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.

TO THE COVER STORY

Clear view of the order backlog in SAP

September 29, 2025
Robert Korec, E3 Magazine
At packaging manufacturer Karl Knauer, the standard SAP system lacked adequate mapping of the order backlog - a central KPI for production and sales planning. Thanks to an enhancement, this can now be evaluated in real time and used for well-founded decisions.
The EU Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether SAP may have distorted competition in the aftermarket for maintenance and support services related to an on-premises type of software, licensed by SAP, used for the management of companies' business operations, in the European Economic Area.

Users Are Different

September 26, 2025
Peter M. Färbinger, E3 Magazine
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.

450 billion through AI agents and humans

September 26, 2025
Capgemini
At MainDays 2025, Perlen Papier received the Maintainer Award for excellence in maintenance.

Cybercrime, Workforce Transformation, and AI

September 24, 2025
E3 Magazine
Digital transformation remains the central task on the executive floors of German companies. Key topics such as cybercrime, automation, and AI are at the top of the corporate agenda in Germany, according to KPMG's study, Future Readiness Monitor 2025.

10 years of S/4: racing car with API handbrake applied

September 24, 2025
Peter Langner, Adventas
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".
SAP was once the spearhead of IT with its Leonardo program. AI, IoT, blockchain, and analytics were all offered under the collective term Leonardo. Of course, there were no quick wins back then. SAP discontinued the program.

Teenage Hana

16 May 2024
The current Hana 2.0 Revision 77 contains serious bugs without fixes. SAP is ignoring many issues with Hana and is trapped in its own system. Instead of business solution competence, the company exhausts itself with technical repairs.

Toxic Hana

May 8, 2024
Hana is a decent SQL database that can deliver select answers in real time thanks to in-memory technology. However, Hana is already 15 years old, and other database vendors have caught up technically. What can SAP do now to stay ahead of the curve?

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

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?

SAP News

Concur Travel is the first online booking tool to integrate emissions calculations according to the new ISO 14083 standard. In collaboration with Thrust Carbon, SAP Concur provides its customers with accurate and consistent emissions data at the time of booking.
SAP reported from New York that, following the introduction of HEC, HCP, SCP, SAC, and BTP, BDC has now been established. The new "Master Data Management" is intended for growth and success, leveraging a dual stack concept, similar to the approach used for Abap and Java in the NetWeaver stack. Doubts are high and skepticism prevails.
The ServiceNow community in Montreal came together for their first meetup on February 27th, 2025. It was a casual meet-and-greet networking event designed to reinforce the power of collaboration and knowledge-sharing within the ServiceNow community. The event was led by Saaniya Chugh, who spearheaded the initiative to bring the event to Montreal.
A new study by the Capgemini Research Institute examines the issue of sustainability in the use of generative AI (Gen AI).

Business Management

Commerz Real hopes to achieve faster decision-making processes through analyses, evaluations and reporting in real time by integrating and networking with business partners and customers on the basis of S/4 Hana.
The most common SAP integration scenarios are aimed at the efficient replication of data across different cloud platforms in near real-time, as well as the integration and automation of SAP processes.
The family-owned company Dräxlmaier is one of the largest automotive suppliers in the world. In the course of the Synapsis project, the company is implementing one of the largest S/4 implementations in the automotive industry in cooperation with cbs.
June 2, 2023

Bullwhip effect

Delivery plans are supposed to link customers and suppliers, increase efficiency and delivery reliability, and avoid bottlenecks due to the bullwhip effect. But in many cases, the plans cause more trouble than they benefit.

IT Management

SAP's authorization concept has been a challenge for the SAP Basis team since the beginning, because it has to be done quickly at the beginning of customizing and downstream no one wants to maintain the roles and authorizations.
Production lines are indispensable components of complex supply chains. If these are disrupted, this can jeopardize the existence of the companies affected. What can companies do to prevent hackers from "hitting the wall" at OT?
The potential for making business processes more profitable and efficient by means of new technologies and services seems almost endless today. However, it also requires the right basis to exploit the potential.
Timely replacement of legacy systems ensures future viability, because many companies still use legacy solutions as enterprise software that were once developed in-house and have been steadily maintained over the years.

Economy

Scheer
Scheer brings together its technology, process, AI and integration expertise in Scheer PAS Germany.
Sinch
Sinch and SAP announced that Sinch AB has entered into an agreement to acquire SAP Digital Interconnect (SDI).
OpenText Amazon WS
OpenText's portfolio of information management solutions will be available as managed services on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Atos Miner Kasch
The acquisition will enable Atos to expand Miner & Kasch's Big Data and AI consulting practice and further advance its Data Science as a Service offering.

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.