Community Quick Facts

Valantic is expanding its technology portfolio with the AI-supported semantic data platform Bardioc and entering into a strategic partnership with Almato. The aim of the cooperation is to provide companies with a sovereign, high-performance basis for data-driven business models, explainable
AI and intelligent process automation. Bardioc combines ontologies, knowledge graphs and semantic relations to link data according to its meaning and derive context-based analyses and automated decisions in real time. The platform creates transparency, security and traceability and meets the highest European standards. Valantic's collaboration combines its expertise in digital transformation, data strategy and AI integration with Almato's technological innovation - a partnership that sustainably strengthens data-driven intelligence and digital sovereignty in companies.

Source: Valantic

The Mercedes-Benz Group has taken its investment management to a new level and introduced the SAP-based Corporate Investment Manager software from ZetVisions. The solution now unites the Accounting, Finance, Legal, M&A, Tax and Treasury divisions on a common database. The aim was to create a uniform, audit-proof platform that provides clear responsibilities and improved data quality. A new role and authorization concept, automated approval processes and regular updates for statutory reporting have significantly increased transparency. Today, all relevant areas have access to a single source of truth - with accurate information, more efficient processes and a sustainable improvement in data and process quality throughout the Group.

Source: ZetVisions

MCA Furniture has successfully completed the switch to S/4 and thus taken an important step towards end-to-end digitalization. The aim was to create a harmonized system landscape that connects all areas of the company in terms of technology and organization. Together with IWOfurn and the SAP service provider io, the implementation was completed on an ambitious schedule: from the conception in January 2024 to the implementation phase in the summer and the successful go-live on 1 July 2025. io was responsible for the technical implementation, while IWOfurn took care of the industry-specific integration and data quality. The project marks a milestone for MCA Furniture and shows how digitalization, process optimization and teamwork lead to sustainable business success.

Source: Integrated Worlds

When creative ideas meet real entrepreneurial challenges, the result is pure innovative spirit. This is exactly what was demonstrated at the TUM Business Game on the Heilbronn campus. In just two days, students from the TUM School of Management developed solutions to practical tasks set by partners such as the Schwarz Group, SAP and NetworX. The aim was to build bridges between science and business and to open up new perspectives on current challenges. The teams worked intensively on concepts for sustainable, health-promoting products and services. After an exciting final, a team from SAP impressed the jury with a particularly innovative pitch. For participants such as Ansh Suraj from Deggendorf Institute of Technology, the competition was an unforgettable experience - full of team spirit, creativity and proof that commitment and inventiveness pay off.

Source: P3 Logistic Parks

The V4Smart digital factory in Nördlingen (Bavaria) is one of the most innovative industrial projects in Germany. The joint project between V4Smart, MHP and the Porsche Toolmaking Group is based on the „software-defined manufacturing“ approach, supported by technological partners such as SAP, AWS and Cybus. Within just ten months, a fully cloud-based IT architecture was created that enables flexible, data-driven production. The centerpiece is a digital twin that maps and controls all production processes in real time. With the implementation of SAP S/4 Hana Public Cloud as the central ERP system, production, logistics and quality were digitally integrated. The result is a
highly automated, scalable greenfield production with 80 battery cells per minute - a flagship project for efficiency, agility and digital excellence in German industry.

Source: MHP

MTN Digital Infrastructure has signed an agreement with Seekr to integrate artificial intelligence into its data center landscape to accelerate digital innovation on the continent. The collaboration aims to promote the use of AI in business and the public sector and harness data-driven insights for finance, logistics and energy. It is based on the SeekrFlow platform, which provides AI models as a service and integrates them into existing systems in a scalable manner. According to SAP, AI could contribute up to 1.5 trillion US dollars to the African economy by 2030. The aim of the partnership is to make this added value tangible through intelligent technologies and secure data infrastructures - for more efficient governance, greater citizen participation and sustainable growth.

Source: Seekr Technology

Semos.ai has announced extended early access for its Agentic AI system Manager Agents, which supports managers in real-time decision making and team leadership. Unlike reactive tools, Manager Agents are proactive and provide targeted support on topics such as feedback, recognition and employee development.

The system is based on a multi-agent architecture with seven specialized, interconnected modules that exchange context and insights from team interactions. The Meeting Agent in particular captures valuable insights from everyday conversations and derives impulses for action. The platform integrates seamlessly with SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, Oracle HCM, Microsoft 365, Slack and Teams and combines internal HR data with market intelligence to make leadership smarter and more contextual.

Source: Semos.ai

Carrick Capital Partners has announced a minority investment in Veritas Prime to accelerate the company's growth in the areas of Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) and SAP S/4 Finance. Veritas Prime is a leading provider of integrated HR and payroll technologies, offering end-to-end services from implementation to licensing and managed services on a proprietary platform. The investment is intended to further drive expansion in cloud-based services and expand the technological basis. Both companies see this as an opportunity to provide customers with more efficient and scalable solutions for HR and finance processes.

Source: Carrick

Retarus, a global provider of APIs, gateways and applications for messaging, email management and the exchange of structured data for business processes, is now offering a fully managed cloud fax integration in the SAP Store. The Cloud Fax Connector for SAP Solutions can be integrated directly into business processes via the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and supports companies in the digital transformation of their fax communication as part of the migration to SAP S/4 Hana Cloud. The solution has been validated by the SAP Solution Hub and is compatible with the Private and Public Editions of SAP S/4 Hana Cloud. It uses a modern REST API and replaces outdated interfaces such as BC-SMTP or BC-RFC. This provides companies with a future-proof, legally compliant and scalable solution for automated fax processes - from orders to confidential messages - with high delivery quality and security.

Source: Retarus

IBM has announced the acquisition of SAP service provider Cognitus. IBM aims to accelerate SAP transformations in complex, regulated industries such as aerospace, energy, utilities and manufacturing. Cognitus brings more than 20 years of experience in SAP S/4Hana implementations, industry-specific solutions and AI-powered software. The integration adds powerful SAP-based technologies to IBM's portfolio and strengthens its position as a global partner for digital transformation. The acquisition underscores IBM's strategic investment in growth and innovation in the SAP environment.

Source: IBM

Saarland University has honored Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. August-Wilhelm Scheer, founder of the Scheer Group, with the honorary senatorship, the highest award for outstanding services to the university and society. Scheer was one of the youngest professors at Saarland University when he took over the Chair of Information Systems in 1975, where he carried out ground-breaking scientific work. The laudatory speech at the award ceremony was given by his companion Henning Kagermann, former SAP CEO and long-time President of the German Academy of Science and Engineering. According to University President Ludger Santen, Scheer is a „bridge builder between science, business and politics“, as he has the extraordinary ability to transfer the results of academic research into commercial applications.

Contracts are the foundation of every business collaboration. Nevertheless, contract processes do not run smoothly in many companies.

Contracts are the foundation of every business collaboration. But although they are so important, many things go wrong in everyday life: processes are often not defined, approvals are delayed, important deadlines are overlooked. This costs time, nerves and, in the worst case, money. Many of these problems can be avoided if the processes are right and the right tools are used. SAP offers an ideal basis for this. In this article, you will find out which five stumbling blocks are particularly common in the contract process and how you can eliminate them with a suitable SAP solution.

1. Lack of process structure: Many companies lack a standardized procedure for creating and processing contracts. Different templates, individual approvals and unclear processes make work more difficult.
   A digital contract workflow in SAP with templates, clear approval steps and automated processes ensures consistency and traceability.
2. Media disruptions, manual steps: contracts are often exported from SAP, processed externally, printed out, signed and scanned in again. This costs time, is prone to errors and makes tracking more difficult. An integrated solution such as Cuno/4 enables contracts to be created, checked, electronically signed and archived directly in SAP. This means that the entire process remains digital throughout.
3. Lack of deadline control: Cancellations, automatic renewals or price changes are easily forgotten in everyday life. Digitally controlled deadline management in SAP ensures that deadlines are reliably monitored and displayed in good time. This avoids risks and unnecessary costs.
4. Unclear responsibilities: In many organizations, it is not clearly defined who is responsible for contracts, who can issue approvals or what information can be accessed. Role-based authorizations and clearly defined workflows in SAP provide a remedy here. Everyone involved knows what tasks they have and what rights are assigned to them.
5. Lack of transparency: Without a central overview, it is difficult to keep track of the status of contracts, risks or costs.
   A central contract cockpit in SAP provides access to all relevant data at any time. Dashboards and evaluations support decisions and create clarity across the entire contract landscape

Conclusion:  

A well-organized contract management process is more than just a nice-to-have. It protects against avoidable errors, reduces risks and ensures smooth day-to-day business processes.
SAP already provides many important functions for this. With a suitable extension such as Cuno/4, contract processes can be centrally controlled, automated and mapped completely digitally - from creation to archiving.

Source: Networker Solutions

MHP has once again won the Allianz Industry 4.0 Award with its AI solution Bolt_IT.
The software shows how data, AI and SAP systems can measurably improve production.

The management and IT consultancy MHP has once again received the prestigious Allianz Industry 4.0 Award Baden-Württemberg. The award went to Bolt_IT, an AI solution developed jointly with Porsche that monitors and optimizes safety-relevant bolting processes in assembly. Bolted joints are among the most critical production steps in automotive series production - the smallest deviations can have an impact on safety and quality.

This is precisely where Bolt_IT comes in: the software analyses bolting data in real time, automatically detects anomalies and assigns them to precise error categories. The jury selected the solution as one of 28 projects in the „Winner“ category and paid particular tribute to its market relevance and degree of innovation. Initial simulations show that up to 90 minutes of manual analysis time can be saved per production line every week. At the same time, AI-based defect detection is around seven times more accurate than conventional methods.

The benefits not only unfold on the store floor, but also in the integration with company systems: Bolt_IT can be seamlessly connected to SAP landscapes - such as SAP Digital Manufacturing or SAP S/4 Hana. This allows quality data to be evaluated across the board, measures to be triggered automatically and optimization potential to be made visible across multiple plants.

Source: MHP

Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reorganized the Future Council as a „Strategy Group for Technology and Innovation“. SAP CEO Christian Klein is no longer part of the team; new member: DeepL founder Kutyłowski.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has invited guests to the inaugural meeting of the Strategy Group for Technology and Innovation at the Federal Chancellery. The committee is the German government's highest advisory body on technology and innovation policy and brings together top representatives from politics, science and business. The topics of the meeting were strengthening competitiveness and technological sovereignty in the security and defense industry as well as the potential of AI.

Based on a benchmarking of the strengths and weaknesses of the innovation system in an international comparison, the strategy group defined its level of ambition at its kick-off meeting. The aim is to leverage transfer potential through powerful initiatives and a substantial improvement in the framework conditions along the entire innovation chain. The Strategy Group aims to accelerate the transfer of scientific findings to industry and strengthen Germany's innovative power in the long term. The office is located at Acatech - National Academy of Science and Engineering.

Source: German Federal Chancellery

Large language models write code in seconds. What sounds like a new level of efficiency also has a downside.

The problem is that security has not yet been an integral part of AI-based software development. Thanks to GenAI, programming has never been easier. Almost anyone can use it to generate more or less good code in no time at all - but studies are already sounding the alarm: a full 62 percent of all AI-generated code is faulty or vulnerable. Even more serious: after just five iterations of AI-supported improvements, the number of critical security vulnerabilities increases by almost 38 percent.

So does code become increasingly unsafe the more frequently AI is used in the development process? That certainly always depends on the model and developer. But one thing is certain: without awareness and appropriate countermeasures, the promise of efficiency can quickly turn into an enormous risk. After all, GenAI optimizes for functionality, not for security and resilience. This further shifts the balance between innovation and security to the detriment of the stability of digital systems.

Artificial intelligence can be a powerful tool - but only if we think about security from the outset. This includes structured code reviews, automated vulnerability analyses and security-by-design principles. Only those who keep the last word despite automated code generation can use the advantages of AI without creating new risks.

With the support of the Dietmar Hopp Foundation and the Klaus Tschira Foundation, construction of the new digital heart center begins in Heidelberg.

Symbolic starting signal for the new Heart Center with affiliated research institute in Heidelberg: a central point of contact for patients of all ages with heart disease is being created on the site of the former children's hospital. In future, prevention, diagnostics and therapy will be combined under one roof - from emergency care and imaging to heart transplants.

The Heart Center is designed as a fully digital hospital and is intended to set standards in modern cardiac medicine. At the same time, the „Informatics for Life“ research institute is being established. Here, scientists from the Faculty of Medicine are working with industry partners to research how healthcare data can improve and personalize care with the help of computer science and artificial intelligence.

„We are supporting the new research center because the interaction between computer science and cardiology not only produces excellent research results, but also benefits many people,“ emphasized Lilian Knobel, Managing Director of the Klaus Tschira Foundation. The concept envisages research and clinics working side by side - for a rapid transfer of knowledge into practice in the sense of patient-oriented, data-based cardiac medicine.

Source: Klaus Tschira Foundation

SAP wants to integrate AI deeply into its developer platforms and thus promote innovation, automation and new partnerships.

At TechEd 2025, SAP showed how artificial intelligence will be incorporated more strongly into software development in the future. With new functions in SAP Build and Joule Studio, expanded data connections and partnerships - with Snowflake, for example - the company wants to help developers design business applications faster and more intelligently.

More freedom with SAP Build

SAP Build should offer more freedom in future: Using new local protocol servers, developers could connect their preferred tools such as Visual Studio Code, Cursor or Claude Code directly to SAP environments. A new VS Code extension should make it easier to access build functions. SAP is also working with the n8n platform on an integration that will enable Joule and n8n agents to work together.

With SAP Business Data Cloud, SAP wants to expand access to data and AI platforms. A new extension for Snowflake will make it possible to use SAP data directly in the Snowflake cloud and AI environment. This would give companies flexible access to computing and storage resources while maintaining governance and business context.

New: Data Product Studio

The new Data Product Studio is designed to transform raw data into usable data products and an expanded Knowledge Graph Engine in the Hana Cloud can automatically create correlations between data. SAP also presented the Relational Foundation Model SAP-RPT-1, which is designed to deliver business forecasts on supply chains or payment risks, for example. By 2030, SAP aims to provide twelve million people worldwide with AI skills - including through training programs and a partnership with Coursera.

Source: SAP