The global and independent platform for the SAP community.
Cover story April 2024

SAP Basis with Cloud ALM, on-prem
and licenses.

Salzburg 2024: Hana and S/4 also need a robust SAP basis. The Customer Competence Center of SAP R/3 and Business Suite 7 is transforming itself with ALM, process mining and enterprise architects. The SAP Competence Center Summit in Salzburg is dedicated to this transformation process.

TO THE COVER STORY
Cover story April 2026

Trends and investment 2026

The year 2026 is a critical turning point for the SAP community: SAP's visions meet the reality of existing customers. As the end of maintenance for the old ERP system approaches in 2027, the pressure for S/4 migrations will increase massively and shape the market for service providers.

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Compliant artificial intelligence

December 3, 2025
E3 Magazine
New services create transparency, promote trust, and support companies in the responsible use of artificial intelligence.
SAP certificate management is becoming increasingly complex, and the use of resources is rising continuously. Automation software for certificate management addresses these challenges in several ways.

Reducing Bureaucracy With SAP HCM

December 1, 2025
E3 Magazine
The consensus notification procedure (KMV) represents an important step toward digitizing and standardizing reporting processes. In this interview, SAP HCM expert Andre Weis explains how the FIS/HRD KMV tool reduces the workload for organizations through automated, error-free processes.

EU Competition Proceedings Against SAP

November 28, 2025
Dr. Jana Jentzsch, BHO legal
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.

Why unit tests?

November 28, 2025
E3 Magazine
For most developers, „unit testing“ and „test-driven development“ have long been familiar terms. Nevertheless, for a variety of reasons, not many programmers actually use them in practice.
Boomi, a provider of AI-driven automation, announced that it has been named a leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for API Management.
It makes a big difference whether an existing SAP customer is presented with extensive and diverse IT tools for their challenges, or whether SAP and partners offer clear answers to defined problems. SAP can do everything, but at the expense of its existing customers.
Existing SAP ECC and S/4 customers who want to participate in the latest IT innovations such as AI, LLMs, databases, cloud and edge computing should customize the Business Technology Platform. SAP BTP offers all the degrees of freedom that S/4 denies.

ERP yes, SAP no

March 20, 2025
The SAP community is still interested in innovation, AI and digital transformation, but SAP is less and less the "preferred vendor". The DSAG Innovation Report 2025 shows a lasting skepticism towards the global ERP market leader.

E3 Roundtable on ERP Platforms, Data Streams, and E2E Workflows

Successful ERP, supply chain management, and CRM architectures are built on IT platforms. Data streaming and collaboration are essential to the orchestration of ERP systems. IT platforms are the new operating system for cloud computing. The E3 Roundtable will highlight the importance and strategy of platforms for a holistic IT infrastructure and ERP architecture. SAP customers will implement platform technologies for digital transformation. The E3 Roundtable will discuss the ERP architecture principle of platforms using Boomi's offering as an example.

Comments

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.
No-name column
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?

SAP News

S/4 Finance for Group Reporting enables the real-time consolidation of financial data, automates processes and supports well-founded decisions. It is particularly suitable for complex structures and offers scalability and compliance.
The digital transformation has long been a reality for top managers. For many companies, the SAP S/4 Hana transformation, which involves moving an SAP system into the cloud, is at the heart of this far-reaching change.
As the industry leader, SAP remains the first choice for ERP systems, as implementation is more than just a technical changeover—it is a strategic decision that has long-term effects on the respective company structure.
Future-proofing is a key issue for existing SAP customers. Due to accelerated digitalization, S/4 conversion, AI, cloud and growing IT complexity, knowledge about their own SAP ERP is becoming increasingly important.

Business Management

During the hypercare phase of the S/4 transformation, specialty glass manufacturer Schott carried out a carve-out that included the separation and migration of the pharmaceutical division into a new legal structure.
Stabilo International, a family business since 1855, combines tradition with innovative strength. The migration from ECC 6.0 to S/4 with NTT Data Business Solutions marks a strategic shift towards more standardization, flexibility, and future-oriented business processes.
The use of AI and ML is continuously increasing. However, it is associated with numerous challenges, which range from development to provision and management.
Today, a data warehouse architecture is not enough to implement market requirements and adapt processes, but modern data strategies make it possible to gain valuable insights from the multitude of information.

IT Management

Most people use moving house as an opportunity to declutter. They make a list of things they want to throw away, give away, store and take with them. Data housekeeping is nothing else. It's just for moving data.
Uncover hidden insights and patterns with SAP’s Knowledge Graph. The Hana DB platform and Datasphere can do vector math! Why is this important? Because vectors in multidimensional space make it easy to represent the distance between data points, often even by calculating mentally. Generative AI requires this knowledge.
SAP S/4 Hana is available both in the cloud and on-prem. Although SAP as a company prefers the cloud, there are many reasons to opt for a local installation, including security. This article compares both options.
SAP customer Schaeffler achieves rapid software provision across the entire value chain with low-code. 30 widely used applications with more than 4000 users are in use.

Economy

With the acquisition of ESG Mobility, Cognizant is expanding its expertise in development for intelligent mobility.
The merger of the two companies expands the range of services in the insurance industry.
With the cooperation, SNP and Rackspace want to enable the move to the cloud and optimize SAP landscapes.
Suse and Ingram Micro offer partners a new way to integrate Suse solutions.

People Management

E3 book tip

Getting started with SAP S/4HANA

Get to know SAP S/4HANA using practical examples! In this book, Christian Drumm, Bernd Scheuermann and Stefan Weidner introduce you to the most important modules and business processes of SAP S/4HANA. You will get an overview of the applications for sales, purchasing, production, warehouse management, accounting and controlling. Many exercises, case studies and practical cases enable you to implement what you have learned directly in the system. Currently for the example company Global Bike 4.3.
The prerequisite for using the exercises, case studies and practical cases is access to an SAP system with Global Bike Client version 4.3. SAP UCC Magdeburg.

Order here

Working on the SAP basis is crucial for successful S/4 conversion. 

This gives the Competence Center strategic importance for existing SAP customers. Regardless of the S/4 Hana operating model, topics such as Automation, Monitoring, Security, Application Lifecycle Management and Data Management the basis for S/4 operations.

For the fourth time, E3 magazine is organizing a summit for the SAP community in Salzburg to provide comprehensive information on all aspects of S/4 Hana groundwork.

Venue

FourSide Hotel Salzburg,
Trademark Collection by Wyndham
Am Messezentrum 2, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
+43-662-4355460

Event date

Wednesday, June 10, and
Thursday, June 11, 2026

AI experience workshop only on June 11, 2026 (limited places)
Bonus: Access to all lectures on June 11, 2026

Regular ticket

Lectures, evening event and, depending on availability, the AI workshop on June 11, 2026
Places at the AI experience workshop are limited and registration is required.

Subscribers to the E3 Magazine Ticket

reduced with promocode CCAbo26

Students*

reduced with promocode CCStud26.
Please send proof of studies by e-mail to office@b4bmedia.net.
*The first 10 tickets are free of charge for students. Try your luck! 🍀
EUR 305 excl. VAT.
EUR 590 excl. VAT
EUR 390 excl. VAT
EUR 290 excl. VAT

Venue

Hotel Hilton Heidelberg
Kurfürstenanlage 1
D-69115 Heidelberg

Event date

Wednesday, April 22 and
Thursday, April 23, 2026

Tickets

AI onlyExperience workshop on April 23, 2026 
Bonus: Access to all lectures on April 23, 2026
Regular ticket
April 22, 2026: Lectures and evening event
April 23, 2026: Lectures and AI workshop
EUR 305 excl. VAT
EUR 590 excl. VAT
Subscribers to the E3 magazine
reduced with promocode STAbo26
EUR 390 excl. VAT
Students*
reduced with promocode STStud26.
Please send proof of studies by e-mail to office@b4bmedia.net.
EUR 290 excl. VAT
*The first 10 tickets are free of charge for students. Try your luck! 🍀
The event is organized by the E3 magazine of the publishing house B4Bmedia.net AG. The presentations will be accompanied by an exhibition of selected SAP partners. The ticket price includes attendance at all presentations of the Steampunk and BTP Summit 2026, a visit to the exhibition area, participation in the evening event and catering during the official program. The lecture program and the list of exhibitors and sponsors (SAP partners) will be published on this website in due course.