U.S. companies face growing pressure to focus on sustainability and achieve net-zero emissions operations by 2050 and find it hard to hire enough experts to meet those expectations. As a result, many are turning to SAP ecosystem partners for enterprise resource planning, or ERP, solutions to reach their goals and improve sustainability.

The 2022 ISG Provider Lens SAP (News - Alert) Ecosystem report for the U.S. revealed companies look to service providers for the expertise they need, especially in high-demand segments such as SAP solutions for sustainability.

“Sustainability has become a major focus for providers and enterprises in the SAP ecosystem and is a key requirement for enterprise operations and service provider offerings,” said Bill Huber, ISG partner, Digital Platforms and Solutions.

The next big innovation driving the market for SAP’s ERP offerings will be the expansion of IoT to capture and analyze data for insights relevant to environmental, social and governance objectives. SAP ecosystem partners are collaborating more with SAP to create sustainability solutions such as carbon footprint analysis, supply-chain track-and-trace capabilities and route optimization.

These solutions do provide their own specific benefits, but two benefits shared between them are reduced costs and improved customer satisfaction.

Enterprises continue to pursuing digital transformation initiatives and are increasing their use of SAP applications in the process, primarily in the cloud. ISG research showed adoption of SAP S/4HANA, the company’s next-generation ERP platform, is up from last year among large and midsize companies.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a modular cloud ERP designed for every business need, powered by AI and analytics. SAP S/4HANA Cloud includes capabilities for finance, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain, sales, service, R&D and asset management, all integrated. 

SAP S/4HANA Cloud will provide enterprises with:

• Industry-ready capabilities and best practices to help the enterprise transform an industry.
• Intelligent process automation across end-to-end business processes that will enable enterprises to operate as one.
• Personalized insight so enterprises can decide and act immediately from anywhere.
• Complete support to enable compliance with key regulations.
• Protection of SAP applications and data with embedded cybersecurity.

As U.S. enterprises continue to face the sustainability talent shortage, falling behind Europe where the decarbonization trend emerged, global SAP providers will assist those enterprises with sustainability solutions to help them achieve their goals.