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10 January 2022
What Next For SAP Business One in 2022
SAP has revealed its priorities for SAP Business One in 2022 and given insight into some exciting innovations currently in development for end-users.
In his annual review and address, Rainer Zinow, Senior Vice President, Head of SAP Midmarket Product Management at SAP, said that SAP Business One (SAP B1) had an "amazing bounce-back" in 2021 after the disruption of the pandemic in 2020.
There are now more than 70,000 SMEs using B1 in over 170 countries across the globe, with more than 1,200,000 users accessing the solution. Rainer said:
“SAP Business One is an amazing solution ranging from all aspects of ERP and delivering an end-to-end suite in a proven format that we’ve had for many years,”
SAP has four primary investment areas within the product's roadmap over the next 12 months: the B1 Web Client; localisations; extensions and integrations; and cloud operations. Rainer also mentioned that:
“The web client, to give SAP Business One a state-of-the-art browser-based user-interface… is the most important investment,”
He added that the web client is an ongoing project that will be developed and delivered over several years. By mid-2023, SAP hopes to finish an “end-to-end experience of what you can do with SAP Business One via the browser-based user interface”.
The latest patch release of the web client, released in December 2021, includes several key deliverables, including new Outlook 365 and Microsoft Teams integration. New security features were also included, with Rainer urging end-users to stay up-to-date with the latest patch releases to protect their system.
Rainer said that SAP’s development of new localisations is an “ongoing race” and that many governments had changed laws and regulations due to the pandemic, which “needs to be reflected” in future releases of SAP Business One.
In 2022, SAP will host workshops outlining the new extensions and integrations and improve cloud operations to deliver “smooth operations” for SAP Partners and end-users.
Intelligent Enterprise
Another critical topic outlined in Rainer’s video is the Intelligent Enterprise. SAP said the “journey has already started” to integrate innovations into SAP Business One, such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, which Rainer called “the first step”.
SAP is working to “automate as much as possible” and use the robotics process automation framework to “really make your life easier”.
“After that, we are looking into the capabilities from the underlying SAP HANA database, specifically in predictive analytics. We also have a couple of ideas about using natural language processing in the different shapes available to us today,” Rainer added.
“What is super important to me is that we make sure all of the capabilities that we develop in SAP in the area of Intelligent Enterprise also find their way into SAP Business One.”
SAP Business Ecology Management
New features and developments in the Solution’s Product Roadmap are often driven by suggestions or enhancements from SAP Partners or existing B1 users. As part of SAP’s Annual Cycle Review in 2021, more than 1,700 improvement requests were submitted for SAP Business One.
Although there are specific enhancements that SAP cannot accommodate, more than 100 requests have already been delivered, with another 51 in development or planned in the coming months, plus a further 44 accepted for long-term consideration.
One of these requests is for a new solution to track and monitor the carbon footprint of products. The new SAP Business Ecology Management Solution will help organisations track emissions data to analyse and report on an organisation’s carbon footprints.
SAP hopes to release its new Business Ecology Management solution towards the end of Q4 this year.
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