SAP teams up with BCG on sustainability strategy
SAP is partnering with management consulting heavyweight Boston Consulting Team to assistance companies create their sustainability strategies.
The partnership will supply a wide range of providers about setting a corporate sustainability method, centered on both SAP and BCG’s product or service portfolios, according to the providers.
The merchandise include things like SAP Sustainability Handle Tower, SAP Product or service Footprint Management and CO2 AI by BCG.
Vivek Bapat
The partnership arrived about principally for the reason that there was a substantial need from customers throughout all industries to include sustainability as a core part of their running business, according to Vivek Bapat, SAP senior vice president for purpose and sustainability marketing and remedies.
To do so, corporations will need to to start with set up a sustainability technique in three spots, Bapat said. Very first is decarbonization across the business, equally on the operational side and in upstream and downstream offer chains. The second is squander elimination, such as plastics, drinking water conservation and dependable mining. 3rd is social difficulties like applying child labor, he reported.
Organizations have to have to be able to measure and report on the development they make in acquiring sustainability aims, which can exhibit proof that any promises are not greenwashing, in accordance to Bapat.
“This suggests giving our shoppers with the means to get a true feeling of the place they had been currently quantitatively,” he reported. “But also demonstrating the progress that they were generating so that they can confirm to the marketplace that they are in fact generating progress, or deficiency thereof.”
Businesses need a put to commence with sustainability
Nonetheless, organizations currently ordinarily will not know exactly where to start in acquiring a sustainability approach, which is why the BCG’s management consulting method and specialized applications blended with individuals from SAP can be specially beneficial, Bapat explained.
BCG’s management consulting methodology aids companies assess in which they are with sustainability, he reported. Companies can then use the mixture of SAP and BCG equipment to decide the strategic targets of what they want to accomplish, according to Bapat.
“In the earlier, [BCG] would have said it’s up to you to figure out the technological innovation remedies,” Bapat mentioned. “But now SAP can come in with the technology enablement, whether it is in conditions of knowledge or business process alterations.”
To assistance corporations achieve zero-emissions targets, for case in point, the providing integrates SAP Product Footprint Administration with CO2.AI by BCG by way of SAP Business Technology Platform, in accordance to Bapat. SAP Merchandise Footprint Administration allows to evaluate and assess carbon emissions throughout the group, whilst CO2.AI by BCG is an AI-based mostly product or service that allows supply chain collaboration all over emissions.
Know wherever you are 1st
BCG is a needed husband or wife for SAP mainly because lots of corporations have minor comprehension of how technologies can help them to grow to be a lot more sustainable businesses, explained Marta Muñoz, exercise lead for Europe technological know-how for sustainability and social impact at IDC.
The very first action in the journey to turning out to be additional sustainable is to undertake an advisory strategy method, she explained.
Marta Muñoz
“Later on on in the journey, you may possibly consider about your infrastructure companions, gear companies or cloud companies, but the first stage is understanding and placing with each other a technique that enables you to feel in the for a longer period time period,” Muñoz stated. “That is what BCG brings to the desk, and they’ve experienced a powerful sustainability follow for lots of yrs.”
Equally SAP and BCG have taken the time to bring their propositions alongside one another and have performed a excellent position mapping the giving to the 3 major categories all-around zero emissions, zero squander and environmental, social and governance reporting, she said.
“It’s considerable that they have a excellent being familiar with of what their customers’ desires and troubles are at the second,” Muñoz stated.
The partnership can support companies place collectively a business situation on how and why employing engineering can enable them meet up with sustainability goals, like turning into a lot more power-productive, improving upon their status and have faith in, and complying with an rising array of rules, she defined.
“For example, a person of their propositions focuses on ESG reporting,” Muñoz claimed. “Appropriate now, this is the No. 1 ache position among companies all-around the world who are becoming pushed by their stakeholders, their regulators, their countries’ governments, in direction of reporting on these ESG parameters and they do not essentially know how to do it. So it’s about bringing that jointly in one put.”
The SAP and BCG partnership is aspect of a larger craze that will continue on to expand, she claimed. For illustration, in January IBM acquired Envizi, an Australia-based agency that focuses on measuring and reporting on sustainability all over a company’s source chain.
“We are in for quite a bit of a switching house in the future number of many years, as budgets and investment in sustainability are probably to raise — primarily in Europe,” Muñoz mentioned. “The modify is spectacular and signifies how businesses are changing their mentality all-around sustainability. They’re placing money where by their mouths are, and this is not just a different craze that’s likely to go away with time.”
Jim O’Donnell is a TechTarget information author who covers ERP and other organization apps for SearchSAP and SearchERP.
