SAP: Latest news and insights

SAP is an enterprise software vendor based in Walldorf, Germany. Its cloud and on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, including S/4HANA, helps organizations manage their business operations and customer relations. The German multinational also offers a vast array of software solutions tailored to specific facets of the enterprise, including data management, analytics, and supply chain management, as well as solutions aimed at specific industry verticals.

AI is an area of increasing emphasis for SAP, which has a market cap of $295 billion, making it the 14th largest technology vendor in the world.

Here is the latest SAP news and analysis:

SAP systems increasingly targeted by cyber attackers

December 13, 2024: A review of four years of threat intelligence data, presented Friday at Black Hat by Yvan Genuer, a senior security researcher at Onapsis, reports a spike in hacker interest in breaking into SAP ERP systems.

Nearly 25% of SAP ECC customers unsure about their future

December 6, 2024: The future of SAP architectures is hybrid. But according to a survey conducted by the Financials subgroup of the German-speaking SAP User Group (DSAG), where exactly the journey will go has not yet been decided for many organizations.

SAP ups AI factor in its SuccessFactors HCM suite

October 28, 2024: The launch by SAP of new AI capabilities in its SuccessFactors HCM (human capital management) suite Monday is a case of “better late to the party than never,” according to an analyst with Info-Tech Research Group.

Riled by SAP’s AI policy, customers issue list of demands

October 22, 2024: SAP’s strategy of offering AI innovations only in the cloud continues to attract a lot of criticism from its user base. Here’s what SAP customers would like to see happen.

SAP: good figures, but bad mood

October 22, 2024: Employee engagement is suffering from the ongoing restructuring at SAP, although the software company reported good figures and has raised its outlook.

SAP sustainability tracking rollout focuses on data consistency, outlier detection

October 21, 2024: Enterprise CIOs are under increasing pressure from global regulators to rein in sustainability shortfalls due to partner problems. SAP’s pitch is that most enterprise partners are already using SAP, so it’s in an ideal position to collect and distribute partner data.

SAP joins the AI agent era — but not all customers may benefit

October 9, 2024: SAP is expanding its generative AI copilot Joule to include AI agents. Deeply embedded in SAP systems, the company’s agents aim to solve increasingly complex tasks.

SAP launches collaborative AI agents, adds Knowledge Graph

October 8, 2024: SAP’s promised collaboration between its AI copilot, Joule, and other agents will become reality in the fourth quarter of 2024, the company announced at its 2024 TechEd conference Tuesday.

SAP Build gains AI capabilities to help build autonomous agents

October 8, 2024: SAP wants developers to view its Build platform as the one extension solution for all of SAP’s applications, according to Michael Aneling, chief product officer for SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP).

SAP faces probe in the US over alleged price fixing in government contracts

September 24, 2024: German software giant SAP is under investigation by US officials for allegedly conspiring to overcharge the US government for its technology products over the course of a decade. The probe, led by the Department of Justice (DOJ), is focused on whether SAP and its reseller, Carahsoft Technology, colluded to fix prices on sales to the US military and other government entities

SAP CTO to step down after ‘inappropriate behavior’

September 3, 2024: Juergen Mueller is leaving SAP’s executive board, saying his behavior at a company event was incompatible with company values.

SAP partners up to make AI more practical

August 15, 2024: Many companies find it difficult to incorporate AI into their business processes. To change this, SAP wants to work more closely with the appliedAI initiative.

SAP patches critical bugs allowing full system compromise

August 14, 2024: Both the vulnerabilities score above 9 on CVSS and can allow access to sensitive data if not patched immediately.

SAP is restructuring its Executive Board

July 30, 2024: Head of sales Scott Russell and head of marketing Julia White are unexpectedly leaving SAP; White will not be replaced.

SAP restructuring to impact more jobs than expected

July 24, 2024: The restructuring at SAP affects almost a tenth of its workforce. The company estimates the cost of the internal restructuring at around €3 billion.

SAP Q2 results reveal large orgs now firmly on the path to AI

July 24, 2024: It “had a direct impact on our bookings,” company CEO says during second quarter earnings call.

SAP offers AI to all Rise customers — in unknown, varying amounts

July 19, 2024: Joule AI is now available to all Rise with SAP customers, but customers not using SAP Cloud solutions remain out of luck.

SAP security holes raise questions about the rush to AI

July 18, 2024: Cloud security firm Wiz has published a detailed report about SAP security holes, now patched, that raises alarming questions about the secondary role AI efforts are having on cybersecurity defenses.

SAP publishes open source manifesto

June 27, 2024: SAP has made five commitments — make consistent contributions to the community, champion open standards, strive to adopt an open-first approach, nurture open source ecosystems, and adopt a feedback-driven approach.

SAP, Salesforce lead $356 billion enterprise applications market: IDC

June 21, 2024: The software giants were neck-and-neck as the overall enterprise software market grew 12% in 2023, said IDC.

SAP to buy digital adoption specialist WalkMe for $1.5 billion

June 5, 2024: After Signavio and LeanIX, SAP is acquiring the Israeli provider WalkMe to help user companies with their digital transformation.

SAP CEO Christian Klein: Everything we do contains AI

June 5, 2024: SAP CEO Christian Klein kicked off the company’s Sapphire customer conference with the promise of a real productivity boost from AI.

SAP adds more tools for developers on its platform

June 4, 2024: Behind the scenes, SAP is also using AI to extend the capabilities of its Business Technology Platform.

SAP embeds Joule in entire enterprise portfolio, plans integration to other AIs

June 4, 2024: Joule could communicate with other AIs to complete more complex tasks spanning multiple applications, SAP suggests.

SAP AI pact with AWS offers customers more gen AI options

May 29, 2024: SAP wants to work more closely with AWS on AI, complementing existing partnerships with Google and Microsoft.

SAP customers see S/4HANA and AI as top digital transformation drivers

May 20, 2024: With SAP’s end of mainstream maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 set for 2027, recent findings from the US SAP user group reveal that companies are increasing focus on shifting to S/4HANA and embracing AI.

SAP faces turning point as Hasso Plattner steps down

May 15, 2024: The departure of CEO Hasso Plattner marks the end of the founding era at SAP, and adds further complexities for the German software multinational as it faces ongoing restructuring efforts, among many other challenges to solve.

SAP forecasts clarity in the cloud

May 7, 2024: After customers and user groups that adopted S/4HANA early accused SAP of bait-and-switch tactics, CIO editor-in-chief in Germany Martin Bayer recently sat with Christian Klein, CEO of the multinational software company, to clear the air on cloud reassurance, using gen AI as a migration accelerant, and positive growth for the future.

Deutsche Telekom calls on SAP for IT infrastructure move to Rise

March 22, 2024: Deutsche Telekom will move its SAP infrastructure to Rise with the help of its own IT services subsidiary, T-Systems.

SAP user group: S/4HANA usage is growing, but still in the minority

March 21, 2024: Customers want more information about cloud and AI strategy from the German ERP giant.

SAP and Nvidia expand partnership to aid customers with gen AI

March 18, 2024: SAP is embedding Nvidia’s generative AI foundry service into SAP Datasphere, SAP BTP, RISE with SAP, and SAP’s enterprise applications portfolio to equip customers with greater and more simplified access to the technology.

SAP enhances Datasphere and SAC for AI-driven transformation

March 6, 24: SAP adds new generative AI and data governance features to SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud, enabling customers to incorporate non-SAP and unstructured data when creating AI-based planning models and scenarios.

SAP names Philipp Herzig as chief artificial intelligence officer

February 16, 2024: It’s a small promotion and a change of title for one man, and a sign of a larger change in strategic focus for many others at SAP.

SAP 2024 outlook: 5 predictions for customers

February 12, 2024: As SAP continues to position itself as a leader in generative AI and innovative technologies, customers must prepare to navigate new service offerings and an inevitable move to SAP RISE.

SAP has a new succession plan

February 12, 2024: SAP’s board wants to bring former Nokia chairman Pekka Ala-Pietilä on board to succeed founder Hasso Plattner as chairman.

SAP and IBM under scanner of Indian investigative agency for Air India deal

February 5, 2024: Air India failed to adhere to the rules while awarding an ERP contract worth $27 million to SAP India and IBM India.

SAP offers big discount to lure on-prem S/4HANA customers to Rise

January 30, 2024: The restructuring at SAP affects almost a tenth of its workforce. The company estimates the cost of the internal restructuring at around €3 billion.

SAP announces $2.2B restructuring program that’ll impact 8,000 jobs

January 24, 2024: The restructuring program will focus on AI and impact about 7.4% of SAP’s total workforce.

SAP doubles down on cloud-first innovation with executive reshuffle

January 10, 2024: Product engineering head Thomas Saueressig will take on a new role to maximize potential for customers in the cloud, but that’s cold comfort for on-premises users.

SAP pays multi-million fine for bribery

January 11, 2024: With a $220 million fine, SAP is drawing a line under a long-standing investigation by US authorities. The company is alleged to have bribed officials.

SAP faces breakdown in trust over innovation plans

December 5, 2023: The company’s plan to offer future innovations in S/4HANA only to subscribers of its Rise with SAP offering is alienating customers, user conference hears.

SAP unveils tools to help enterprises build their own gen AI apps

November 1, 2023: SAP Build Code suite combines new and existing developer tools, while a foundational AI model trained on anonymized customer data will be available to help automate tasks.

SAP’s new generative AI pricing: Neither transparent nor explainable yet

October 12, 2023: The ERP vendor is adding a new pricing tier to its Rise with SAP offering with an opaque mix of bundled and usage-based pricing for generative AI functionality.

SAP offers faster updates, longer maintenance for S/4HANA in private clouds

October 11, 2023: SAP is offering free migration consultations, more frequent feature releases and two years’ additional maintenance to entice customers to update to S/4HANA Cloud private edition and, ultimately, adopt Rise with SAP.

SAP prepares to add Joule generative AI copilot across its apps

September 26, 2023: Like Salesforce and ServiceNow, SAP is promising to embed an AI copilot throughout its applications, but planning a more gradual roll-out than some competitors.