SAP Business Technology Platform: The Driving Force Behind Innovation in AI
Posted on December 5, 2025, by Joachim Cruysberghs for ITdaily
At the recent SAP NOW event in Rotterdam, Mark Smith, Chief Revenue Officer of SAP’s Business Technology Platform (BTP), shared insightful perspectives on how SAP is positioning itself at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI) innovation in the enterprise software industry. Coming from a long career at Microsoft, Smith was immediately attracted by SAP’s comprehensive product portfolio and the strategic role BTP plays in accelerating business transformation through AI.
SAP Beyond ERP: A Comprehensive Business Suite
Smith highlighted a common misconception among customers who still primarily associate SAP with its historic strength in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), mainly for financial and inventory management. “People know SAP mostly as their financial and stock management system,” Smith remarked. However, he stressed that SAP has evolved significantly beyond its ERP roots. Today, SAP delivers a complete commercial suite that supports all essential modern enterprise processes — including finance, supply chain, human resources, customer relationships, and data analytics.
The Business Technology Platform: A Unified Foundation for Innovation
Central to SAP’s strategy is its Business Technology Platform, which serves as the technological foundation upon which all modern SAP applications are built. According to Smith, while ERP remains at the core, BTP surrounds this core with capabilities that enforce compliance, governance, and enable innovation.
“This is demonstrated by recent product announcements,” Smith explained. “Solutions like Ariba NextGen, Supply Chain Orchestration, and Business Network all run on BTP.” This unification means that major enterprise applications now operate seamlessly on a single platform, representing a fundamental advancement in how businesses can leverage SAP’s ecosystem.
AI and Automation at the Heart of Innovation
The platform’s evolution is strongly driven by AI innovation. Smith emphasized SAP’s AI assistant, Joule, which integrates into the platform to provide customers with actionable use cases powered by embedded AI. Joule enables businesses to continuously unlock new productivity improvements and insights.
Recognizing that each company has unique processes, SAP offers tools such as Joule Custom Skills, Joule Agent Builder, and Joule Studio. These allow customers to build tailored AI assistants and automation agents, empowering organizations to automate their distinctive workflows effectively. Smith shared a compelling success story of AGIS, a metallurgical enterprise that automated 300 calculations and achieved a fivefold increase in productivity. “It may sound simple,” he said, “but the time saved by automating these processes is enormous.”
The Importance of a ‘Clean Core’ ERP System
Smith repeatedly emphasized the importance of maintaining a ‘clean core’ ERP system — that is, keeping SAP ERP as standard and uncustomized as possible. BTP then acts as a secure extension layer that provides scalability and innovation capabilities. “The platform for scalability forms the foundation, followed by the platform for innovation,” Smith stated. This architecture enables companies to rapidly test new ideas without massive upfront investments, taking advantage of low-code tools, automation, and AI capabilities embedded in BTP.
Furthermore, Smith described a third layer focused on empowering business users. BTP allows non-technical employees and department heads to develop their own applications and custom agents within the secure SAP ecosystem. This flexibility reduces the need for constant IT intervention while maintaining necessary governance and security measures.
Open and Complementary to Major Cloud Providers
Mark Smith’s experience at Microsoft gives him a clear vision of how BTP fits within the broader cloud landscape. He does not see BTP competing with hyperscalers like Azure but rather complementing them. “BTP and Azure are totally complementary,” Smith noted. In fact, BTP is designed to work seamlessly with major cloud platforms including AWS and Google Cloud, supporting integration across SAP and non-SAP data sources.
This openness is critical, as nearly all enterprises today operate with heterogeneous IT stacks. SAP’s Integration Suite reflects this reality, with 75% of its integrations involving third-party systems. This approach helps organizations harness new insights using technologies like knowledge graphs and advanced AI models.
BTP as the Foundation for SAP’s Enterprise Software Vision
In conclusion, Smith made clear that BTP is not merely a platform but the cornerstone of SAP’s ambition to remain a global leader in enterprise software. “Without BTP, building solutions is like constructing a house without a foundation,” he remarked.
SAP continues to invest heavily in expanding BTP’s capabilities, reinforcing its role as the engine driving AI innovation and business transformation for its worldwide customers.
Related Articles:
- SAP Launches EU AI Cloud: Sovereignty in Four Flavors
- SAP: “Without Structured Data, AI Is Powerless”
- The Era of Self-Renewal Has Arrived at SAP
- Microsoft and SAP Forge Pact for Cloud Continuity in Crisis Times
- How Large Organizations Use AI with SAP
ITdaily is your trusted source for B2B IT news, delivering clear and in-depth stories on technology innovations, practical insights, and enterprise IT transformations.
For more information or to subscribe, visit [ITdaily website].
