SAP revamps its cloud ERP application packages

SAP is repackaging its cloud ERP applications to make it easier for new customers to buy into its ecosystem, and adding AI-based product enhancements for its existing customers.

The new packages unveiled at its Sapphire customer event in Orlando this week are for the cloud-based SAP Business Suite announced in February. (It had previously used the brand for its legacy on-premises product line.)

Each of the new packages includes Cloud ERP, business applications, SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC), SAP Business AI, powered by the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). To enable customers to extend their applications while maintaining a clean core, SAP Build is also included in each package. In addition, SAP Enterprise Service Management is available across the Business Suite applications.

This represents a complete reimagining of how SAP offers applications geared towards business units, said Manoj Swaminathan, general manager and chief product officer for SAP Business Suite, Finance & Spend, in an interview. Each of the suites of packages has the necessary technology platform and AI foundations to support end-to-end business processes, he said.

Although these inclusive packages are aimed at new customers, existing customers fed up with negotiating line by line for all the different products they buy from SAP are not left out.

“If you are an existing customer, we have a path for you to be able to use your existing set of entitlements to be able to map to these new packages,” said Swaminathan.

At Sapphire, SAP unveiled five line-of-business packages, all cloud-based, all AI-driven, and all available now:

SAP Finance Packages: These cover wide-ranging finance, sales, and procurement processes like lead to cash, procure to pay, and record to report, as well as working capital optimization and management capabilities from SAP Taulia. “We’ve integrated with Taulia as a first class citizen as part of our financials ecosystem,” Swaminathan said. “We’re streamlining the whole payment mode.”

SAP Supply Chain Management Packages: Supply chain applications integrate operational processes and supply chain functions with the rest of the business.

SAP Human Capital Management Packages (HCM): These include core HR capabilities such as payroll, time tracking, and employee management. Productivity tools extend and automate HR processes.

SAP Strategic Procurement Packages: Integrated offerings from SAP Ariba help manage the source-to-contract process through sourcing, contract management, supplier lifecycle and performance management.

SAP Customer Experience Packages: These combine sales and service commerce, marketing automation, customer data management and salesforce automation.

SAP’s priority with the Business Suite packages, Swaminathan said, “is to make sure that the product comes out as a well-integrated set of capabilities,” but if a customer needs additional functionality, they will be able to get it in standalone components. For example, he said, the package-specific WalkMe digital learning platform will be included in several of the packages to provide in-app guidance, but if the customer needs to use the platform for other areas (for example, if they only have the Finance package, but also want the digital learning for procurement), they will be able to purchase those modules separately. SAP called out three of the integrations:  WalkMe for SuccessFactors HCM (available now), WalkMe for SAP Ariba in the procurement package (available now), and WalkMe for SAP Cloud ERP (available in Q4 2025).

Supply chain enhancements

SAP Supply Chain Management and SAP Cloud ERP will receive a series of new capabilities between now and year-end that the company said offer “improved data flow, AI-driven insights, and end-to-end process optimization across supply chain and core business functions.”

They will include:

Seamless handover of material price estimations: Companies can streamline the transition from product development to production by handing over product recipes from SAP Integrated Product Development to manufacturing.

Smart guided execution: SAP Digital Manufacturing now supports compliant manufacturing through smart-guided execution and a new electronic batch record

Service order integration: Service orders are now seamlessly incorporated into SAP Digital Manufacturing.

Logistics and sustainability integration: SAP Cloud ERP Private logistics work in tandem with product compliance and sustainability footprint management.

Field service management enhancement: Improved collaboration between SAP Field Service Management and SAP Enterprise Asset Management enhances plant maintenance capabilities.

Advanced asset health monitoring: SAP Asset Performance Management improves the use of time series data and IoT device integration to help track changes and identify trends over time.

Enterprise-grade, reliability-centered maintenance: SAP Asset Performance Management now provides an integrated experience for managing asset fleets at scale.

Additional supply chain enhancements in SAP Business Network, to be available by the end of 2025, include mass upload of quality and compliance certificates within the advance shipping notification template from suppliers, and the ability for buyers to specify the required certifications for each purchase.

On the transportation front, SAP is integrating actual emissions data from carriers and logistics service providers into SAP Transportation Management, as well as providing extended ocean freight support.

In addition, SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration (BNAC) will integrate with cloud-based ERP, gaining bi-directional integration of materials and models between BNAC and ERP systems, integration of inspection checklists, and additional application server document uploads to reduce data entry.

Customers must go ‘all in’

And, of course, there will be more AI too. “I think we are completely re-imagining how enterprise applications would be with infused intelligence as what we refer to as omnipresent business AI, and really enabling every enterprise to see productivity gains”, said Swaminathan. “And we are really bold enough to be able to say that, that every enterprise would be able to actually see productivity gains across of 30%. That’s fundamentally how we are looking to transform.”

SAP may have been slow in buying into the agentic AI trend that’s saturating the industry, observed Scott Bickley, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group, but it’s making up for it now.

“Their broader and integrated vision is now coming into focus, and they are poised to benefit from the clean core approach to RISE and GROW over the past few years,” he said. “Through holistic integration of the S/4 core, acquisitions such as Lean IX and WalkMe, and the introduction of a well-thought-out AI ecosystem, SAP is delivering on its promise of AI first and AI everywhere.”

But, Bickley pointed out, “SAP claims to be the Holy Grail or one-stop shop for enterprises for their overall business needs and requirements, but at what cost? To fully engage with the integrated and holistic capabilities offered by SAP, their customers must go ‘all in’ themselves and purchase most of the product offerings available. The dependencies of the various products on one another: core ERP, BTP, BDC, Business Suite(s), and SAP Business AI mandate customers to place a large wager (and no small amount of trust) in SAP’s vision. A key benefit of this approach from SAP is the potential to tear down the barriers and silos of the past. If SAP can deliver seamless access, management, and functionality across multiple lines of business, it holds the potential to dramatically reduce complexity in customers’ day-to-day operations.”