The heart of SAP Sapphire makes the “new SAP” tangible. It tells visitors the story of a major sporting event from planning to match day – and has a special souvenir at the end.
Andreas Wendel is very satisfied: A total of 11,200 visitors visited the so-called Experience Center at SAP Sapphire Orlando and Madrid. The self-contained exhibition area acted like a magnet for customers, partners, SAP employees as well as media representatives and analysts. There were also 123 guided tours in the two identical centers.
“The rush was so great that in Orlando the queue at times went around the entire Experience Center, which covers an area of around 1000 m2 includes,” says the Head of Innovation Experience Services in an interview with SAP News. But what was hidden in the oversized box in the middle of the exhibition hall, for which some visitors had to accept waiting times of more than an hour?
Sport awakens emotions
“This year we had the task of presenting the topic ‘Autonomous Enterprise'. This is a very technological topic, and we talk a lot about artificial intelligence, agents, and Joule assistants,” says Wendel. The team around Andreas Wendel really wanted to make clear what CEO Christian Klein and his board colleagues explained in their opening speech and demonstrated using demos.
Planning began six months before Sapphire, with the team also being supported by many other experts from different areas. For example, they came from strategy, development or product marketing. Numerous partners, customers and service providers gradually came on board. Wendel estimates that almost 100 individuals worked on the concept.
As the central theme for their story, they chose a major sporting event and the motto “From Competition to Collaboration” – in keeping with a major international soccer tournament that is taking place this year in the USA, Mexico and Canada. Wendel says: “With all the technology discussions at Sapphire, sport is a topic that appeals to people emotionally. So we use a sporting event and show how SAP supports us with different solutions in order to be able to plan and implement such an event.”
Wendel says: “It's an experience for spectators, but in order for a mega event to run smoothly, all the equipment and technologies around a stadium must also work. We'll show how, for example, the topic of autonomous asset management ensures that the infrastructure also works on the day of the event.”
Player tunnel and pipeline with Robodog
Let's take a tour with Andreas Wendel. We enter the Experience Center through a kind of players' tunnel and reach the box with a view of an imaginary stadium for a major international football event. This station, “Plan the Game,” focuses on the big picture and shows how SAP brings AI, data and applications together and brings all aspects of a major sporting event under one roof.
Wendel first explains how SAP solutions support the planning phase: “We show how customers can, for example, use our financial and planning solutions long before the event. We present how agents and Joule assistants will help in the future to recognize events early and act accordingly, so that I stay within budget.”
His colleague Pranav Avadhanula, Solution Advisor Finance and AI, makes this clear using a concrete example: On a large monitor, visitors see how he uses Joule Agents to find the most suitable providers for the security concept of the event in Mexico and to simulate various possible combinations and scenarios. The agent also takes into account the possible exchange rate development of the Mexican peso against the US dollar.
“Build the Stage” is the name of the station, which shows that before the fans cheer, the actual work happens in the background. Modernizing a stadium requires precise planning, budget discipline and smooth processes. SAP helps orchestrate all the details – from personnel and travel to the procurement of materials. This means the stadium will be ready for the big game on time and within budget – supported by Autonomous Spend, Autonomous HCM and Autonomous Project Delivery.
The next room shows applications that are not visible to visitors when operating a stadium, but are still immensely important. The scenario that was filmed most often by visitors: a robot in the shape of a dog, provided by partner Boston Dynamics, moves along a series of pipes. It uses various sensors to fully automatically detect a leak detected by the system. As soon as he has found and analyzed it, the system issues a digital repair order to the responsible maintenance employee.
Wendel says: “What is always very well received: In the area of asset management, we not only show our digital solutions, but also, for example, how the topic of embodied AI and robotics can contribute to smooth operations in the future. Ideally through use cases from our customers.” He emphasizes: “These physical elements are very important to us because they make the SAP solutions tangible. This also reduces the complexity to a certain extent.”
Fans can also find the so-called “Hall of Fame”, where important customers are honored with their own trophy. “We had a tour with a customer in Orlando, and the employees saw their trophy, cheered and took photos like they were at a Champions League final. That was a moment that showed: the details that go into this are simply incredible.”
Not just a jersey
The culmination of the visit is the fan shop, which, under the motto “Monetize the Moment”, shows how organizers can generate income through merchandise. Visitors scan their Sapphire batch and order their personalized jersey, which is available in two colors, at a terminal.
You then watch as a machine automatically prints the jerseys with your desired text and number. A humanoid robot from partner Aimbo Robotics sorts the boxes with the finished jerseys onto shelves. Despite the large number of orders, they are ready for collection about two hours later at a distribution counter outside the center.
The highlight: The jerseys have an NFC chip incorporated. “If you hold your cell phone to it, you can see all the contents of the Experience Center on your cell phone,” explains Wendel. “So it’s not just a nice jersey, but it also has the function of making the content clearer at home.”
He emphasizes that his team develops and sets up the centers for the Sapphire, but shows the different stations again either at other events or in one of the numerous permanently installed experience centers. The team also stores some exhibition construction parts. “It’s important to us to work sustainably,” says Wendel.
Hard to top
The team's many months of preparatory work and the long evenings in the exhibition hall, shortly before the Sapphire starts, were definitely worth it. When asked about the feedback, Andreas Wendel concludes: “Through our concept, we can make the entire portfolio, but also SAP's industrial strength, tangible. This year, a number of people came to us and said: ‘You did something really cool last year, but you managed to top it this year' – and that's not that easy!”
Experience SAP innovation up close
SAP Experience Centers bring innovation to life through real business scenarios, interactive showcases and industry-specific storytelling. At 31 locations worldwide, SAP connects applications, data and AI to transform complex business challenges into tangible solutions.
Interested customers and partners can Explore SAP Experience Center onlineone Book a tour or an impression of SAP AppHaus win.
Cover photo by Nate Lane.
This article first appeared in the employee portal, SAP One.
