SAP Celebrates Innovation with Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award

Through an awe-inspiring virtual gathering of nearly 50,000 employees, SAP SE heralded the most innovative projects of the year with the announcement of the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award winners for 2023. This coveted accolade cements the company’s commitment to fostering a culture of creativity and excellence. The Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award is SAP’s highest honor for employee achievement and pays homage to the entrepreneurial spirit of the company’s co-founders. Conceived to spotlight remarkable inventions and solutions that substantially impact the business, the award breeds an environment where innovation thrives. This year’s competition was fierce, with 115 nominations incorporating the talents of more than 750 employees from 35 distinct nations. A rigorous selection process whittled the contenders down to eight finalist teams, spotlighting the work of 81 dedicated staff from across the globe. In a gesture that reflects SAP’s commitment to social responsibility, the organization will also contribute a total of €30,000 to charitable organizations selected by the winning teams. This initiative further bridges the gap between enterprise success and community support, magnifying the winners’ impact beyond SAP’s corridors. Streamlining Success and Reinventing Cloud Economics As organizations pivot towards a cloud-first model, SAP’s Value Advisory team spotted an opportunity to transform the way value propositions are relayed to customers. Through seamless integration of the SAP Signavio suite with SAP Value Lifecycle Manager, they have designed a system that consolidates business metrics and process performance data, providing customers with a clear, data-driven vista of their business outcomes relative to process capabilities. This innovative approach has revolutionized the performance diagnostics available, rendering them more robust and repeatable. In turn, customers gain a more profound comprehension of the cloud’s value and the strengths of RISE with SAP. Nitin Singh, team leader and principal of the Value Advisory team, underscores the importance of this project, noting its wide-reaching influence on customer perception and the scalability of SAP’s operations, with over 190 customers already reaping benefits. The team envisions a future where enhancing the solution’s usability and scope will further the coverage of the customer value journey. SAP’s journey towards cloud services supremacy is epitomized by the achievements of the Plutus project. Employing the SAP Business Technology Platform, the Plutus solution represents a one-stop nexus for cloud rate optimization and management, specifically tailored to the needs of major hyperscalers. The platform not only serves as a financial operations simplifier, offering a uniform interface and reliable cost-saving advisories across platforms, but also signifies SAP’s vision of digital sustainability and cutting-edge enterprise solutions. Plutus harnesses machine learning to propose intelligent cost-saving strategies and is poised to further its capabilities with an advanced AI-driven digital chatbot. Donghua Chen, who leads the Plutus team, shares insights into their dedicated and collaborative efforts, which have resulted in sizable cost savings for SAP. Their accomplishment is quantified by an astounding figure of over US$920 million in net savings, a milestone that underlines the importance of innovative cost optimization strategies. Pioneering Development with Generative AI The SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) has been a game-changer since its inception in 2018, tackling the challenges developers faced when integrating with SAP BTP services. CAP alleviates approximately 80% of the common backend development obstacles, allowing for a more streamlined and adaptable coding environment. Ole Lilienthal, leading the team behind CAP, highlights its significance within the SAP BTP consumption experience and the developer community at large. The advent of capGPT marks a revolutionary step forward. This novel feature leverages the generative AI prowess of ChatGPT to translate natural language into executable code, dramatically expediting the app development process for both seasoned developers and novices alike. David Kunz, the mastermind behind capGPT, anticipates its integration into SAP Build Code, which will offer an unprecedented boost to the creation and testing of app prototypes, powered by the AI-development assistant, Joule. The Prestige of the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award The Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award spotlights the best of innovation within SAP, a true embodiment of the company’s spirit and a precursor to the world-class solutions that evolve from the fertile grounds of SAP’s culture. As these exceptional teams celebrate their victories, it is evident that their contributions will not only advance SAP’s technological leadership but will also deliver substantial benefits to the global customer base, heralding a brighter, more efficient future.