SAP Israel head: If there’s value, deals happen despite war

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At the Globes' Israel Business Conference, Orna Kleinmann presented SAP’s vision of artificial intelligence for business.

Speaking at the Globes Israel Business Conference, Orna Kleinmann, Managing Director SAP Labs Israel and SVP Technology & Innovation, SAP Cloud Platform Foundation, commented on the challenges posed by the war to international high-tech companies in Israel. "60% of high-tech in Israel is based on international organizations," she said. "The war presents us with challenges beyond reservists and the difficult situation of all of us. Some companies store entire products or services in the cloud. If our service goes down, if we don't have a network even for just an hour, the entire control service goes down."

Despite the challenges, Kleinmann presented SAP's 12th acquisition in Israel, made during the war. "We acquired WalkMe without seeing the development center even once," she said. "The deal was made through the US and their branch there, and only after a few months one of the senior managers arrived in Israel. This shows that when there’s business and there’s value, the deal happens despite the war."

"The new way of managing companies "

Kleinmann presented the company's vision for artificial intelligence in business. "We enable companies to upload all their business data and receive a language model that is relevant to them." She demonstrated how managers can now communicate with their data in natural language and receive accurate business forecasts.

"This will be the new way of managing companies," Kleinmann stressed. "Although we’re a long way from companies that manage themselves, managers will receive a great deal of help in basing their decisions on data." In reference to female representation in the high-tech industry, Kleinmann said, "The mission is to show how interesting it is and how possible it is. I am happy to see many women on stage at the Globes conference. Technology is our future, and women must be a part of it."

Kleinmann went into detail on SAP’s business, with about 110 thousand employees worldwide, and revenue of $30 billion. In Israel, the company has 1,200 employees. She also mentioned that the vast majority of the 500 largest companies in the world work with SAP. The company has made twelve acquisitions in Israel, and Israel was the first country where it bought a technology company. Kleinmann has helmed SAP Labs Israel for 11 years.

While many companies faced a multitude of problems in the shadow of the war, while trying to stick to the ‘Deliver No Matter What’ credo, SAP was among the few companies to take advantage of the period to make big moves. Last June, the company announced the purchase of Israel’s WalkMe for about $1.5 billion. This is SAP's 12th and largest acquisition in Israel, as well as the second largest acquisition of an Israeli company for 2024.

Kleinmann pointed out that AI for business will replace looking for data in complex dashboards or asking development teams to provide capabilities or build tools to give specific answers. Instead, generative AI will be able to receive a question in English and provide the requisite data, relevant analyzes and reliable information on the spot.

"We all already know how convenient and easy it is to use a language model like ChatGPT, but companies can't really use it because it doesn't have any information related to their operations. What companies do, and what we do for our clients, is to take a language model, upload all the company's business data to it, and then you get a language model that is precisely adapted to your business," Kleinmann explains.

"From that moment on, you can 'play' with the data in endlessly. I can do analyses, improve the way I manage operations, predict things in a better way, and, most importantly, I can talk to my data in natural language. I simply ask the model to generate graphs, tables or anything else, something that used to take hours or even days."

After demonstrating AI for business developments, Kleinmann added, "This is going to be the new way of managing companies: making business decisions based on data. Although we are not there yet in the sense of companies that manage themselves, it is already a huge step in that direction. Managers can already use a language model and make much more precise decisions based on their data."

Kleinmann also gave an indication as to which company SAP might acquire next, saying that it would be a company that does business application implementation integrated with artificial intelligence.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 9, 2024.

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