SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced that IBM Watson technology will be integrated into SAP solutions to deliver new AI-driven insights and automation to support innovation and improve user experiences throughout the SAP application portfolio.

The digital assistant in SAP Start, which serves as a uniform entry point for SAP cloud applications, will be powered by IBM Watson capabilities. Users can search for, launch, and interact with apps offered in cloud solutions from SAP and SAP S/4HANA Cloud using SAP Start. With the aid of IBM Watson AI solutions based on IBM's trust and transparency and data protection principles, new AI capabilities in SAP Start will be created to assist customers increase productivity through both natural language capabilities and predictive insights.

In order to assist managers and staff with a variety of queries, new digital assistant capabilities in SAP Start will be expanded throughout SAP solutions. The features are intended to assist unlock staff productivity so they may concentrate on more strategic work by automating and expediting routine activities. With the capacity to leverage AI and machine learning to extract data from a range of data sources and respond to user questions across lines of business, SAP Start will give customers intelligence at the point of choice. Nearly 13 million users can now easily access AI-derived weather insights through the TripIt mobile app from SAP Concur, thanks to IBM technology, and make more environmentally friendly travel decisions both before and during their trips.

With Watson products used by more than 100 million people across 20 sectors, IBM offers market-leading AI capabilities. Additionally, 25 joint intelligent industry solutions with IBM Watson capabilities that are supported by SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) are currently being offered to customers by SAP and IBM Consulting. These sector-specific solutions support customers in sectors like retail, manufacturing, and utilities as they accelerate business transformation and use data to make better decisions.

SAP and IBM are working together on generative AI and profound language models in order to enable consistent continuous learning and automation based on SAP's mission-critical application portfolio, in addition to directly integrating IBM Watson AI capabilities into SAP products.

Source: https://news.sap.com/2023/05/ibm-watson-artificial-intelligence-in-sap-solutions/

Germany's WALLDORF, April 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The financial results for the first quarter ending March 31, 2023, were released by SAP SE (NYSE: SAP).

• Cloud revenue increased by 24% and by 22% in constant currency, up 1% over the previous quarter. S/4HANA cloud revenue increased by 77% overall and by 75% in constant currency.
  
  
• At nominal and constant currencies, the current cloud backlog is up by 25%, representing a 1% improvement in sequential growth.
  
  
• IFRS cloud gross profit increased by 28%, non-IFRS cloud gross profit increased by 28%, and at constant currencies, gross profit increased by 27%.
  
  
• Operating profit under IFRS fell by 45%, whereas operating profit under non-IFRS increased by 12% and by 12% at constant currencies.
  
  
• Updated forecast for 2023 to account for the anticipated sale of Qualtrics. SAP updates its view for ongoing business, noting that it expects top line and operating profit growth to pick up.
  
  
• According to IFRS 5, the Qualtrics consolidated group ("Qualtrics") was categorised as ceased activities in Q1 2023. As a result, Qualtrics' contribution is not reported as part of SAP's ongoing operations.

The first quarter of 2023

At constant exchange rates, the current cloud backlog increased by 25% to €11.15 billion, representing a 1% improvement in sequential growth. At constant exchange rates, the backlog for SAP S/4HANA's current cloud increased by 79% to €3.42 billion, or 78%.

Cloud sales increased by 24% to €3.18 billion in the first quarter and by 22% at constant currencies, up 1% from the previous quarter. Revenue from SAP S/4HANA cloud increased 77% to €716 million and 75% when measured in constant currencies.

Software licence sales declined by a manageable 13% to €276 million and was down 13% at constant currencies, helped by a few significant purchases. Revenue from the cloud and software increased by 10% to €6.36 billion and by 8% in constant currency. Revenue from services increased by 11% in constant currency and 12% to €1.08 billion. The whole revenue increased 9% in constant currency terms and 10% to €7.44 billion.

In the first quarter, the percentage of more predictable revenue rose by 1 point to 82%.

Operating profit according to IFRS fell by 45% to €803 million. The increase in share-based compensation, which represents the gain in share price during the first quarter as compared to the decline over the same period last year, is the main cause of the decline. Restructuring costs related to the targeted restructuring programme and costs attributable to a provision for prior regulatory compliance issues also had an impact on IFRS operating profit (see section (D) Basis of Non-IFRS Presentation). At constant exchange rates, non-IFRS operating profit increased by 12% to €1.87 billion.

IFRS basic earnings per share thus fell by 60% to €0.35. The basic non-IFRS earnings per share rose 8% to €1.08. With IFRS, the effective tax rate was 40.5%, while without IFRS, it was 28.3%. For IFRS, the adjustments in non-deductible expenses and valuation allowances on deferred tax assets were the main causes of the year-over-year increase. Due to corresponding modifications to pre-tax data, the changes in non-deductible expenses do not apply for non-IFRS.

The impact of the sale of trade receivables in the fourth quarter of last year, which weighed on Q1, caused free cash flow to decline by 9%.

Cloud gross profit increased by 28 percent (IFRS) to €2.24 billion, 28 percent (non-IFRS) to €2.27 billion, and 27 percent (non-IFRS at constant currencies).

Enterprise Highlights

Customers from all around the world kept selecting "RISE with SAP" to power their end-to-end business transformations in the first quarter. BMW Group, DOLCE & GABBANA, GAMA, GlasfaserPlus, The Government of Manitoba, Henkel, KANSAI PAINT CO, Lingong Heavy Machinery, MLS, NEC Networks & System Integration Corporation, Pastificio Rana, Sempra Infrastructure, Sodexo BRS, Sri Intellectual, Thales Defence & Security Inc, VEM Conveniência, and Zagis were some of these clients.

For the fiscal year 2022, SAP recommended a dividend of €2.05 per share, which would represent a 5% increase from the usual dividend paid for the fiscal year 2021. The dividend must be approved by shareholders at the forthcoming AGM on May 11, 2023.

On March 21, SAP unveiled GROW with SAP, a fresh service designed to assist midsize clients in adopting cloud ERP that promotes quickness, predictability, and ongoing innovation. It is a comprehensive service built on the SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition.

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sap-announces-q1-2023-results-050000847.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAgXixPtpoqIZbvR7tVvBF37T_vAUpXA9FMl9vXmanNjc4XwJnmjZECXj0bFIOIGwSCpiPUFo0v7vwsHi0-xFu7x9OZA5f50cYNJQzcvpVAE6HQ4n7vH4G2JhhaTLiKC_3hNsh3xF_8w5ex6hqsf7DstJ-s3Z16X9w2p5Nh8VTbA

The third year of the Climate Decade has already begun, so it is critical that businesses begin switching to 100% renewable electricity as soon as possible. Organisations are better prepared to withstand growing energy prices and the looming threat of climate change when they switch to 100% renewable electricity. According to a research by the International Renewable Energy Agency, "doubling the share of renewables in the energy mix by 2030 would increase global GDP by up to 1.1%, improve welfare by up to 3.7%, and support over 24 million jobs in the sector."

In 2013, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation and other environmental NGOs launched EKOenergy, a global not-for-profit ecolabel for energy, with the goal of achieving sustainable energy production and consumption. Through the EKOenergy label, a globally regarded quality seal for renewable energy, EKOenergy strives to assist businesses in hastening the transition to 100% renewable energy. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, LEED for green buildings, CDP, and RE100 all refer to the EKOenergy designation as an option for businesses who want to move closer to using only renewable energy. In March 2021, the European Parliament additionally presented EKOenergy with the European Citizen's Prize 2020.

The EKOenergy ecolabel enhances consumers' ability to choose renewable energy and can be used in conjunction with sources of energy such as green tariffs, PPAs, or unbundled energy certificates. It may also be applied to internally generated energies. Through its Climate Fund, EKOenergy has helped underprivileged communities since the label's introduction by funding 79 new renewable energy projects in 29 developing nations.

SAP has already recognised and matched existing activities with the 17 Sustainability Development Goals of the UN, placing sustainability at the centre of its strategy. SAP has committed to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to reduce emissions across its whole Scope 3 value chain, including emissions from products-in-use at customers, by 85% by 2050 compared to the base-year level of 2016. By pledging to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030 and reaching a balance between greenhouse gas emissions and removal, SAP has increased the pace of its climate aspirations.

Since 2014, SAP has powered all of its offices and data centres with electricity produced entirely from renewable sources. SAP picked the renowned EKOenergy label as part of its transition to 100% renewable electricity. SAP pays 0.10 euros to EKOenergy's Climate Fund, which aims to reduce energy poverty while also promoting climate protection and renewable energy, for every megawatt hour of power with the EKOenergy badge.

Source: https://news.sap.com/2023/04/sap-ekoenergy-partner-for-renewable-future/

The April 2023 security patches from enterprise software provider SAP have been made available for a number of its products. These updates fix two critical-severity flaws that affect the SAP Diagnostics Agent and the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform.

In total, SAP has published 24 notes, of which five are updates to earlier bulletins and 19 are new issues of various seriousness.

The three most important problems resolved this time are:

• CVE-2023-27267: The OSCommand Bridge of the SAP Diagnostics Agent, version 720, has a problem with insufficient input validation and missing authentication that makes it possible for an attacker to run scripts on linked agents and completely compromise the system.
  
  
• CVE-2023-28765: Versions 420 and 430 of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform (Promotion Management) are affected by an information disclosure vulnerability that enables a user with minimal access rights to decrypt the lcmbiar file. This would give the attacker access to the credentials of the platform's users and allow them to hijack their accounts to carry out additional harmful deeds.
  
  
• CVE-2023-29186: SAP NetWeaver versions 707, 737, 747, and 757 are affected by a directory traversal bug that enables an attacker to upload and overwrite files on the exposed SAP server.

In SAP's most recent security advisory, there are still 11 security holes that are of low to medium severity.

Even while these problems are typically not given top priority for patching, assaults nevertheless use them, especially when they are a part of intricate attack chains, therefore they must be fixed.

Quick patching is crucial

Hackers are constantly searching for critical-severity vulnerabilities in widely used programmes like SAP's, which are widespread in vast corporate networks.

With 425,000 clients in 180 countries and a 24% market share globally, SAP is the largest ERP provider in the world. Its ERP, SCM, PLM, and CRM products are used by more than 90% of the Forbes Global 2000.

In order to avoid data theft, ransomware attacks, and the disruption of mission-critical operations and processes, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommended admins to patch a number of serious vulnerabilities affecting SAP business apps in February 2022.

Threat actors were seen attempting to penetrate business networks by exploiting patched holes in unpatched SAP systems in April 2021.

Applying the appropriate security fixes as soon as possible is therefore absolutely critical for SAP system administrators.

Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/sap-releases-security-updates-for-two-critical-severity-flaws/

The German software giant is spinning off its listed customer experience management subsidiary Qualtrics as part of its restructuring. The deal, made with two investment funds, values the company at $12.5 billion.

SAP, which announced a restructuring in January involving a refocusing on the cloud and the elimination of 3000 jobs, has reached an agreement with the American fund Silver Lake and the Canadian pension fund CPP to sell Qualtrics. This subsidiary specialising in customer experience management had been floated on the stock exchange in 2021. The two investment funds are buying SAP's shares in Qualtrics for 7.7 billion dollars in cash. Silver Lake was already a shareholder. The transaction should be finalised in the second half of this year.

A subsidiary that was losing money

SAP had acquired the American Qualtrics in 2018 for $8 billion. The German software giant says the sale values Qualtrics at $12.5 billion in total. At the buyout price of $18.15 per share, this represents a 73% premium to the average price over the past 30 days. At the time of its IPO, it was valued at $27 billion.

"Silver Lake has both the operational expertise and the track record in software companies to help Qualtrics extend its leadership in the experience management category, which it pioneered," said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, in a statement. He added that SAP will remain a privileged partner of the company.

Qualtrics now has 18,000 customers, compared to 10,000 at the time of the SAP acquisition. At the end of January, the company reported a 36% year-on-year increase in turnover, but lost more than a billion dollars over the year.

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.

Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/sap-releases-security-updates-fixing-five-critical-vulnerabilities/

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/

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/