Once again the move into a new year offers an excellent opportunity to look at the trends that will dominate business technologies in 2025. In this Insights news post we provide an updated look at the four key areas of AI, Cloud, Compliance and Sustainability.  Although these topics have been on our radar in past years, the outlook for 2025 holds a common thread as the accumulated innovation and investment in each of these areas morphs into tangible acceleration, scalability and productivity payoffs going forward.

The digital transformation journey, especially within the software and SaaS sectors, has seen a significant shift toward cloud-based ERP systems. This trend is driven by various factors, including the need for greater agility, scalability, and efficiency in operations. More large and mid-sized SaaS companies are moving away from traditional on-premise ERP systems or low-end cloud ERPs to comprehensive cloud-based ERP solutions. This shift allows for easier access to data, enhanced collaboration, and real-time analytics.

Previously in this Insights Series, we have touched on a wide range of topics that are important for enabling companies to cost-effectively move to cloud-based ERP implementations. These have included migration tools such as SAP RISE and GROW, reducing Digital Debt, and fast-tracking Subscription Billing with Public Cloud Packaged Solutions. In this new Insights post we focus on SAP Clean Core to explore how it can lay a solid foundation for streamlining the transition to SAP Cloud Public or Private Edition, while also providing an extensible future-forward framework to support both fit-to-standard and company-specific extensions.

With COP29 coming up November 11-22, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan, this is a good opportunity to review progress toward climate goals and to update new developments in SAP's ongoing focus on delivering end-to-end carbon management and ESG reporting solutions.

Life sciences includes a broad range of scientific fields that study living organisms and their interactions with the environment. Some of the key areas within life sciences include:

• Biology: The study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, evolution, and behavior.
• Biotechnology: The use of biological systems, organisms, or derivatives to develop or create products, often focusing on medical or agricultural applications.
• Genetics: The study of genes, heredity, and genetic variation in living organisms.
• Microbiology: The study of microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa.
• Pharmacology: The study of drugs and their effects on living organisms.
• Medicine: The science and practice of diagnosing, treating, and preventing diseases in humans.

As with many other industry segments, companies in the life sciences arena are grappling with disruptive changes in their go-to-market strategies while at the same time looking to improve their business processes via digital transformation. This new Insights Post explores how the SAP ecosystem can help life sciences companies align initiatives in both of these areas with digital transformation initiatives that embrace new subscription-based revenue opportunities and simultaneously map out an optimized roadmap for moving to more efficient cloud-based ERP and overall business systems.

SAP Universal Revenue Management (SAP Universal RevRec) is a cutting-edge solution engineered to elevate and simplify the complexities of revenue recognition. It marks a substantial leap forward that is built on earlier revenue management systems, such as SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting (RAR) and SAP Automated Revenue Management (ARM).

With a 28 year track record as one of SAP's longest serving partners and the recognized experts in SAP revenue compliance and SAP BRIM/OTC offerings, the Bramasol team has deep experience tailoring SAP solutions to specific client requirements. By leveraging our leadership in deploying more RAR implementations than any other partner, Bramasol is also at the forefront of helping refine and deploy these new Universal RevRec capabilities.

The proliferation of subscription-based, recurring revenue offerings in the Digital Solutions Economy (DSE) presents both opportunities and challenges. In the customer driven DSE model, companies need to adapt their processes to meet a dynamically changing range of customer needs, while also assuring robust backend processing with integrated revenue compliance.

As part of our ongoing coverage of environmental, social and governance (ESG) trends, this Insights post provides a mid-year update of trends in the ESG accounting space and a look at how SAP solutions for ESG management are continuing to evolve. 

In addition to highlighting trends such as the Digital Solutions Economy (DSE), industry-focused solutions, and SAP initiatives like artificial intelligence and S/4HANA cloud, this Insights Series will also periodically provide answers to the top questions that we hear from our clients and partners.

In this episode, we dive into five issues that are at the heart of optimizing Quote-to-Cash to Compliance with SAP Revenue Recognition and subscription management applications, including complex bundling scenarios.