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SAP Venture Studio funds startups solving social issues
Fri, 8th Jun 2018
FYI, this story is more than a year old

SAP today showcased the organisation's efforts to be an innovative and inclusive company.

SAP has an incubation system that nurtures startups that create products and solutions to help intelligent enterprises adapt, compete and thrive in a fast-changing world.

Through the SAP.iO Venture Studio, SAP mines talent and assets internally to help startups build successful businesses that enable customers to solve problems and work more efficiently and productively.

The SAP.iO Venture Studio also empowers and guides startups that address social needs or environmental concerns.

Some of these include:

Ruum by SAP helps customers manage their projects by bringing together interested parties and keeping them on the same page.

This simple project-management-as-a-service solution includes task management, timelines, file storage and team collaboration.

It integrates with various cloud solutions from SAP, including SAP Global Track and Trace, SAP C/4HANA, SAP Demand Signal Management and SAP Digital Boardroom.

It has its own digital assistant, Ada, who keeps all team members informed on milestones and changes to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Brilliant Hire by SAP allows prospective employers to evaluate a candidate's skill and fast tracks hiring without bias.

With a digitalised prescreening process, Brilliant Hire by SAP provides insights that hiring managers can review.

It is available in an alpha version on SAP Cloud Platform integrated with SAP SuccessFactors solutions.

Atlas by SAP is a portfolio of easy-to-use applications that brings speed and accuracy to help companies make business decisions based on location data.

It enables retailers to understand what products they should carry and consumer goods companies to determine which stores to target for marketing campaigns.

With just a click, Atlas' geospatial analytics platform uses near real-time data to provide detailed yet anonymous information — including age ranges, income and residing zip codes — about hourly traffic near proposed locations.

Having already proved itself with its first midmarket customers, Atlas has secured a €4.5 million second investment commitment from the SAP.iO Venture Studio to target the enterprise market with Atlas Geo Cloud, a cloud solution that will scale and add functionality such as storing and maintaining data and cleaning it for analysis.

SAP One Billion Lives

The SAP.iO Venture Studio is also building social impact ventures through the SAP One Billion Lives initiative.

Started in SAP's Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region in 2016, SAP One Billion Lives expanded globally this year to help improve the lives of 1 billion people by fostering scalable, viable social businesses.

It brings together talent and technology to address global challenges, which in turn benefits businesses, customers, employees and partners and the world.

SAP One Billion Lives is a crowd-sourced program that employs SAP technology to deliver sustainable, commercially viable social impact.

Ongoing projects include tackling cancer drug effectiveness in India and improving disaster prevention and preparedness in Japan.

Organisations embrace Well-Being at Work

SAP also introduced Well-Being at Work, a new initiative that puts employee well-being at the heart of organisations and positions technology as a catalyst and enabler of this cultural shift.

In this mission, SAP has joined forces with Thrive Global.

Founded and led by Arianna Huffington, Thrive Global's mission is to end the stress and burnout epidemic by offering companies and individuals sustainable, science-based solutions to enhance well-being, performance and purpose, and create a healthier relationship with technology.

SAP SuccessFactors Work-Life, the first solution rolled out from this initiative, brings this vision to life, providing real-time insights into individual and group well-being needs, and making targeted recommendations to improve employee satisfaction and engagement.