Author: Peter M. Färbinger, E3-Magazin

SAP is rightly proud of its ERP automation with the AI agent Joule. However, in its excitement about a successful product, SAP has overlooked holding a briefing with existing customers: Where and how far can the AI agent Joule go?

From left to right: Gerhard Kuppler, Vice President SAP Alliances, Oracle, and Kuen Sang Lam, Senior Director—Global SAP on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Technology, Oracle. In recent years, many black box systems have been replaced by hybrid architectures and composable IT. Oracle is at the forefront of this development with an extremely broad range of solutions.

Savoir-vivre—the art of enjoying life! The French seem to have achieved this even with information technology. Viva Technology, an annual IT and AI festival in Paris, attracts 180,000 visitors. AI is revolutionizing information technology. SAP is working on evolutionary optimization.

Currently, there is an extensive debate about SAP's diversity targets. The goal of having 40 percent of women in leadership positions within the group has been rejected. Apparently, SAP CEO Christian Klein is bowing to the US administration's requirements.

Although AI agents like SAP Joule show great potential, their ability to adhere to all compliance rules has yet to be proven. Might SAP and other AI providers suffer the same fate as the sorcerer's apprentice in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's eponymous ballad?

The idea is obvious yet has not been widely discussed. An operating system for managing AI agents. Instead, SAP is constantly creating new Joule AI universes for specific tasks. Does SAP not see the “big picture” of AI?

The SAP cosmos includes many ERP modules, such as ECC, BTP, BDC, Private Edition, Transition Option, Customer Evolution, and New Business Suite. Who can keep track of them all?

SAP has potential and the current altitude is high. It will require a great deal of skill on the part of the Supervisory Board and Executive Board to maintain this successful course. It lacks a unique selling point.

The familiar CCoE (Customer Center of Expertise) could become the CCCoE (Customer Cloud Center of Expertise) because RISE and GROW are not all-inclusive offerings. Without the contribution of SAP customers, little will change. SAP itself is undergoing a transformation!

It is one of the most discussed topics in the SAP community: license costs for the SAP Cloud ERP Suite. SAP and the hyperscalers claim that cloud computing also brings savings for users. Statements by SAP CEO Christian Klein suggest otherwise.

SAP's ERP universe has been opening up in technical and business terms for many years. The black box R/3 has become a composable ERP, which is fed by many SAP cloud services, ERP/ECC 6.0, the new SAP Business Suite and numerous functions from third-party users and hyperscalers. With its expertise, global SAP partner Nagarro brings a methodology to this...

At the virtual SAP Annual General Meeting in mid-May, CEO Christian Klein explained the entire ERP offering and the BTP and BDC platforms. It was a consistent picture, but S/4 was missing and the flagship product was not mentioned. What now?