SAP and Alibaba team up? From ERP giant to AI ecosystem, what are they really up to?

Have you noticed that SAP has been making waves recently?

First, it partnered with Palantir to advance cloud migration, then collaborated with Perplexity to upgrade its AI assistant Joule, followed by co-creating generative AI solutions with Amazon Web Services, and most recently, it entered into a strategic partnership with Alibaba to jointly accelerate cloud transformation.

Behind these seemingly scattered collaborations lies a unified strategic signal: SAP is reshaping the future of enterprise management software with its dual engines of “AI First, Suite First.”

At this year’s SAP Sapphire, SAP officially launched its new generation of business suite – SAP Business Suite, and announced AI functionality upgrades for existing supply chain-related applications. This innovation aims to lower the threshold for enterprises to adopt SAP, while improving business efficiency through the integration of AI capabilities, providing new and existing customers with more flexible and integrated enterprise-level solutions.

New suite: Deep collaboration of applications, data and AI

In the past, companies purchasing SAP systems often had to communicate on a module-by-module basis, resulting in high costs and complex deployment. The new generation of SAP Business Suite has been restructured into five line-of-business packages, deeply integrating AI capabilities, data, and core business applications into one. It includes core Cloud ERP, business applications, SAP Business Data Cloud, SAP Business AI, and SAP Build development and extension tools built on the SAP BTP platform.

Five line-of-business packages of SAP Business Suite:

①Finance Packages: It covers many processes like from sales to collection, procurement to payment, bookkeeping to reporting, and is integrated with Taulia’s cash flow optimization tool to achieve full financial process automation.

②Supply Chain Management Packages: Integrate the supply chain with core business processes, and strengthen end-to-end optimization of data flow and AI-driven.

③SAP Human Capital Management Packages (HCM): It covers core HR functions such as salary, attendance, and employee management, and enhances efficiency through automated tools.

④SAP Strategic Procurement Packages: Integrate the SAP Ariba platform, covering the entire life cycle from supplier sourcing to contract management.

⑤SAP Customer Experience Packages: Integrate sales, service, marketing automation and customer data management to achieve full-channel customer insights.

SAP emphasizes that the design concept of the SAP Business Suite is “to provide highly integrated core functions while reserving flexible expansion space”. If an enterprise only needs basic capabilities, the suite already covers the complete integration. If additional modules (such as the WalkMe digital learning platform) are required, they can be purchased separately.

AI Strategy: From “Tool” to “Productivity Revolution”, Reshaping Enterprise Productivity

SAP has put forward the vision of “ubiquitous business AI”, deeply embedding AI capabilities into business processes. Its AI layout is not simply adding functions, but reconstructing enterprise productivity through “all-scenario embedded AI”. SAP claims that under the empowerment of AI, its customers are expected to achieve a 30% increase in overall productivity.

Scott Bickley, an analyst at industry research firm Info-Tech, believes that SAP is building a unified AI ecosystem through three pillars:

①Technology integration: Integrate acquired resources such as LeanIX and WalkMe to enhance the synergy of AI in process automation and user experience optimization;

②Platform integration: Based on the S/4HANA Cloud core system, achieve the deep coupling of AI capabilities with ERP and BTP;

③Architecture upgrade: Relying on the ‘clean core’ architecture promoted by the RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP programs, the blueprint of an ‘AI-driven integrated enterprise management system’ is gradually formed.

SAP’s strategic transformation is essentially the survival rule of traditional software giants in the AI era. And all of this will have new answers at the SAP NOW China Summit on June 5th.

At that time, SAP will showcase the complete ecosystem of Business Suite to the public, including: How does SAP Business Suite achieve a “trinity” of applications, data and AI, how does AI integrate core business processes to realize value, how does it integrate data to break data silos, how does it achieve agile transformation through BTP, and how does the data platform support enterprises in going global, etc.

As a SAP Platinum Partner, Acloudear will also attend the summit to share its successful experience in public cloud transformation and its innovative achievements in using AI to enhance enterprise efficiency. We welcome you to visit us at the event.

Acloudear sincerely invites you to attend the conference

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This article "SAP and Alibaba team up? From ERP giant to AI ecosystem, what are they really up to?" by AcloudEAR. We focus on business applications such as cloud ERP.

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