SAP is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, but half a century is a long time for any company, especially for a software company. How do you stay up to date? As SVP and Global Head of SAP.iO Foundries & Intrapreneurship at SAP, Alexa Gorman is responsible for addressing these questions.
In the hy Podcast, Alexa talks to Christoph Keese about these challenges and how SAP.iO helps innovators inside and outside SAP scale while creating value for customers, startups, employees and SAP.
SAP prides itself on making its customers and the world run at its best. In no other area is this more apparent than within its New Ventures and Technologies (NVT) organization, where teams across the company work together to bring new, innovative technologies into the company’s core portfolio. NVT has committed itself to developing teams and solutions that align with SAP’s overall goals – whether they are tied to the company’s business goals, sustainability goals, or more notably, its diversity and inclusion (D&I) goals.
One example of that commitment to diversity and equity is the SAP.iO No Boundaries initiative to accelerate more than 200 startups founded or led by women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ and others from underrepresented groups in tech by 2023. The program is the first comprehensive inclusive entrepreneurship initiative for underrepresented entrepreneurs in the business software industry. Each SAP.iO Foundry location follows a different theme within respective No Boundaries cohorts, with themes ranging from Professional Services to the Future of Work, and more.
The SAP.iO Foundry San Francisco’s Spring 2021 cohort was built around the topic of the Future of Work. Here are four startups from the most recent program that aren’t just founded by underrepresented entrepreneurs but have also dedicated themselves to increasing diversity and equity in the workplace.
Founded in 2015 by Dr. Zara Nanu and Ion Suruceanu, Gapsquare is building a world where work is inclusive, pay meets value, and diverse talent thrives. Through its SaaS platform, Gapsquare offers insights into salary equity for gender, race and/or disability, inbuilt consultancy, and data-driven recommendations for change. By focusing on these key areas, companies will be able to compete in today’s job market and adequately address the concerns of employees and prospective hires.
With Gapsquare’s fair pay analysis, companies can approach pay equity with a clear understanding of root causes of issues and help focus their resources to implement sustainable change. Not only that, but the startup also utilizes the data on its platform to support organizations with pay gap reporting legislation and equal pay audit work.
Gapsquare integrates with SAP SuccessFactors so customers can analyze their people and pay data to better understand inequity in their organizations. According to Nanu, understanding pain points and actioning sustainable change helps users build more flexible, engaged, and happy workforces.
Based in Seattle, Humanly was founded in 2019 by Prem Kumar and Andrew Gardner and aims to create more equitable and efficient job interviews through conversational analytics. The startup automates job candidate interactions and provides hiring teams with voice analytics to not only make interviews more efficient but also less biased.
Today’s hiring teams handle a high volume of applicants per role, where they have to sift through hundreds of applications and resumes. Such an influx means a lot of qualified candidates may not be engaged with at all – falling into what the Humanly team calls the “black hole” at the top of the hiring funnel. Humanly works to solve the issue by using data to ask the right candidate the right question, thus replacing the need for large teams of recruiting coordinators. Not only that, but Humanly automates top-of-funnel hiring tasks and provides interview analytics to hiring teams so that they can focus on improving areas of the hiring process that should remain human-driven and empathetic.
In addition to interview analytics and insights, Humanly also automates note-taking for interviews, screening and scheduling for high applicant volume roles, re-engagement of silver medalist candidates, reference checks, and two-way applicant tracking system integrations.
Humanly integrates with the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Module so that all candidate conversations and associated efficiency and equity analytics are synced into candidate records in SuccessFactors, including adding interviews analytics, adding new candidate records, updating, and moving screened candidates to the right place in the SF Recruiting Module and attaching interview notes.
For many employees of color, corporate allyship and career mentorship may be a feat easier said than done. Mentor Spaces is working to solve this challenge through its community-driven membership for Black and Latinx professionals.
Founded in 2017 by Chris Motley the startup works to help companies scale D&I efforts while advancing the careers of underrepresented talent by encouraging mentorship among community members. In doing so, diverse talent acquisition and retention are streamlined within companies.
One charge that Mentor Spaces wants to take on is bridging the gap between siloed HR teams and employee networks, or Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). The startup posits that ERG members want to support HR teams but are unable to due to lack of bandwidth and visibility into the hiring process. Partnering with Mentor Spaces enables both HR and ERGs to connect, and in doing so they can build diverse talent pipeline, improve retention, and enhance corporate culture.
Mentor Spaces’ platform has a plethora of features, including native mobile apps that facilitate mentorship conversations. Not only that, but they have launched community partnerships with national nonprofit organizations and Historically Black Colleges and Universities to provide direct access to the largest pool of underrepresented professionals that Mentor Spaces helps cultivate on behalf of its clients.
Called the “career destination for moms,” The Mom Project provides companies with consistent, scalable access to the most comprehensive community of highly skilled gender and ethnically diverse moms (but they also include dads and allies) in the United States.
According to founder Allison Robinson, The Mom Project was built with moms in mind, and has become a two-sided marketplace and community that connects companies with highly skilled and professionally relevant talent. This marketplace facilitates all work types, ranging from short-term staffing needs to customized talent programs and is now comprised of more than 500,000 professionals with strong backgrounds in the core suite of business functions including: marketing, sales, finance, technology, legal, and HR.
Every aspect of The Mom Project has been designed on the core insight that juggling work and family is hard. With that in mind, the team wanted to make them feel supported throughout every step in the journey. Thus, The Mom Project’s platform isn’t a job posting platform, but one that actively supports moms throughout the entire application process. Profile and resume crafting, job search programs, covering childcare so candidates can prepare for interviews, and community generated support are only a handful of the platform’s features.
The Mom Project’s API complements SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting by shortening the hiring process and allowing organizations to have one system of record for talent process that consider high-skilled moms with the willingness to return to work.
About SAP.iO
To learn more about how SAP.iO is helping innovators start up and scale with SAP, please visit https://sap.io/.
Diamonds and girls have been best friends for centuries, but that friendship has long come at a high cost for the communities involved in the excavation and processing of these highly coveted gems. Thanks to shifts in consumer behavior, however, sustainability considerations are now on par with price and design for consumers when purchasing diamonds, according to new research published by De Beers Group.
And it is high time. The mine-to-market journey contains a myriad of social and environmental impacts at every step of the way. From soil erosion, deforestation, and the destruction of ecosystems to the appalling working conditions, low wages, and child labor rampant in the industry, there is certainly a dark side to the way people have acquired their sparkling stones. The upside is that the industry creates high levels of employment and makes up a significant part of the GDPs of the countries that produce them.
Tackling these issues requires crystal clear insight into the value chain. Tools and services from Everledger, for example, enable independent retailers to easily reference the origin, human rights, and environmental performance of their diamond listings from the world’s leading producers. The global digital transparency company based in the UK uses blockchain to track goods from raw materials to the end consumer and beyond – making it ideal for retailers implementing circular business models.
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 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.
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 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 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.
Hidden in the furor about disrupted supply chains is how the experience of the drivers delivering all those goods directly impacts the customer experience. That’s where Wise Systems comes in, offering an artificial intelligence (AI)-based delivery management platform that originated at the Media Lab at MIT, when three of the company’s co-founders responded to a professor’s challenge to find the best way to change one billion lives with data.
“The free flow of goods is the lifeblood of communities,” said Allison Parker, vice president of Marketing at Wise Systems. “We decided to apply machine learning to real-time data that captures what’s happening on the ground so organizations can better plan and continuously improve every last-mile route and delivery. Drivers have an intuitive, easier experience managing their schedule directly from their mobile devices, while fleet managers have up-to-the-minute plan tracking for resource allocation and utilization.”
meQuilibrium, the leading digital resilience platform, brings biometrics into its mobile platform through its innovative new Breathe Coach technology, which enables members to obtain heart rate variability (HRV) feedback anytime, anywhere on a smartphone. meQuilibrium is the first digital employee resilience solution to incorporate biometrics into a mobile platform, providing users with a non-invasive intervention for creating balance between breathing and heart rate in order to build the foundation for resilience from a physiological point of view.
meQuilibrium’s new Breathe Coach tool transforms the smartphone camera lens into a biometric sensor which analyzes members’ breath and heart rate with the touch of a finger. Breathing patterns are instantaneously displayed directly on the smartphone screen, providing immediate, visual heart rate and breath mapping feedback, plus aggregate improvements over time.
Breathe Coach guides users through the practice of resonance breathing, balancing the nervous system by aligning breathing with heart rate, which in turn, can reduce stress. Resonance breathing can be especially beneficial to the mind as it triggers a relaxation response in the body.
“Our new biometric technology integrates the physical with emotional and mental wellbeing, teaching users how to relax on command, reduce stress, calm anxiety, and manage other symptoms using the camera and screen of a smartphone,” explains Adam Perlman, MD, Chief Medical Officer and co-founder, meQuilibrium, who also serves as Director of Integrative Health and Wellbeing for Mayo Clinic Florida. “Breathe Coach unlocks the power of HRV and resonance breathing to ultimately train the mind and body to keep stress at bay.”
January 11, 2022 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today launched a startup program focused on sustainability as part of the 7th edition of SAP.iO Foundry Paris. Eight international startups have been selected by a jury of SAP experts, partners, customers and investment funds to join the program.
SAP.iO Foundry Paris, SAP’s startup acceleration unit in France, has already supported more than 50 startups. In three years, SAP has achieved the goal set at the #ChooseFrance summit with the French government in 2018 to support the startup economy.
This new program focuses on four topics related to different issues concerning sustainability in the service industries:
Sébastien Gibier, Director of SAP.iO Foundry Paris, said: “SAP.iO has always been a great incubator for startups. This year, the focus on sustainability will allow scale-ups to amplify their impact. SAP France is delighted to continue this program focused on innovation. We are particularly pleased to have met our objectives set with the government.”
Over the next 12 weeks, startups will have access to one-on-one mentoring from SAP executives, exposure to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers around the world.
The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundry Paris program:
About SAP.iO
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee businesses. SAP.iO brings together innovators from all regions, industries and sectors to transform the way businesses work. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 380+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access to innovation. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.
Sounding Board, Inc, the first customizable leadership coaching platform that combines technology and coaching to drive measurable business impact, was recognized with a coveted Brandon Hall Group bronze award for tech excellence in the Best Advance in Online Coaching Tools category. Sounding Board’s award was announced earlier this month on the heels of the company’s recent news of its Series B fund.
“It is exciting to see the industry recognize the breadth and depth of our solution at Sounding Board – 54% of companies plan to increase their use of internal and external coaching to deliver coaching and Sounding Board will be the technology platform to enable that at scale,” Christine Tao, Co-founder & CEO of Sounding Board.
December 17, 2021 — For the second time in a row, SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) was recognized with the annual Corporate Startup Stars Award 2021 as one of the Top 25 companies to encourage startup innovation.
In addition, SAP was again honored with the Corporate Startup Accelerator Award for its efforts in accelerating and working with startups. On December 16, the International Chamber of Commerce and innovation advisory firm Mind the Bridge announced this year’s winners at the award ceremony in Paris.
SAP follows a holistic open innovation approach by driving both organic and startup innovation to remain a resilient player in today’s global marketplace and deliver new innovation to customers. With its strategic business unit SAP.iO, SAP supports early-stage ventures to accelerate new ideas inside and outside the company.
“We see ourselves as the matchmakers between startups on the one side and SAP customers on the other.” said Alexa Gorman, Senior Vice President and Global Head of SAP.iO Foundries & Intrapreneurship. “This recognition validates our open innovation approach to work closely with promising, diverse startups and bring additional innovation to our customers.”
Since 2016, the Corporate Startup Stars Awards have celebrated companies that are role models in open innovation and are strongly committed to working with startups. Therefore, the startups nominate the corporates they believe to be most active in terms of open innovation themselves.
“Consistently over the past years, SAP confirmed to be among the world’s corporates that are more effective in turning open innovation into results,” said Alberto Onetti, Chairman of Mind the Bridge. “SAP engages with global startups in multiple ways, ranging from acceleration and partnerships to investments and acquisitions. We specifically appreciated SAP’s approach and particularly its recent evolutions. The SAP.iO Intrapreneurship program and SAP.iO Venture Studio are an interesting benchmark as well as the way SAP evolved and optimized its corporate startup accelerator.”
About SAP.iO
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee ventures. SAP.iO brings together innovators from every region, industry, and line of business to transform how businesses run. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 330+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit https://sap.io/.
Coca-Cola Hellenic worked with Shippeo to improve functional efficiency and simplify their operations. By leveraging real-time transportation visibility powered by Shippeo, they were able to improve collaboration with carriers to improve service levels, reduce transportation costs and simplify back-office activities.
Shippeo works with SAP Industry Cloud & SAP Logistics Business Network and is available on SAP store.
Anheuser-Busch collaborated with Wise Systems to optimize its delivery network in record time. By replacing manual planning with an app-based delivery routing platform, Anheuser-Busch was able to reduce late deliveries by 80% and reduce their fuel costs by 6% year-over-year.
Wise Systems work with SAP S/4HANA & Industry Cloud and is available on SAP Store.
Danone, a world leading food company, worked with Flowity to optimize its stock levels and increase the accuracy of their consumption forecasts. By deploying Flowlity, Danone is now able to dynamically adjust their safety stock and replenishment, resulting in a reduction in shortages and inventory levels.
Flowlity works with SAP ERP & SAP S/4HANA and is available on SAP Store.
Unilever worked with Scantrust to differentiate their products from their competition and validate origin statements by introducing a blockchain-powered traceability solution. By embedding QR codes on their packaging that linked to Scantrust’s gateway containing farm-to-fork details, Unilever was able to develop a new level of trust with their consumers and increase sales for their food and beverage products in Vietnam.
Scantrust works with SAP Logistics Business Network & SAP Industry Cloud and is available on SAP Store.
EnergyAustralia was looking for a way to analyze energy data in order to empower their customers to take actionable measures to reduce their electricity bills. They worked with NET2GRID to connect smart meter data with a consumer-facing app that resulted in greater customer engagement and increased customer loyalty.
NET2GRID works with SAP Industry Cloud, SAP Extension Suite and SAP Integration Suite and is available on SAP Store.
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
SAP.iO has launched its first program in China focused on intelligent manufacturing. Five Chinese startups have been selected to join the cohort at the new SAP.iO Foundry Shanghai.
The SAP.iO program is designed to accelerate early-stage business-to-business startups that can extend the SAP portfolio and deliver additional innovation to customers.
“Intelligent manufacturing is not only the national policy of the Chinese government but also the only way forward for China’s economic growth and the transformation of manufacturing enterprises,” said Dr. Chenhong Huang, Global Executive Vice President, SAP SE, and President, SAP Greater China. “Engaging with partners such as startups is critical to succeed in the rapidly growing enterprise software market. SAP.iO complements intelligent manufacturing software from SAP with startup innovation.”
The new Shanghai location reflects SAP’s continued commitment to the vibrant Chinese ecosystem. It extends SAP’s global network of equity-free startup accelerators in the Asia Pacific Japan, North America and Europe, Middle East, and Africa regions as its tenth SAP.iO Foundries location. During the 12-week program, the selected startups will have access to curated mentorship from SAP executives, exposure to SAP technology and application programming interfaces (APIs) and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers.
“We will be working hand in hand with these amazing startups over the next three months to help them integrate with SAP technology and deliver high value to our customers,” said Lalitha Bhaskara, Vice President, SAP.iO Foundries for Asia Pacific Japan & China, SAP.
The cohort of startups at SAP.iO Foundry Shanghai include:
To learn more about how SAP.iO is helping innovators start up and scale with SAP, please visit https://sap.io.
It takes two. For SAP, partnerships and cultivating an impressive open innovative ecosystem are crucial to its success. For startups looking to partner with SAP, who find that a technical integration with SAP is critical in their strategic roadmap, joining SAP.iO Foundries is certainly the fastest way to get a foot in the door. After the 3-month Foundry program where the SAP.iO team is a hand to hold, what happens next? What makes up the secret sauce to SAP partner success post-Foundry?
We spoke to Max Schmitt, Partner Manager at parcelLab, a leading Operations Experience Management platform and SAP.iO startup, to find out.
SAP.iO is proud to announce that four startups in our portfolio were named to Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America list for 2021.
BigID (Backed by SAP.iO Fund) was recognized for 14,421% 3-Year Growth. Their solution helps organizations discover, manage, protect, and get more value from their personal data and is available on the SAP Store.
Paradox (Accelerated by SAP.iO Foundry San Francisco) was recognized for 1,922% 3-Year Growth. Their conversational AI software helps companies automate human resources tasks and is available on the SAP Store.
meQuilibrium (Accelerated by SAP.iO Foundry New York) was recognized for 216% 3-Year Growth. Their solution helps businesses build workforce well-being and potential with predictive analytics, biometrics and neuroscience and is available on the SAP Store.
Jebbit (SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv) was recognized for 119% growth. and is available on the SAP Store.
MHP Management- und IT-Beratung GmbH (MHP) announced that it plans to expand its partnership with SAP. The aim is to accelerate the introduction of new digital mobility solutions based on SAP’s Industry Cloud. As part of the initiative, MHP and SAP are planning to explore co-innovations and joint go-to-market solutions based on SAP’s Industry Cloud for all aspects of mobility in a green field approach.
The intended partnership is intended to support customers in orienting themselves towards the megatrends connected mobility, autonomous driving, shared / serviced mobility and e-mobility – especially since these are still fundamentally changing and developing rapidly. In a first step, both partners want to discuss solutions for Fleet Management, Load Management, Battery Lifecycle Management and Mobility-as-a-Service. Co-innovation customers who can participate in the initiative include OEMs, utilities, and startups. MHP is therefore planning to support the SAP.iO Mobility Cohort in order to identify interesting start-ups in this technology and business area.
The Henkel Xathon, an ideation hackathon for female founders, is taking place for the third time. The aim is to promote female entrepreneurs and talents in the technology industry, strengthen their business innovation and support them in building a relevant business network. The Xathon will take place in Berlin from November 12 to 14, 2021 as a hybrid event* in English. It is hosted by Henkel dx Ventures, Henkel’s platform for open innovation and collaboration, together with Global Digital Women.
One focus this year is on the rapidly accelerating D2C sector, influenced by changing consumer behaviors towards hyper-personalization across all channels.
At the Xathon, participants can take part in live workshops at four different locations in Berlin and digitally, watch keynotes, collaborate with top female experts, and further develop their business ideas. A total of 100 female talents will get the opportunity to participate in this year’s hackathon. Interested female founders can apply until October 10 at https://www.henkel.com/dx/xathon-2021. The main event partner of the Xathon 2021 is Global Digital Women. Further partners include SAP.iO and Microsoft.
‘Diversity and gender equity are of strategic importance to us at Henkel. With the Xathon, we want to empower female entrepreneurship and support talented women in realizing their ideas and unfolding their full potential,’ says Sylvie Nicol, Chief Human Resources Officer at Henkel.
The Female Founder Monitor 2020 once again showed that targeted support for female founders is necessary: according to this, only 15.7 percent of all founders in Germany are female. Women entrepreneurs are particularly rare in the technology sector.
‘The figures show that the road to equality in the tech industry is still long. But there is much more than just figures: every year at our Xathon we see impressive and great ideas from female founders. For us, it is a privilege to experience and support this female entrepreneurial power in tech,’ says Michael Nilles, Chief Digital & Information Officer at Henkel. ‘I am truly convinced that innovation is built on diversity. That’s why we are very much looking forward to welcome 100 female founders and their early-stage business models.’
