Rana Hamzakadi, Author at �鶹ԭ�� News Center

Using AI to Scale Social Impact

Rana Hamzakadi — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:15:00 +0000

The first time Flavio Proietti Pantosti entered a prison, he was immediately struck by the sense of oppression: “Walking down the long, straight corridors, the intense feeling of confinement was overwhelming, matched only by the profound relief upon leaving.” This first encounter as a volunteer in an Italian correctional facility inspired Proietti Pantosti, founder of social enterprise Reoassunto, to help inmates regain control of their lives during imprisonment.

“Reoassunto provides dedicated support for reintegration,” Proietti Pantosti said. “Our goal is to significantly reduce the rate of reoffending among first-time convicts.” As processes for reintegration are complex and time consuming, he had the idea to set up an offline, server-based AI tool to help inmates with job applications as well as an AI agent to automate the complex tax paperwork for companies that offer jobs for inmates. But he and his organization didn’t have the skills or funds to create an AI prototype to realize his concept.

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

Video by Rana Hamzakadi, Natalie Hauck, and Alex Januschke

A community of changemakers

This is when came in, a global support community for young social entrepreneurs and a long-standing partner of �鶹ԭ��. In 2025, this organization established a for social entrepreneurs and NGOs to experiment with AI capabilities and implement AI tools and features to fix one challenge common to all social enterprises: a lack of helping hands in combination with a large volume of small, sometimes repetitive tasks.

According to Matthias Scheffelmeier, co-founder of ChangemakerXchange, young changemakers are tackling the most pressing issues of our time but are often stretched and under-resourced. “We believe helping them mindfully and ethically adopt AI tools allows them to focus on their key expertise and therefore scale their impact in the world,” he said. “To address this, the ChangemakerXchange AI program provides customized support, in-person gatherings, and a public toolkit to help young entrepreneurs navigate AI.”

As the longest-standing corporate partner, �鶹ԭ�� has supported social enterprise ChangemakerXchange for more than eight years. Beyond just financial support from the company, �鶹ԭ�� employees joined local cohorts of social enterprises, shared knowledge on AI, and brainstormed how individual ideas could be brought to life.

ChangemakerXchange initiated the Possibilists, a global alliance for youth innovation. on the needs and challenges young change makers face with AI. The study showed that while 65% use AI almost daily, 70% lack knowledge on how to navigate AI tools proactively for their purpose.

ChangemakerXchange’s Possibilists study on AI

In early 2025, more than 2,000 young changemakers aged 14 to 35 from 110 countries were surveyed as part of the Possibilists Study 2025. Read the complete survey on how they use AI as well as their concerns and expectations .

From environment to politics

Entrepreneurs in the European cohort of the ChangemakerXchange AI program cover environmental, social, and political projects.

One of them, Romania-based social enterprise Station Europe, aims to make democracy accessible, especially for young people from rural areas. “We empower young people to engage in participatory democracy, embrace creative activism, identify and address disinformation campaigns, and design policy recommendations that reflect their communities’ needs,” said Alin Gramescu, president & co-founder of Station Europe. To support these goals, the organization launched a collaborative platform in 2024 called that allows young people to explore new formats of political participation, taking them right into the heart of the policymaking process. Participants in hands-on workshops learn how to start from an actual issue or need and create a policy recommendation—with AI clustering and processing workshop findings. This results in recommendations for government authorities based on the input of thousands of young people.

“AI will help connect policymakers and young people. Within one year, we condensed more than 1,400 papers from over 80 workshops,” Gramescu said. “Opening the platform to additional countries will exponentially increase the volume of data we will be dealing with.” When asked for the value ChangemakerXchange added for his organization, he said “I knew what I wanted to build to manage this content, but I needed the step-by-step technical guidance to make it happen.”

Education as foundation for progress

Education is often described as the cornerstone of progress, and for Alexia von Salomon, concept & learning designer at Education Innovation Lab, this belief is her daily motivation.

“For me, education is the foundation for social innovation,” von Salomon said. As a leader in educational transformation, she sees a lack of relevant future skills conveyed at schools in Germany and aims as high as transforming Germany’s education system.

Besides conducting workshops at schools, she creates learning experiences for teachers and pupils, like the learning platform “digital sparks for the future.” To scale reach, Education Innovation Lab focuses on self-guided learning platforms and train-the-trainer sessions for school teachers.

von Salomon uses AI to co-create and validate new concepts. “This helped me to be more creative and think outside the box,” she said. “Using AI for early testing how minors would interact with learning content and tools reduces the iterations we need before actually conducting tests in schools.”

She said that being part of the ChangemakerXchange program not only gave her the opportunity to get to know the right people in the tech industry, but to shift her perspective on AI and increase her use of AI tools. Her personal goal is to shape a future where learning is not just about knowledge, but about empowerment and transformation. “From my perspective, key skills for minors in a future influenced by AI will be creativity and critical thinking—to use the opportunity AI offers without suffering from the potential negative impacts,” she said.

Serving business and society

More than 1,500 social entrepreneurs in over 130 countries are part of ChangemakerXchange’s global community. “True innovation happens when changemakers challenge the status quo and create solutions that serve both business and society,” Scheffelmeier emphasized. For him, social enterprises are not just businesses, but catalysts for inclusive growth and sustainable impact. “By combining technology with the vision of social innovators, we can scale solutions that address global challenges and build a future where profit and purpose go hand in hand,” he said.

�鶹ԭ�� Helps Berry Producer Naturipe’s Exponential Growth

Paul Taylor — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 12:15:00 +0000

Naturipe Farms knows berries. The grower-owned company produces sustainably grown berries including strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and cranberries, and delivers them worldwide every day.

Naturipe has been an �鶹ԭ�� customer since 2008, and while initially it was not very proactive with software upgrades, the company’s philosophy has changed over time. Today, Carol McMillan, Naturipe’s senior IT director, emphasizes the importance of upgrading and upskilling the team regularly.

“There’s actually more of a risk not upgrading the product and not upskilling your team than there is being more aggressive with that timeline,” she says. Since migrating to �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA in 2018, the company has undergone three upgrades, including .

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

“We migrated to RISE with �鶹ԭ��, and we are looking at how we use those tools to optimize our supply chain and to create a better user experience for our workforce. Our workforce is constantly changing, and technology needs to change with the workforce,” McMillan says.

She says it’s also important to stay at the forefront of technology in order to solve business problems efficiently, and notes that technological advancements have been crucial in managing the company’s exponential growth: “You can’t have linear growth in technology when you have exponential industry growth.”

McMillan says the Naturipe team uses �鶹ԭ��’s technology to prioritize its people and customers, improve workplace happiness, and give users a better experience. “We use technology to make sure that we’re running as optimally as possible,” she says. “We look at process improvements and try to be at the forefront of technology. So, keeping up with the upgrades on a regular basis helps us be prepared for when business problems need to be solved, that way we already have the technology there to be able to solve them.”

Delivering the freshest, highest-quality products to customers 365 days a year requires constant agility—especially in a category influenced by weather variability and the complexity of a highly time-sensitive supply chain. “Berries have a very short shelf life, so getting the best quality to our customers as quickly as possible is essential,” she says.

To support this commitment, Naturipe Farms has invested in advanced logistics and supply chain technologies that enhance speed, visibility, and decision-making. These investments help ensure timely delivery of fresh products while also supporting employee satisfaction and work-life balance through wellness programs and flexible work arrangements.

Looking ahead, Naturipe wants to further enhance the user experience with more powerful tools and learn how to make better use of all the tools that come with RISE with �鶹ԭ��. McMillan also identifies the potential of AI and the adoption of tools like Joule to improve Naturipe’s operations. “We really want to make the best use of AI and to give our users the best experience possible,” she says.

Her advice for other organizations in the agricultural industry includes the importance of putting people first, using technology to drive strategic growth, and not being a prisoner to risk. “It’s just as risky to not upgrade your technology as it is to have an aggressive timeline and have the tools that you need in order to drive that exponential growth,” she says.

How �鶹ԭ�� and UNICEF Help Tackle Global Youth Unemployment

Paul Taylor — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 13:00:00 +0000

The divide between the digital skills young people possess and the needs of employers is a big challenge and contributes to a high youth unemployment rate, particularly in the Global South. The �鶹ԭ�� Educate to Employ initiative is set up as a digital pathway through Youth Agency Marketplace (YOMA), a public-private-youth ecosystem from UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited. The program aims to address this challenge and enable young people’s skills for a digital economy.

Nearly 90 percent of the 1.8 billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24 in the world today, are in low-and middle-income countries. An estimated 22 percent do not have jobs and are not in education or training.

Globally, young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults. Edmond Shange is one of the many young people who have faced difficulties navigating the employment market right out of high school. “In South Africa there’s not a lot of opportunities when it comes to the employment sector,” the 27-year-old shared.

Making copies of a CV or resume and going to a potential employer to drop them off costs money, something in very short supply among South Africa’s unemployed youth. Despite this, Shange says that as many as 300 young people often queue up to drop off their CVs at a potential employer. “I faced a lot of challenges trying to apply for jobs,” he said. “It’s very tough for young people like me.”

Shange is not alone. “In Africa over 70 percent of the population are young people and another 4 million join the job market every single year competing for less than half a million new jobs,” said Nadi Albino, deputy director at UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited.

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

Video by Rana Hamzakadi and Matt Dillman

Youth unemployment and the lack of digital skills are a global problem, though it’s particularly acute among those who live in the Global South. While the fast-changing global economy demands increasingly specialized expertise, many young people are not learning the skills they need to get these jobs.

The search for virtual upskilling to improve his digital skills led Shange to the Youth Agency Marketplace (YOMA), a public-private-youth ecosystem supported by UNICEF’s Generational Unlimited, which offers opportunities for young people to learn, earn, and create impact. On his pathway to employment, Shange was introduced to �鶹ԭ�� Educate to Employ, an initiative delivered to YOMA through the implementing partner Umuzi. The curriculum for �鶹ԭ�� Educate to Employ involves 700 hours of targeted training focused on building soft skills and technical expertise.

After completing the course, Shange feels much more confident with his skills. As a result, he has recently secured an internship as a software developer at a startup gaming company based at Wits University Tshimologong Precinct.

Whether young people are educated, trained, or employed has significant implications for their overall well-being and ability to promote future economic growth, development, and sociopolitical stability. Unfortunately, most traditional education systems do not address the emerging youth digital skills gap.

This realization was one of the driving forces behind the creation of �鶹ԭ�� Educate to Employ.

“�鶹ԭ�� Educate to Employ was created to support young people who are neither in education nor employment, providing them with training, certification, and guidance to access roles within the �鶹ԭ�� ecosystem,” explained Eugene Ho who leads �鶹ԭ��’s global CSR flagship skilling programs targeted at youths in need. “Through its tailored curriculum, the initiative has successfully helped candidates with only high-school qualifications.”

“The �鶹ԭ�� Educate to Employ initiative provides young people with the tools, skills, and resources that they need to get employed or to employ,” Albino added in an interview with �鶹ԭ��. “We have to go back to making sure that these education systems work and that they work in tandem with where the world is going.”

To meet industry needs, �鶹ԭ�� Educate to Employ curricula has been designed for three critical roles within the �鶹ԭ�� ecosystem: consultant associate, developer associate, and support associate. The curriculum taps into educational content from industry-leading organizations such as Coursera, Accenture, EY, and �鶹ԭ�� Learning.

�鶹ԭ�� CEO Christian Klein is the chair of the Generation Unlimited Board.

“The YOMA online platform alone has had over 600,000 registrations,” Albino confirmed. “A measure of success is how the ecosystem has enabled over 5 million opportunities to learn, earn, and create impact worldwide in the past two years. We are now beginning to see young people getting into jobs.”

Shange’s journey with YOMA and �鶹ԭ�� Educate to Employ started in the living room of his grandmother’s house, a place where community has always taken center stage. “I look up to my grandmother; she has done a lot for the community,” he said. “I hope that I could do the same — help people in the tech field create more jobs for people that are in need and just be creative.”

A permanent full-time job would enable Shange to feed and look after his family, and to continue helping others in his community the same way he was helped. In his community, Shange says he is seen as something of a role model.

“I want young people to know that it’s possible [to get a job],” he said. “Keep applying and also don’t lose hope when you see something’s not working. Some things do take time, so give it your best and make sure that you see it through.”

Today, �鶹ԭ�� extended its founding partnership with Generation Unlimited for four more years, 2026-2029, with a commitment of US$2 million.

Top image via video
UNICEF does not endorse any company, brand, organization, product or service

�鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition Is UniPhar’s Key to Scale Patient Access to Pharmaceutical Products

Alexa MacDonald — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 12:15:00 +0000

The pharmaceutical industry plays a critical role for global healthcare. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry, responsible for researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing pharmaceutical products and services addressing a vast and diverse range of health challenges.

To ensure that patients globally receive required medications and treatment on time, the management of manufacturing and distribution must be ultra-efficient, agile, and responsive.

With patient safety on the line and high-quality expectations, there is no room for error.

One company that has mastered this balancing act is Ireland-based , a high-growth, diversified healthcare services company that provides distribution services for pharmaceutical products. The company works closely with manufacturers to offer third-party logistics (3PL) and fourth-party logistics (4PL) services to remain true to its mission of securing patient access to pharmaceutical products.

In the last decade, UniPhar has witnessed unprecedented growth and today delivers pharmaceutical products to more than 160 countries.

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

�鶹ԭ�� and UniPhar: A 15-Year Partnership

UniPhar has grown organically and through acquisitions, and during this time its �鶹ԭ�� enterprise resource planning (ERP) landscape had become highly customized.

Two years ago, UniPhar’s board gave its Chief Enterprise Architect Piotr Wojdowski a mandate “to rework the company’s digital core” and deliver a digital transformation to unlock future growth while still safeguarding the highest of standards in the manufacturing and distribution chain.

In the quest to find a software partner for its digital transformation, Wojdowski says UniPhar needed “a partner and a software that is reliable and best in class” to strengthen and future-proof the company’s ability to deliver on its mission of securing patient access to pharmaceutical products.

Wojdowski explains that there is an element of social responsibility to UniPhar’s mission. The patient requiring the pharmaceutical products or services “could be somebody’s relatives, it could be somebody’s mother, or it could be somebody’s son,” making it even more important that the selected digital transformation software and partner was not only best in class but also reliable and trustworthy.

“Not only had �鶹ԭ�� proved itself to be a trusted and reliable partner for UniPhar for 15 years,” Wojdowski explains, but �鶹ԭ�� “is a standard in the health services sector, making integration of other services easier.”

�鶹ԭ�� Advances UniPhar’s Technology and Talent

UniPhar’s goals are to grow horizontally, expand, and scale on demand. , , and play a pivotal part by, on the one hand, standardizing IT processes across the group and, on the other, managing distribution and inventories across different warehouses with �鶹ԭ�� EWM state-of-the-art warehouse management software, while using �鶹ԭ�� Datasphere for data management.

In a nutshell, says Wojdowski, “the �鶹ԭ�� technology stack allows us to effectively advance our program quickly,” using to build applications and extend �鶹ԭ�� solutions. �鶹ԭ�� Business Technology Platform (�鶹ԭ�� BTP) acts as an accelerator to move to �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, helping UniPhar transform with confidence and speed using proven migration tools and enabling integration across applications.

�鶹ԭ��, and especially �鶹ԭ�� BTP, is not only a technology enabler but also allows UniPhar “to innovate and attract the top talent as an organization because people want to come to work in an environment that is innovative, that allows you to try things, and that allows you to experiment,” Wojdowski says.

Laying Foundations with �鶹ԭ�� Today for Tomorrow’s AI

UniPhar is currently in the implementation process and Wojdowski has a keen eye on the future, noting that “eventing, observability, and telemetry” will form the basis of future artificial intelligence (AI) enhancements.

Data is critical in the pharmaceutical industry, he explains, and UniPhar “has terabytes and terabytes of data that we are not physically able to analyze because it’s complex and massive.” The plan is to migrate the data to a central repository and in the future “plug into an AI system to track patterns, track customer behaviors, track market trends, and react accordingly.”

Make a Challenge a Proof-of-Concept

�鶹ԭ�� solutions are enabling UniPhar to innovate and step into the future on its own terms, with standardized processes, best practices, and foundations for AI technology that can scale and strengthen UniPhar’s mission to improve patient access to pharmaceutical services and products across the globe.

Wojdowski says �鶹ԭ�� seems to have a solution for every business requirement, but even though “you may have to customize and change things that �鶹ԭ�� provides out of the box, at the end of the day it’s a full enterprise suite and you can run �鶹ԭ�� end-to-end if you wish.”

And Wojdowski’s advice for other companies planning a digital transformation? Challenges can become proofs of concept – there is no need to accept that something cannot be done. “Be brave, be daring, and ask questions. Challenge your partners and challenge yourself,” he concludes.

�鶹ԭ�� Helps Roca Group Run at Its Best

Paul Taylor — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 13:15:00 +0000

Like many other global companies, Barcelona-based Roca Group has faced supply chain and other challenges in recent years, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and volatile energy prices. Founded in 1917, the company designs, produces, and distributes products in the bathroom space and has a commercial network in 170 countries, 21,000 employees, and 79 production sites – making it a truly global company.

The company has expanded its international operations in recent years through organic growth and acquisitions, says Roca Group Digital Transformation Director Jacques Nieuwland. “We have had the challenges of most industries in the last years,” he says. “My job is to help Roca leverage technology to support the different strategic objectives of the company, which are growth, innovation, operational excellence, and sustainability.”

Global Supply Chain

“We have a global supply chain for some of our components, so we need to plan in a more agile way,” Nieuwland says. “We need to update our planning and we need to be able to put in some buffers to have a resilient supply chain.”

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

Nieuwland says technology helps by giving Roca greater visibility into its supply chain. “Everybody collaborates against the same processes with the same data. We include our own value chain and also the value chain of our suppliers and customers,” he says. “And this enhanced visibility allows us to optimize the whole value chain and to take the right decisions.”

�鶹ԭ�� is the backbone of the company’s application landscape, he says: “We perform our core processes, which include order processing, reordering planning, and many others via �鶹ԭ�� solutions. It helps us because it gives us a structure of processes, of data, and of reports that allow us to understand our business, to replicate it, to scale it, and to continuously improve it.”

Roca uses the solution to help it anticipate the demand for specific products and adjust production accordingly. That way, Nieuwland says, “we are able to give an excellent service and to optimize stocks.”

Long-Term Partnership

Nieuwland says Roca Group chose �鶹ԭ�� to be its technology partner because of its long-term relationship with �鶹ԭ�� and because �鶹ԭ�� is a leader in many of the solutions Roca needed. “We have a long history of collaboration and have been successful. […] We trust the technology, the digital supply chain solution, [and] the business network solution. We like to work with leading solutions – we trust them.”

Earlier this year Roca selected and is preparing to go live with �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA Cloud at the beginning of 2025 for the next phase of its digital transformation – a move that Nieuwland believes will enable even more innovation. “We have chosen the cloud-based solution because �鶹ԭ�� innovates first on the cloud-based solution and we want to leverage that innovation,” he says.

He adds that the integration of �鶹ԭ��’s generative AI copilot into �鶹ԭ��’s cloud ERP will also fuel innovation and productivity. “We think there is huge potential to increase our productivity,” he says. More generally, he says �鶹ԭ��’s cutting-edge technology will help Roca improve its service to customers and interact better with them, as well as help the company achieve operational excellence including, for example, reducing waste and improving sustainability.

Sustainability

On sustainability, Nieuwland says Roca Group is studying scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3 emissions. It has already set yearly targets for the reduction of CO2 and wants to be carbon neutral by 2045. More generally, he says Roca’s goal is to deliver “the best bathroom experience for customers worldwide.”

Asked what other manufacturers can learn from Roca’s experience, he says: “It’s very important to start with a business problem, a business challenge, and put technology at the service of generating business value. Then it’s very important to work in cross-functional teams. So, this is not about buying hundreds of solutions to solve isolated problems. We need to think on a bigger scale and to work together to find the best solution to our challenges and use few solutions and have an enterprise architecture that support our goals.”

10 Generations of Sustainable Winemaking? Here’s How with the Right Tech

John Hunt — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 13:15:00 +0000

It took five generations for the González family to carefully steer their vineyard through to the 21^st century, and the next five aim to carry on the business. Headquartered in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, the family-owned vineyard has been around since 1835 and was the first to export sherry on the recommendation of Robert Byass, its agent in England.

The partnership has continued to this day with a mission to make great wines and spirits that bring people together. Now, the company has over 2,000 hectares of vines under cultivation in 12 wine-growing regions of Spain, Chile, and Mexico, where the producer deploys sustainable agricultural techniques to bring indigenous vines back into production.

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

Running a Responsible Business

“For us, everything revolves around sustainability,” said Elisabet Braza Valle, head of �鶹ԭ�� Supply Chain and Finance at González Byass, during an interview at �鶹ԭ�� Sapphire Barcelona. “Our goal is to be a reference in the wine sector and also in the field of sustainability, and we’re using technology to do that.”

Valle explained that digitalization is helping to drive efficiency by improving processes and that people are already noticing a more expeditious service. “All the processes are connected,” she said. “Clients notice that we are preparing their packages and managing their invoices faster than before. That’s because, thanks to �鶹ԭ��, we have all the data in the same place.”

In addition to its core �鶹ԭ�� ERP system, González Byass recently implemented , a solution that helps enterprises calculate extended producer responsibility (EPR) obligations and define corporate commitments to optimize material choices. It’s also designed to help address all the requirements of the new plastic taxes in Europe.

To help promote a more circular economy, for example, Spanish law mandates an indirect tax levied on plastic in packaging. Calculating the taxable amount is particularly complex and burdensome. Companies must know how much non-recycled plastic is in the non-reusable plastic packaging contained in the shipments they receive. This information should be furnished by the suppliers that now find themselves in a challenging situation as they did not have to comply with this type of requirement before. Collected data must be reliable and verifiable to ensure accuracy when sharing with customers or if it should be questioned by the Spanish tax authorities.

“�鶹ԭ��’s solution not only helps us comply with the law, but it also helps us manage our materials more efficiently,” said Valle, who believes one of the greatest assets of the solution is the visibility it provides into the company’s supplier landscape. “We are encouraging all of our suppliers to commit to being more sustainable, and we assess them every year. We also work together to improve our environmental behavior.”

Valle cited several examples of collaborative engagement, such as reducing the weight of glass bottles and using recyclable packaging materials. The company has already substituted some materials with more sustainable alternatives and is buying cardboard boxes and wood sourced from certified forests.

“We have all the information about our materials in �鶹ԭ�� Responsible Design and Production, so we can see how much plastic we are using and how much of it is recycled. That determines the amount of tax we pay,” Valle explained.

All these improvements are part of the company’s People and Planet program that is designed to ensure a nature-friendly, energy-efficient foundation for future generations. The efforts are paying off.

Simplifying a Complex Landscape

According to its sustainability report for 2022, González Byass already reuses or recycles 99% of the waste it generates and 79% of the energy it consumes comes from renewable sources. Water conservation efforts include using rainwater for irrigation, underground irrigation, and satellite-controlled irrigation.

González Byass has already reduced carbon emissions by 20% and is committed to a 55% reduction by 2030. Besides managing its own regulatory obligations in Spain, the company must also be compliant with other regulations in the EU and the UK that impact its business. For example, recycling glass packaging waste is mandatory in all EU Member States. In Spain, this process is driven by Ecovidrio, a non-profit entity managing the Collective System of Extended Producer Responsibility (SCRAP).

“One of our next projects is to set up Ecovidrio in the �鶹ԭ�� Responsible Design and Production solution, where we manage all our tax declarations and reports,” Valle said. “Another critical report is the declaration for the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Technology is helping us become a global reference in the sector because now we’ve integrated all relevant information needed for compliance.”

Four of its wineries have received the Wineries for Climate Protection certification, the first of such credentials specific to the wine industry targeting environmental sustainability. The certification recognizes sustainability activities in wineries in four key areas: reducing greenhouse gas emissions, managing water, reducing waste, and increasing energy efficiency.

Valle is confident that with the aid of technology González Byass will not only be a leader and a reference in the sector, but, most importantly, it will secure its place as an exceptional winemaker for posterity. After all, since its most iconic wine , it’s a good thing González Byass is doing everything to continue producing the best wines and spirits for future connoisseurs.

How Hitachi High-Tech’s Greenfield Transformation Simplified Life for Its Users

David Aguirre — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 12:15:00 +0000

A clean slate sounds great! But it’s a brave call indeed to implement from scratch, especially if you’re a big multinational. Yet a decades-long �鶹ԭ�� customer did just that, driven by its own customers’ demand for speed – and a clear mission.

“Our mission is to help the customer be fast-moving,” Takuya Sakai, general manager of Hitachi High-Tech Corporation’s Digital Transformation Business Group, said in after appearing in an �鶹ԭ�� TechEd keynote last year. “And our corporate vision is a simplified customer process.”

So, in the name of speed and simplicity, Hitachi High-Tech did more than just modify its solution architecture; the Tokyo-based subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. opted for a greenfield �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA transformation. That meant designing and building a new environment customized for its specific needs.

And it did so via an ambitious digital experience program with the goal of helping to simplify its customers’ high-tech processes across nano-technology, analytical and medical, as well as other business categories.

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

Jumping into the Greenfield

Hitachi High-Tech had run �鶹ԭ�� ERP as the backbone of its global business since the 1990s, enabling decades of smooth operation and implementation, as well as allowing regions to tailor development to their specific needs. But it also resulted in about 9,000 add-ons – coding added over the decades to enable bespoke functionality – from reports and input screens to complex manufacturing-related processes.

Add-ons can help users customize software for specific tasks. But, especially over time, they can become unwieldy, hindering the organization’s agility and adaptability.

“After our digital experience project, we made the decision to jump into a greenfield so that we don’t transfer all that from our legacy system to our new �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA platform,” Sakai said. “We changed processes, and we changed technologies.”

Indeed, the jump into a greenfield – implementing a new system on a virtual blank canvas, without migrating pre-existing data, customizations, and more – helped Hitachi High-Tech slash its 9,000 legacy add-ons to a mere 800 add-ons, according to Sakai. And Hitachi High-Tech developed most of those new add-ons side-by-side via �鶹ԭ�� Business Technology Platform (�鶹ԭ�� BTP); not altering code helped minimize modifications, which safeguarded stability, agility, and speed.

And, Hitachi High-Tech stopped add-on development completely on �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA, according to Sakai.

How Two Tiers Equal One Clean Core

In its greenfield, Hitachi High-Tech built a two-tier model: one tier featured �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition for the company’s small and midsize sales offices overseas, allowing them to use relatively simple ERP tools, while the other tier runs �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition for Hitachi High-Tech’s larger domestic manufacturing.

“Side-by-side development on �鶹ԭ�� BTP…allows for faster upgrades,” , “giving our people more immediate access to improved functionality.”

Moving operations from an increasingly customized – and, therefore, cumbersome – legacy system to �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA Cloud offered flexibility, speed, and security, . This can be useful when demand surges, for example, or for offering more frequent upgrades.

But the two tiers still need to exchange data. That’s where �鶹ԭ�� BTP fits.

“We have to integrate two ERPs, so that’s why we set up �鶹ԭ�� BTP between the two tiers,” . “We’d like to keep our �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA core clean…so we use �鶹ԭ�� BTP as a business hub and a development foundation.”

Building a Simple, Smart Digital Process

“Using �鶹ԭ�� BTP, we can build a simple, smart digital process without touching our �鶹ԭ�� S/4HANA core,” Sakai said, echoing what he shared during his �鶹ԭ�� TechEd keynote appearance. “That’s very, very powerful because we can introduce new functions to the user…and we believe �鶹ԭ�� BTP is very important for accelerating our business.”

Sakai appeared at �鶹ԭ�� TechEd to tell the story of Hitachi High-Tech’s greenfield transformation, during which employees had to adapt to new process, screens, and reporting. They ended up with every office digitally connected, which proved to be a tremendous benefit.

And that type of business case is “the most important thing” in a transformation, according to Sakai.

“�鶹ԭ�� is not just a software company, but also something like transformation company,” Sakai said. “Of course,” he added with a smile, “the system also is very important.”

Reality Check: The Pandemic Did Not Stop Climate Change

Paul Taylor — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 12:15:45 +0000

The past year has not been good for environmental causes. Over the past 12 months, most global leaders and the general public have shifted their focus from climate change to the immediate need to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

But as the Red Cross pointed out in a , global warming poses a bigger danger than the novel coronavirus, with U.S. President Joe Biden calling climate change “the number one issue facing humanity” and “the existential threat of our time.”

“Both are systemic shocks,” explained Celine Herweijer, partner at PwC UK and Global Climate Change Leader, during a panel discussion on sustainability hosted by �鶹ԭ��. “We knew a pandemic would be coming at some point. We absolutely know climate change is around the corner. What we have to do to solve for climate change, unfortunately, is much more complex and just as urgent. We have to half global emissions in the next 10 years, which means radically transforming every sector of our global economy. It’s very complex and very urgent.”

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

“The changing climate is no longer an abstract issue,” shared Richard Munang from the United Nations (UN) Environment Program, “In October 2020, the United in Science Report pointed to the fact that climate change has not stopped for COVID-19. That means if nothing is done, the world is going to move toward an apocalypse.”

With such an unsettling scenario, many wonder why there isn’t more concern about the issue globally. Mike Barry, strategic adviser and director at Mikebarryeco, explained that this happens “because it’s always been about something that’s going to happen in the future—five, 10, 15 years from now. It’s somebody else’s problem.”

He suggested that the devastating impact of wild weather events around the world in the last 12 months has suddenly made the problem “real to people.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom.

As Herweijer pointed out, “We’re currently in the middle of the fastest period of innovation ever,” with technology impacting virtually every organization. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, Big Data, and analytics offer us the tools to act on climate change across industries and regions.

Increasingly, companies are committing to reach while financial investors work to decarbonize their portfolios. As the software industry leader on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, �鶹ԭ�� is helping organizations reinvent how to achieve their own sustainability targets through its Climate 21 initiative. The recently launched application is already giving companies the ability to manage the green line of individual products, delivering greater transparency to consumers who can now know the exact environmental impact of each of their purchases.

Watch the full version of Reality Check:

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

2020 Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award Finalists: Operational Excellence

Nina Kippenhan — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 16:15:05 +0000

In 2020, the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award is organized around three new categories, which allow for a better comparability among diverse ideas and offer projects a better chance to stand out. Each category reflects a different type of breakthrough thinking, considering the various ways in which innovation drives �鶹ԭ��’s success.

Here, meet the finalists in the Operational Excellence category.

The Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award is the highest
employee recognition at �鶹ԭ��, awarded annually by the CEO
to an individual or a team.

Finalist: Monitor of Monitors

Some challenges turn out to be a steppingstone to something great. For one of the eight finalist teams, identifying and resolving problems in cloud services was just such a challenge.

Out of their own need, the Global Cloud Services (GCS) team came up with an idea on how to reduce the time and effort to monitor and correlate outages and service issues within cloud services.

“When you have an outage, every minute matters, every minute costs money,” Anthony Sanchez, vice president of Global Cloud Services, recalls. “By identifying problems faster and sooner we resolve that problem, saving our customer money as well as �鶹ԭ��.”

Over the course of four months, the team worked around the clock and developed the Monitor of Monitors — or MoM as they affectionately call it. This acronym is quite fitting as it illustrates what the innovation is about: like a mother looking out for the health and wellbeing of her children, GCS’s Monitor of Monitors oversees the health of the �鶹ԭ�� suite of cloud services.

What started out as a team of five people, quickly grew to dozens of people who supported and contributed to the vision.

“We all love working on this project and think that love is contagious,” Sanchez explains.

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

Cloud Health at Your Fingertips

How does it work? Monitor of Monitors enables an exchange of information that is centralized and transparent. Through the tool, engineering, operations, support, and leadership teams all have the health of �鶹ԭ��’s cloud at their fingertips. This enables them to react more quickly to events that pose a risk to customers. By doing so, Monitor of Monitors helps �鶹ԭ�� to operate the cloud more reliably and efficiently.

When asked, why he thinks his team should win the award, Sanchez’s response is quick and on point: “Monitor of Monitors is a tool that everyone can use; it isn’t a niche, and it has value for everyone in �鶹ԭ��.”

Anyone can get access to and start using it within minutes. In fact, numerous teams within the company already use the tool. As he says proudly: “Monitor of Monitors fosters the spirit of ‘One �鶹ԭ��.’ It encourages us all to work together as members of the �鶹ԭ�� family.”

Finalist Fast Facts

Submission Title: The Monitor of Monitors (MoM)
Team: Anthony Sanchez, Gabor Kaszonyi, Daniel Koller, Alexander Julian Danek, Gregory Melasecca-Jr, József Kertész, Yu Chen, Vittalraya Shenoy Adige, Marcus Mrozowski, Birk Bohne
Number of employees: The team started as five and grew to 16 volunteers, with participation from dozens of people across �鶹ԭ��.
Achievement: Massively reduced Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) from over 60 minutes to five minutes. Consolidated the number of dashboards from hundreds, to one, decreased Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR) of multi-LoB outages to their lowest in more than two years.
Impact: Everyone in �鶹ԭ�� can use Monitor of Monitors, within minutes, to improve their cloud efficiency, bring value to their teams, and most importantly provide value, reliability, and assurance to �鶹ԭ��’s customers.

Finalist: Deploy with Confidence

Accelerating the transformation to the cloud is an important pillar in the �鶹ԭ�� strategy. The innovators behind this team have set themselves a mission: with their solutions, they want to speed up and revolutionize this movement. “Confidence in the delivery process is more relevant than ever, considering that modern cloud-native applications are inherently distributed, introducing immense challenges,” explains Sarah Mueller, cloud engineering ambassador from the team. The Deploy with Confidence approach automates delivery, testing, and operational activities. This helps to increase developer productivity and reduce error rates to support the highest quality. Every cloud release to customers is done in a fully automated fashion. Features are engineered by constantly incorporating customer feedback. Results are delivered to the customer daily.

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

More Value for the Customer

The idea for Deploy with Confidence originated in a new cloud application project in which the team was involved. While delivering their software to the customer, Mueller and her team realized that they had the potential to improve the process and make it more valuable for the customer – Deploy with Confidence was born.

With their innovation, the Deploy with Confidence team “enables the transformation of on-premise organizations to the cloud,” Mueller explains.

People smiled at their idea at first, but they kept hearing that it would not work out. The team knew that they could make it possible. That experience led to a key learning for Mueller and her colleagues, which is to never stop, even if others tell you that you will never be able to solve a problem. With �鶹ԭ�� Cloud ALM, the team has recorded their largest success so far, transforming an organization with more than 200 developers to the cloud. It is currently the largest application being engineered on �鶹ԭ�� Cloud Platform, delivering to customers daily.

For Mueller and her team one thing is certain: “Deploy with Confidence is a key element for �鶹ԭ��’s goal to accelerating the transition to the cloud.”

The tool is already available and used within �鶹ԭ�� and several frontrunner applications are now spreading across �鶹ԭ��. When asked why Mueller thinks her team should win the award, she responds with confidence: “We set ourselves a goal that seemed unachievable and, in the end, we revolutionized the way �鶹ԭ�� delivers cloud software.”

Finalist Fast Facts

Submission Title: Deploy with Confidence
Team: Sarah Mueller, Semjon Kopp, Jonas Breuer, Joerg Bastian, Damian Maring, Thomas Stein, Andreas Loebel, Philipp Thiele, Timon Schuele, Hans Schulz
Number of employees: Team of 10 plus many contributors
Achievement: Deploy with Confidence revolutionized the way �鶹ԭ�� delivers cloud software proven by applications like �鶹ԭ�� Cloud ALM and �鶹ԭ�� Subscription Billing
Impact: Deploy with Confidence accelerates �鶹ԭ��’s cloud transformation and enables cloud applications to deliver innovations daily.