With SAP Leonardo Machine Learning, SAP has set out on an ambitious journey to enable customers to become intelligent enterprises.
To execute on such a bold vision, SAP delivers an expanding portfolio of application and services that help all companies embed machine learning into their business processes. But to pave an optimal path forward for these businesses, SAP is committed to establishing an ecosystem of leaders with a variety of domain expertise in order to complement and expand its offerings. This collaboration is essential to enable customers to make a smooth transition to the intelligent enterprise.
Opportunities to partner with SAP on machine learning are manifold, and so are the use cases customers are currently exploring as they inject intelligence into their value chains.
Partnering with SAP to Enable the Intelligent Enterprise
To facilitate a close collaboration with partners and generate mutual value, SAP has created a machine learning partner program, which runs as an overlay to existing partner programs offered through SAP PartnerEdge. All SAP partners can apply, and the program is open to companies of any size – from startups to strategic partners. Here are the engagement opportunities the new program offers:
- Value added reselling of SAP Leonardo Machine Learning applications and foundation
- Implementation of SAP Leonardo Machine Learning applications at customers
- Integration of SAP Leonardo Machine Learning services into existing customer landscapes
- Extensions to standard applications to fill industry specific white spaces
- Co-development of the next wave of intelligent business processes to enhance SAP’s digital core
- Deployment of custom machine learning models on SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation for access by third-parties’ applications
- Inclusion of complementary machine learning technology into SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation, e.g., hardware offerings (GPUs) or specialized machine learning services (APIs)
- Development of machine learning services and applications using SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation’s data science platform capabilities [upcoming]
SAP partnerships around machine learning are growing hand-in-hand with the expansion of the SAP product portfolio. With solutions including SAP Cash Application, SAP Service Ticket Intelligence, SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation, and SAP Brand Impact now in the price list, engagement possibilities for selling and implementing are real.
Equally tangible are the possibilities to co-innovate with SAP by supporting new use cases that complement SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation services.
Growing Ecosystem Supported by Dedicated Partner Commitment
Since the first launch event for partners that took place in 2016 at SAP TechEd in Barcelona, the number of partners that have engaged with SAP for machine learning has grown over tenfold and so has the promise to collectively deliver real value to joint customers.
For example, HCL Technologies helps global enterprises reimagine their businesses for the digital age, and has been a long-standing SAP partner.
As Michael Romero, senior vice president for HCL SAP Practice, puts it, “HCL’s assignment management microservice combined with the SAP Service Ticket Intelligence business service on the SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation will drastically simplify operations for our strong retail and consumer goods’ customer base.”
Opportunities to partner with SAP on machine learning are manifold
Additionally, Wipro Limited, a leading global information technology, consulting, and business process services company has deployed its machine learning component to solve the issue of “non-revenue water” for the water utility industry on the SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation. Wipro’s solution, called Pipeline Network Monitoring, uses Image Classification and Segmentation features along with conversational APIs to significantly enhance user experience. By deploying its components on SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation, Wipro has enabled seamless integration to its SAP Fiori front end, SAP system backend, and IoT services for monitoring pipeline leakages.
SAP is actively leveraging its partner ecosystem’s innovations in many ways. SAP’s global technology partner Nvidia has been a key player in helping accelerate SAP’s vision of the intelligent enterprise, and SAP has recently announced that SAP Leonardo Machine Learning has been the first enterprise solution to adopt NVIDIA’s Volta AI platform. Similarly, as part of SAP’s partnership with Google, TensorFlow is now the underlying framework for all SAP ML product development.
The Time to Engage is Now
Becoming a SAP Leonardo Machine Learning partner is easy and straightforward. All SAP partners registered with SAP PartnerEdge or working through one of SAP’s existing partner channels qualify. Additionally, to facilitate the onboarding, SAP has created a wealth of enablement material to help partners understand SAP’s machine learning portfolio and identify collaboration opportunities.
More details on the SAP Leonardo Machine Learning Foundation, including tailored learning maps for partners, are available on the SAP Cloud Platform Collaboration Room on SAP Learning Hub. To learn more about SAP technology, review the documentation on SAP Help, get hands-on experience on SAP API Business Hub, or follow tutorials on SAP.developer.
If you are attending SAP TechEd Barcelona, please stop by the SAP Leonardo Machine Learning booth SE02 and visit the SAP Leonardo Machine Learning sessions as highlighted here.
