Digitalization intensifies and further accelerates as businesses around the globe try to outpace the challenges of supply chain shortages and constantly evolving government regulations.

As we continue to further develop and explore the needs and opportunities of the new normal, digitalization keeps expanding while the need for businesses to upskill their workforce must be addressed at the same time. Indeed, according to a 2021 Deloitte survey, 85% of CEOs said that the pandemic significantly accelerated digital transformation plans for their business.

This digital transformation can only become a working reality particularly for businesses operating globally and locally when the implications of operating in a country and across countries are considered and taken into account. Businesses must be able to plan and act holistically wherever they operate. While state-of-the-art enterprise software and solutions are needed to make this happen, adoption significantly supports businesses to generate the full value from these products. It is the key to realizing desired business outcomes.

SAP Enterprise Adoption helps customers to realize value and business outcomes in three key aspects: resiliency, performance, and sustainability. Those aspects mean something quite specific for successful businesses. Here’s why adoption matters.

Resiliency

In this context, resiliency means getting the full benefit of SAP software by adapting to new situations or conditions easily and without disruption. For example, many different countries have enacted different regulations, not only during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are providing those legal changes to our customers, so they can stay focused on their business and compliant with any existing or new regulations. On the other hand, a company opening a subsidiary — for example, in Brazil — would need to feel confident that it could implement its existing software solution while adhering to governmental policies. Operating locally and globally is one aspect, digitalization of business and meeting requirements for e-reporting and e-invoicing the other.

Here, SAP Document and Reporting Compliance enables companies to comply with local regulations for e-invoicing and e-reporting in a huge number of countries. The solution is fully harmonized across countries and delivers approximately 350 statutory reports and electronic document processing scenarios out of the box and is kept up to date whenever a legal change happens.

This harmonized and standardized approach enables customers to easily for example build up a shared service center and implement new obligations in almost no time. It provides the customer peace of mind doing business in multiple countries, especially when exchanging documents with governments.

Performance

SAP Enterprise Adoption helps customers to increase business innovation and productivity through the rapid adoption and automation of processes for SAP products and solutions. The most successful companies achieving greater efficiencies are those that balance automation and user performance.

For example, SAP implemented localization capabilities for tax frameworks for an international food and beverage company, leading to a more than 60% efficiency gain in its fiscal department, which runs more than 16,000 tax obligations per year for its 20 million invoice items.

Sustainability

SAP Enterprise Adoption helps customers to optimize the use of resources through transparency on respective regulations as well as through empowered users providing key abilities required for sustained adoption of SAP solutions.

For example, a large utility company needed more than 1,000 users to become productive at the moment of go-live with SAP S/4HANA. To drive adoption readiness, the company began with the training and upskilling of its workforce four months before go-live, enabling users with embedded contextual help as they completed daily tasks. In addition, the company created e-learning materials, reference guides, and work instructions.

This enablement and upskilling lead to empowerment of the workforce, an increase of motivation, and employee retention.

Resiliency, performance, and sustainability are the key levers of your desired business outcomes and make up what I like to call“the “whole enchilada” —  the realization of intelligent, sustainable enterprises as a working reality.

Adoption helps make the digital transformation a success, which is why, as enterprises continue their digital journey, it is essential to aid with adoption and enablement throughout the lifespan of SAP products, despite whatever future opportunities enterprises may face.