Did you know that the buildings we live and work in are responsible for about 40% of global energy consumption? In the same way that a thermostat is used to regulate the temperature of the room, cloud ERP solutions can be used to regulate an organization’s energy consumption by optimizing its business processes and operations.
Climate change and the energy crisis we are facing have exposed the need for greater transparency when it comes to understanding and managing our energy consumption. Compound that with economic uncertainties, remote work, inflationary spirals, global warming, and compliance issues and you have a shortlist of what businesses face today. Nearly every company must manage facilities, offices, shops, or other types of physical spaces, and the need to balance supply and demand along with investment and costs, as well as contractual obligations, is key.
But do we really understand how certain actions impact our carbon footprint?
This is where smart technologies take center stage in reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions. Professional real estate organizations are facing multidimensional challenges that need to be supported by data-driven processes and latest technologies. By unleashing the enormous potential of connected data, you enable and manage optimization strategies to future-proof building operations. The partner ecosystem can also play a critical role in enabling data-sourcing for smart real estate management by combining expertise in data integration, analytics, domain knowledge, and collaborative innovation.
The Best Ecosystem Wins
A collaborative network is key for companies of all sizes to increase speed of innovation and to become more resilient. Teaming up with our partners not only unlocks innovation but ultimately provides faster time-to-value for our customers and addresses critical capabilities as part of our SAP S/4HANA Cloud road map. The way to embed partners and collaborate with them has changed over time: today, many SAP partners leverage SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) to create well-integrated solutions to provide seamless processes and experiences for our customers.
Combining the strengths of market-leading organizations like Planon and Schneider Electric with the expertise of SAP will provide significant business value and innovation to their real estate business by connecting buildings, people, and processes. The cloud ERP solution from SAP serves as the backbone for managing end-to-end business processes, together with Planon, market leader for vertical real estate and facility management software, and Schneider Electric, global specialist in energy management and automation for buildings.
Customers will benefit from the data flowing from smart technologies seamlessly into ERP processes. This will unleash the potential of the huge amount of real estate-related data, transforming this into real business value.
“With this partnership, both SAP and Planon customers will be able to derive end-to-end value across the enterprise,” said Pierre Guelen, CEO and founder of Planon. “The combined solutions will enable customers to run best-in-class real estate and workplace operations and elevate user experience. Greater efficiency will reduce costs, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions.”
Delivering Enterprise-Wide Value
This is something that only SAP, together with a partner ecosystem, can deliver in an integrated way. The partnership will lead to a joint product road map for deeper process and technological integration to deliver enterprise-wide value, including greater compliance and IoT-connected business insights and automation. Customers will benefit from seamless data exchange among all departments involved in management, maintenance, and support of real estate facilities, such as finance, purchasing, accounting, and business-specific functions like real estate and facility management.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud, together with SAP BTP as the technological backbone to drive such innovation, will unlock new ways of doing business. SAP BTP will serve as the central integration platform for the new combined solutions, which allow customers and partners to integrate easily with existing SAP solutions. The joint offering will be available as a premium certified Endorsed App via our digital commerce platform SAP Store and will provide value to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public and private edition, customers.
The partnership with Planon follows a 360-degree partnership approach that includes:
- Strong product co-innovation and collaboration to create integrated scenarios where customers benefit from premium certified integrations
- Proven premium certification, where SAP’s validation increases customer confidence by providing the assurance of a fully tested, out-of-the-box, SAP-approved integration that meets our product standards
- Strong go-to-market collaboration with active co-selling, joint positioning, co-marketing, and executive sponsorship to bring the co-innovation to our customers
The partnership activates a broad set of capabilities to help real estate portfolios become more sustainable while increasing access to consumption data, initiatives, and related investments. The Planon Real Estate Management for SAP solution is already available now with initial integrations. A fully integrated version is intended to be available early next year.
This partnership strengthens the vision of our collaborative, data-driven, and networked cloud ERP solution by bringing together SAP S/4HANA Cloud as the heart of an intelligent, sustainable enterprise together with the power of our ecosystem.
By implementing smart cloud ERP solutions that are designed to reduce energy consumption and optimize operations, organizations can achieve a more efficient and sustainable business environment — similar to how a well-functioning thermostat can create a comfortable and energy-efficient workplace.
Jan Gilg is president and chief product officer for Cloud ERP at SAP.
