The day might seem like business as usual. But today is a pretty big day. Today, deliveries will arrive. Connections will be made. Records will be set, and mountains will be moved. Today, next year's crops will be planted. Schools will be open. Family meals will be enjoyed. Fashions will be defined. And dreams will become reality. Today, a single decision will change everything. And today, especially in times of uncertainty, like every day, SAP will deliver real solutions to real challenges, so every business's vision can be made real. SAP. Bring out your best.
Please welcome to the stage Thomas Saueressig.
Good morning, everybody. Good morning, everybody. It's so great actually to be back with all of you here in Orlando. And I have to say, I'm actually amazed how many are also physically present here in the keynote, considering most of you were at the Howl at the Moon or the Blue Martini yesterday night. So thanks for coming over again, and I promise it will be worth it. Day two of Sapphire will be a phenomenal day to close out the day with a lot of innovations. But let's talk why we're here today. And as we saw in the video, actually, the work we do today will actually enable our tomorrow. Today's transformation will actually power tomorrow's resilience.
And actually, since we came together the last 12 months, last Sapphire, so many things have changed. In the last 12 months, a lot of elections happened. We saw a lot of uncertainties. Christian talked yesterday about all of that as well with tariffs. And basically, we're living in an ever-changing world. And honestly, that's nothing new. Since COVID, the war in Ukraine, and everything that happened, we know that actually at the end of the day, agility is not optional. It's survival.
And last year, I have to say, I was super excited to share with you our activities around the simplified engagement model with the enterprise architects, about the RISE with SAP Methodology, and also what we did with the integrated toolchain to really power your transformation. And we delivered. We see customers actually who save up to 30% of the cost leveraging the RISE with SAP Methodology and toolchain. And actually, I guess that's more important than ever because budgets are under pressure. We know that. And we also know that our customers want to see faster transformations, faster time to value.
And while we're actually happy about what we shipped and what we delivered, we also know we cannot stop here because we know today, the pace of change has never been this fast, but it also will never be as slow again as today. And you saw all the fascinating innovations yesterday with agentic AI, how Joule is spreading across the enterprise. But it's also something where we know this is not the reality for all of you yet, but you can be assured we will be at your side every step of this journey to make that a reality, what you have seen yesterday, so that all of your end users will experience this new SAP, these new capabilities which you saw yesterday.
And what you also hopefully have seen is how we evolve to fit your needs. And that's something you've seen with this flywheel effect from data, applications, and AI, and how we bring that together with our portfolio to serve you. And on top of that, we actually improve our services, our engagement model, to really help you to drive a faster cycle of innovation and improvement. And I can promise you, it's our goal every single day to serve you better for your needs.
For this year's keynote, actually, I thought we'd try something out. We'll do it a little bit different than the traditional keynote, and it's like innovation: sometimes it's a risk, and let's see if it works. Yesterday, actually, it didn't work. So no risk, no fun. I'll give it a try. Because I want to engage you, I want to actually get your feedback along the entire keynote, which means I will involve you to be part of this keynote today. So at different sections of the keynote, I will actually ask you questions. And it would be great if you could participate using your smartphone and really give us the answers.
So let's try that out first. Please scan the QR code which you see, and I promise we'll start lightly actually as a test. What is the best roller coaster in Orlando? So let's see what you look for. Jurassic World, Revenge of the Mummy. Let's see what you vote for. I see Jurassic World seems to be the top priority. Okay, so that's how it will work throughout the course of the keynote. And I think the winner is Jurassic World, I would argue. And it's part of Universal Studios. And we had yesterday NBCUniversal, a valued reference customer on stage as well, to show how they actually transformed leveraging RISE with SAP.
Now, let's turn on a little bit of heat. Let's have perhaps a little harder question. We know that our customers have a tremendous impact on the global markets. And in fact, our RISE with SAP customers represent a significant total of the global economy. So what do you believe from the world's GDP our RISE with SAP customers cover? Do they cover 20, 30, or 40%? And I see the vast majority is leaning towards 40%. 30% is picking up soon. Now it's getting to be a little race.
So the answer is 40%. With more than 8,500 customers who leverage RISE with SAP already, RISE with SAP is the approach to help our installed-base customers modernize their legacy applications, and also to really adopt our SAP Business Suite, delivering true business transformations. And please be assured we don't take that lightly. We understand our responsibility and our obligation to operate at the highest level of operational excellence, with the highest level of security. In the meantime, we manage more than 146,000 systems with an actual SLA achievement of 99.996%, or close to five nines of availability.
And I can promise we will not stop here. We will continue to evolve the RISE with SAP journey for all of you. So we are rising, if you will, to the next level together. Also, based on your feedback, one of the things we're excited to announce today is that we evolve our RISE with SAP Methodology to cover the SAP Business Suite. So we go from fit to standard to fit to suite. So we will enhance and update the entire lifecycle of the projects in our Cloud ALM product, and also provide new dashboards and new AI capabilities as part of RISE with SAP. We will also launch new transformation preparation services to build tailored transformation roadmaps with all of you.
But today's keynote is all about customers, actually, and that's the reason I recommend that we hear directly from them how they transformed, how they leveraged our technology to basically take the next step in that transformation. And one of the industries which is undergoing a significant transformation, most probably one of the most disruptive ones we've seen, is the automotive industry. And also here, a little question to the audience: what do you believe was the year where the first car was sold? Now I'm excited to see where you tip. Okay. 1918, nobody. Really, somebody did. 1850, that's brave. That's good.
But as you see already, the first car was actually sold in 1888. And the company who built that car is transforming the automotive industry for almost 150 years. Mercedes-Benz is one of the most iconic brands globally and is a proud SAP customer for many, many years. And they have earned their reputation through decades of innovation. So let's hear today where they stand. Please welcome on stage and give a big round of applause to the CIO at Mercedes-Benz Group, Katrin Lehmann.
Hey, good to have you on stage.
Good morning, Orlando. It's so good to be here and see so many of you this morning. Mercedes and SAP have a long history, but we took it to the next level, I would say. We started our RISE journey together, and I'm very happy to talk about that with you today.
Absolutely. And we're very honored, actually, to be able to serve Mercedes-Benz. And a little secret here for the room—please keep it here—actually, the first car which I drove when I did my driver's license was actually from my grandma: a Mercedes. Back then it was a 190 D, that is not actually existing anymore. Back then it stood for diesel. So that's actually a personal relation also we have with Mercedes-Benz. So we're more excited to participate in that transformation. But let's talk about transformation. You mentioned already Mercedes-Benz took the decision for RISE with SAP last year. What were the challenges you were facing and want to tackle with RISE with SAP?
Actually, I took on that role just a year ago, and the first thing you do is you do an assessment of what you have. I have more than 10,000 applications in the system landscape, and out of those, 1,200 SAP applications, and most of them are still on ECC. So how did we tackle that topic? We bought LeanIX, we implemented LeanIX. We sorted the systems by importance and really took the TIME methodology—transform, invest, migrate, eliminate—to plan where we need to go. And we took the most important systems, and those we're migrating to RISE right now. And then we're deciding on the other ones what we'll do to transform to move them to the next level.
Now, I have to say I'm always super impressed, again, thinking about the numbers Katrin shared: 9,000 applications, 1,200 SAP systems. I mean, phenomenal, but it also clearly proves already why it's so important to structurally, systematically use tooling like LeanIX to actually sort all of that out. So really always super impressed. What are the benefits you're expecting in that transformation?
Moving to RISE also means that we can leverage innovation. And AI is very important to us. We are the inventors of the car, so we have lots of very talented and curious engineers in the organization. And they're always looking at me like, "Okay, what can I do with AI?" So I'm really looking forward to leveraging all what SAP RISE offers and Joule and everything. So we're in the middle of checking out all these different use cases. But also, AI is not new to us at all. We've leveraged it already for a couple of years for our engineers with GitHub Copilot, and we use it along the complete supply chain and value chain of Mercedes. We have implemented lots of different cases already, and now we're also looking to Joule and other cases by SAP.
Absolutely. We will absolutely do that. So basically, what you describe is that as part of your strategy, you embrace AI in everything you do at Mercedes-Benz. And as you mentioned, the Business AI from SAP will basically be part of your overarching AI strategy touching all of the cases. Can you tell us a couple of cases you have from your AI strategy?
Yes. I mentioned we have lots of engineers that are also developing our software in the car. So if you drive a Mercedes, I'm sure you know "Hey Mercedes," that's your buddy in the car that helps you go wherever you want and help you out in different cases on the road. So there we have AI implemented, but also along the enterprise everywhere. We have our own ChatGPT in our portal. We use it in finance, HR, in the plants. So if we have a quality issue in one plant here, for example in the US and then in Sindelfingen, we can check really also with the blue-collar worker via natural language. They talk to our intern, Mrs. GPT we call it, for quality problems and solve them directly. So we have already along all the enterprise AI cases implemented, and now we're really looking forward to the ones that SAP will deliver with us.
And we'll do, absolutely. Thanks so much, Katrin. It's super exciting to see how you transform. So thanks so much.
Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.
As Katrin mentioned, 2025 will be the year of productive use of value from AI. And that's something everybody is looking forward to. But also here, I still hear that actually the productive use and the value realization is a challenge, and you perceive it hard to embrace AI. So now again, I ask you to join me here with the question: what is actually your biggest roadblock to AI and value realization? Data, talent, use cases, data quality, cost. "Big Brother" is an interesting one. Master data, trust.
And I think what we see overarchingly here already, and data seems to be in the center of the conversation, is for sure that fundamentally to embrace AI has so many different variables and topics you need to consider. And that's what we as a company—and you saw it yesterday—want to make easy for you to embrace AI, with our embedded AI scenarios: in the meantime, more than 230, and at the end of the year, more than 400. With Joule as an overarching digital copilot, really also as a multi-agent framework leveraging all the agentic AI capabilities, and also with our AI Foundation to also ensure that it's really the most relevant, reliable, and responsible AI that you can really trust.
But what is also mentioned here is data, and we will come to that, and how central that is, and how we want to help you with our services to overcome the data challenges in your organizations as well. And for sure, while the embedded AI scenarios drive significant value already for all of you, it's also clear that you want to differentiate. You have custom-specific ideas about how to leverage AI to differentiate in the market, and we want to enable that with our customer innovation services: leveraging Joule Studio, leveraging generative AI on the AI Foundation so that you can differentiate in your business. And with that, for sure, we also have an ambition that you can reduce the cost for custom app and custom AI development and deployments throughout the entire lifecycle of AI.
And we don't do that alone. We also here leverage partners, and that's the reason why I'm super proud to announce a new partnership with AWS, which will establish a dedicated AI co-innovation program, a fund to support the definition, building, and deployment of AI apps on the BTP tailored for cloud ERP workloads using the capabilities and models of AWS. And with that, we also leverage the synergies of AWS and the partner ecosystem to really drive this value creation at scale.
Now, for the next chapter of this keynote, actually, I'm thrilled and very honored to also welcome somebody on stage who has deep empathy with IT, who has actually run the enterprise architecture function internally at SAP in the past and our IT application services, and who also has run our cloud ERP development for quite some time. And now he's delivering, as the Chief Revenue Officer of Americas and also the head of the global Business Suite organization, value to our customers. Welcome on stage Jan Gilg.
All right. Very good to have you, to see you.
So tell us a little bit about your new role, Jan, actually.
Yeah. It's actually pretty easy. I'm here to help our customers understand how the SAP Business Suite can help them be more productive, but also unlock some future growth.
And you say that's easy? I think that's a tough job. Tell us a little bit more.
All right. Before we do that, actually, let's ask the audience another question. Put the Mentimeter up. The question is: how many applications did a $10 billion company run on average in the year 2000? What do you think? Is it 10? Is it 50? Is it 100? A $10 billion company, not super large, but representative.
70% say 100 applications.
But now we're looking forward. We're looking into 2025. How many applications is it basically today: 100, 250, or 600? What do you think?
I think the audience is leaning towards 600.
600? Yeah, but 250 is growing quickly. Let's see. Well, the answer is 600. You were right. And the question is: what does that tell us?
Well, certainly the cloud has unlocked the ability to consume technology much, much faster. And landscapes have become larger and much more complex. You saw that yesterday from Walmart as well. And business processes actually started to break. Let's look at the business outcome, because at the end of the day, that's what SAP stands for. And every application for sure has a value proposition in itself. But if we look now at the global productivity growth, we see basically two things.
First one: during the first wave of ERP from 1995 to 2005, global productivity grew by 2.6%. And we'd like to attribute that primarily, of course, to our generation of R/3 software. I don't know how much it actually was, but probably a good portion. But then if you look into the years 2005 to 2025, with the rise of SaaS—software as a service for every business problem, you have a solution—productivity only grew by 1.5%. So what's the conclusion of that? Well, more technology does not automatically mean better business outcomes.
And I believe nobody wants to basically move back to the old monolithic on-premise world. We are entering now the age of AI, agentic AI, so the challenges to make everything work together will exponentially become harder. And what customers need, therefore, is to go back to integrated business processes, especially in a time of an uncertain business environment. Therefore, an integrated, harmonized enterprise foundation is key. And that's the reimagined SAP Business Suite that is actually data-driven, that is AI-powered, and that can democratize access to business AI. I'm convinced that this will truly unlock the next wave of productivity, and the time is now. But Thomas, instead of us talking about all of this, why don't we ask the user community to give their voice on that?
Absolutely. And with that, I think we can welcome on stage the CEO of Americas' SAP Users' Group to talk with us about what the user groups give us as feedback from the community. Welcome on stage, Geoff Scott.
Good to see you. Hello, everyone. Good morning. Hello. I get to be on stage with you guys today.
Who was at Howl at the Moon past midnight last night? Me. How many of you have Wednesday voice? That voice that comes up after you're thinking, "I've been talking way too long." So?
But there's still a big crowd.
Actually, there's a great crowd.
And I have to say, I'm looking for my Thursday voice, actually.
We've always laughed: the best noise is the sound of the wheels of the airplane going up as you leave Orlando. Right? So yeah, you're absolutely right.
Jan, welcome back to Sapphire. First of all, you've been here before.
Yeah, many times. Thank you.
You are now leading the Americas, and congratulations to you. What an amazing opportunity for you. We've known each other for years, and I'm excited for everything you're going to bring to this community.
Oh, thank you. And Geoff, let me ask you a question. You talk to customers basically every day. So what's top of mind currently for those customers, which maybe wasn't top of mind even a year ago or two years ago?
Well, I think number one—and Christian mentioned it yesterday, we've been talking about it substantially—is this kind of uncertainty, right? This has really been a big change for us. We weren't quite expecting it, and now we're all dealing with this notion of not just uncertainty here in North America, but uncertainty globally, right? And that really, I think, also requires us to come back to simplicity, because in uncertain times, we've got to come back to getting things to be simple again so we can react and be in front of that uncertainty versus constantly and perpetually being behind it. And number three, I think productivity, right? That's the third one. And I think everything you guys talk about, the SAP innovations and how customers navigate these innovations, is going to be very, very important.
You're also working a lot with users every single day, fundamentally. I mean, that's the main job. And we talked earlier and had on stage the question about the roadblocks for AI and the challenges we see with AI. But I assume actually with ASUG, you also have best practices to share. So basically, what did you learn from leveraging AI best practices which you covered with regards to how to embrace AI in the enterprise to generate value?
I think the survey you did a few moments ago spoke volumes of this. Number one: strategic planning and alignment. Number two: how do we do pilot projects that we can start off small and scale? And then, this is all about data, right? One of the things that I think we as a customer community are going to need to get our arms around is how do we get this data that's in these amazing SAP systems unlocked so we can drive really important business decisions. And then finally, it's got to be about collaboration and partnerships. Every single one of us in this room relies on you, relies on the partner community to bring this all together. And that's incredibly important.
Jan, I want to ask you a question. Where do you see the ways that the user community can help you and can help customers influence SAP's product roadmap?
Yeah. First of all, I think structured feedback is super important for us at SAP to get through your executive exchanges, for instance, that you're organizing. I would love to see more of those, and then more innovation deep dives. I think that is what ASUG can do to really reflect the customer voice and also bring it back to SAP. And with my former hat as the product leader—I know Muhammad probably in the audience agrees with that—it's good to get that feedback. And that's basically the promise: for us to listen to what the user group has to say in a consolidated way and also bring some of this back into the product.
And Thomas, for you, since you've always been—and we've known each other for years—a great proponent of the user groups globally—shout out to all the rest of the global user groups that are here with us this week—what do you think is the way that we can integrate this customer feedback for you?
