SAP SE and Deutsche Telekom are expanding their partnership to include Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for real-time logistics. This announcement was made at Mobile World Congress, the world’s leading conference for the telecom industry.
Enterprises of all sizes are seeking to benefit from the proliferation of sensors and smart equipment by embracing the IoT for improved customer intimacy, new business models, reduced waste and higher efficiency. SAP and Deutsche Telekom are joining forces to deliver a comprehensive, cost-effective solution that provides connectivity, business application software, device tracking and monitoring, and support services.
“In the complexity of the digital age, customers increasingly seek for comprehensive support to address their business needs — at the device, connectivity, platform and software level,” said Anette Bronder, Director of Telekom Security and T-Systems’ Digital Division. “To offer our customers the best, easiest-to-use and most secure solution for every specific need, we constantly expand our IoT partner ecosystem and are excited to extend our collaboration with SAP to the fields of IoT and smart logistics.”
As a part of this agreement, Deutsche Telekom will create a portfolio of comprehensive offerings that will include hardware, connectivity, security, monitoring and operational service at one transparent price. Data collected and managed by Deutsche Telekom will be made available to IoT and supply chain management at SAP, including integration to the enterprise digital core with SAP S/4 HANA®. Under the agreement, both companies plan to create and certify the interfaces between Deutsche Telekom IoT Platforms and SAP® Cloud Platform — their respective workhorses for IoT-enabled scenarios.
“The offerings provided by Deutsche Telekom are truly complementary to the SAP Leonardo IoT portfolio — SAP’s enterprise-grade offering for digital innovation,” said Dr. Tanja Rueckert, President of IoT & Digital Supply Chain, SAP. “We are building on the respective strengths of the two companies to provide our customers with end-to-end solutions that drive enterprise value from ‘things to outcomes.'”
The first of these offerings, including technology from Deutsche Telekom’s partner Roambee Corp., is intended to serve customers with mobile assets or the need to track or monitor the condition of moving objects in real time. Silicon Valley–based Roambee, in which Deutsche Telekom holds an equity stake, was one of the first IoT smart logistics and asset management companies to deliver on-demand real-time visibility, tracking and condition monitoring for goods and assets in transit and in the field. Based on Roambee’s hardware, monitoring and support services, Deutsche Telekom and Roambee have jointly created an end-to-end solution addressing vehicle tracking, track-and-trace or intralogistics scenarios. With Deutsche Telekom acting as a data custodian, the real-time data is collected securely via the mobile networks of Deutsche Telekom and its network partners. Data can be forwarded to the customer’s SAP Leonardo IoT–based solutions running on SAP Cloud Platform to bring the data to life, enabling superior insight and the better management of business processes.
