Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I explore how SAP Business Network is transforming supply chain resilience and driving a 404% ROI for customers through AI, automation, and end-to-end data integration.
Highlights
00:09 — We’ve been doing an ongoing analysis of SAP Business Network. We had great conversations with Manoj Swaminathan, President and Chief Product Officer for SAP Intelligent Spend and Business Network and Business Network, and Tony Harris, Senior Vice President and Head of Marketing and Solutions for SAP Business Network.
01:00 — A top customer priority is to establish supply chain resilience. SAP Business Network has been designed for this, bringing end-to-end data, automation, and visibility, so that companies get past faxes, emails, and PowerPoint. They’ve also been using SAP Business AI to enrich these processes. Every year, SAP Business Network facilitates commerce exceeding $6 trillion.
02:14 — What are some of the outcomes that customers are finding from using SAP Business Network? The one number that really made my head spin a little bit was when they said that SAP Business Network customers, over a three-year period, experienced an ROI of 404%. They’re also able to accelerate their deliveries by 27%.
03:08 — SAP Business Network is now fully integrated with all the major parts of SAP: the new Business Data Cloud, Business AI, and the Business Technology Platform. Because of that, it works seamlessly with SAP’s enormous portfolio. It allows the data to be pulled together from across all those different areas and harmonized—so important here in these days of AI and agents.
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03:40 — The big thing that also comes out of that is the ability for customers to harmonize procurement and supply chain processes, something that in the past has often been, if not in conflict with each other, at least not fully harmonized—to allow these companies to get the best out of both, simplify things, and enable the generation and use of better data from across that.
04:56 — Because it is fully tied in with the SAP Business Suite, those applications generate a massive volume of data on a continuous basis, all of which can be tapped into by agents working within the SAP Business Network. It’s such a timely and unique, highly differentiated product line and service that SAP offers.
- Read more about my interview with Tony Harris.
- Read more about my interview with Manoj Swaminathan.
