Kieron Allen interviews Karl Fahrbach, Chief Partner Officer, SAP, as part of the Acceleration Economy Partners Ecosystem Innovation series, in which he speaks with top executives responsible for the ecosystem businesses of the Cloud Wars Top 10 companies.
In this discussion, Fahrbach details how the ecosystem is evolving, AI services and trust, as well as new and expanded strategic partnerships.
Highlights
Partners Ecosystem Evolution — Co-Creation vs. Co-Selling (00:45)
New tech including GenAI is changing the way partners run their business and customers are demanding different things. The main partner activities before were selling or co-selling then implementing. This is changing dramatically; partners are really focused on the customer value journey. The value to us is not so much what the partner does for SAP but what they do for customers.
Co-Creation vs. Co-Selling (02:52)
Co-selling continues to be “super important” for SAP, which has a very strong channel that’s particularly successful in the mid-market but also participating in the larger enterprise market. Co-creation is an area that’s been growing significantly over the last two to three years, especially now with AI and Business AI, partners are monetizing that together with SAP. Co-creating is probably not overtaking but gaining significance.
Fusing Cloud, AI Services (04:26)
To be successful requires partners to be in the cloud; once they’re in the cloud, they need to be able to leverage AI capabilities. Especially with SAP’s Business AI, which comes with cloud solutions. SAP helps customers move to cloud and then helps them to leverage AI capabilities. SAP partners with large language model (LLM) vendors, hyperscalers, hardware partners; all the partners are really pushing to move customers to the cloud. AI is the next opportunity; it’s a sequence more than one or the other, so partners are now looking at both.
Partners and GenAI Announcements (05:55)
Announcements at the recent Sapphire explain very well the focus of SAP, not only Business AI and making sure of the success of customers but the relevance of the ecosystem as well. The ecosystem helps customers leverage AI. SAP’s strategy is to embed AI in every application, every business process so customers get more value from SAP software. Plus SAP has created a platform in the Business Technology Platform called GenAI Hub. It’s a purely 100 percent partner strategy when it comes to AI. Partnership announcements included:
- Mistral and Meta, which gave SAP acess to models with GenAI Hub.
- AWS. SAP leverages AWS to modernize enterprise Cloud ERP to help enterprises drive new efficiencies and capabilities with GenAI.
- Google Cloud. Customers can measure the impact of marketing campaigns. SAP has integrated the Juul AI Assistant and supply chain/business planning product with Google’s AI System.
- Microsoft announcement on Copilot and SAP Juul, which helps integration of SAP applications with Microsoft 360.
- Accenture to make sure Juul can be applied in consulting.
Ensuring Trust (10:40)
Trust goes beyond ethics and data privacy; it also involves governance, lifecycle management, product standards, and more. Fahrbach explains that to ensure its ecosystem is well aligned with the company, SAP provides development guidance in its training materials as well as on AI ethics to partners. Every partner solution developed with AI gets reviewed and compliance-certified. With training enablement, SAP ensures that its partners are aware of all its policies and its philosophy regarding AI and trust.
Prevalent Cybersecurity Issues (12:30)
Cybersecurity concerns and efforts aren’t new with AI, but they have accelerated, especially with the cloud and systems being more connected than ever. The biggest concern, Fahrbach notes, within the ecosystem is making sure the organization can safeguard the business data and guarantee reliability and fairness from the AI-generated outputs.
Another big issue is the misuse of AI technologies, which SAP addresses in its AI ethics policy. It’s also adopting ten guiding principles on the ethics of AI from UNESCO.
RISE with SAP Validated Partner Recognition Program (15:13)
“It’s not only a migration to the cloud; it’s a transformation of the business processes,” Fahrbach says in describing RISE with SAP. Customers moving to RISE will be able to afford to leverage AI and different capabilities. By migrating to the cloud, customers can benefit from greater transformations that will better meet their needs.
SAP continually evaluates the quality of the ecosystem to ensure its delivering with consistency. It also makes sure that the knowledge of partners in the proficiencies is always up to date, whether that’s in trainings or certification programs. Because of this, SAP developed a RISE methodology for partners to be validated with a proven track record of delivering with quality and adhering to the core standards of SAP.
