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In Foundries, Global, ERP & Finance, Network & Spend Management

5 companies leveraging startup innovation to improve their customer experience

Providing a top-notch customer experience is critical for competing in today’s market. By better understanding their customers, companies can provide personalized experiences that exceed expectations.  

To date, over 150+ startup solutions in SAP’s partner ecosystem have built integrations to help SAP customers expand the capabilities of solutions in their SAP landscape including SAP Customer Data Platform, SAP Commerce Cloud and more. 

Here are 5 impressive stories highlighting companies that are working with startups to provide world-class customer experiences. 

 

Deli Home & Expivi: Improving customer experience while delivering bespoke products at scale

Deli Home, an international supplier for DIY products, needed a solution to help their customers configure their timber orders online that could be easily integrated with their retail website and ERP system powering their business. Expivi’s 3D Product Configuration solution was the perfect solution to enable customers to order custom-made wood panels directly from their website. 

Expivi works with 3 SAP solutions and is available on the SAP Store.  

Target & SundaySky: Providing interactive video-powered experiences to its new RedCard members 

Target worked with SundaySky to provide interactive and customized video-powered experiences to its new RedCard members at many touchpoints along the customer journey to drive relevancy and deepen their customer engagement. 

SundaySky works with SAP Commerce Cloud and SAP Upscale Commerce and is available on the SAP Store.  

Signet Jewelers & Creatable: Bringing in-store associates into the online store   

Signet Jewelers is working with Creatable to empower their sales teams to sell online through personalized virtual storefronts to drive new revenue, traffic and extended consumer engagement – all integrated with their online stores powered by SAP Commerce Cloud. 

 Creatable works with Industry Cloud, SAP Commerce and is available on the SAP Store.  

Jenny Craig & Jebbit: Using data to provide a better experience for customers 

Jenny Craig is a nutrition and weight loss company that partnered up with Jebbit to create a solution to generate engagement with their customers and allow them to understand potential customers’ intents, motivations, and desires by delivering engaging experiences. 

 Jebbit works with SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement and SAP Customer Data Platform and is available on the SAP Store.  

Bose & ParcelLab: Delivering an outstanding end-to-end journey that delights customers 

Bose needed a flexible solution to meet customer demands and deliver a consistent customer experience across multiple touchpoints. They teamed up with parcelLab to design a series of fully customizable post-sales emails that provide customers with access to the latest updates on their order. By embedding the order tracking information solution directly in Bose’s website, they were able to significantly improve their search engine optimization and contribute to repeat sales.  

parcelLab works with SAP Commerce Cloud and SAP Upscale Commerce and is available on the SAP Store.  

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

In Foundries, Global, ERP & Finance, Network & Spend Management

5 Visionary Companies Leveraging Startup Innovation to Optimize Business, Finance and Operations Processes

SAP’s ERP, Financial Management, and Spend Management solutions help thousands of businesses increase efficiency and gain insight to guide their businesses by solving complex business problems. Since 2017, SAP.iO has been building an ecosystem of startup solutions to help customers extend the value of their investment in these SAP solutions and we’re proud that over 145 startups in our portfolio are integrated with SAP solutions including SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba and are available on the SAP Store. 

 

Each of the 5 companies featured below are staying ahead of the curve by leveraging startup innovation to optimize their business, finance, and operations processes. 

 

Decathlon & Trustpair: Reducing risk by detecting and preventing wire transfer fraud

Decathlon, a leading sporting goods retailer, teamed up with Trustpair to build a clean Vendor Master File and work with reliable supplier data to comply with Loi Sapin II regulations in less than 4 months. Today, Decathlon continues to prevent payment errors and reduce fraud risks by continuously auditing third party databases. 

Trustpair works with SAP S/4HANA, SAP HANA, and SAP Ariba and is available on SAP Store 

Bunge & Sedna: Harmonizing global supply chain communications 

Bunge has over 25,000 employees across 40 countries and was looking for new ways to bring their global supply chain team together. They used SEDNA’s intelligent communication system to harmonize workflows, processes, and information across the company – resulting in improved visibility and productivity. 

Sedna works with SAP S/4HANA Cloud & Industry Cloud and is available on SAP Store 

RWE Power & Pexapark AG: Customizing benchmarks and delivering insights for renewable energy prices   

RWE, a leading German energy company, required clear and up-to-date insights into the current market pricing of clean energy to scale their investment in renewable energy. They partnered with Pexapark to develop a customized pricing, analysis, sourcing, and monitoring solution that models forward pricing curves across European markets on demand. 

 Pexapark AG works with SAP S/4HANA and is available on SAP Store 

Dole & Clarifruit: Developing a next-gen quality control platform to target a 10% reduction in fruit loss 

Dole joined forces with Clarifruit to launch an innovative commercial partnership to automate their quality control processes and reduce fruit loss. By implementing an AI-powered solution, Dole can automatically collect inspection data, integrate it into their ERP system, and provide their leadership team with high-quality real-time information and analytics. 

 Clarifruit works with SAP S/4HANA and is available on SAP Store 

SAP & 4tiitoo: Leveraging eye tracking technology to improve employee ergonomics 

As part of their “pledge to flex” initiative, SAP worked with 4tiitoo to implement their AI-powered gaze control solution that provides employees with an innovative tool that helps improve ergonomics by reducing mouse movements and mouse-keyboard swaps. This new feature is already working to improve employee wellbeing, increase efficiency, and embed accessibility across business processes. 

 4tiitoo works with SAP S/4HANA Cloud and is available on SAP Store 

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

In Foundries, Global

5 companies reinventing their customer experience with startup innovation

Understanding your customers and engaging with them through personalized experiences is essential for any business. SAP.iO has been working with innovative startups from around the world to help extend our customers’ investment in SAP solutions for E-Commerce, Customer Data, Sales, Service, and Marketing. Today, over 40 SAP.iO startup solutions are integrated with SAP’s Customer Experience portfolio and are available on the SAP Store for customers to discover, learn, and adopt.  

We are proud to highlight 5 inspiring stories featuring companies that are delivering world-class customer experiences powered by startup innovation. 

 

McDonald’s & Wagawin: Bringing coupons online to increase customer engagement 

Wagawin helped McDonald’s switch from their traditional paper printed coupons to a digital version powered by their platform that integrates with SAP. Their recent campaign achieved more than 2 million ad impressions and provided McDonald’s with valuable insights on customer engagement and preferences. 

Wagawin works with SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Customer Data Cloud, and SAP Customer Data Platform and is available on the SAP Store. 

Express & Jebbit: Driving a seven-figure sales increase by nurturing loyal shoppers  

Express was looking for a new way to deepen their engagement with their loyalty members. They partnered up with Jebbit to understand customer preferences by providing members with monthly quizzes and challenges that featured incentives like bonus points or monetary credits. While Express initially planned to deepen engagement, rather than conversion, they successfully brought in seven figures of revenue between direct and incremental sales resulting from this program. 

 Jebbit works with SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement and SAP Customer Data Platform and is available on the SAP Store. 

Lidl & parcelLab:  Personalising delivery to build loyalty and increase returning website traffic by 85%  

With the help of parcelLab, Lidl was able to increase customer loyalty by delivering automated, personalised shipping messages to their customers. This new experience resulted in 85% of customers returning to Lidl’s webpage and a 12% increase in average basket size. 

parcelLab works with SAP Commerce Cloud and SAP Upscale Commerce and is available on the SAP Store. 

Werder Bremen & Pico: Deepening fan relationships 

Werder Bremen of the Bundesliga is one of the oldest German professional sports clubs with over 40,000 active members and nearly 2,000,000 loyal fans. They worked with Pico to deepen these relationships by creating an automated service to provide fans with unique options for redistributing tickets issued for games that were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Pico works with SAP Customer Data Cloud and is available on the SAP Store. 

Unilever & Teamcore: Analysing and prioritising retail tasks to boost sales 

Unilever found it challenging to manage all the information of the thousands of products and understand what happens in retail stores once products are delivered. By leveraging Teamcore, they now analyse and prioritise huge data sets to accurately understand the reality of what is happening in each store. In addition, the solution automatically generates proactive reminders for tasks like rotating merchandise that leads to improved KPIs and better communication between the retail stores and corporate office.  

Teamcore works with SAP Sales Cloud and is available on the SAP Store. 

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

In Press, Portfolio News, HR & People Engagement

Timeshifter selected as one of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas

Timeshifter is recognized by Fast Company for its accomplishments in translating sleep and circadian neuroscience into real-world tools with the potential to improve the lives of billions of people.

NEW YORK, NY (May 4, 2021) — Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards were announced today from a pool of more than 4,000 entries, honoring the businesses, policies, projects, and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to pursuing innovation for the good of society and the planet.

Timeshifter, the creator of the world’s first technology platform for circadian timing, received an honorable mention. Timeshifter enables people to proactively “shift” their circadian clock quickly or “shift” the timing of an activity to the optimal circadian time. This gives Timeshifter the unique and patent pending ability to solve several universal and multi-billion-dollar problems.

Timeshifter has already solved jet lag with an app it launched in 2018 — now the most-downloaded and highest-rated jet lag app in the world. Later in 2021, Timeshifter will launch a new app to help shift workers optimize their sleep, alertness, health, and quality of life. At least 20% of the global labor force are shift workers, changing to a new schedule soon after they adapted to the previous one, or never adapting at all. Timeshifter has also begun strategic work in the field of peak performance and chronotherapeutics that aims to treat illnesses according to circadian rhythms.

Our circadian clock controls almost every biological system in our bodies — from our sleep-wake cycle and mood and performance patterns to our metabolic, immune, and reproductive systems, and even many of our genes: By including Timeshifter as an honoree, Fast Company highlights the growing consensus that circadian science is the new frontier in human performance and personalized medicine.

Read More…

In Fund, Press, Portfolio News, Supply Chain Management

ClearMetal Recognized as One of the Four Notable Vendors in 2021 Gartner International Visibility Business Process Context

ClearMetal, the leading SaaS platform for international freight visibility, dynamic transport planning and customer experience, today announced it has been recognized by Gartner as one of the four vendors in the 2021 Gartner “International Visibility Business Process Context: ‘Magic Quadrant for Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platforms’” report.1

According to this Gartner report, “While many real-time transportation visibility platforms (RTTVPs) have expanded capabilities beyond core domestic road transport and now include pieces of, or all, international visibility as well, this research is focused on internationally focused vendors that are not included in the Magic Quadrant for Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platforms.”1

“ClearMetal is excited to be named one of the four solution providers recognized in the International Visibility Business Process Context of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for RTTVPs. We believe this recognition validates ClearMetal’s position as a leader in door-to-door international freight visibility. The world’s largest shippers trust the quality and accuracy of our data and rely on our platform to provide insights about their freight in real time,” said Adam Compain, CEO of ClearMetal. “We congratulate E2open, TransVoyant and Infor for being named alongside ClearMetal in the International Visibility Business Process Context of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for RTTVPs, as well as the over-the-road vendors featured in the Magic Quadrant.”

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In Consumer Industries, Foundries, Tel Aviv

SAP Foundry, Publicis to Launch Accelerator with 7 New Startups

SAP.iO, the investment arm of German multinational SAP SE, announced last month that it has launched its SAP.iO Foundry startup accelerator in Tel Aviv, focused on consumer engagement.

The accelerator program was launched in partnership with the digital business transformation company Publicis Sapient. Seven startups focused on developing advanced marketing and commerce solutions to help brands improve consumer engagement, have been selected to join the accelerator.

This is the first time that Publicis Sapient is taking part in the acceleration program in Israel.

SAP and Publicis Sapient will work closely with the selected startups during the three month program developing new joint solutions for personalized marketing content and offers, product discovery, social engagement, and more. The startups will also explore integrations with the omnichannel customer engagement platform Emarsys, one of SAP’s recent acquisitions, the company said.

“Recent year events and new market challenges in the Consumer Industries, emphasized the importance of expanding our partner portfolio in the e-commerce and marketing domains, and led us to launch a dedicated program with that focus.” says Lior Weizman, director of SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv.

Seven startups originating from Israel, US, Poland and UK were selected, Weizman said. The companies were selected after screening startups from more than 30 countries.

“The selected startups present advanced capabilities in their fields and have a strong track record of success, will enable SAP’s clients to engage in new ways with their customers,” Weizman added.

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In Press, Article, Portfolio News

Sustainable Waste Management Platform Goodr Exceeds Goal By $500K In Pre-Series A Funding Round

Goodr, a Black-owned and Atlanta-based sustainable waste management platform, has just announced that they’ve exceeded their own expectations.

In a press release announcement, it was revealed that the company raised $1.5 million in their recent Bridge to Series A funding round, which exceeded their initial goal by $500,000. Capital One Ventures were joined in this round by Backstage Capital, Unreasonable Ventures, and the Laurene Powell Jobs-helmed Emerson Collective.

“It is an extremely exciting time here at Goodr,” CEO Jasmine Crowe said in the press release announcement. “We are expanding our team, our market reach, and solving two critical problems at the same time. I welcome our new investors as part of the team as we continue to strive towards ending hunger.”

The company has already announced that they are on the hunt for a Lead Engineer, and are actively filling roles for other key executive positions. The supplemental funds will also allow them to improve their product and service offerings, increase marketing initiatives, and activate new markets.

The concept of Goodr doesn’t just cut down on food waste. Rather, it helps businesses save money on taxes, feed more people, and reduce food waste by rerouting surplus food from cafeterias and restaurants to people in need. Their food distribution services include grocery delivery, popup grocery stores, and food delivery to support food insecure communities around the United States. The company’s philosophy is simple: food insecurity is not an issue of scarcity, but of logistics.

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In Blog

From a Crowded Field, Three SAP Store Partners Stand Out

Introducing the 2021 SAP Store Pinnacle Winner and Finalists

Partner SolutionsWhile 2020 was a challenging year in countless respects, there were silver linings – including the astonishing innovation among SAP partners developing new solutions available on SAP Store. Among them are longtime SAP partners as well as brand-new startups, all of which brought cutting-edge technologies to our customers. There are so many of these solutions, in fact, and such tough competition, that we would have been hard pressed to decide on our 2021 SAP Pinnacle Award winner without a raft of supporting data. A clear favorite and two runners-up emerged with agreement from a range of stakeholders. We are very pleased to congratulate these companies, beginning with Icertis Inc

Icertis: 2021 SAP Pinnacle Winner / SAP Store Partner of the Year

With three solutions available on SAP Store, Icertis had one of the highest numbers of transactions and contributed to the overall 2020 success of SAP Store. These criteria clearly demonstrate that the solutions are succeeding in addressing customers’ unmet needs, while supporting SAP’s digital transformation strategy. But that’s not all.Icertis’s three offerings on SAP Store integrate with two categories of SAP products – SAP Ariba and SAP Customer Experience solutions – and address a different aspect of supply chain management. Icertis Contract Intelligence is an AI-powered contract lifecycle management solution that integrates with SAP Ariba solutions to push contract data to complete downstream procurement processes. Icertis Integration for SAP Customer Experience accelerates lead-to-cash processes by connecting to the SAP CPQ and SAP Sales Cloud solutions. And Icertis AI for Accelerated Contract Transformation provides insights for improving contract management by digitizing legacy and third-party contracts, using AI to analyze negotiation history .All of these offerings address thorny supply chain management challenges that have become especially acute for companies during the disruptions caused by the pandemic: spikes in demand, uncertain transportation schedules, remote work scenarios, and much more. Already gaining traction on SAP Store, the Icertis solutions became even more popular during 2020 as businesses faced intense pressure to streamline processes in this arena.

Paradox: A Startup with a Unique Solution for Recruiting

First runner-up for SAP Store Partner of the Year is Paradox Inc., a startup that entered the SAP PartnerEdge, Build track from the SAP.iO program. Soon after onboarding its solution to SAP Store, Paradox sprinted quickly ahead to gain “Spotlight” status on the strength of its top-selling solution, Olivia. Olivia is a conversational AI assistant that automates administrative work for recruiters and hiring teams, integrating with the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting solution. With Spotlight status, Paradox is entitled to additional go-to-market support provided by SAP Digital Commerce and the SAP field sales organization – and had one of the highest numbers of unique visits to its SAP Store landing page in 2020.

Centrical: Helping Employees with the Work-from-Home Transition

Second runner-up is Centrical, another company that recognized a major contemporary challenge and found a way to help companies cope. Centrical for Enterprise Learning Solutions from SAP helps employees suddenly working at home to stay engaged and connected. Through integration with SAP SuccessFactors Learning, the app gives managers visibility into individual performance to identify who might need a helping hand. What’s really unique about this offering is its gamification capabilities. Teams can compete in contests and earn badges and rewards, and built-in features for recognition and peer acknowledgement help keep employees motivated and alert managers to potential for talent development. We are so proud to be aligned with these great companies and congratulate them on their achievements. We also commend all the many superb innovators participating on SAP Store and look forward to more brilliant solutions making strides in the coming months. Most important: our customers thank you!

For more information on the 2021 SAP Pinnacle awards, read the newsbyte.

In Press, Article, Supply Chain Management

Accenture/SAP to accelerate sustainable transformation

Decades long, Accenture and SAP have been collaborating for many years to help companies to embed sustainability across their entire business operations to unlock new value in their supply chains.

Breaking down Accenture and SAP’s latest partnership

By combining SAP’s technology with Accenture’s Sustainability Services and broad industry knowledge, the two are expanding their current partnership to create new solutions that empower companies to accelerate full decarbonisation in the supply chain, and capture their share of economic growth that a circular economy could bring. 

The new solution

Co-innovating and co-developing, SAP and Accenture plans to create a new solution for responsible production, manufacturing and design. Its capabilities will help companies to embed sustainability metrics across their value chain and supply chains. 

How does it work?

The solution harnesses integrated data from multiple operations, allowing companies to better design and produce products with less waste, better recyclability, and more recycled content. 

By providing this solution, SAP and Accenture hope to help to reduce the growing cost of compliance which has been driven by new regulations. 

“Our work together will enable SAP’s customers, which include 92% of the Forbes Global 2000, to use their core systems to help drive their sustainability agenda, optimize their ESG performance and achieve their goals. This expanded collaboration builds on our long history with SAP — including our joint partnership with the United Nations Global Compact and 3M — and our shared commitment to drive adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Julie Sweet, chief executive officer at Accenture.

SAP’s Climate 21 initiative

In addition to partnering with SAP on this new solution, Accenture supports SAP’s Climate 21 initiative. Climate 21 allows companies to use analytics to measure and minimise their CO2 emissions as well as lower their carbon footprint across a products lifecycle. 

In doing so, sustainability metrics harnessed across the end-to-end supply chain allows for an integrated view of environmental savings and cost impacts, as well as the ability to more easily optimise operations.

“To successfully tackle the greatest threat to our world today, we need to collaborate at every level of business and society. Building on our long-standing and trusted partnership, SAP and Accenture are joining forces to help our customers realize long-term growth in a sustainable way. We’re creating visibility into the environmental impact across the entire value chain, providing enterprises with the insights they need to take the right action and accelerate their transition to the circular economy,” said Christian Klein, chief executive officer at SAP.

SAP.iO a global accelerator

Furthering their efforts to accelerate sustainable transformation, SAP and Accenture began a global sustainability focused accelerator program at SAP.iO. 

As part of the SAP.iO, the ‘Sustainability Future’ program – the latest cohort to date – aims to help B2B startups in their early stages drive digital transformation and innovation in four target areas: carbon tracking and trading, resource efficiency, climate risk tracking and mitigation, and circular economy.  

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In Article

“Safe but very uncomfortable” — a deep dive into SAP’s intrapreneurship programme

Intrapreneurship programmes often get criticised for being unstructured and ineffective.

Innovation consultant Alberto Onetti recently wrote that the majority of intrapreneurship programmes he has seen fail to produce meaningful results [and suggests ways of doing them better].

Worse yet, in a piece about the “dark side” of intrapreneurship, Tim Heard, founder of the Circle of Entrepreneurs, told the stories of entrepreneurs left in limbo, with little support structure.

So when I got the chance to have an inside look at SAP’s entrepreneurship programme recently, speaking with Vishal Shah, one of the entrepreneurs who has come through the programme and with Alexandra Begue, head of growth at the programme, I was curious to see how this one measures up.

The programme was revamped in 2015 and since then has assessed something in the region of 3000 ideas and produced 3 businesses, one of which has gone on to become its own business unit.

How the intrapreneurship programme fits in with the rest of SAP

Like many large organisations, SAP has a large number of innovation initiatives, for both “internal” startups that had been incubated within SAP and “external” startups that might want to work with SAP .

On the external side, SAP.iO Foundries is a network of equity-free accelerators for startups and SAP.iO Rising Stars is a program that helps promising startups scale up their partnerships with SAP.

On the internal side, the SAP intrapreneurship programme is a company-wide, internal scouting programme and SAP Venture Studio is a venture building unit in which takes the most promising of those scouted projects and turns them into commercial businesses.

These internally-built ventures most often become part of one of SAP’s existing business units. SAP Supplier Financing, for example, was a successful venture built by Vishal Shah, founder and general manager, in the venture studio. It was eventually merged with SAP’s Ariba Network, the ecommerce network.

How the intrapreneurship programme works

There is a call-out for ideas every spring between April and May, which will typically result in around 500 ideas submitted to the innovation team. Submitting an idea involves recording a short video, explaining the project and answering 6 key questions around whether the project can achieve mass scale, whether it can be efficiently tested and if SAP can leverage any particular advantage in pursuing the idea.

The innovation team will cull the initial 500 ideas down to 100 which will go through to a fast-track validation phase that takes around 3 months. The fast track teams receive mentoring and help in developing their idea.

Some 25 of the most promising of the ideas will go through to an 3-week accelerator programme, where they get an even more intense crash course in entrepreneurship and venture-building.

At the end of the accelerator programme, the teams pitch to an investment committee and around a handful go on to join the SAP.iO venture studio.

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In Foundries, Tel Aviv, Consumer Industries

These SAP.iO startups deliver personalized and holistic experiences for consumers on SAP Store

Shifting consumer values are driving new innovations to market at a speed like never before. Consumer Products companies must be able to serve consumers by orchestrating an ecosystem that delivers personalized experiences in the service of achieving an outcome, all at the most favorable cost.

To help drive their own innovation efforts, consumer products companies are increasingly looking to startups and new technologies to fuel future growth. By collaborating with startups to address the industry’s most pressing challenges with innovative solutions through SAP.iO, SAP is dedicated to empowering its customers to continue to thrive as prominent industry leaders. The seven startups that participated in SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv’s consumer products cohort last year are now all available on SAP Store in the latest set of solutions for SAP customers.

“We chose these seven companies to join SAP’s partner ecosystem as a result of due diligence and close collaboration with the industry and product teams at SAP. These startup offerings that are available on SAP Store provide critical solutions to the biggest challenges in the consumer products industry, helping SAP customers best utilize their existing data in order to improve the consumer experience,” said Inbar Yacoby, Program Manager, SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv.

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In Portfolio News, Consumer Industries, Foundries, Blog, Tel Aviv

SAP.iO Startups Deliver Personalized and Holistic Experiences for Consumers on SAP Store

Shifting consumer values are driving new innovations to market at a speed like never before. Consumer products companies must be able to serve consumers by orchestrating an ecosystem that delivers personalized experiences in the service of achieving an outcome, all at the most favorable cost.

To help drive their own innovation efforts, consumer products companies are increasingly looking to startups and new technologies to fuel future growth. By collaborating with startups to address the industry’s most pressing challenges with innovative solutions through SAP.iO, SAP is dedicated to empowering its customers to continue to thrive as prominent industry leaders. The seven startups that participated in SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv’s consumer products cohort last year are now all available on SAP Store in the latest set of solutions for SAP customers.“

We chose these seven companies to join SAP’s partner ecosystem as a result of due diligence and close collaboration with the industry and product teams at SAP. These startup offerings that are available on SAP Store provide critical solutions to the biggest challenges in the consumer products industry, helping SAP customers best utilize their existing data in order to improve the consumer experience,” said Inbar Yacoby, Program Manager, SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv.

Read More…

In Press, Berlin, Munich, Consumer Industries

Sustainable Business Is Better Business for All

Sustainability is the business challenge of our lifetimes.

Customers are increasingly educated and demand products and services that minimize negative environmental impact. Investors are integrating climate risk in their portfolio strategies. Government regulation is on the rise around the world, affecting carbon emissions, waste management, product design, and producer responsibility. Employees are increasingly vocal about their employer’s environmental policies and actions, making it challenging for businesses to recruit top talent without a genuine environmental vision and track record.

Based on Accenture research*, enterprises with high ratings for environmental and social governance (ESG) performance attained operating margins nearly four-times higher than those with low ESG ratings and generated annual total returns to shareholders that were double their peers. According Accenture and United Nations (UN) Global Compact research, 54% of CEOs agree sustainability is critical to the future success of their organizations, and 71% of investors believe the pandemic will accentuate global policies to tackle risks related to climate change.

From Periphery to Core

Enterprises must show accountability through ESG performance and manage end-to-end operations responsibly. By reimagining its business model, any company can operate in an intelligent way, minimize negative environmental impact, and unleash a new dimension of enterprise resource planning (ERP). Decision-makers can use this intelligence to design better products, create engaging experiences, and equip employees to do their best work by eliminating busywork. They can create an efficient, ethical, and adaptable supply chain, reaching beyond organizations and first-tier suppliers to proactively manage performance and risks with trading partners around the world.

Just like any other core business function, sustainability performance must also be managed in real time and integrated into wider business decision making. True, integrated reporting will go hand-in-hand with ESG management, and information transparency will provide a solid foundation to optimize financial results and sustainability performance together.

Most companies have a long way to go before they move beyond the basics of simply reporting ESG performance to actively steering their business operations toward ambitious sustainability goals. While the UN Global Compact’s SDG Ambition program has challenged companies to enhance their commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), only 25% have set goals aligned to societal or environmental needs. Although CEOs acknowledge the universal call-to-action to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all, less than 50% have implemented sustainability into their operations.

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