Many organizations are currently on an SAP S/4HANA transformation, and some are already investing in AI technology. But how do new technologies work in everyday work?

There is often a gap between technical introduction and actual use. What is needed are not just tools, but empowerment, communication, organizational change management with a focus on people. Experiences from SAP customers show how this can be achieved.

Global transformation, local anchoring as a guiding principle

Dulaan Punsag-Odefey gives a number that makes the challenge immediately tangible: 265. This is how many key users act as change ambassadors at Hapag-Lloyd, spread across six regions worldwide. The shipping company is one of the five largest in the world and is in the middle of an SAP S/4HANA finance transformation. The “Fast Forward” program affects 4,000 SAP users in over 140 countries.

Punsag-Odefey, OCM Lead at Hapag-Lloyd, says: “Change Management is anchored in our program as a strategic enabler. Not as an add-on, but as the core.”

In everyday life, this means that the 265 ambassadors translate global standards into local language and practice. Controllers should become business partners who no longer just create Excel lists, but also provide decision templates for sales and operations. The message to the workforce is: “It will be different, but better.”

Authorities show how change management works

The Federal Post and Telecommunications Agency (BAnst PT) shows that transformation can also happen without a textbook. The authority introduced S/4HANA in just one year: greenfield, public cloud, 1,000 affected users, go-live on January 1, 2026. At the same time, the move to a new administration building with a new work concept.

Simone Kunze, a consultant in the SAP Service Center at BAnst PT, knows the sentences that come up in every organization: “Are there any instructions for this?” or “Standard won’t work for us.” What helped was honest communication and direct moderation in the departments instead of pro forma question rounds.

A fit-to-standard approach replaced established special solutions. Key users were developed from project experts who had already built depth through workshops, user stories and test cases. The support paid off, because after the go-live there were dozens of thank-you emails for the new SAP travel expense management and the Fiori apps and over 70% response rate for surveys.

Thilo Menges from the Medical University of Lausitz (MuL) goes one step further. His project has a special starting point: with 3.6 billion euros in funding, a completely new organization including SAP technologies is being created. Menges makes a point that many organizations do not make so clearly: “For me, change management is an investment security measure. This is an organizational project and people need support in change processes.”

Change management therefore accounts for 4.3 percent of the total budget in his project, the largest individual item in the SAP contract.

The SAP Change Management Framework with its six dimensions, which MuL is based on, is integrated into the SAP Activate methodology. Particularly important are early assessments, target group-specific communication and the identification of trustworthy multipliers instead of the watering can principle.

What was also shown: Learning does not end with go-live. Tools like WalkMe enable contextual support in the workflow, especially for rare processes. Enabling the organization to independently develop these systems is crucial for sustainable success.

The organizations mentioned above are supported by change management consultants from SAP – you can find more information about this here.

From shadow AI to structured integration at KIT

While the BAnst PT and Hapag-Lloyd are primarily transforming SAP system landscapes, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is faced with a different question: How do you get 25,000 students and 10,000 employees to use AI responsibly – instead of each for themselves in secret?

In a year and a half, KIT has gone from uncontrolled AI use to an AI toolbox with governance rules. Instead of issuing bans, KIT relies on empowerment.

Andreas Sexauer from the Center for Media Learning at KIT describes the approach as follows: A mandatory qualification module imparts basic knowledge and legal aspects before students and teachers have access to the AI ​​toolbox. At the same time, use case workshops run in specialist departments, from management level to the legal department. After the teaching rollout in April 2025, 31 didactic chatbots were created in the first seven days. The teachers configure them directly in the learning management system for their respective event.

KIT is also taking a pragmatic approach to costs: after initially offering free access, a budget of $25 per person per month was introduced to cap it.

Which the research confirms

Whether shipping company, government agency or university – they all report similar patterns. Prof. Dr. Renate Osterchrist from Munich University of Applied Sciences provides the scientific basis for this: She evaluated 112 studies on the effectiveness of change interventions and examined six fields of intervention: communication, support, involvement, reinforcement, social influence and coercion. There are, among others, the following influencing factors in change:

• Dialogue formats are more effective than one-way communication.
• Coaching for managers not only improves their leadership ability, but also measurably improves their implementation skills. Coaching and peer exchange are also helpful for employees.
• The coercion component has so far been little researched: What is helpful is clarity in the messages about what behavior is desired. Manipulation and political games, on the other hand, lead to less commitment.
• The often-quoted figure that 70 percent of all change projects fail is not true, according to current data.

The statement “To be honest, I have never experienced a change where there was too much communication” also shows the role of communication.

When AI agents come into play, change becomes even more important

What happens if not only new systems are introduced, but AI agents take over parts of the work? This was exactly the question that was in the room when Joule Studio 2.0 was shown live at the forum. With this platform, SAP customers can create AI agents that access business context: SAP Knowledge Graph, process models, domain knowledge. The agents are code-based and transparent. Developers describe the desired result in natural language, and Joule Studio uses it to create specifications and executable code. No-Code and Pro-Code are equally possible.

The discussions that followed showed that the change management described above will be particularly important here. Because when agents take on tasks, roles, responsibilities and the way people and machines work together change.

You can find documentation of the SAP Learning and Adoption Forum 2026 including videos, slides and chatbot in the SAP Community.

Three fields of action

Three patterns emerge across all examples:

• Skills before, during and after introduction: It is important to involve key users, business leads or other stakeholders at an early stage – they are the change multipliers.
• Local Ownership: Global standards work when local teams take responsibility. This applies to shipping companies in 140 countries as well as to federal authorities.
• Embed and accompany AI in a structured manner: Qualification, governance and business context are more effective than generic tools. When it comes to multi-agent systems, we are only at the beginning.

The above findings were shared at the SAP Learning and Adoption Forum – the documentation including chatbot, videos, and slides can be found here Blog post.