For decades, CIOs and business leaders have faced the same perennial question when it comes to enterprise applications:  Do I go for an all-in-one suite, or do I piece together best-of-breed solutions? Analysts, vendors, and consultants have debated it endlessly. But the truth is, in today’s business environment, that framing is outdated.

The real challenge isn’t a suite orbest of breed. It’s how to get the  strengths of both—and how to ensure that whatever combination you choose drives outcomes for your customers, not just internal departmental preferences. That’s what SAP’s  Apps, Data, AI strategy  is designed to address.

Why the suite vs. best-of-breed debate misses the point

On the surface, the argument for best of breed is simple: every department can pick the “best” tool for its own needs. Marketing gets the most advanced CRM, Finance gets the sharpest analytics tool, HR gets the sleekest employee engagement platform. But what’s best for the department often isn’t what’s best for the company.

Fragmentation creeps in. Integration costs balloon. Data is trapped in silos. And the customer—who doesn’t care which system is “best” for HR or Finance—experiences friction. Best of breed is rarely, if ever, best for the end customer.

Suites, meanwhile, promise simplicity: one vendor, one set of integrations, one harmonized data model. But the trade-off can be a loss of innovation speed or deep functionality in certain domains.

The challenge, then, is not choosing one path over the other. It’s building a foundation that allows companies to have the  integration and coherence of a suite, while still taking advantage of  specialized, innovative capabilities  where they matter most.

The decathlete analogy

A decathlete is not defined by their ability in individual events, but by the rare ability to excel across them all. Their mastery lies in balance, adaptability, and consistency — performing at a world-class level, no matter the discipline. What makes them extraordinary is not just skill in one area, but the completeness of their performance across ten. They embody the idea of being stronger together, with versatility that outperforms specialists when it matters most.

That’s the strength of SAP’s approach. The Apps, Data, AI strategy isn’t about having the absolute “best” application in isolation. It’s about creating an all-around system that works together seamlessly—ERP, HR, Supply Chain, CX, analytics, AI—so that the  overall performance is greater than the sum of its parts.

The same logic applies to a Swiss army knife. No one would argue that its corkscrew is the best in the world. But when you’re on a mountain hike and need a corkscrew, screwdriver, and blade, there is no tool better to have in your pocket. Its value comes from the  combination, not the perfection of any single component.

The relay race of business

Contrast this with a best-of-breed environment: it’s like assembling the fastest sprinters in the world but asking them to run separate races. The real test is a  relay—where victory depends not just on individual speed but on the smoothness of the baton handoffs.

That’s what made the Jamaican men’s 4x100m at the London Olympics in 2012 so impressive. It wasn’t just four superstar runners, but four textbook baton exchanges executed at full speed. That’s what turns raw speed into a world record.

World Athletics puts it simply: “The quality of baton exchanges is typically critical… slick baton changes can compensate for a lack of basic speed.”

But when there is no compensation needed, then the compound effect of precise exchanges and blistering pace is a recipe for victory.

In that final, Jamaica delivered a 36.84 result—still the world record—with leg splits that underline how little momentum they surrendered in the baton-passing zones:  Clean passes preserve velocity; messy ones bleed it away.

In business, the batons are everywhere. Finance hands data to Supply Chain. HR hands talent insights to Operations. Sales passes lead to Customer Experience. And today it’s not just departments—it’s external partners, customers, and increasingly AI agents that need to be part of the race. Every new process, every new application, every new player adds another baton exchange. The number of handoffs is forever increasing.

And just like in a relay, the exchanges are where races are won or lost. A single fumbled handoff can undo the brilliance of individual performances. If Finance optimizes only for itself, or HR only for its metrics, the organization may look fast in isolated stretches but stumble in the bigger race.

That’s why the  C-Suite must become the Customer-Suite—with leaders judged by how well they serve the end customer. It must also be the  Collaboration-Suite, ensuring every baton exchange between departments, partners, and technologies is seamless. And it should be the  Context-Suite, where data and AI are not scattered but shared in context, so every runner knows where they are on the track and how fast to move. In other words, your C-Suite is no longer just about “Chiefs”—it’s about ensuring  Connection, Coordination, and Confidence across the enterprise.

When companies focus on the ultimate goal—winning the whole race, not just one leg—then Apps, Data, and AI become more than technologies. They become the glue that turns brilliant individuals into a winning team.

The SAP apps, data, AI flywheel

This is where SAP’s Apps, Data, and AI flywheel comes in.

• Apps: SAP’s core applications—ERP, HCM, Supply Chain, Customer Experience—are built for end-to-end business processes. They provide the foundation for how companies operate across functions.
• Data: These applications are interconnected through a harmonized data layer, known as Business Data Cloud, which ensures consistency, governance, and accessibility across all domains. Data ceases to be fragmented—it becomes a shared asset.
• AI: On top of this, Joule and AI agents bring intelligence, automation, and prediction into every process. Because the AI is fed by governed, business-contextual data from across the enterprise, its insights are more trustworthy and more impactful.

Like a flywheel, each component strengthens the others. Apps generate data. Data powers AI. AI makes the apps smarter and more valuable. The cycle builds momentum, and the more you use it, the stronger it becomes.

Contrast this with a disconnected best-of-breed environment. Each piece may look impressive on its own, but without a shared flywheel effect, the system doesn’t build momentum. You’re left expending more energy to keep moving, rather than accelerating through compounding force.

Why “best for the department” is rarely best for the business

It’s tempting for leaders to let each function pick its own tools. After all, Finance wants control, HR wants agility, Marketing wants innovation. But when each department optimizes for itself, the company sub-optimizes as a whole.

• Finance may close the books faster, but if their system can’t feed real-time insights to the supply chain, cash flow decisions lag.
• HR may have a slick point solution for employee surveys, but if it doesn’t connect to workforce planning in ERP, staffing gaps emerge.
• Marketing may personalize campaigns beautifully, but if product data from the supply chain isn’t in sync, customers get offers for out-of-stock items.

The result: a business that looks great in departmental scorecards but fails in the customer’s eyes.

Best-of-breed vendors often pitch themselves to departments with a seductive promise:  “You won’t need IT.”  The reality is always different. At some point, IT is pulled back in—usually at the eleventh hour—to sort out authentication and authorization, ensure secure data access, manage integration, provide support, and clean up the loose ends. It’s a bit like a family lobbying for a new puppy: every child swears they’ll handle the walks, the training, and the cleanup. But once the novelty wears off, it’s Mom who ends up doing the hard work. In the enterprise, IT is the mom—responsible for making sure the puppy doesn’t chew through the furniture and that the whole household keeps running.

SAP’s strategy flips the perspective. It prioritizes what’s  best for the business and the customer, not just what’s best for an individual department. That’s why the Apps, Data, AI flywheel matters. It’s not about “good enough” in each category—it’s about  orchestration.

Getting the best of both worlds

SAP doesn’t force a binary choice. Its suite provides the backbone: integrated applications, a harmonized data model, and a unified user experience. But the architecture is composable—so companies can plug in best-of-breed innovations where they add value, without breaking the system.

It’s like equipping a decathlete with the best shoes for sprinting or the best pole for vaulting. They’re still an all-rounder—but with specialized tools, they perform even better.

This is the future of enterprise software. It’s not a suite vs. best of breed. It’s  suite-as-a-service, underpinned by a coherent Apps, Data, AI strategy that ensures the whole system works for the business, not just its parts.

Conclusion

The suite vs. best-of-breed debate is a false choice. In reality, businesses need both: the coherence and data harmonization of a suite, and the agility and innovation of specialized tools.

SAP’s Apps, Data, and AI strategy makes this possible. Like a decathlete, it delivers consistent, all-round excellence across the enterprise. Like a Swiss army knife, it combines multiple tools in a way that makes the whole more valuable than its parts. And like a relay team running the 4x100m, it wins because of trust, teamwork, and seamless baton exchanges.

In the end, what matters isn’t whether Finance, HR, or Supply Chain has the “best” tool in isolation. What matters is whether the entire business can move together—adaptable, intelligent, and focused on delivering for the customer. That’s the real promise of SAP’s approach.