SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) – one visionary platform. Endless possibilities.

Today’s companies are faced with the challenge of using large amounts of data efficiently. The key question is whether they can use this data strategically or whether they are overwhelmed by the complexity. The SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) offers a comprehensive platform that combines orientation, security, a scalable architecture, and innovative analytics and AI capabilities, helping companies to unlock the full value of their data and make it usable for specific purposes.

Today’s companies face a variety of complex challenges when it comes to data, planning and analytics. It often starts with highly fragmented system architectures and the associated difficulties in integrating structured and unstructured data. This not only entails significant governance issues but also makes efficient use across system boundaries more difficult.

In addition, many of the analysis tools currently in use) – especially with regard to machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) – are increasingly reaching their limits. A failure to counteract this despite a reliance on forward-looking concepts and modern technologies puts companies at risk of losing profitability and falling behind the competition.

That’s exactly why SAP launched the new SAP Business Data Cloud Platform (BDC) at the start of 2025. With its forward-looking concepts and technologies, BDC is helping companies meet the above-mentioned challenges through a combination of applications, data and AI, lowering the TCO and helping companies to stay one step ahead of the competition.

The goal is to help them realize their vision using a combination of applications, data and AI. SAP’s applications and technology platform ensure all areas of a company are closely connected, transforming business processes end-to-end. See the following figure:

The SAP Business Data & AI Cloud (BDC) is a SaaS platform, technologically underpinned by the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) and seamlessly integrated in the SAP Business Suite. This in turn provides the core operational applications for central business processes.

Not only does the SAP BDC merge core components  SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), SAP Datasphere and SAP Databricks in one product, it also adds countless other groundbreaking new concepts and features:

Provision of a centralized, semantically consistent data base

One of the aims of the BDC is to provide a company-wide harmonized data layer in which structured and unstructured data are brought together and given a uniform semantic meaning, creating trustworthy, understandable and, above all, reusable data models that can be used across all divisions. End users can then access this data via various use scenarios (consumption modes) – from classic reports and intelligent apps to chatbots like Joule.

Data Products

Within the BDC, data products are consistent, reusable, semantically enriched data packages. They are part of the data models described in the previous section and pool thematically bundled data from SAP (S/4HANA, SuccessFactors, etc.) and non-SAP systems.

They are usually predefined (curated) by SAP, but can also be added to or created by the client if necessary. The concept of data products goes far beyond the concept of what is referred to as business content. A data product contains both the semantic model – with its dimensions, key figures and relationships – and the underlying data sources. It also documents all relevant governance information, such as authorizations, access controls, and data lineage throughout the entire lifecycle.

They form the technical basis for the use of data in the intelligent apps provided by SAP and for the (re)use of application data in machine learning algorithms within SAP. Both concepts are described in more detail below.

Intelligent Apps

Intelligent Apps are a special form of preconfigured analysis applications within the BDC that combine classic reporting and dashboarding with AI and machine learning functionality. The information available in the Intelligent Apps is based on the data provided in the form of the Data Products.

The central advantage of this concept is that the entire data flow—from the location of data generation in operational systems like S/4HANA or SuccessFactors to modeling and storage in the form of Data Products, access via virtual data models to AI-supported analysis applications—can be realized automatically and in accordance with architecture through a simple, standardized activation process. No need for tedious manual modeling of ETL routes by the client’s IT department or consulting firm. The same applies to the daily monitoring and management of the loading processes. The data is immediately available to the end user in real time.

SAP Databricks

SAP Databricks is a BDC-optimized version of Databricks, the leading platform for data analytics, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence. It combines the strengths of data lakes and data warehouses in a lakehouse architecture and enables the storage and processing of structured and unstructured data. The data products created in BDC can be analyzed and processed directly in SAP Databricks without any additional technical copying process (zero-/low-copy integration/Delta Sharing). The results generated in SAP Databricks – for example from ML datasets – are not available in isolation, but can directly enrich existing SAP data products and thus be seamlessly integrated into Intelligent Apps, for instance for visualization in dashboards or for use by AI features such as Joule.

BW Modernization Possibilities

With all the new features and possibilities that the SAP Business Data & AI Cloud (BDC) offers as a suite, the well-established SAP BW should not be dismissed – be it in the classic non-HANA version, as a migrated BW/4HANA system, on-premise or pre-existing within the cloud.

Over years and decades, a treasure trove of data has been built up there, its operational substance having grown continuously over the years and it is still of high strategic relevance for the client. And BDC offers the option of integrating this treasure trove and using it directly for ML/AI use cases in SAP Databricks, for example.

For this, BW needs to be imported into the private cloud (RISE) and into a BDC formation – a purely technical process ORBIS can help you with.

If you are still running a SAP BW system – be it on-premise, on any DB or already on HANA – that has not yet been migrated to BW/4HANA, mainstream maintenance will end at the end of 2027. After that, there is paid, extended maintenance.

If you import BW into BDC (Lift), the maintenance is automatically extended until the end of 2030. With the help of a data product generator (Data Products), you can make your BW data available directly in all BDC components so you can use it directly for AI or ML use cases (Shift). Your existing analytics applications and dashboards will simply continue to run.

Gradually, BW data products will be replaced by SAP-curated or modern custom data products, and your company will benefit from the power of Intelligent Apps (Innovate). Ultimately, the old BW system will be switched off.

Seamless Planning

Likewise, planning is now conceivable on unprecedented scale with embedding within SAP BDC based on the Extended Planning and Analytics (xP&A) approach. The term seamless planning no longer merely refers to the seamless technical embedding of SAP planning solutions in the SAP Datasphere. SAP BDCs offer a greatly expanded range of solutions for this.

Planning can be conducted out based on a data product architecture with real-time available reference and master data within predefined or client-adapted “planning-enabled” Intelligent Apps. The open system architecture gives you greatly expanded access to planning-relevant data across all company domains.

ML and AI algorithms help to broaden the planning data basis (enrichment of the data) and via planning features, e.g. in forecasting, classification, clustering, natural language processing (NLP), anomaly detection, simulation and much more.

Implement individual data strategies successfully – with SAP BDC as a visionary platform with endless possibilities and our expert knowledge

As a consulting company, we are with our clients every step of the way on their individual journey into the SAP Business Data Cloud. Every client has their own requirements, system landscapes and data strategies – which is why we rely on tailor-made approaches instead of standard solutions.

Together, we analyze your existing data architecture and identify potential for integration into BDC. We help to define relevant data products and deliver these in semantically correct form. Through close integration with SAP Datasphere, SAP Databricks, SAP BW and SAP SAC, we can create a future-proof database for your AI and ML use cases.

Our experts support technical implementation, governance and the development of scalable data pipelines, paying special attention to security, compliance and the reusability of data products.

We give divisions the tools to make data-driven decisions faster and more reliably. We employ best practices and industry-specific know-how to ensure a smooth transformation, making SAP BDC the central platform for data-driven innovations in your company!