SAP’s Maura Hameroff on Agile Cloud Innovation & Real-Time AI
▼ Summary
– RISE with SAP has evolved into a support and services program that helps customers modernize through data migration, process optimization, and clean-core guidance for cloud compatibility.
– The S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition 2025 release embeds AI and data intelligence into workflows and introduces value chain analysis combining materials, financials, and carbon data for real-time decisions.
– Joule serves as the AI interface for SAP ERP, featuring outcome-oriented agents that integrate across business processes and with tools like CoPilot for enhanced collaboration.
– SAP emphasizes co-innovation with customers through advisory boards, beta programs, and the Roadmap Explorer to drive product evolution and differentiation.
– AI effectiveness depends on high-quality data and connectivity, with SAP supporting integration across third-party applications to ensure end-to-end business visibility.
Exploring the latest advancements in enterprise technology, SAP Connect 2025 showcased significant strides in cloud innovation and artificial intelligence. Maura Hameroff, SAP’s Senior Vice President of Cloud ERP Product Marketing, detailed how RISE with SAP has transformed into a comprehensive support and services program. This evolution helps organizations modernize their operations, whether they are beginning on-premise or have yet to transition their ERP systems. The program now emphasizes flexible licensing, clean-core guidance, and process optimization, steering companies away from outdated lift-and-shift approaches toward genuine, lasting transformation.
A central theme was the foundational work required for successful cloud adoption. RISE prioritizes data migration and harmonization, along with streamlining business processes and eliminating legacy customizations. This groundwork ensures a cloud-compatible model, enabling businesses to continuously adopt updates and leverage new capabilities within a cloud operating framework.
The S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition 2025 release introduces embedded data intelligence and AI directly into business workflows. This integration allows for real-time adjustments and outcome-driven automation, reducing manual effort and increasing agility across the ERP application layer. A notable innovation is the new value chain analysis solution, which unifies materials, financials, and carbon data. This provides multinational companies with cross-entity and cross-country visibility, supporting multi-stage intercompany transactions and enabling real-time decisions that consider both operational and environmental impacts.
Joule serves as the official AI-powered interface for SAP ERP users, offering direct access to system capabilities and streamlining how operational teams retrieve and act on information. New outcome-oriented AI agents, focused on areas like accounts receivable, dispute management, and maintenance planning, simplify complex processes by concentrating on results rather than linear steps. SAP is also advancing agent-to-agent integration, already achieving interoperability with CoPilot and extending collaboration across the SAP Business Suite.
Modern ERP systems represent a dramatic shift from the labor-intensive, siloed systems of decades past. Today, built-in processes, extensibility, and AI enable rapid implementation and dynamic iteration with minimal friction. Co-innovation remains a cornerstone of SAP’s approach; customers contribute domain expertise to drive differentiation, while technology accelerates execution. AI acts as a companion, freeing skilled professionals to focus on higher-level innovation instead of repetitive tasks.
The effectiveness of AI hinges on the quality of underlying data and system connectivity. SAP emphasizes that businesses must invest in integrating data and building robust connections, which RISE supports through dedicated guidance and tooling. The platform also offers broad integration with third-party applications, using capabilities like BDC to unify data from diverse sources and ensure end-to-end business visibility.
Real-world impacts are already evident across industries. Multinational corporations achieve greater resilience and optimization in their value chains, responding swiftly to supplier pressures or global disruptions. Finance leaders benefit from holistic views that free up working capital and accelerate planning. In manufacturing, especially automotive, traditional manufacturers transitioning to electric vehicles and software-centric models see substantial operational improvements.
The S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition 2025 features are available immediately, with additional portfolio releases scheduled through the end of the year and into the first half of 2026. SAP encourages customers to use Roadmap Explorer for detailed timelines and to participate in open beta programs for early access and co-innovation opportunities.
Positioning itself as a holistic innovation partner, SAP connects platform and technology layers with functional suites across IT, customer success, HR, operations, and procurement. This integrated approach avoids the pitfalls of fragmented best-of-breed solutions and strengthens end-to-end outcomes. Customer advisory boards and continuous feedback loops ensure that user insights directly influence product evolution and prioritization.
Reflecting on her own journey, Hameroff shared that her first computing experience involved a terminal connected to a mainframe during college in Brazil, a time when trade restrictions delayed the arrival of personal computers. She credits curiosity and a deep commitment to one’s work as drivers of continuous learning and professional growth. Her final advice urges businesses to actively explore what current technology can achieve, emphasizing that curiosity and timely adoption lead to measurably better results.
(Source: ITWire Australia)