SAP Sapphire: Generative AI Rules the Roost With Azure, Google, IBM
SAP has other announcements, too, around green tech, networking, upskilling and more.
![Generative AI at SAP Sapphire Generative AI at SAP Sapphire](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blteefcbb1249c046ca/6523fa17f45c05086a0f32e8/Generative-AI.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
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Citing changing regulatory requirements and increasing stakeholder pressure around ESG initiatives, SAP announced its new “green ledger.”
Sustainability Footprint Management serves as one solution for calculating and managing corporate, value chain and product-level emissions, SAP said.
There’s also Sustainability Data Exchange, which lets enterprises securely exchange standardized sustainability data with partners and suppliers. The idea is to decarbonize supply chains faster, SAP said.
Look for green ledger capabilities within Rise with SAP and Grow with SAP.
Up next, a whole new network.
As part of its B2B collaboration platform, SAP is debuting its Business Network for Industry.
SAP positions the network as combining the benefits of networked supply chains with SAP’s industry expertise. The goal is to ensure that customers across consumer products, high tech, industrial manufacturing, and life sciences, can boost supply chain resilience quickly, SAP said.
Now on to AI news. Go to the next slide.
SAP announced the day before kicking off Sapphire that it’s teaming with Microsoft to do generative AI.
The companies will integrate SAP SuccessFactors solutions with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot in Viva Learning, as well as Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service. They aim to enable new experiences as organizations seek to hire, retain and skill employees.
“SAP has long embedded AI into our solutions, and we’re very excited about the opportunities generative AI unfolds for our industry and our customers,” said SAP’s Klein. “Today’s announcement is one example of how we are bringing the power of generative AI to business.”
Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, agreed.
“We have an incredible opportunity to deliver next-generation AI that will unlock productivity growth for every individual, organization and industry, including the human resources function,” he said.
The global skills shortage (not just in IT) remains one of the biggest problems for businesses. SAP and Microsoft intend to help end users get more efficient and effective in hiring, training, upskilling and other HR functions. Get all the details here from SAP.
Up next, find out how SAP and Google Cloud are working together.
SAP and Google Cloud are expanding their partnership to focus on open data via Rise with SAP.
Their plan? To simplify data landscapes and help organizations better use the information within their environments. This will entail helping customers build a cloud that brings together data from across the enterprise for real-time viewing and analysis. That will happen through SAP’s Datasphere platform and Google Cloud’s capabilities.
SAP says data from its systems rank among organizations’ most valuable assets. The company likely says this because of its status as a longtime market leader, stemming mostly from its legacy, on-premises roots. As the company shifts to a cloud model, it’s also trying to bring customers with it — as well as their data, which reflects activity in supply chains, financial forecasting, human resources and other critical domains.
On the next slide, find out why this matters.
Combining data from SAP and non-SAP sources on Google Cloud, the companies say, will help organizations achieve digital transformation while retaining business context. Overall, the union “introduces entirely new opportunities for enterprises to derive more value from their full data footprints,” said SAP CEO Klein.
“Our customers not only benefit from the business AI already built into our systems, but also from a unified data foundation,” he said.
Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud CEO, agreed.
“Few resources are as important to digital transformation as data,” he said. By virtue of SAP and Google Cloud’s expanded partnership, then, “customers will be able to utilize our analytics capabilities, as well as advanced AI tools and large language models to find new insights from their data.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, Google Cloud’s contributions will include AI and ML services, reflecting the latest trend to dominate the tech sector. Note, too, that the Google Cloud and Microsoft efforts join another from IBM. Announced in early May, SAP said IBM will embed Watson technology into SAP solutions.
On the channel partner front, MSP Lemongrass is showcasing the upgraded release of its Lemongrass Class Platform at this week’s Sapphire event.
The platform simplifies the experience of managing SAP on the cloud, Lemongrass says. Said upgrades target multicloud (specifically, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud), data management and DevOps, all to make SAP automation more usable on major clouds and give users more agility while minimizing costs.
“Our mission is to provide modern services to SAP customers across the best of the public cloud offerings,” said Mike Rosenbloom, CEO of Lemongrass. “We do this by extending standard native SAP capabilities and building focused services around them. We wrap these offerings in software — LCP — using a combination of tooling and automation to fully release the value of public hyperscale platforms. LCP is the glue to hold all the capabilities together and provide the rich operating environment that customers are looking for to maximize their SAP investment.”
On the channel partner front, MSP Lemongrass is showcasing the upgraded release of its Lemongrass Class Platform at this week’s Sapphire event.
The platform simplifies the experience of managing SAP on the cloud, Lemongrass says. Said upgrades target multicloud (specifically, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud), data management and DevOps, all to make SAP automation more usable on major clouds and give users more agility while minimizing costs.
“Our mission is to provide modern services to SAP customers across the best of the public cloud offerings,” said Mike Rosenbloom, CEO of Lemongrass. “We do this by extending standard native SAP capabilities and building focused services around them. We wrap these offerings in software — LCP — using a combination of tooling and automation to fully release the value of public hyperscale platforms. LCP is the glue to hold all the capabilities together and provide the rich operating environment that customers are looking for to maximize their SAP investment.”
SAP SAPPHIRE — If AI is your thing, then this week’s SAP Sapphire news is for you.
Like other legacy companies, the 51-year-old SAP continues to shift to cloud solutions. As it does so, technologies – AI, most of all – are taking center stage. We explore those announcements in the slideshow above. Look for AI-centric news not only from SAP but also from Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Of course, SAP Sapphire isn’t all AI all the time. We also discuss other announcements coming out of the event in Orlando. One of the big pieces of news ties to the ongoing global shortage of developers. Last year, SAP pledged to upskill 2 million people worldwide by 2025. This week, the company is talking up new programs it has in place to meet that goal.
SAP Sapphire is showcasing other initiatives, too. Think green technologies, supply chain and more, and a key announcement from channel partner Lemongrass, all of which we outline for you.
SAP’s Christian Klein
“In a world marked by market disruptions, shifting regulatory landscapes, and critical skills shortages, customers continue turning to SAP for the solutions they need to solve their most pressing problems,” said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP. “The innovations we’re announcing at SAP Sapphire draw on our … enterprise technology designed with decades of industry and process expertise to ensure our customers thrive, both today and in the future.”
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