The SAP ACE Awards, initiated by SAP, a global leader in enterprise application software and cloud solutions, have become a benchmark for business excellence and technological innovation. The awards also highlight and commend the endeavors of organizations that have excelled in integrating technology into their operations, thereby transforming their business models and contributing to the broader digital ecosystem.

The Essence of the SAP ACE Awards

At the heart of the SAP ACE Awards is the recognition of companies that have not only adapted to but also thrived in the rapidly evolving digital landscape. This year’s edition also placed particular emphasis on those who have made significant strides in facilitating ease of business operations through digital solutions. Furthermore, the awards evaluate contenders in two primary categories: ‘The Game Changers’ and ‘The Disruptors’, both representing different facets of technological innovation in business.

The SAP ACE Awards’ evaluation process is rigorous, involving a three-level assessment by a distinguished jury. This jury, appointed by the SAP India User Group (INDUS), ensures an impartial and comprehensive analysis of each nominee. Additionally, the selection process reflects the depth and breadth of innovation and transformation across various business sectors.

The 2023 Edition: A New Direction

The 2023 SAP ACE Awards introduced new categories, aligning with the evolving business environment while maintaining the integrity of its evaluation process. These categories cover a wide range of business functions, including Supply Chain, Procurement, Customer Experience, Finance, Manufacturing, and Human Capital.

Kulmeet Bawa, President and Managing Director of SAP India Subcontinent, highlighted the awards’ significance in the current global context. He emphasized the role of the SAP ACE Awards in showcasing India’s leadership in technology and innovation. Bawa pointed out that the winners represent the transformative power of digital innovations and the vast possibilities they open up for businesses in India and beyond.

A Glimpse Into the Winners

The 2023 edition recognized 15 enterprises, each demonstrating exceptional use of digital technology to enhance various aspects of their business. Some notable winners included Daikin Airconditioning India Pvt. Ltd. for Best Customer Experience Management and Sony Pictures Networks India for Best Finance Transformation. Moreover, these organizations, among others, exemplified the transformative impact of technology on business operations.

In addition to the main categories, the awards also conferred special recognition in areas such as Customer Experience Management, Enterprise-wide Transformation, and Supply Chain Transformation. Companies like Fabindia Ltd. and L&T Construction & Mining Machinery were acknowledged for their outstanding contributions in these areas.

The SAP ACE Awards 2023 not only celebrated the achievements of the winners but also set a standard for others to aspire to. These awards underscore the critical role of digital technology in shaping the future of business and the economy. As companies continue to navigate the complexities of the digital era, the SAP ACE Awards stand as a testament to the power of innovation and the endless possibilities it holds for transforming businesses and driving growth.

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Adaire Fox-Martin, a member of the Executive Board and lead of Customer Success at SAP, has recently made the official announcement of the eighth annual SAP Innovations Awards. This year’s program encourages SAP customers to focus on innovations that would drive real and replicable success.

“While our mettle continues to be tested in profound ways, digital resilience is flourishing. The push to rethink how we do everything — from business and schooling to birthday parties — drives creativity with a new urgency.

The value of innovation has never meant more. SAP was founded on innovation and recognising its role and promise is core to who we are,” Fox-Martin said.

She emphasised that even in these challenging and unprecedented times, SAP remains committed to innovation. More importantly, today, according to her, organisations need to champion innovation to be able to sustain, grow, and thrive.

Encouraging More Participants

From 27 companies who had submitted entries from 15 eligible countries in its inaugural programme in 2014, last year’s SAP Innovation Awards received over 260 entries from over 50 eligible countries– a testament of how customers and partners harness the power of SAP technology.

Fox-Martin shared that for 2021, SAP made the participation even easier and more attractive, including simplified eligibility and submission processes. 

“My goal is to encourage everyone to consider participating in the awards. Entries can be submitted now through February 1, 2021, but please don’t hesitate! The sooner you submit your entry, the sooner others can hear your inspiring story,” she stressed.

Here are some of the enhancements in the SAP Innovation Awards 2021:

• New online self-assessment form, which only takes 2 minutes for participants to know if they are eligible.
• Seven categories were updated to reflect new business realities and priorities
• Newly added eligible countries: Belarus, Brazil, Croatia, Italy, Nigeria
• New requirements for proof of concept (POC)
• New requirements for SAP Partner submissions 

Updated Awards Categories

A judging panel composed by SAP Experts and external thought-leaders, influencers, and community members will select 20 winners from 60 finalists for the following categories:

Social Catalyst recognises customers with stories highlighting the usage of SAP solutions to demonstrate positive social, environmental, or economic impact and shared purpose in helping the world run better and improving people’s lives.

Industry Leader recognises customers that leverage SAP solutions to create new business models, innovate their end-to-end business processes dramatically, or disrupted the way their industry has traditionally conducted business.

Partner Paragon recognises partners that have developed a next-generation application that involves SAP’s Intelligent Suite, Business Technology Platform, or Industry Cloud and use at least one of SAP advanced technologies listed in the criteria.

Business Innovator recognises customers that have achieved end-to-end business transformation using SAP S/4HANA or SAP Digital Supply Chain solutions and Business Networks

Transformation Champion recognises customers that have implemented at least one of SAP’s digital platform products and/ or used SAP’s business technology platform that includes at least one of the advanced technologies listed in the criteria.

Cloud Genius recognises customers using intelligent suite offerings deployed in the cloud to become intelligent enterprises.

Adoption Superhero recognises customers that have become intelligent enterprises by successfully adopting SAP solutions with the help of Customer Success Services and/ or Customer Engagement & Experience and with high adoption and entitlement consumption.

Awards and Prizes

The SAP Innovation Awards 2021 added new prizes and has increased the visibility and amplification opportunities for the winners. 

The selected 20 winners will be announced on the 14th of April 2021 and will receive a trophy and one complimentary pass to SAPPHIRE NOW 2021 OR USD 1,000 donation gift card to Global Giving (in the event of SAPPHIRE NOW not occurring). The awardees will also be offered several opportunities to participate in promotional activities such as podcasts, events, videos, media /analysis interviews, and social media.

Though all countries are eligible to participate in the SAP Innovation Awards 2021, only the following countires are qualified for monetary prizes:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Brazil, Canada (excluding Quebec), Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, eSwatini, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela.

To know more about the SAP Innovation Awards 2021, click here.

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SAP Labs India is currently the ERP software company’s second-largest R&D center outside its headquarters in Germany, and is part of SAP Labs Network—consisting of 20 locations in 17 countries—which represents about 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of SAP’s R&D execution power. The strategically located SAP software centers are a crucial part of SAP’s R&D footprint and are key integrating units for the company’s software development & technical support units, creating synergies for the different innovation units under the SAP Labs umbrella.

A Software Center for Innovation and Talent Development

The addition of a new SAP software center in Bengaluru aims to further expand SAP Labs India’s operations and services across sectors and industries to support its more than 11,000 customers in the Indian sub-continent. It will also add to the company’s unique diversity in talents. In an interview, SAP Labs India Managing Director (MD) Sindhu Gangadharan said that the product and innovation company is a fast-growing organization—adding about 800 to 1,000 employees yearly—and has the lowest attrition levels in the industry.

Gangadharan, an SAP veteran who took up the MD position in September last year, said that attracting, retaining, and further developing best-in-class talents is one of the R&D organization’s goals. She notes,

“It is our job as leaders to ensure that we inspire talent to work on innovative topics and innovate at the core of our business processes. Our talent should be nurtured to become the true business process experts in the industry. This is where SAP is different from our competition, because we have the opportunity to bring together the worlds of business and technology. At SAP Labs India, we cater to employee well being and aspirations by introducing people-friendly policies and becoming the best place to work. We must articulate all of these benefits to ensure we are seen as a company that every engineer aspires to be a part of.”

The new SAP software center is set to provide a strategic advantage in the organization’s ability to react and adapt to the evolving requirements of its diverse customer base. The current R&D facility in Bangalore has contributed significantly to recent SAP innovations, including the SAP HANA platform, SAP S/4HANA business suite, and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for retail, goods and service tax and fleet management.

SAP Labs India is recognized as the largest testing center within SAP and is responsible for close to 50 percent of SAP custom development. Moreover, the global services and support organization also provides remote maintenance services to approximately 80 percent of North American customers.

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SAP ACE Awards 2019 has, once again, recognised JK Tyre & Industries as one of the Industry Award category winners for its project ‘Fleet Connect & Total Mobility Solution’ under ‘Breakthrough Innovation – Business Re-model, Disruption and Step Growth’. This is the company’s second consecutive SAP ACE award, receiving twin awards both for the project and in-house implementation.

“The achievement reiterates our strong focus on transforming ourselves with the fast-evolving business landscape. We are delighted to receive this honour for a project that truly showcases our commitment towards innovation, in a segment (commercial) where we are the market leaders and are constantly engaged in bringing newer and efficient business practices,” said Vikram Malhotra, Marketing Director, JK Tyre & Industries.

The13th edition of SAP ACE Awards recognised the companies that showcased pathbreaking innovations through a digital-first approach, while simultaneously striving for business excellence. JK Tyre & Industries is one of the 29 Indian enterprises that exemplified successful digital achievements in India.

JK Tyre & Industries Ltd, a leading tyre manufacturer in India and amongst the top 25 manufacturers in the world, has been previously recognised as one of Top 100 India’s Best Companies to Work for 2019 and one of the Best Workplaces in the Industry (Great Place to Work-Certified).

With the theme “Celebrating the New India”, SAP ACE Awards 2019 received over 300 project nominations competing across 15 major categories with a distinct focus on the line of businesses, industry excellence and digital-native companies.

Since 2006, ACE Award is highly regarded as the mark of technology excellence and is considered by business leaders as the best industry award for the best-run businesses in India. SAP ACE winners represent the new face of India who has adopted a digital-first approach for solving problems and thinking technology for tackling business disruption.

Deb Deep Sengupta, President and Managing Director, SAP India Subcontinent, congratulated the winners for their ingenious creations, being true to best-run businesses. He said:

“The winners of SAP ACE Awards 2019 are exemplars of a Digital Native mindset and represent the face of ‘New India’.” 

Sengupta has previously stated that India continues to be one of the fastest-growing and strongest businesses for SAP both globally and regionally. 

SAP India User Group (INDUS) management board nominated the eminent jury that assessed all the front-running nominees.

SAP ACE Award Winners 2019

  Award Categories

  Line of Business Awards

  Mahindra & Mahindra

  Sterlite Technologies

  CRISIL

  ANI Technologies (OLA)

  Birla Estates

  Technomedics International, Sri Lanka

  Bajaj Finserv

  Nitta Gelatines

  Napino Auto

  HCL Technologies

  Wipro Ltd

  Capital Foods

  Technology Awards

  Larsen & Toubro EAIC

  ITD Cementation

  Dilip Buildcon

  Geno Pharma

  Larsen & Toubro

  Indian Oil Corporation

  Telangana State Power Generation Corporation

  Gujarat Gas

  STT GDC

  Exide Industries

  Industry Awards

  JK Tyres

  Vedanta Cairn

  ICICI Bank

  APCFSS, Government of Andhra Pradesh

  SJVN Ltd

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SAP Labs India product expert Hemant Rachh and three of his colleagues won the annual SAP Labs India programme, InnVent, short for Innovation and Venture Challenge, with their idea of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered software that could convert all leads an organization received into sales. It was the brainchild of  Hemant Rachh and one of his teammates way back in 2017.

InnVent is an intrapreneurship programme that encourages employees to think out of the box and develop innovative business plans, build new verticals and revenue streams even without the financial backing of the company. Intrapreneurship programmes such as InnVent empower employees by seeing their ideas into tangible and marketable solutions. This, in turn, keeps relevant, competitive and innovative in their fields.

“We won the challenge, received an external validation and confidence to take the idea forward,” Rachh exclaimed.

With all the team members, Hemant Rachh, Amit Kumar Singh, Mohit Kanoria and Sharath Kumar Raju, having a full-time job, developing the idea was no easy feat as it was fast becoming a full-fledged startup. He said:

“A startup requires a lot of interaction with potential customers to reach and validate the early stages of the product or market fit.”

What enabled them to pull through despite their demanding job schedules was SAP Lab India’s startup-like work culture that supported innovation and provided mentorship, on top of its intrapreneurship programme.

“The programme is exactly the same as going to a venture capital firm for funding your startup idea and we could do it while we had a corporate job,” the Bengaluru-based product expert added.

This was not the first win for Rachh’s team. In 2018, they were one of the two teams out of 500 within SAP to get funded through SAP.iO, a global intrapreneurship accelerator run by SAP and based in San Francisco.

Today, Rachh’s breakthrough startup is called Inversation by SAP and led them to move to San Francisco in February of this year to focus full-time on its operation.

Getting the SAP Support

Dilipkumar Khandelwal, Managing Director of SAP Labs India, approached Racch’s team’s break from their SAP careers as an “entrepreneurial sabbatical” of two years. For him, it’s a win-win situation. The SAP specialists’ running their start-up in the US while still being paid a salary demonstrates how SAP supports talent development and innovation.

Aside from creating a healthy competitive environment and increasing productivity, intrapreneurial programmes enable companies to adapt to changing environments, innovate and solve customer problems.

Khandelwal believes that part of his role as a Managing Director is to ensure he promotes a culture of innovative thinking at the workplace, encourages new ideas and helps with technology infrastructure and funding to build new profitable products for the company. He explained:

 “In today’s rapid pace of digital transformation, it is vital to stay relevant and competitive. As leaders, we need to nurture our employees in thinking innovatively and aid them in converting their ideas into marketable solutions.”

He further said that the forward-looking employee initiatives result in low attrition rate, which is a success factor for any firm.

Intraprenuer/ Entrapreneur

In Racch’s experience since he joined the SAP accelerator, an intrapreneur is much like being an entrepreneur. He and his team have been focusing their time and effort in building Inversation by SAP, much like entrepreneurs.

He believes that you need to create something that focuses on solving a problem while validating your assumptions with quick experiments. With regards to teamwork, it means the same in the world of an Intrapreneur and an entrepreneur.

On the other hand, the obvious difference between the two is that in an entrepreneurship-encouraging company like SAP Labs India, the product you develop is owned by the company funding it. However, Racch clarified that it would have been the same, anyway, if they approached a venture capitalist.

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They say that necessity is the mother of invention, so it is no surprise that a region full of diverse cultures, languages, and climates is a hot house of innovation. People of Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) should celebrate the fact they are part of a community that punches well above its weight when it comes to great ideas and great minds. In fact, this is a region with a long and rich history of inventing and innovating and the exciting thing is that this is just the beginning.

New Zealand

New Zealand is one country in the region blessed with a long history of innovation – from the inventive spirit of its ancient Maori culture to modern day recreational activities like the bungy jump and jet boating. When it comes to science and technology there are many historic and recent stories but to name two:

• Colin Albert Murdoch was a pharmacist and veterinarian who invented the disposable hypodermic syringe along with a multitude of other patents.
• Ernest Rutherford was the first in the world to split the atom in 1919 and worked with great scientific minds such as Geiger. Rutherford helped and inspired many teams to win future Nobel prizes. 

SAP has also worked with many innovative businesses in New Zealand – from councils to power companies and everything in between. One fantastic example is a 2019 winner of an SAP Innovation award and one of New Zealand’s largest organisations, Fonterra. This innovative co-operative has collaborated multiple times with SAP Innovative Business Solutions. 

One such project combined both employee engagement and the process of innovation, the project dubbed in the media as the “Tinder” for jobs, is a great example of making innovation real. Put in simple terms, this project resulted in an application that allows employees to easily find exciting work across the business, develop new skills, and make better use of their time. In parallel, it helps project managers find the best internal candidates for exciting innovative projects. 

This project leveraged SAP Cloud Platform and included integration to SAP SuccessFactors and a true agile approach was taken to the implementation starting with a proof of concept, a pilot, and a Minimum Viable Product, before expanding scope and users. The project has a wide range of benefits including increased employee utilisation, job satisfaction, engaged learning plans, improved project change management, and a reduction in time and cost to staff projects. 

Australia

Australia is another land with a rich history and innovation culture thanks to its traditional owners. The Australian Aboriginal people innovated with agriculture, art, music, forestry management, and much more. More recent inventions include the Black Box Flight recorder, the pacemaker, wine in a cask, and of course Vegemite. In terms of science and technology, Australia has impacted the world with a couple of standout inventions including:

• The cochlear implant: invented by Professor Graeme Clark, it was inspired by his deaf father. He persisted for years to successfully launch the first multi-channel cochlear implant.
• Wi-Fi: The CSIRO developed and patented the internet technology that we all rely on today.

One great example of the power of innovation is the work that the Queensland Office of State Revenue has done using machine learning. Using SAP Leonardo, it can now tell when someone is likely to get behind on paying their debts. Its systems are now able to distinguish between people in financial difficulties and those not paying their taxes. Whilst saving the State money, it also helps its agents better understand taxpayer’s needs and can help them tailor a payment plan accordingly.

An ecological innovation example is the NSW Curl Curl Lagoon project. Nominated for an SAP Innovation award, it saw the collaboration of SAP, Friends of the Curl Curl Lagoon and the Northern Beaches Council to see how technology could improve the water quality of the popular community lagoon.

This project enabled continuous monitoring and visualisation of water quality parameters. It leveraged SAP Cloud Platform, IOT (Internet of Things) services, SAP UX and SAP Analytics, as well as sensors mounted on a raft connected to the cloud via mobile technology. Benefits of the trial included real-time public visibility of the findings, better understanding of the flow, cycles and patterns of the waterway, and the ability to baseline and measure the impact of changes.

Singapore

Looking further North to a country that is small in size but giant when it comes to trade and culture, is Singapore.  Being a multicultural melting pot ensures that Singapore has a diverse range of skills and points of view. Singapore is also responsible for technology like the thumb drive and continues to be at the forefront of innovation in areas such as water management. When it comes to science and technology, some interesting innovations include:

• Infrared Fever Screening, developed by the Defence Science and Technology agency, enables large volumes of people to be quickly checked for signs of SARS.
• The SoundBlaster, invented by Creative Technology, revolutionised sound for the PC and for computer games right back to the 1980s.

As the location for the head office for SAP across South East Asia and the entire Asia Pacific and Japan region, Singapore gives plenty of opportunity to collaborate with innovative organisations.  Take for example a blockchain use case in Indonesia. As a technology, blockchain can be a fantastic tool for the right circumstance. For instance, one consortium of SE Asian palm oil producers, NGOs, customers and technology providers is looking at blockchain with the simple aim of making every palm oil product traceable from farm to end consumer in a trusted and regulated way.

In Singapore, one the best known and loved attractions is Singapore’s Botanic Gardens. SAP provided the solution for mobile maintenance workers to keep the garden safe and looking its best. Leveraging the power of SAP C/4HANA, the cloud, and services processes meant that the project for SH Integrated Services could be realised quickly and efficiently. Now maintenance workers can spend more time getting on with the job and less time on administration; ensuring that maintenance is cheaper and more efficient.

Japan

Further North is Japan -country with a strong culture and a long history of innovation. Take for example tempura and the tea ceremony, both are great examples of innovating around products and ideas that came from external sources. Over the last few decades, Japan became well known for pioneering the now massive electronic entertainment market, from early arcade games and inventions, including the Nintendo Gameboy and Sony PlayStation. Japan was also responsible for home entertainment advances with VCRs, CDs, and DVDs. A couple of other interesting innovations include:

• Lithium-ion battery invented by Yoshino and released a few years later by Sony.
• Instant Noodles: you can even visit the Noodles museum in Japan and create your own flavour!

SAP is privileged to work with many innovative Japanese companies. One exciting example is an organisation leveraging intelligent technologies, such as chatbots and machine learning to move towards becoming an Intelligent Enterprise. Making springs for everything from hard-drives to cars, SAP Innovative Business Solutions collaborated with NHK Spring Co Ltd to quickly implement SAP conversational AI and SAP Service Ticket Intelligence. The solution optimises IT service management, streamlines IT incident handling, and keeps the focus on the customers.

South Korea

South Korea also has a long history and rich culture. People in Korea are credited with the earliest signs of net fishing and are responsible for innovations through a great many fields including agriculture, architecture, mathematics, and printing. South Korea is country that many say is at the forefront of innovation, with strong advances in areas including automotive, electronics, transportation, and many more. Korea is well known for K-Pop and pioneering e-Sports and looking back at recent tech history, thanks to Korea we have:

• the first commercial MP3 Player released in the early 1990s.
• the first touch screen phone thanks to LG.

SAP works with many innovative companies in Korea and many Korean companies are truly global entities. Working with a leading Korean organisation in the automotive parts industry, SAP was able to provide increased governance and visibility of manufacturing execution. Leveraging a ‘Design Lead’ approach ensured an empathic understanding of the business processes and goals. The project leveraged SAP Leonardo to reduce the time spent on data gathering and reporting, resulting in increases in productivity and efficiency.

India

Our final destination in this virtual innovation tour of the APJ region is across to India. A diverse land with a very long history. Everyday items like rulers, scales, counting, the zero, and even shampoo can be traced back to some of the earliest innovations from India. From a technology point of view, a couple of interesting examples include:

• Sir Bose, who made the first public demonstration of radio waves for communication in 1895. 
• The ubiquitous USB was invented by Ajay Bhatt

SAP has worked with many innovative companies in India, including a digital marketplace solution for one of the world’s greatest conglomerates. This organisation had a vision to personally connect with each of India’s 1.25 billion people, especially in remote, digitally-fragmented places, to offer them a customised online retail experience. To bring its vision to life, it collaborated with SAP Innovative Business Solutions and leveraged the power of SAP C/4HANA. Implementing the solution with an agile approach enabled regular smooth go-live cycles and delivered operational efficiencies, market differentiation, and a rapid growth in business.

Right across Asia Pacific from the Maori’s Kopa, the Australian first people’s boomerang, the trading hub of Singapore, the Japanese Tea Ceremony, Korean moveable type, and Indian yoga, the history of innovation across the APJ region is rich and full of wonderful creativity.  Recently, whether it is cloud-based employee engagement in New Zealand, IOT in the waterways of Australia, mobile technology in the gardens of Singapore, blockchain in Indonesia, intelligent process automation in Japan, manufacturing visibility in Korea, or a digital marketplace in India, it’s easy to see that the region has a bright future. SAP Innovative Business Solutions is proud to make innovation real and be part of SAP’s first 30 years in APJ.

Adam Sivell
Innovation Manager
SAP Innovative Business Solutions 

Adam Sivell has more than 20 years’ experience working in the SAP eco-system. Adam has provided solutions for organisations around Australia, the USA, Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. With SAP Innovative Business Solutions Adam concentrates on empowering visionary enterprises to achieve their greatest goals through unique, leading-edge software innovation.

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Improved Processes for Corporate Customers

American Express and SAP Ariba have announced that they have entered into a strategic multi-phased partnership designed to offer buyers and suppliers new payment and financing options on Ariba® Network. This partnership would extend its value for joint large and global corporate customers. American Express and SAP Ariba plan to continue to provide additional digital solutions through this strategic partnership.

As a network extension partner, American Express will leverage Ariba Network APIs to enable its virtual Card capabilities within the SAP Ariba process and platform to facilitate seamless commerce, secure payments, and easy reconciliation between businesses on a single platform. Through this new integration available later this year, businesses will have the opportunity to use their existing American Express^® Corporate Cards to generate virtual Card payments, making it simple for customers to get started without the need to set up and maintain a separate standalone account.

 Lasting Partnership

“We are continuously looking for ways for our customers to conduct more business in a simple, intuitive and integrated manner. With over half of American Express’ largest global customers already using SAP Ariba to manage their expenses, this partnership has the opportunity to provide significant value for our joint customers,” said Koo. “We couldn’t be more excited about building a long-term partnership with SAP Ariba.”

“American Express’ unique integrated business model provides deep relationships with both buyers and suppliers. As a global leader in the payments space, they deeply understand the needs and pain points that businesses face throughout the supply chain cycle,” said Thompson. “Partnering with American Express as a new network extension partner integrating virtual payment capabilities within Ariba Network we’re able to deliver a true end-to-end procure-to-pay process to customers that changes the game in the corporate payments space.” 

To learn more, American Express Corporate customers should contact their designated American Express representative.

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A joint initiative between companies and research institutions, the alliance is looking to SAP, with customers in more than 190 countries, for international industry leadership, based on its 45 years in business and its development of the SAP Leonardo digital innovation system to seamlessly integrate blockchain technologies with existing business software.

“The Chinese Trusted Blockchain Alliance unifies efforts and underlines the joint desire to advance these technologies and drive adoption across industries,” said Torsten Zube, head of blockchain, SAP.

The alliance was established with support from the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT). The CAICT chairs the alliance, as well as China’s Industrial Internet of Things Alliance, of which SAP is also a member organisation.

“Combining SAP’s technical and business expertise with CAICT’s ecosystem, all parties will work closely to unleash new value for companies,” said Zube.

The Chinese Trusted Blockchain Alliance plans to establish working groups to address key issues such as blockchain core technology R&D, industrial applications of blockchain technologies, and blockchain governance and standardisation.

To help accelerate the application of blockchain technologies the alliance is collaborating with the Industrial Internet of Things Alliance to establish the Industrial Internet Blockchain Special Working Group. Ruicheng Li, managing director, SAP Labs China, SAP (China) Co. Ltd., has been appointed as deputy chair of the working group.

Established in 1957, CAICT is a think tank of the China Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, playing a key role in research for China’s national industrial policy and roadmap development, including strategic industrial planning, policy, standardisation, industrial testing and certification.

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“SAP.iO will create a new ecosystem to help accelerate digital transformation for our 350,000 customers,” said Bill McDermott, CEO, SAP. “We have a message for entrepreneurs: if you have a bold dream to solve one of the world’s most significant challenges, join us and let’s chase your dream together,” he said.

Seeded with an initial US$35 million, the SAP.iO Fund will provide strategic early-stage investments in software startups that can leverage the power of SAP data, APIs and platform technologies to enhance the SAP ecosystem and drive customer value.

Incubating software startups that embrace technologies such as machine learning and blockchain, the global SAP.iO Foundry program locations are in San Francisco and Berlin, with the latter managed by entrepreneur network, Techstars. The Foundry locations are expected to complement existing SAP.iO startup incubation partnerships with Techstars IoT in New York City and the Junction in Tel Aviv.

“In addition to empowering our employee innovators, SAP.iO will use its fund and foundries to invest in entrepreneurs that develop industry-changing software,” said Deepak Krishnamurthy, chief strategy officer, SAP.

The first startup to receive seed funding through SAP.iO is Silicon Valley-based Big Data analytics firm Paradata, which uses machine learning to increase supply chain transparency, complementing SAP Ariba’s direct material sourcing and supply chain visibility capabilities. Paradata will also receive mentorship, customer introductions and access to platform integrations and APIs from SAP.iO and SAP.

Promoting an overall culture of innovation, SAP’s existing innovation programs include SAP Labs Network, with 19 labs in 16 countries and SAP Innovation Centre Network, with 10 locations worldwide providing a startup-like environment focusing on new ideas.

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What’s at stake for the winner is a three-month in-kind contribution worth US$30,000 to support the development of their proposed new business.

Preliminary contests will be held at 10 locations in nine countries – Tokyo, San Francisco, London, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Madrid, Barcelona, Singapore, Beijing and Sao Paulo – with the winners invited to the Grand Finale in Tokyo.

“Our biannual contest to promote collaborations with startup companies worldwide is one of many initiatives on which NTT DATA will capitalise in hopes of surpassing 10 billion yen in annual business by 2020,” said Koutaro Zanma, head of open innovation and business incubation business strategy department, NTT DATA. “We want to help solve key issues in global society by combining knowledge, technologies and networks both inside and outside of our company.”

NTT DATA has previously held its Open Innovation Business Contest in Japan, and has now decided to expand the competition to other host cities globally. As the result of previous competitions, Money Forward, Freee and NTT DATA developed a fintech service for internet banking that was commercialised in February 2016, while Sassor and NTT are working towards an energy management initiative that is expected to provide energy consumption analysis as an IoT service.

The Open Innovation Business Contest is open to any startup firm worldwide until 19 December 2016, with applications open online at http://oi.nttdata.com/en/contest.

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