E3 Category: The Opinion of the SAP Community

Is independent thinking and action just another term for autonomy? All these terms are giving me a headache: Why don’t SAP’s marketing and its ERP offerings align?

Generative AI can profoundly change business processes. However, many companies are faced with the question: where do we start and how do we get from the idea to a robust use case?

SAP is sharpening up its AI strategy: With acquisitions such as Reltio, Dremio and Prior Labs, the Group is focusing on better data integration, consistent databases and access to structured company data for analytics and AI.

SAP CEO Christian Klein wants to bring the topic of AI closer to the SAP community. He wants to become an AI explainer in the ERP scene, but he treats AI like the cloud: a language problem.

Things can only get better: At the end of SAP's in-house exhibition Sapphire 2026 in Orlando (USA), the SAP share price on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is exactly 50 percent below its all-time high of almost 280 euros from last year. What now?

There is a problem - not a challenge! Consumption-based pricing from SAP would destroy the entire added value of our ECC and S/4 installations. Further BDC license restrictions are the last straw.

At the DSAG Technology Days, it became clear that IT security is no longer an afterthought. AI and increasing networking present SAP users with new challenges - they need to rethink their security strategies.

SAP CEO Christian Klein wants to reinvent his global ERP company with AI. But does he understand AI? He is currently copying the old cloud model, as he himself wrote in a guest article in the Financial Times.

With the acquisition of Reltio, SAP is strengthening its MDM portfolio in a targeted manner. Better data quality and context will be key to future AI innovations and drive the strategic realignment of SAP and its customers.

Igor Levit is one of the best-known and most successful piano musicians in the current concert business. He is an ambassador for Steinway & Sons pianos with regular appearances at the Salzburg Festival. A two-hour video documentary about his work and his thoughts is called: No Fear.

Most companies will fail to reorganize work. While board members and management are still discussing use cases and tools, the logic of work has long since shifted.

Enterprise AI needs control. Learn how Suse AI together with SAP BTP or the SAP Edge Integration Cell ensures data sovereignty, low latency and seamless integration through „Bring Your Own Model“ strategies.

The „AI eats software“ thesis has reached the SAP world - but is often misinterpreted. It is not the ERP that is up for discussion, but the logic of its use. This marks the beginning of a new phase of transformation for SAP users.

The AWS European Sovereign Cloud has been live since January 2026. Together with Suse and SAP, a Sovereign Stack is being created that enables regulated industries such as finance and healthcare to innovate in the cloud with full data sovereignty and local control.

After the S/4 implementation, the next modernization phase begins for SAP users and with it new security risks. Innovation can only succeed with strong software supply chain security and a zero-trust approach for AI agents.

Good and old program development is based on a waterfall model. Modern algorithms are created in dialog with AI. SAP overslept the Internet a long time ago, but currently does not understand AI either.

SAP's clean-core strategy and exponentially growing AI capabilities are accelerating the pace of digital transformation. Some basic thoughts on how the accelerated change can succeed.

The former pioneer of standard business software seems to have lost its innovative compass. Hana, cloud, AI, qubits - what adds value to ERP?

The term „narrative economics“ was coined by Robert J. Shiller, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and describes an approach to explaining how narratives drive significant economic events.

The S/4 transformation remains the central IT project for many companies. However, legacy custom code is slowing down the pace and innovation. New AI-based approaches could pave the way for a genuine clean core.

A unique selling proposition some fifty years ago has been transformed into an ERP group with no history and just any old thing. Where is the SAP added value?

AI and Agentic AI do not add value to ERP. AI will eventually replace, marginalize and eliminate traditional ERP. S/4 will be around for many years to come, but the future lies elsewhere.

The 2027 maintenance deadline is driving an urgent move to S/4. Suse provides the necessary resilient, automated and secure foundation for this critical business evolution.

Many CIOs are pinning their hopes on the EU Data Act, which is explicitly aimed at breaking down lock-in effects and facilitating the change of cloud service providers, cloud exit and switching. What is SAP doing?

Digital sovereignty is one of the key challenges facing German companies. Five theses on how companies can become both more innovative and more digitally sovereign.

The S/4 countdown is running: Companies have less than two years left before mainstream maintenance ends. Service providers are upgrading massively, AI is gaining in importance - but choosing the right partner is becoming more complex than ever.

The virtualization of SAP landscapes has long been considered the standard. The recent consolidation in the hypervisor market is radically changing this. Infrastructure is now once again highly strategic for cost control, flexibility and digital sovereignty.

SAP S/4 Hana is a given for many companies - especially in the cloud. But rollbacks, frustration in IT and scarce resources show: Without a clear strategy, clean data and strong partners, the transformation will remain bumpy.

For decades, the Z namespace was the wild west of SAP development with unlimited possibilities. Abap developers transformed the rigid standard processes of R/3 and ECC 6.0 into tailor-made suits for the specialist departments.

For years, those who managed SAP change worked behind the scenes, unseen, unheard, but indispensable. Engineers below deck who kept the company's engines running while others steered.

The SAP share price has plummeted - relatively speaking. Last year, the share price was almost 280 euros, and financial analysts were even predicting values in excess of 300 euros. Now the share price is leaden at 170 euros. Where is SAP's crisis communication?

SAP has fallen out of time: It's not that S/4 is a bad ERP, but rather that SAP CEO Christian Klein overslept the social and technical change.

Disproving an incident after it occurs is laborious and often counterproductive. Once the damage is done, effective containment is difficult. SAP should, in any case, proactively address false rumors and communication voids.

The global ERP company hardly plays a role on the international IT stage anymore. SAP was absent from Viva Tech 2025 in Paris and CES 2026 in Las Vegas. What about Davos?

Mercedes-Benz has been around for over 100 years, and Lufthansa is celebrating its centenary. SAP could live on for another 100 years—if it reforms itself!

The concept of „least privilege“ will probably never really die out. Like a good ghost story, it hovers in our systems, policies and debates. Sometimes ignored, revered or reinvented - it is always present.

Financial management under pressure: more responsibility, higher expectations, more complex risks. Fragmented systems and manual processes slow down agility. How AI and automation contribute to greater resilience and speed.

In 2026, the S/4 migration will reach a milestone: over half of companies will have completed the changeover. AI-supported tools and public cloud models will accelerate this process and transform the role of IT service providers.

In a remarkable interview with my colleague, Manfred Bremmer, from the German publication Computerwoche, SAP board member, Thomas Saueressig, warned against a “Frankenstein” architecture when using AI with on-prem resources.

Technological upheaval, new regulations and the demands of patients and staff pose challenges for the healthcare sector with stagnating budgets - especially for hospitals with modern diagnostics and care.

This number has been disconnected—this is a phenomenon that my colleague Andrea Schramm from Marketing and Sales and I are confronted with more and more often: Is there no longer a culture of conversation?

After the cloud fashion fiasco, the king has switched to AI. The new clothes don't suit him, and the stock market's response has been lackluster. However, financial analysts still believe in a positive outcome. But can SAP truly master AI?

AI will fundamentally change the business of IT service providers—not only in testing and software development, but also in consulting. Experienced consultants will benefit, but junior consultants will find it more difficult to get started at first.

SAP has embarked on an inevitable disaster involving AI assistants, agents, patchwork, Joule, and Frankenstein-like architectures. SAP has essentially created AI chaos theory 2.0.

With Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 16, SUSE aims to set new standards for stability in business-critical IT environments—with a zero-trust platform for the era of S/4 transformation and long-term investment security.

The European Commission initiated formal antitrust proceedings against SAP on September 25. The allegation is that SAP may have exploited its dominant position in the ERP software market by imposing abusive contract terms.

You can now use any LLM to automate the complex, manual analysis of your SAP infrastructure. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) securely connects data from tools such as Trento to AI, without any model training.

It's common knowledge that AI feeds off the vastness of the World Wide Web. For AI, texts, photos, videos, and graphics are the source of "knowledge." ChatGPT and similar programs provide the answers. But what if the sources dry up?

I was shocked to realize two things: this is my last column, and I haven't even written about artificial intelligence yet. But few buzzwords are better suited to the grand finale.

My gut feeling is that 99 percent availability would be acceptable, but this equates to a system or service being unavailable for approximately three days and 15 hours per year. ERP systems and AI agents require greater stability.

An eventful year is coming to an end. There have been numerous new developments relating to Linux and open source. They show that transparent open source principles, technologies and solutions are becoming increasingly relevant.

SAP's commitment to AI is like a glaze poured over everything and everyone. The main thing is that it tastes like artificial intelligence.

SAP is also entering the field of AI agents. Apart from the imminent surplus of AI agents compared to ERP users, the paradigm persists due to a lack of expertise on the part of the users.

Geopolitical turbulence is having an impact on the future direction of companies' IT strategies. Sovereignty is the order of the day. What can business application providers contribute?

A prankster who thinks evil! The DSAG Annual Congress 2025 in Bremen is over. The biggest scandal in Bremen? Quite simply: there was no scandal - everything was soft-washed and critical issues were sorted out in good time. The DSAG members were left out in the cold.

Automation is omnipresent in IT. But despite the hype surrounding hyperautomation, it should be clear that it is not an end in itself, and certainly not a panacea. It is worth taking a critical look.

Rise with SAP, BTP, AI and integration will challenge companies until 2027. Between cloud roadmaps and proven on-prem systems, it is important to choose the right path at your own pace.

SAP wants to get involved in the booming business of „sovereignty“. For the time being, there is cloud functionality for SAP's own data center for existing customers, but this fig leaf will not be enough! SAP itself must become sovereign.

There is further proof of the open source success story: Confidential Containers are now available on a public cloud. A community project has quickly become an enterprise-grade solution for critical processes.

SAP wants to integrate AI into all processes and products. CEO Christian Klein promises an increase in productivity of up to 30 percent through automated routines, faster processes and smart analyses to support decision-making. A status check.

The SAP service market is booming thanks to S/4 migrations - but the end of this wave is in sight. What comes next? New opportunities, new challenges and a change of strategy in the SAP partner ecosystem.

Digital sovereignty is rapidly gaining in importance in Europe. This is creating new requirements—and opportunities—for SAP customers. Open source plays a key role in this and helps companies to become more sovereign.

The volatile macroeconomic and geopolitical environment requires IT landscapes to be operated with confidence. Security and independence are becoming increasingly important. Open source and hybrid cloud offer the necessary flexibility and resilience.

Everything must become more efficient, including processes. SAP knows this too—and thus offers stable, tried-and-tested processes for complex subject areas that benefit companies. They are the best at it.

The SAP community is increasingly diverging from SAP's plans. There is a wide gap between the global ERP market leader's dreams and reality.

Ten years ago, SAP presented S/4 as a new beginning for the digital backbone of the economy. Real-time, simplified data models, cloud focus. Much was achieved. In the meantime, it is less a question of "if" and more a question of "how".

An ERP system from SAP provides an excellent opportunity for consultants, IT experts, and competitors to earn money. It's only logical that SAP would have its own set of rules for this. What does Celonis want from SAP?

The legendary saying, "Red Bull gives you wings," is probably familiar to most people. However, things are not going well for the beverage company in soccer and Formula 1 right now. The sports press writes: "Red Bull is taking a beating."

At the DSAG Annual Congress, experts will discuss current challenges facing the SAP community—from BTP to AI. The aim is to prevent SAP's visions from bursting like balloons in the face of harsh user reality.

With customs barriers, trade barriers, and wars, the world is being atomized and defragmented by autocrats. Fortunately, we have a global SAP community with a website in German, English, Spanish, and now, French.

For around three years, we have been experimenting with various combinations of artificial intelligence with our interns. Although a discussion has been initiated, no decision has yet been made regarding the direction to take.

E3 Magazine already addressed the topic of "cleaning out" ERP systems in 2016. To that end, the SAP system has been heavily modified in recent years. What now?

AI doomsday preachers are gaining momentum, but the IT industry is not prepared to disrupt itself. Clayton M. Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" is relevant once again.

SAP is not only a stock market darling and star, but also the source behind much business, technical, and licensing discourse in the IT scene. Who has the power of interpretation?

It was with great astonishment that I read the text "AI agents are turning Salesforce and SAP into rivals. Artificial intelligence is blurring the distinction between front office and back office" in The Economist on June 5 of this year.

Snap has been developing SAP software for 25 years. Under the SnapWare label, we offer around 40 SAP best-practice solutions - from tools for payment terminals to industry solutions for healthcare logistics (GHT).

Although companies around the world have invested billions in their data infrastructure, the successful implementation of AI remains challenging.

Innovation at SAP has shifted from IT to cooperation. An increasing number of partnerships are intended to mask the company's own lack of imagination.

Digital transformation requires secure, scalable IT solutions. SAP's EIC, combined with Suse Rancher for SAP Applications, enables modern, data protection-compliant integration - local, flexible and ready for real-time processes.

The combination of AI algorithms and powerful hardware, such as Nvidia's graphics processors, has sparked a revolution. The most visible result is ChatGPT, though SAP is also working on the subject.

In times of global trade conflicts and protectionist measures, open source—as software and as a principle—is becoming central for companies and regions. It has a lasting impact on workflows, processes, and communication.

The broad—and unfortunately often poorly orchestrated—SAP offering is surprising. There are real software gems, but there is little to no communication. Can SAP itself no longer see the forest for the trees?

Data is everywhere: in our systems, our processes, and our heads. We collect, store, and transfer it—and sometimes lose track of it. So, what do we actually do with all this data?

Currently, there is an extensive debate about SAP's diversity targets. The goal of having 40 percent of women in leadership positions within the group has been rejected. Apparently, SAP CEO Christian Klein is bowing to the US administration's requirements.

SAP relies on open source infrastructure for ERP and Hana—this brings opportunities and new challenges. Find out how you can make SAP systems robust, flexible, and future-proof with best practices in planning, security, and operation.

Many SAP users stop halfway through automation. The potential of tools such as Ansible and end-to-end automation remains untapped—and with it the opportunity to combine migration with modern future-proofing.

ERP programs, apps, and engines come and go. What has made us successful is a competent, agile and knowledgeable SAP Basis team. We have always built our SAP systems on a strong foundation.

The SAP cosmos includes many ERP modules, such as ECC, BTP, BDC, Private Edition, Transition Option, Customer Evolution, and New Business Suite. Who can keep track of them all?

How to sustainably reduce compliance and security costs in SAP landscapes without sacrificing cross-system SAP security management.

SAP has potential and the current altitude is high. It will require a great deal of skill on the part of the Supervisory Board and Executive Board to maintain this successful course. It lacks a unique selling point.

I've often noticed recently that our business vocabulary is relatively martial: "I'm planning to assassinate you", "We have to fight on all fronts now" or "The tasks are not decisive for the war".

With the deadline for S/4 approaching, a well thought-out migration is essential. An SAPinsider 2024 survey emphasizes the urgency of minimizing risks and choosing the right migration path to make the transition efficient.

Many SAP users stop halfway through automation. The potential of tools such as Ansible and end-to-end automation remains untapped—and with it the opportunity to combine migration with modern future-proofing.

There is a veritable discussion going on at the SAP regulars' table as to whether SAP is actively and dynamically shaping its future or just conscientiously managing the legacy of Professor Hasso Plattner. I am of the opinion that SAP is at peace with itself.

We all know and love them: SAP acronyms. Most of them are three letters long. Prominent examples? BDC (Batch Data Communication or new: Business Data Cloud), BTP (Business Technology Platform), or BOM (Bill of Material).

It is amazing how many services and functions can be found on the Hana database platform. Unfortunately, there is no scientific study on the degree of usage.

SAP offers numerous services and programs for a successful S/4 migration. The path to the cloud should not be a problem, however, the seed has not been planted. ECC customers hesitate and procrastinate. Why is that?

Many companies use S/4 transformations to tidy up systems and data - including account assignment objects. If you follow a few tips when clearing out, you can prevent the link between ERP and HCM from being damaged.

Because the underlying database in SAP is not correct, the reporting on REACH (chemical safety), RoHS (hazardous substances) and Pfas ("perpetual chemicals") is incorrect in many industrial companies.

Homo Ludens is an established term that was also popularized by Hermann Hesse's novel "The Glass Bead Game". In education, and later in business, you will find the term "serious game", and then we are not too far off from the concept of Digital Twin.

Companies with SAP workloads are increasingly implementing hybrid cloud strategies. Suse Rancher for SAP Applications offers an easy-to-operate, scalable platform for the secure operation of business-critical applications.

There is an SAP portal for us existing customers where our own infrastructure is managed, right down to the licenses. According to my regulars, this is the best-kept SAP secret.

Software licenses are the bread and butter of IT providers. In any case, licenses and maintenance fees are justified. But do the regulations have to be so complicated?

The annual investment report of the German-speaking SAP user group, DSAG e. V., is always eagerly awaited. In addition to the survey data itself, the level of participation is an important indicator of the mood in the SAP community.

Buzzwords are my topic. Why? Because my thesis is that buzzwords definitely have a right to exist - but only if they can be roughly categorized and the majority of them make sense.

SAP migrations often take longer than expected. It is not for nothing that SAP has extended some maintenance windows. New developments such as automated fit-gap analyses with a downstream factory approach accelerate the transformation.

It is now becoming clear that the work of SAP CEO Christian Klein is not sustainable: despite the attractive buzzwords such as cloud and AI, the SAP share price plummeted disproportionately. Why?

AI research is currently undergoing rapid development, especially in the field of generative AI. Of course, this also has an impact on the world of SAP, and the Walldorf-based IT giant is constantly unveiling new services and features in this area.

"Cloud" is at the top of my hit list of meaningless IT buzzwords. Although perhaps meaningless is a bit harsh. It's more the mechanics of the discourse that lead us to speak about cloud, but often counterproductively.

The unreserved and uncritical use of AI is not justifiable in a business-critical SAP environment. This means trustworthy AI will become increasingly important and, with it, transparent open source principles, technologies, and solutions.

SAP cannot be accused of lacking composure, but of lacking transparency and comprehensible communication. The presentation of the new SAP Business Suite and Business Data Cloud leaves only one question unanswered: what is SAP attempting to communicate to the community?

After a year of economic, political, and geopolitical uncertainty, global dynamics will continue to impact businesses in 2025. For many, 2024 was about breaking new ground.

SAP's share price is soaring. Deutsche Bank analysts put it at 300 EUR. The CEO and CFO are doing a great job. But how are they managing this?

In the fast-moving world of SAP, even a brief outage can cause considerable costs. This is where Trento comes in—your reliable companion that protects your SAP systems from costly service interruptions.

The latest message from SAP headquarters from CEO Christian Klein is in: data is important and valuable. The year is 2025 and SAP has invented the golden record. Another loss of reality in the SAP universe.

For this article’s title, I‘ve borrowed a phrase from Friedrich Merz, a member of the German Bundestag, who used it in the last German Bundestag debate before the election in response to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's speech. This article has been inspired by German politics.

SAP workloads require maximum availability and security. SLES for SAP Applications 16 solves this challenge with high availability, security and optimized management for a stable and efficient SAP environment.

SAP Edge Integration Cell (EIC) is currently a much-discussed topic. SAP users should also see it as an opportunity to use open source as a strategic foundation to drive modernization and implement innovations.

How often have you read about innovations recently? A simple Google search yields an astonishing 1.85 billion results. However, upon closer inspection, a significant number of these results are not truly innovative.

Which cloud is best for SAP Hana and how do the different providers compare? With how widespread SAP is, the security and performance of these systems are critical.

Older SAP ERP systems remain popular with customers because these installations have been maintained and modified over many years.

Writing this is akin to a tautology, i.e., saying the same thing twice. Isn't journalism necessarily always creative? Whether it's court reporting or a discussion on rising SAP share prices, creativity is always needed to produce something.

Banks have a significant influence on the degree of economic sustainability through capital allocation. A 5-stage model can be used to evaluate and support their path towards a necessary role model.

At the beginning of the year, I had the opportunity to visit our subsidiaries in the USA and attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The topic of AI has become a focal point for our company, and Nvidia is emerging as a potential partner.

Every January, the discussion about the "Davos Man" resumes. SAP is also seeking to play an important role at the WEF, so here we will begin a discourse on the Davos Man in general and SAP in particular.

According to the report prepared by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) on the state of cybersecurity in the EU, the number of cybersecurity-related incidents will increase by 24 percent in 2025, with ransomware and DoS/DDoS attacks being the most common.

There is another way! We have worked intensively with SAP BTP and evaluated that BTP is far more autonomous than SAP officially presents it as with the S/4 roadmap. From a pragmatic perspective, BTP is also a robust platform for ECC 6.0.

A Rise-with-SAP license is a multidimensional contract. SAP collects at least twice with a Rise contract without any claim to success.

Ansible is an established standard that is here to stay. However, in the SAP world, application possibilities, from accelerated Rise migration to faster implementation of innovations, are still underutilized.

Regulations such as NIS 2 increase the requirements for data protection and security. The BSI CC EAL 4+ certified Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) fulfills these requirements.

Digitalization is all everyone is talking about. Everyone wants to be digital, and digitalization has become indispensable. But let's be honest, what does that actually mean?

When supply chains became fragile and global logistics and production began to stutter, SAP was able to help and win with a comprehensive ERP/SCM. As SAP CEO Klein often emphasized, supply chain planning is one of SAP's strengths.

When George Stephenson applied for the first railroad line in England in 1825, the Paris Academy of Sciences wrote in a report for the British House of Commons that "the rapid movement of travelers could cause the so-called 'delirium furiosum'".

There is no RISE license agreement with SAP. If you opt for the all-in-ERP package, you will be required to sign at least two contracts and follow a dozen web links.

From the outset, SAP has encouraged its customers to adopt new technologies and products. Despite the current immaturity of many technologies and products, the pressure to act is increasing.

While this edition of E3 was being sent to the printers, SAP CEO Christian Klein and CFO Dominik Asam presented the latest quarterly figures. As a result, the SAP share price in Frankfurt am Main rose to an all-time high of 222 euros.

Shortly before the editorial deadline, I rewrote my monthly column: An employee sent me a photo from Leipzig. At the SAP DSAG stand, it should of course say "Together", but "Gem" was covered by another sign.

The next AI-driven industrial revolution is leading to a massive need for action in terms of digital IT logistics solutions, especially in the SAP environment. This is also an opportunity to generate real added value.

SAP customers from the R/3 era suspect an end-of-life for their beloved CCC. However, anyone who has signed a RISE contract is now aware that a CCoE is of greater significance than ever. What is the next step?

In process control, new SAP SaaS products act as self-contained silos. Integration is available both for data and for the execution of processes as a web interface—but that is where it ends.

The cloud promises more security and stability for SAP systems. But unfortunately, this is only half the truth. Existing customers need more and automated monitoring to deliver on the promise, in the cloud as well as on-premises.

A year ago, every time AI was mentioned in an announcement, the share price automatically skyrocketed. New AI experts were added to professional networks every hour and thousands of AI posts were shared.

The cloud blurs the differences between applications from different providers. Functions are developed, replicated, and provided more quickly. Switching to the cloud is difficult, but offers enormous opportunities.

CIOs, CTOs and, above all, Chief Technology Officers encounter many challenges in their roles at SAP. The turnover is high, and the rewards are few. What is the root cause of this issue?

Kubernetes is increasingly being used in SAP applications. The increased flexibility promises cost savings and new use cases, such as integrating applications into the SAP Integration Suite.

SAP CEO Klein and CFO Asam are performing exceptionally well, as evidenced by the company's share price performance. However, outside of the financial implications, there is a sense of unease, uncertainty, and apprehension within the SAP community.

Is SAP innovative? We don't know. The ERP company is notably reticent with regard to innovations, research, and development. Opinions differ as to why this is the case.

I have adapted this article’s title from the German business magazine Manager Magazin because SAP is experiencing similar success and achievements to Germany. However, there is also room for valuable and sustainable improvement.

The SAP community of existing customers, partners and IT providers is emancipating itself and is getting better and better at achieving its goals without SAP. The question of the relevance of SAP itself resonates in the triad of the DSAG Annual Congress 2024 in Leipzig.

Summer. Sun. Barbecue season. A successful party usually includes beer, preferably fresh from the barrel. Austria's largest brewery company, Brau Union Österreich, offers its customers the opportunity to pick up the hoppy refreshment directly from more than forty locations.

The Chinese Cultural Revolution resulted in both significant achievements and the irreparable loss of numerous resources. SAP’s work culture is now undergoing a similar period of reform.

Artificial intelligence will be at the heart of future transformations in the retail sector. The necessary optimization of master data quality still poses challenges for established ERP systems such as SAP for Retail.

SAP is continuing its massive restructuring: the successor to SAP Business Suite, S/4 Hana, has long since arrived. The end of mainstream support is also fast approaching, making a migration an inevitable next step. Furthermore, SAP is repositioning itself in the market with a focus on cloud solutions.

Professor Hasso Plattner is regarded as the inventor of the SAP Hana database, which can accelerate an ERP system if all the prerequisites are met.

E3 Magazine maintains close and productive relationships with press and copywriting agencies. We verify the accuracy of the texts, create a layout, and arrange for editing and proofreading. Our objective is to provide our readers with the highest quality content.

How can users differentiate themselves with standard business software? This raises the question of the cluster risk of the SAP S/4 Hana IT stack.

We have a long-standing relationship with a number of leading software providers, including SAP, Microsoft, Siemens, IBM, Oracle, and many others. Each of these companies has a proven track record in IT and has been instrumental in helping us manage our organization effectively.

Optimal SAP processes depend on cost-efficient and secure system operation. SAP Basis teams are responsible for this. Automation software is the benefit provider.

In a digital IT landscape, existing SAP customers need a robust and reliable ERP infrastructure. The best compliment from customers is when they don't realize that their SAP environment is running on Suse.

Every target group, every value community, every community has specific language patterns and vocabulary. What applies to the SAP community naturally also exists in executive communication at C-level for CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, etc.

Risk regulations help to manage complex authorizations and maintain compliance. How you can also prevent cyberattacks and save costs with the right strategy.

The Salzburg Festival is over, and Don Giovanni was an overwhelming success. While Don Giovanni dated 1,003 women in Spain, Christian Klein has around 10,000 developers worldwide.

An open secret to which many management teams have so far paid little attention: the lack of control of interfaces in IT system landscapes. It was hardly surprising that interface management was neglected when SAP landscapes were still self-contained IT systems. However, this situation has changed fundamentally.

Defensive IT security with monitoring of the entire risk situation often fails due to a lack of expertise in taking a holistic approach. In the face of rapidly increasing complexity, a flood of buzzwords and supposedly universal solutions, this often turns into flying blind, with companies neglecting the most basic security measures.

It's frightening how little SAP boss Klein knows about us customers. Since the sales reps now limit themselves to only delivering the latest price list instead of offering more extended consultations with customers, the SAP spirit of old has disappeared.

Eagle-eyed readers of E3 Magazine may have noticed that we have been recycling the art of our late cartoonist Robert Platzgummer for some time now. Why did we do this?

In 1968, when the year 2001 was still in the distant future, Stanley Kubrick made "A Space Odyssey". The film was a revolution and a sensation in many ways, and SAP learned from it.

CEO Christian Klein does his best to run SAP, but is that enough? Professor Hasso Plattner is no longer available to provide shock factor. Plattner is the risk and Klein is the sustainability, and risk and sustainability go hand in hand. What will become of SAP without one of the two elements?

SAP launched the Business Technology Platform, or BTP for short, a good three years ago. Usability and support are now almost flawless - not least thanks to the new system openness. A recap from the field.

Anyone using ChatGPT is putting their data at risk. But to keep pace with technological change, AI cannot be ignored. So how do you combine internal data security with AI? The answer is open source.

SAP Edge Integration Cell is a flexible hybrid integration runtime that is available as an optional extension to the SAP Integration Suite. This API management executes integration scenarios within a private infrastructure.

A new AI study shows that 98 percent of business leaders believe AI will transform their industry within the next three years. According to the survey results, 24 percent have already deployed AI tools.

SAP is doing well, judging by its share price: up 40 percent in a year. In contrast, Oracle was up almost 20 percent in mid-June, and Salesforce was up 13 percent after a dip at the end of May.

Turning those affected into co-creators of the digital transformation in Germany's companies: this is the completely new concept developed to cure specialists and managers of their fear of digital change.

The departure of Professor Hasso Plattner as Chairman of the Supervisory Board marks the end of an era. SAP loses the thorn in its side. Who will now shake SAP awake?

Professor Hasso Plattner will forever be the leading figure at SAP and in the SAP community, whether he is Chairman of the Executive Board, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, or retired. It is hard to imagine the SAP universe without Plattner.

Cybercrime reports have been ringing alarm bells.Tthreast to ERP systems have also been intensifying. According to a study, the number of cyberattacks on SAP landscapes will reach an all-time high by 2023.

A successful SAP Business Technology Platform partner summit took place in Heidelberg, Germany. The efforts to establish an open system alongside the frozen core are commendable. My proposal is that the BTP become public domain.

AI promises to radically simplify and improve processes. However, in complex processes such as detailed planning, integrating AI into existing software is not enough. New types of software and workflows are required.

A challenge for any organization, especially those moving SAP workloads to the cloud, is to protect data at every stage: at rest, in transit and, perhaps most importantly, during processing.

The Hana database consolidates SAP's unique selling point. However, experts call this vendor lock-in. In the short term, SAP looks like a winner, but in the long run, SAP itself could end up in lock-in.

SAP Executive Board member Thomas Saueressig is co-author of a book on the Business Technology Platform. The graphic below is offered as supplementary material.

Regular readers of my column know that I am the co-head of an SAP regulars' club that now has 27 CIOs as members. The mood in the group is always good, although we are waiting for Christian Klein to reset.

CCC managers are under pressure to act due to the S/4 Cloud strategy when it comes to SAP Basis. For decades, SAP Customer Competence Centers (CCC) have taken place only within individual companies, and have not been open to others.

Christian Klein was the subject of a cover story in Manager Magazin, a German business magazine, which portrayed an innovative CEO who would rather look at the stock price and chase IT megatrends than look after his own customers.

More and more users are opting for complete or suite solutions for SAP Basis automation software. Vendors of such software, which provide various applications as part of a complete package, are turning the wheel of development.

S/4, the successor to SAP Business Suite 7, is and will remain an on-prem system. SAP CEO Christian Klein is unlikely to achieve his cloud goals this way, which says nothing about the quality of S/4 Hana itself.

When switching from an ECC contract to an SAP Rise contract, the metric for SAP users changes. Existing SAP customers face the challenge of estimating the number of Full Use Equivalent, FUE, before signing the new Rise contract.

The NIS2 Directive and the Cyber Resilience Act are responses to the increasing number of cyberattacks. Here it is helpful to rely on the BSI-certified Suse Linux platform for SAP.

In May 2024, Professor Hasso Plattner will step down as Chairman of the SAP Supervisory Board. A successor was elected last year with 99 percent of shareholder votes.

Companies are facing various challenges and key issues in the digital transformation. The integration of AI and machine learning in particular is increasingly becoming an unavoidable trend.

Many are familiar with the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter. The first time I tried to read the English original in 1989, I failed. However, after a lecture by AI pioneer Jürgen Schmidhuber, I purchased the German edition and devoured it from cover to cover.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for SAP customers to obtain relevant information about the capabilities of the ERP software they are using. The SAP list of prices and conditions seems to be the only remaining source of information.

The fact that S/4 Hana, as a completely new technology in the SAP universe, will have a fundamental impact on the current state of organizations has been known since its introduction in 2015. Since then, the topic has been an invisible elephant in the room for many companies.

What is SAP's value proposition? There are few studies on this, but SAP is most probably not a technology company like Microsoft, Apple, Meta, or Google, or a bookseller like Amazon.

I had lunch with our senior lawyer in the cafeteria the other day and we ended up staying until 5 in the afternoon. It wasn’t the food that made me feel ill, but rather his concerns about the use of generative AI in light of the GDPR.

Even in the dawning age of AI, programming is still a popular activity. From RAP (RESTful Application Programming), to CAP (Cloud Application Programming), there should be something for every SAP customer out there. But it won't come cheap.

There was a good deal of buzz about AI at the DSAG Technology Days Conference in Hamburg. While DSAG Chief Technology Officer Sebastian Westphal and SAP Chief Technology Officer Jürgen Müller philosophized animatedly about open construction sites, possible solutions and missing roadmaps, the audience waited for concrete answers. They waited in vain.

Customers act in more complex ways than before, as there are far more communication channels available. As a result, there are many interactions in which customers disclose their data to companies.

SAP is an innovative company. It is constantly researching new technologies and the next generation of business software. Sometimes, however, the innovations are almost too far ahead of the reality of everyday customer life.

It was a dramatic time at SAP headquarters in Walldorf as many Supervisory Board members, Executive Board members and executives fought to keep their jobs. SAP Supervisory Board member and former Chairman-designate Punit Renjen was a danger that had to be averted.

SAP loves dual leadership. What one can't manage, the other can. Cloud computing, however, is a regional conflict; things are different in the U.S.!

Usage-based versus authorization-based user license allocation: since the introduction of the SAP user license types "SAP S/4 Hana Enterprise Management for Professional/Functional/Productivity Use", there has been uncertainty in the SAP community as to the foundation on which user licensing and, accordingly, measuring should be carried out.

The rising number of cyberattacks is significantly increasing the demand for resources. In order to optimize these and expand the talent pool, companies need to find intelligent methods during the current talent shortage.

SAP is a shell of its former self. It has everything other IT vendors lack: content and knowledge. However, hyperscalers have the technology.

The SAP Supervisory Board is a construction site

What is cloud computing? A comment I made to the effect that SAP BRIM (Billing and Revenue Management) is a highly complex and successful SAP application, but is only available in its entirety as an on-prem solution, prompted a Microsoft employee to object. Who is right in this case?

E3 Magazine has selected the most exciting companies to feature in our SAP Startup Spotlight series. In today's article, we present LiveEO, a technology company that offers SAP system-integrated satellite-based monitoring solutions.

Trust is a great asset that is more easily gambled away than won. This makes it all the more pleasing that German managers and financial professionals' confidence in their companies' financial figures has increased in recent years.

Are managers truly familiar with the topic of business process digital transformation? This trend has been an important topic in many companies for several years, but development is not quite over yet.

Introduce new SAP technologies quickly and successfully with the help of intelligent change management. AI, big data, and automation have enormously enriched the functions of SAP solutions such as BTP and will continue to do so.

For SAP, there are very good reasons why the public cloud should be the future operating model. Users and the SAP community should have more autonomy to pursue their own interests.

Life is ever changing, and for whatever reason, the day may come when it is time to leave the cloud. SAP does not have a policy for this. Customers, however, should. They should have a cloud exit strategy plan in place.

E3 magazine has selected the most exciting companies to feature in our SAP Start-up Spotlight series. In today's article, we present Woocar, a SaaS platform that aims to reduce traffic accidents by more than 90 percent and is connected to the SAP Logistics Business Network.

SAP CEO Christian Klein's motto is "cloud only". With this, he is provoking controversy because the world cannot be divided into black and white.

Baby boomers are now retiring. Almost 70 percent of them want to retire from working life by the age of 64 at the latest, with the desire for more leisure time playing a major role. Many of them are even prepared to accept a reduction in their pension.

Current cyber threats such as ransomware jeopardize entire operations by encrypting data and systems. This can lead to a super-GAU if companies are reliant on real-time analysis.

What's going on with SAP? The mood in the community and among SAP customers is persistently bad, however the share price is going through the roof. It is reasonable to assume that shareholders and financial analysts know something that we in the SAP community do not. Here is one possible answer.

AI and ML are all the rage in the SAP world. However, developing, deploying, and managing AI and ML models poses a number of challenges and requires specific frameworks.

Since SAP presented S/4 in New York in 2015, around 20 percent of SAP customers have completed the conversion to the new ERP generation. Most of them have made an investment within the seven- or eight-figure range.

Christian Klein's keynote speech at the 2023 DSAG Annual Congress in Bremen, Germany, had it all. The SAP CEO announced that key innovations will only be available in the SAP cloud in future.

Rarely before has the community been so surprised by SAP: the share price is reaching all-time highs, innovation is at rock bottom, and customers are angry and unsettled.

In uncertain times, it is important to know who or what you can rely on. This makes it all the more pleasing that German managers and financial professionals have increased their confidence in their companies' financial figures in recent years.

What’s right is wrong. Sooner or later, SAP CEO Christian Klein will be right with his "cloud-only" postulate.

Are you in the process of converting to S/4 Hana? Then you are probably familiar with the licensing difficulties that accompany such a change. Software Asset Management (SAM) can help lead the project to success.

E3mag.com has received a surprisingly large number of articles about SAP licenses this past month. We have been observing this growing need for discussion for several months. Licenses are becoming a key factor for S/4 conversion.

Only about a third of the DSAG (German-speaking SAP User Group) members trust SAP's strategy. SAP CEO Christian Klein's visions are correct, but the way they are presented and communicated misses the mark with the SAP community.

E3 magazine has selected the most exciting companies to feature in our SAP start-up spotlight series. In today's episode, we present Velou, an SAP.iO Rising Stars startup that improves the shopping experience in online retail.

As many readers will already be aware, securing the SAP gateway is crucial for the security of SAP systems. But what can happen if the gateway is configured incorrectly or insecurely?

Is automating IT processes a technical challenge? Yes, but not only a challenge. The key to success and seamless implementation is a well-structured plan that involves all employees—not just those in IT.

In the current competition for skilled workers and market share, artificial intelligence can be a great support. In order for the technology to unfold its potential, it should be used in conjunction with automation.

There is still a lot of potential for digital process support. The company Deutz in Cologne, Germany, uses a mobile and lean application to drastically simplify and speed up processes.

E3 magazine has selected the most exciting companies to feature in our SAP Startup Spotlight series. In today's issue, we present Solena, a biotechnology company that uses information about the soil microbiome to promote efficient and sustainable food production.

With Professor Hasso Plattner’s departure from the SAP Supervisory Board next year, the company will soon commence an evaluation of the actual function and duties of a Supervisory Board Chairman.

It is common knowledge that SAP is not satisfied with the success rate of migrating customers to S/4. Many members of the SAP community tend to take a wait-and-see approach when it comes to migrating to S/4 Hana.

SAP's collecting mania knows no bounds. SAP believes that it will automatically understand other companies’ intellectual property just by owning them.

The transformation to a business partner has been a goal of CFOs for years, but it is only the effects of the multi-crisis and the topics of digitalization and sustainability that are putting CFOs more at the center of corporate management.

I read more and more often - even from former companions - that cloud computing makes a software asset management (SAM) tool unnecessary. But how can a cloud function without management?

Oona Horx Strathern's new book was published in September. It has the cheerful title “Kindness Economy” and is a counter-project to egoism and capitalism. Rather than criticize, it presents humanistic options.

In October, with an outlook to 2024, the question is: can SAP still be trusted? What was once an innovator for standard business software has now become hesitant, lagging behind.

Exclusive interview with Workday Group Vice President DACH Christopher Knörr.

SAP's strategy is cloud computing. Almost all IT providers are taking refuge in the cloud. Why not SAP, too? But SAP has no vision of where it’s going.

Open source and GitHub/GitLab are closely linked. Three years ago, GitHub created a monetization option for open source developers and companies with the sponsorship button.

What are the benefits of open source? SAP modernizations and migrations are complex; taking a different approach based on open-source principles can help you avoid several problems and stumbling blocks from the start.

Skepticism about the S/4 cloud? An annual survey to determine the state of S/4 migration and business opportunities has produced fundamental findings this year. A lot has happened in terms of awareness of SAP offerings.

The connection of heterogeneous machines and the semantic processing of data are essential prerequisites for the successful operation of both ERP and MES solutions such as SAP Digital Manufacturing.

Seven years of S/4 Hana - actually a reason to celebrate. But not for customers who have not yet taken the long and expensive step there. 

My annual house note from Salzburg from the Festival is this time inspired by the outstanding violinist and recording artist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and her album "What's Next Vivaldi?" in a quality far beyond any CD.

Christian Klein has not only made a mess of SAP's AI development, but is currently being overtaken left and right by his own existing customers when it comes to AI. An old pattern continues.

SAP CEO Christian Klein has done a great thing: the pre-programmed crash has been prevented. But where do we go from here? No one at SAP knows.

E3 Magazine has selected the most exciting companies to feature in our SAP Startup Spotlight series. In today's episode, we feature Sedna, a company that provides a platform for the maritime and supply chain industries.

There is pressure to act, which SAP CEO Christian Klein obviously does not feel. He spends his days doing petty repair work. He works dedicatedly and forgets the purpose and vision of SAP.

Cancellation of SAP on-prem licenses converts them into cloud subscriptions, but this means that the existing SAP customer loses all autonomy over its own ERP system.

E3 Magazine has selected the most exciting startups to feature in our SAP Startup Spotlight Series. In today's installment, we feature goFlux, which offers a freight trading platform and related products.

SAP HCM Payroll, quo vadis? Many HCM user companies are faced with the challenge: What to do with SAP Payroll? How can investments made be carried over into the future? Is H4/S4 the only right way?

The silo security of a traditional SAP environment is reaching its limits in an era of increasing interconnection between SAP and non-SAP systems. Does this lead to sacrifices for the security of a process landscape?

SAP's in-house trade fair Sapphire repeatedly prompts SAP CEOs to verbal feats and bold statements. Anyone who suspects anything untrue here is a Pinocchio.

Cyberattacks on SAP systems and operational technology (OT) can have devastating consequences for companies: from delays in operations to the shutdown of all processes. The following tricks help to ward off hackers.

End-to-end business processes remind me of my early days with SAP R/3. A lot of things didn't work then, but when they did, they were consistent, evaluated, and definitely E2E. SAP CEO Klein talks a lot about integration.

"Rock-solid engineering. Bold creativity." That's how SAP advertises Fioneer on its own homepage, but will customers now have to pay for Fioneer's expensive deal between SAP and third parties? There's a lot of anger.

E3 magazine has selected the most exciting companies to showcase in our SAP Startup Spotlight Series. In today's installment, we'll be looking at Soley, a product mining solution provider available on the SAP store.

If the SAP images from the Sapphire in Orlando are to be believed, Christian Klein has decided to be the greatest rather than the fastest.

For a long time, SAP user companies were reluctant to migrate to SAP S/4 Hana. Now there is movement on the issue.

SAP users are caught between the conflicting priorities of migration and innovation. Migration projects with lift-and-shift procedures often dominate at first, and innovation falls by the wayside. But there is a better way.

Are you about to decide which path to use to migrate to S/4 Hana? Contract Conversion, Product Conversion or Rise with SAP? Take a look at the PKL Q2/2023.

A new ERP architecture is emerging, driven by SAP technology but less to SAP's own liking. CEO Christian Klein has already taken note of the first setbacks and lowered the revenue expectation for cloud computing.

The good news: The productive SAP systems survived all the auditors' checks and drove the penetration testers to despair. And then: An attacker hijacked the highly secure system.

Anyone looking for dates for TechEd in Europe or the USA this year can search for a long time. One only finds the dates for the realization in Bangalore, India, on November 2 and 3, 2023. The dates in Europe and America have been cancelled without replacement.

SAP CEO Christian Klein has achieved a great feat: the pre-programmed crash was prevented. SAP has turned the corner, has not landed in the ditch and is now in calm waters. But where will the company go from here? No one at SAP knows.

Nowhere does a prediction seem to be as difficult as in IT - especially when it concerns the ERP future. The current example of ChatGPT has shown how quickly supposedly safe parameters have to be re-evaluated.

There are currently many construction sites in the SAP realm. Misguided personnel and product policies have created numerous legacy issues. SAP CEO Christian Klein is working to rectify the situation.

There is pressure to act, which SAP CEO Christian Klein obviously does not feel. He spends his days doing small-scale repair work. Working with commitment and forgetting the big picture - Klein is left without a strategy.

The main finding at the DSAG Technology Days Conference was that users are still experiencing uncertainty regarding necessary modernization. Time is pressing; after all, the 2027 deadline has once again been confirmed.

Let me first go on record as saying that I believe most CFOs are great characters. They are responsible and precise in their attention to detail. They are also, for the most part, much friendlier and more outgoing than many might think.

Even if S/4 is not a tragedy like Shakespeare's Hamlet, the question for the existing SAP customer is whether he can live with the S/4 provisions in the PKL. If not, then this must be included in the contract negotiation.

Valid financial figures and realistic forecasts are a top priority for companies. If you want to meet this demand, you have to establish end-to-end processes and ensure that everything meshes when it comes to automation.

Above all, B2B2C means serving different target groups according to their needs. One-size-fits-all customer portals are not very helpful for a good customer experience. SAP Composable Storefront opens new doors for SAP customers.

For SAP, customer satisfaction is a very important part of the business model. After all, the very first SAP system was developed on the customer's hardware. Since then, many ideas from users have found their way into SAP's ERP.

Officially, Christian Klein still believes in "cloud first" and hopes for "cloud only". Thousands of SAP's existing customers and his own experts know better: Cloud computing remains out of reach for ERP in the medium term.

Shifting up a gear: If you run your own software development within your organization, you can no longer avoid DevOps. The advantages are manifold. Especially when it comes to accelerating processes.

New projects show how artificial intelligence can be used to create added value. But can the creative use of AI to create texts and images also be transferred to the context of business software and processes?

Orchestrate with open source. Everything is going digital. Everything is being automated. But who keeps track? Which software do we trust to control the flow of all digital processes?

The change of personnel in the positions of Chief Financial Officer and Chairman of the Supervisory Board has obviously prompted SAP CEO Christian Klein to clean out and tidy up.

Since the German Cash Register Security Ordinance (KassenSichV) came into force, it has caused anxious moments and triggered lively activity - not only, but especially - in the retail sector. No wonder, since the regulations are extremely complex.

According to Statista, 84 percent of companies in Germany now use cloud computing. At the same time, voices are being raised questioning the switch to the cloud.

SAP has taken a wrong turn: Instead of consolidating menus, screen masks and processes, a ChatGPT-like voice input is to be put over the disastrous UI. Why does SAP always start solving problems from the wrong side?

A recent publication by Manager Magazin lists the favorite employers of young engineers in Germany. SAP comes in a distant 39th place. What's going on there?

The end of SAP as the community knows it. The supervisory board, the executive board, and the IT community would have the chance to save SAP. But false consideration and convenience are preventing the retread.

That I implement innovations in the company is not a question. It's more a question of the timing of the implementation. The pressure on SAP teams to implement the requirements of the business units as quickly as possible is enormous.

The transition to the ISO 20022 global standard is a daunting challenge for financial institutions and businesses alike. ISO 20022 is a global standard for the transmission of data that is currently being established by banks and financial institutions around the world.

SAP CEO Christian Klein said he wants to consolidate SAP. The ERP world market leader should concentrate on the essentials - someone has tried that before him.

Serving both business and private customers is the core of any B2B2C strategy. This means that channels must be used, business models developed, and markets tapped. A hybrid sales model is indispensable here.

It is not our software contracts that are meant, but the termination of our own employees. In terms of labor law, it is probably possible. Organizationally, CEO Christian Klein is completely overwhelmed.

The security precautions that IT organizations have taken are not sufficient at the back and front. The measures taken so far simply do not lead to sufficient resilience

In the past, there were different approaches to using self-service in reporting. These solutions were subsequently implemented in the existing product.

Hardly imaginable: restrained joy about a new get-together with the SAP community. The very successful CCC/CCoE Forum will be continued this year in Salzburg. It is an important basic event that can form the basis for a successful S/4 conversion.

Professor Hasso Plattner has appointed a successor as SAP Supervisory Board chairman. Punit Renjen was CEO of Deloitte until the end of last year and is to be elected to the SAP Supervisory Board this year.

Using innovative technologies, insights are derived from data in real time. To fulfill his new role, the CFO needs better data understanding and data access.

More and more public authorities and companies are taking the plunge into the cloud. However, successful and sustainable digitization with the help of cloud computing cannot work without a cloud strategy including GRC management.

CRM applications make contact with customers transparent throughout, while marketing is a complementary tool for sales. Yet the fact is that both disciplines must form the CRM world together.