning materials are also available to midsize companies who use GROW with SAP, ensuring they achieve real business results.
Source: https://news.sap.com/2023/03/grow-with-sap-cloud-erp-offering-midsize-companies/
SAP has provided security fixes for 19 vulnerabilities, five of which are classified as serious, necessitating immediate application by administrators to reduce risks.
Many products were affected by the issues that were resolved this month, but SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence Platform (CMC) and SAP NetWeaver were the two most severely affected.
- The SAP Business Intelligence Platform has a critical severity (CVSS v3: 9.9) code injection vulnerability that allows an attacker to access resources that are only accessible to privileged users. Versions 420 and 430 are affected by the bug.
- SAP NetWeaver AS for Java, version 7.50, is affected by the CVE-2023-23857 critical severity (CVSS v3: 9.8) information exposure, data modification, and DoS weakness. By attaching to an open interface and gaining access to services via the directory API, the flaw enables an unauthenticated attacker to carry out unwanted actions.
- Directory traversal issue with critical severity (CVSS v3: 9.6) affecting SAP NetWeaver Application Server for ABAP is CVE-2023-27269. A non-admin user can overwrite system files due to a bug. Versions 700, 701, 702, 731, 740, 750, 751, 752, 753, 754, 755, 756 and 791 are affected.
- Directory traversal with a critical severity (CVSS v3: 9.6) in SAP NetWeaver AS for ABAP is CVE-2023-27500. By utilising the SAPRSBRO bug to overwrite system files, an attacker can harm the susceptible endpoint. version 700, 701, 702, 731, 740, 750, 751, 752, 753, 754, 755, and 757 are affected.
- CVE-2023-25617: Command execution vulnerability in SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence Platform, versions 420 and 430, with Critical severity (CVSS v3: 9.0). Under specific circumstances, the issue enables a remote attacker to use the BI Launchpad, Central Management Console, or a customised application built using the open-source Java SDK to execute arbitrary instructions on the System.
In addition to the aforementioned issues, SAP's monthly security patch repaired ten medium-severity vulnerabilities and four high-severity problems.
In addition to creating collaborations with businesses claiming to be at the forefront of contemporary data management, SAP has opened up its analytics system to data from sources other than the enterprise software vendor's environment.
Customers of SAP who want to defend their continued investment in the SAP Business Warehouse globe should applaud the decision. The new offering, which goes by the name SAP Datasphere, is actually an upgrade to the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.
If the mission-critical business data is stored in the SAP data warehouse, SAP applications, or applications and data stores from other vendors, according to SAP, data experts will be able to access it.
According to SAP, the new product would provide a "single experience" for data federation, data integration, data cataloguing, semantic modelling, and data warehousing.
Juergen Mueller, CTO of SAP, stated that the company intends to "assist customers in seamlessly and confidently integrating SAP data with non-SAP data from third-party apps and platforms, enabling whole new insights and knowledge to move digital transformation to another level."
If this all sounds familiar, it's because data platform companies started opening up to data from outside of their contexts last year. To assist in doing this, Snowflake, Google Data Cloud, and Cloudera have announced support for the Apache Iceberg open table format. In the meantime, a "headless" data warehouse for a related purpose has been promised by Tabular, a business launched by the people who created Iceberg.
Data governance provider Collibra, streaming data platform Confluent, machine learning platform DataRobot, and datalake/lakehouse business Databricks were among the partnerships SAP confirmed as part of its Datasphere news.
The latter connection may provide insight that will help SAP develop its strategy for integrating data from sources other than the SAP environment into the SAP analytics platform without relocating the data from the source system.
Source: https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/sap_datasphere/
The user and consumer experiences need to be seamless across the board, from finance to supply chain to commerce. This necessitates real-time user and customer journey service from the underlying apps.
SAP possesses the unique ability to address this situation through its breadth of business process solutions and unrivalled industry knowledge. The SAP Customer Experience (CX) portfolio is now linked to an industry-first approach to accelerate value to customers by allowing end-to-end, integrated business processes, even though our ERP has long included deep industry capabilities.
SAP will keep providing customer experience/CRM solutions. Now, it will concentrate on incorporating an industry lens, providing CX solutions that are industry-specific, and integrating the front and back offices to give the unrivalled value that clients have come to expect from SAP solutions.
The most pertinent difficulties faced by customers across all industries can be resolved with the help of SAP's worldwide ecosystem. In fact, ecosystem-led solutions make up 80% of industry solutions today. Customers will receive solutions with this strategy that naturally connect the cloud ERP through to the last mile of a customer's experiences spanning e-commerce, sales, support, and marketing — all with the sector-specific best practises they rely on from SAP and our ecosystem.
Here are just a few instances where industry-first CX has filled gaps frequently observed between experience delivery and business process-led ERP:
- Retail: To guarantee that customers receive the products they want, it is essential to maintain adequate inventory levels in stores and distribution centres. Using the comprehensive retail knowledge integrated into the customer experience product and cloud ERP, predictive replenishment leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to assist retailers in automating the replenishing process.
- Consumer Products: By automating 80% of the trade claims process, consumer product businesses can release billions of dollars that were locked up in settlement procedures as well as countless hours of work for key account managers. This will also improve cash flow by roughly a month. Because of its unique position at the nexus of accounts receivables (finance, ERP) and revenue growth management (sales, service, and marketing), SAP is able to offer faster time to value and lower TCO than any other vendor in this industry.
- Automotive: SAP promotes logistics optimization through end-to-end integration of dealership sales and service with group production and logistics processes. It also improves production planning and forecasting based on real-time demand. By combining information from the front and back offices into SAP's customer data platform, dealers may also improve upsell, retention, and overall customer lifetime value. They can also optimise their sales strategy and marketing budget.
Source: https://news.sap.com/2023/03/sap-cx-intelligent-industry-tailored-solutions/
Due to SAP's Industrial Cloud Partners, the consumer goods sector is experiencing a surge in innovation.
A client installation with a modest scope that develops into a much larger and more lucrative project are just two examples of the news that might be reported one day about organisations who have previously been bitter competitors working together. A new software or solution that leverages an intriguing technological advancement to address a requirement for numerous clients may be reported one day. Another might reveal that a SAP partner has entered a new market or industry by creating a solution that can be used in numerous sectors and then making money off of it on the SAP Store.
The possibilities offered by SAP's industry cloud to partners that service the consumer industries are demonstrated by a solution created by SAP partner DataXstream. Order administration is made easier with the use of the solution, DataXstream OMS+ Cross-Channel Order Management System. More margins, cheaper inventory and training expenses, and a better understanding of customers across wholesalers and retailers are just a few of the advantages it's providing for clients. One client who used the system not only showed ROI in just seven days, but also witnessed a 1.5% improvement in sales margin and a 50% decrease in inventory carrying costs in the first year after deployment. This results in a $7 million increase to the bottom line and a $50 million decrease in the cost of carrying inventories.
A few recent highlights from the consumer industries ecosystem segment:
- Applications created solely by partners, with little to no participation from SAP other from providing the business technology platform (SAP Business Technology Platform) and a market (SAP Store) where they can be purchased.
- Apps created using SAP BTP by the internal development team of a large customer rather than by a developer. Recently, a significant multinational consumer products firm accomplished just that, using their investment in the SAP Business Technology Platform to construct an analytics solution that is now being used inside a larger SAP digital infrastructure.
- System integrators "bottle" the essential components of a solution they created for a particular consumer products company in order to make it available to other businesses with comparable needs.
- Novel commercialization models between SAP and partners are taking shape, allowing partners to swiftly profit from new, often sizable, income streams produced by the solutions they have built.
- SAP handed over a development opportunity on the wholesale distribution side to an industry cloud partner instead of taking the task on ourselves, recognising the partner was best qualified to develop the solution.
- Developers with experience in fields like robotics, visual graphics, and artificial intelligence (AI) offer consumer industry clients solutions that are backed by these capabilities, laying the groundwork for organisational change.
With the focus on solving the customer's business problem whether the solution comes exclusively from a SAP partner, from SAP itself, or a combination of the two, SAP's industry cloud represents an important evolution of SAP's approach to partnerships and serving the end customer. Partners also have a greater chance to monetize the solutions they helped develop. In the end, we're creating a thriving community that, via co-innovation, develops open, prepared-for-integration, and prepared-for-implementation solutions to address crucial requirements in customers' business application landscapes.
Source: https://news.sap.com/2023/02/consumer-industries-innovation-sap-industry-cloud-partners/
Thomas Saueressig, a member of the executive board of SAP SE (NYSE: SAP), noted in a recent blog that organisations have started to prioritise sustainability as they concentrate on ESG initiatives like lowering their carbon footprint, investing in renewable energy sources, and promoting ethical behaviour.
This tendency is also seen in the Philippines, according to Rudy Abrahams, managing director of SAP Philippines. For instance, the government encourages firms and organisations to implement ESG efforts through the introduction of policies.
In order to support local and global sustainability goals and promote transparency and responsibility from businesses, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ordered publicly traded corporations to file an annual sustainability report in 2019.
Making Progress Toward a Circular Economy
Large businesses in the Philippines must help create a circular economy as part of their ESG strategies. The linear, single-use nature of the global economy for many years has contributed to the build-up of waste products that are eventually disposed of in landfills or the environment.
The country's organisations are anticipated to take greater initiative in implementing more circular business models this year, especially with the enactment of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Act of 2022. (Republic Act no 11898). Large businesses are required by this law to reclaim their waste plastic packaging or face a fine. Large businesses are required by this law to reclaim their waste plastic packaging or face a fine.
Ensure Responsive Supply Chains
Businesses are currently being asked to make sure their supply networks are resilient. The majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions now come from supply chain operations in enterprises. According to a recent analysis by the non-profit CDP (previously the Carbon Disclosure Program), these activities account for at least 92 percent of all GHG emissions by businesses.
Taking Business Transformation Seriously
As businesses continue to bolster their ESG and sustainability initiatives this year, Abrahams said that utilising technology is still essential to putting these improvements into practise. To accomplish their objectives, businesses like Globe Group and AC Energy (ACEN) have been stepping up their corporate transformation projects.
For instance, the Ayala Group's listed energy platform ACEN has been driving adoption of technology and the renewables revolution. But the business understood that going green should begin from the inside out, and that the right tools should be accessible to enhance its operations.
In order to develop a unified digital business platform for finance, procurement, inventory, and asset maintenance across several companies, ACEN recently adopted SAP S/4HANA on Azure. The organisation now has insight across all of its entities thanks to SAP S/4HANA. Collaboration across ACEN teams is essential for developing and putting into action plans to improve the capacity of solar and wind power plants while lowering inefficiencies and waste.
The efficient use of organisational data, on the other hand, is crucial for Globe in order to improve sustainability outcomes. Globe, the leading telecom and provider of digital solutions in the nation, has a number of companies, each with its own procedures and reporting structures.
Globe switched to SAP S/4HANA in order to enhance fragmented processes, manual workloads, inefficiencies, lack of insights, and delayed decision-making in order to address this challenge. In order to enhance the user experience and access to insights, SAP Fiori was also incorporated. Faster financial transaction processing, speedier book closing, and error-free reporting are also made possible through automation and fewer reconciliations.
Digital adoption has become a major concern for corporations as the worldwide pandemic radically altered the way we operate and made firms impervious to uncontrollable situations.
The successful adoption of digital technology by end users and workers is crucial for business success. A digital adoption platform like SAP Enable Now can be useful in this situation.
Adoption of digital technology gives businesses a competitive edge thanks, among other things, to improved operational efficiency. To address inadequate application user experiences, 70% of enterprises are anticipated to deploy digital adoption platforms across the full technology stack by 2025. It has also been demonstrated that enhancing continuing training by 10% can boost corporate value by twice as much. In order to maximise return on investment, implementing digital adoption solutions as part of the digital transformation strategy is a business necessity rather than just an incentive (ROI).
A consistent, intelligent, and tailored user experience with pertinent product assets in the necessary languages is one of SAP's key factors in driving product adoption. Every firm may become an intelligent, sustainable enterprise thanks to the company's in-house digital adoption platform SAP Enable Now, which serves as the digital adoption layer. In order to enhance the potential ROI for enterprise software, SAP Enable Now helps to ensure that all employees' knowledge levels and productivity remain high through the use of next-generation features like on-screen translation and integration with business process modelling tools.
Many SAP applications, such as digital supply chain, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, SAP Fieldglass, SAP Concur, SAP Marketing Cloud, and SAP Sales Cloud solutions, among others, have quick access to learning materials directly within the applications. These applications incorporate embedded, adaptable SAP content that is available in the chosen language and provides learning at the point-of-need to assist individuals in acquiring the skills required to do their jobs successfully.
By connecting with SAP Signavio and other products, SAP Enable Now also helps process transformation and project management. It promotes systematic learning for users, who carry out a variety of intricate business operations, through which businesses operate. The application of choice also offers next-generation in-app support with the SAP Companion service, including context-sensitive help, embedded learning, and process guidance.
Adoption of any software depends on its language. End users may access enablement information with SAP Enable Now in more than 40 languages, powered by machine intelligence and including an integrated SAP Translation Hub. The solution also gives users the option to export educational materials in formats that work with the majority of learning management systems. Along with automated translation and content services maintenance, it also provides change management with content lifecycle management. For instance, partners can offer enablement as a service and customise content from SAP or pre-build based on industry and solution best practises. Through the robust authoring suite for developing e-learning courses, software tutorials, and support guides, as well as flexible, template-based content production, businesses can scale with their partners.
SG - Singapore Regional Strategic Services Partner (RSSP) is an initiative launched by SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) today to expand the skills and influence of established partners in the APJ area that are experiencing significant growth. Through this initiative, SAP will offer qualified partners strategic support, such as coordinated solutions that are aligned with certain industries, a shared go-to-market plan, and access to SAP regional and market unit industry experience.
With the help of the RSSP initiative, partners will be able to expand their SAP practises more swiftly throughout the APJ area and work more closely with SAP to achieve shared client success. The RSSP initiative seeks to promote collaboration among partner entities based in the region that demonstrate capability and capacity requirements specific to APJ. This is in contrast to the company's current Global Strategic Services Partner (GSSP) programme, which includes a select group of SAP's most strategic global partners in the consulting, infrastructure, and technology space.
Candidate partners must satisfy or exceed a defined set of SAP requirements, including regional presence, vertical industry capabilities, and alignment on a shared sustainability strategy, in order to be eligible for the RSSP project.
ABeam Consulting, an integrated management consulting business with its headquarters in Japan, was also named by SAP as the first partner to join the RSSP programme.
"APJ is one of SAP's fastest-growing markets, and the transformation of customers is fundamentally influenced by our partner ecosystem. There is a sizable SAP-certified community that may assist clients and the larger ecosystem, according to Paul Marriott, president of SAP APJ, with over 24,000 registered partners worldwide and almost 20% in APJ. "Congratulations to ABeam Consulting for joining the Regional Strategic Services Partner initiative as our first partner. We look forward to expanding ABeam's SAP knowledge throughout the area and fostering further customer-focused solutions. And I'm eager to welcome more regional partners to the RSSP project."
Source: https://news.sap.com/sea/2023/02/sap-announces-new-regional-strategic-services-partner-initiative/
In order to hasten its digital transformation, BMW Group has increased its strategic cooperation with SAP.
BMW Group will use RISE with SAP to transfer its whole SAP software landscape once the agreement is confirmed on January 25. In order to enable cooperative innovation for crucial business areas, including finance, parts supply, warehousing, supply chain, and production, the company will integrate its cloud strategy with its current SAP S/4HANA systems. The BMW Group will be able to digitalize more quickly, thoroughly, and effectively as a result of this change.
Applications, platforms, tools, and services are all included under one contract under RISE with SAP, which is designed to promote company transformation. As a result, BMW Group will be able to integrate cutting-edge SAP technology with cloud solutions to spur corporate innovation. Both businesses will use a model that covers operations, infrastructure, and cloud applications in place of the conventional licencing model.
The executive board member for SAP SE who oversees SAP product engineering, Thomas Saueressig, continued, "Our two firms have a strong relationship thanks to 30 years of dependable collaboration. We are taking a major move toward a digital future by increasing our partnership. This demonstrates how SAP S/4HANA Cloud and our wide range of solutions lay the groundwork for businesses to foster innovation and guarantee our customers' long-term success in a cutthroat environment.
CIO and senior vice president of BMW Group IT Alexander Buresch stated: "This strategic choice will help us advance our leadership in digitalization even more quickly. Our infrastructure is becoming more adaptable, and we are achieving maximum global scalability. Most significantly, it enables us to much more quickly introduce business ideas to our users and customers. I am thus eagerly anticipating the following phases in our collaborative adventure with SAP.
Source: https://erp.today/bmw-group-drives-new-growth-with-rise-with-sap/
In a fragmented environment, SAP Responsible Design and Production Aids Businesses in Managing Plastic Taxes
Plastic is widely used because it is durable, useful, and abundant. We are oblivious to it since it is so ingrained in our daily activities. The majority of it—from the plastic-wrapped vegetables in supermarkets to the containers for creams, lotions, pills, and medications—is used just once before being thrown away in landfills or worse.
For instance, the European Union (EU) introduced the European Green Deal in 2019 as part of global efforts to combat climate change. This initiative aims to shift the economy from a linear one to a circular one that eliminates waste and pollution. The plastics tax imposed on single-use plastic, plastic packaging, and microplastics is an important step in combating plastic pollution.
However, the EU has imposed a national contribution from each of the 27 member states depending on the quantity of non-recycled plastic packaging trash it produces, as opposed to a local tax. States have very different tax structures; some concentrate on packaging in general while others solely tax single-use items. For plastic goods made in the United States or elsewhere, some countries have varying taxes. In other words, member states are free to impose the tax in their own manner and under their own set of laws.
The end consequence is a very dispersed landscape. It calls for the appropriate approach, resources, and knowledge, particularly in the areas of compliance and global supply chains. For instance, Spain's Special Tax on Non-Reusable Plastic Containers went into force on January 1 and imposes a fee of €0.45 per kilogram of Non-Reusable Plastic.
A Workable Solution
Technology has become a crucial component in aiding businesses in finding solutions to their problems, as has been the case with many difficulties in recent years. A cloud-based tool called SAP Responsible Design and Production was developed expressly to make it easier to design items for a circular economy and to aid with the entire process associated with the new levies.
SAP Responsible Design and Production gives businesses access to data on logistics and materials, including specifics on the composition of packaging, in addition to striving to automate tedious reporting processes. According to Monasor, "with this tool, businesses will be able to calculate and submit reports in relation to the Spanish plastics tax and lower the risks of non-compliance."
The Goal
Over time, SAP Responsible Design and Production may help organizations improve their capacity for measuring and managing sustainability KPIs as well as their ability to see material flows more clearly across all business processes. Improved traceability reduces compliance risks and aids in improving the accuracy of plastic tax payments. In order to lower these taxes and increase circularity, which is the tax's main objective, the answer can also reform laws and taxes, as well as optimize the materials used in packaging.
Source: https://news.sap.com/2023/01/sap-responsible-design-and-production-manage-plastic-taxes/