The Art of Business: WEF23 Davos Special Edition

The Envision Beyond Journal is a monthly publication of the Intelligent Enterprise Institute, the think and do tank of SAP, to help business leaders inspire and accelerate change.?

This issue is a special edition after the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos and is about the Art of Business. The Intelligent Enterprise Institute hosted a series of conversations throughout the week with business leaders, scientists, and artists at the Davos Heimatmuseum in partnership with House of Beautiful Business and La Zuleta to imagine inclusive, sustainable futures. Read our reflection in this special edition.?

Don’t miss the Food for Thought and Snapshots sections below to hear from other perspectives!?

by Emek Ye?ilyurt , Roberto Pérez Segura , and Jose Luis Carvalho

In an increasingly complex, fragmented world, the existing paradigms and solutions no longer suffice. Data, science, and technology are powerful tools, but looking at business as an art, as well as learning from the arts, can help us bring bolder imaginations to the challenges ahead. Inclusive collaboration is key to solving the issues of a fragmented world. Bringing together perspectives from business, art, policy and technology worlds can create new approaches, perspectives and learnings that can be taken into action to create solutions.

In the Art of Business Forum, on Monday 16th of January, we explored these different perspectives. Starting with gaining a new consciousness, we have explored how arts can contribute to business by bringing agility and creativity but also looking at problems and solutions from a different angle. Exploring art actually may activate actions and reactions to discover solutions, differently. We also looked into how technology can be a complementing strength rather than simply a pure enabler, how humans may need to understand the new distribution of roles in the current market, and perhaps, how they can trust technology to be used in a much wider scale.

We then moved into Climate innovation. How does the concept of Intelligent Sustainable Enterprise enable a sustainable world? How organizations, empowered by multiple human and machine intelligences can contribute to a more sustainable world, and how these intelligences are augmented by the creativity from art and science.

The day on Monday closed with a trip into homecoming, how the sense of belonging may increase purpose in a fragmented world, how politics may need to create a space for art to increase such sentiment and how roots and remembrance may help to ground people, technology, and businesses into the purpose of resolving the world’s biggest challenges.

How does circular manufacturing help improve economic performance and supply chain resilience?

A conversation with Andreas Tschiesner , senior partner, McKinsey & Company; Christian Boos , head of sustainability innovation engagement, SAP; and Christoph Schell , chief commercial officer, Intel

In this panel, we discussed how value retention and material stewardship help organizations achieve sustainability targets while improving economic performance.

Our panelists agreed that material scarcity, scope 3 carbon emissions and regulatory requirements are the main business drivers for manufacturers to apply circular economy principles. They help enterprises to achieve?#CorporateSustainabilityTargets ?while managing and even improving operating costs in production. Therefore, sustainability and profitability go hand in hand.

Switching to green energy and investing in green infrastructure for manufacturing is only one half of addressing carbon footprints in the products. The other half is about reusing the products at “end of use” through?#remanufacturing ,?#refurbishment ,?#repair ?and?#recycling . Additionally, it became clear in the discussion that circular manufacturing requires a reliable business network.

Our highlight from this discussion was the real-life examples on how companies work on implementing the circular approach into their business strategy.

Please watch the full panel video here:

How can digital turn sustainability finance regulations into an advantage?

A conversation with Steve Varley , global vice chair sustainability, EY Sustainability; Lourdes Rosales , global corporate relations & sustainability, SAP; and Daniel Schmid , chief sustainability officer, SAP

Sustainability compliance and legislations can seem like a burden. However, that can be turned into advantages if they are proactively used as an addition to companies' own climate goals. Compliance and legislation are the perfect drivers for any planning activities of companies.

Our highlight from the panel discussion is that the urgency to be serious about sustainability is here, with companies being required to report on it with the same level of rigor as their finance. Whilst this is a daunting task for businesses due to the sheer volume and complexity to execute, digitalization will help with providing the speed and governance to the whole process. So that businesses can tell a proper story to their stakeholders and build a base of trust to become competitive through a sustainable business strategy.?

One thing was clear in the conversation: it’s either to have a sustainable business or no business at all!

We thank to our panelists for this insightful panel and ask you to check out the upcoming #highlights of all panels if you’re interested to hear more!

Please watch the full panel video here:

Is carbon trading the right strategy towards decarbonization?

A conversation with Alexsandra Guerra , co founder & director of corporate development, Nori; Christoph Lange , co founder, Atem; Alexandre Peschel , co founder, Atem; Lourdes Rosales , global corporate relations & sustainability, SAP; and Daniel Schmid , chief sustainability officer, SAP

Achieving #NetZero operations require a clear path to lower and avoid emissions. Our panelists questioned whether buying and selling carbon credits is a way to pursue NetZero strategies and how this requires a clear plan on how to measure, reduce and compensate emissions.

There are several challenges on the table. The sheer number of suppliers, marketplaces, and processes is vast in terms of impact. Also, the entailed risks of compensating emissions are not to be underestimated, to name a few; greenwashing and double counting are always looming. Error proneness caused by manual work and media breaks makes it difficult for companies to adapt fast.

However, a few things became evident in the conversation:

• Net zero must mean recovering emissions across the entire value chain and to do that it’s important to integrate carbon operations into everyday businesses.
• We need to emit less carbon! So avoiding and reducing emissions should be the first priority, and then we need to think about removing the rest!
• Technology is an enabler of execution, and also key to providing transparency which leads to earning trust and getting people engaged in this mission.

Please watch the full panel video below:

How can digitalization accelerate the energy transition to green hydrogen?

A conversation with Mark Hutchinson, CEO, Fortescue Future Industries (FFI); Dr. Gabriel Clemens , CEO, Green Gas E.ON SE; Klaus Schimmer , chief innovation architect sustainability, SAP; Judith Wallenstein , managing director and senior partner, BCG; and Dr. Thomas Becker , vice president sustainability, Mobility BMW Group

The energy transition is a pathway toward a transformation of the global energy sector from fossil-based to zero-carbon by the second half of this century. At its heart is the need to reduce energy-related CO2 emissions to limit climate change; green hydrogen is a key player to achieve that.

We had a fantastic panel and a lively discussion with great panelists. Here are a few key takeaways from our conversation: transitioning to green energy is a team sport! We need to collaborate to establish the green hydrogen market that includes the key players across the entire value chain.

In addition, our panelists agreed that digitalization is an integral part of building this from the very first beginning.

Please watch the full panel recording here:

To learn more on how to accelerate the transition to clean energy, we encourage you to read the Envision Beyond January Episode .

How can we leverage the power of employees with a sustainability mindset?

A conversation with Angela Hultberg , global sustainability director, Kearney; Meg Bear , president & chief product officer, SAP SuccessFactors; Peter Ziswiler , head corporate HR/ CHRO, Georg Fischer AG; and Philippe Dutkiewicz, member of executive board, HR Campus AG

How can people be actively involved in achieving companies’ sustainability goals and what is the role of mindset and behavior of employees in this?

In our panel conversation, our panelists agreed that a successful sustainable business starts with all of us and how we are embedded in a purposeful culture where people, planet and profit are in balance, and everyone thrives. We cannot solve the problems with the same thinking, mindset, and behavior - change is key! The driver for change will be digitalization in combination with environmental pressure and economic success.

It was clear in the discussion that people want to be actively involved in reaching out to companies’ sustainability goals with purpose. In fact, people often know how to solve their issues; they just need to have a platform to talk about them and feel empowered to resolve them. The next level of people's sustainability evolution is thriving in a purposeful environment with hope, resilience, optimism and increased self-efficacy.

Please watch the full panel recording here:

Future of work: How can technology help to make the future of work more human?

A conversation with Meg Bear , president & chief product officer, SAP SuccessFactors; Sylvain Duranton , global leader BCG X, managing director & senior partner, BCG; Dr. Astrid Fontaine , member of the board of management, Volkswagen CV; Monika Jiang , head of curation and community, House of Beautiful Business; and Roberto Perez Segura , head of communications, SAP Intelligent Enterprise Institute

The future of work: shaped by technology, painted by humans. In this panel conversation our panelists questioned how technology can help to make the future of work more human.

The continued advancement of AI and hyper-automation and digitization has been changing all our lives from how we interact with others in our personal lives to how we learn things and work in business. For some, technology seems like a threat, only there to replace the workforce as we know it. However, our panelists are embracing a more optimistic future and discussed that the future of work isn't just about automation; it is significantly about human collaboration.

The synergy between human and machine intelligence, can create a place where humans fully express their ability to rethink, reframe and reinvent, whilst machines help explore combinatorial data sets and accelerate processing and decision making.

The changes in work will have a huge impact on the expectations of the future workforce. It has been discussed in the conversation that the education methods are also evolving to equip the next generation of learners with a new set of skills and mindset like true empathy, critical thinking, intuition, imagination, unbounded creativity, and the ability to cope with high volatility, complexity, and uncertainty.

To learn more, read the Envision Beyond December Episode .

Please watch the full panel video below:

Watch more from the SAP House in Davos below:

Building a Sustainable World Together

People Sustainability

Creating the Green Hydrogen Market | WEF 2023

Cooperation in a Fragmented World

The?Intelligent Enterprise Institute?helps business leaders understand the transformative potential of different forms of intelligence and use it for their organizations and life. It provides a platform to inspire and accelerate change, supported in market trends and SAP’s vision to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. By generating new insights and bringing together unheard voices and unique perspectives from leading thinkers and doers of the world, the Intelligent Enterprise Institute aims to foster different qualities in enterprises and their stakeholders alike taking it into action for desirable outcomes.?