SAP Innovation Awards 2025 - Pitch Deck Guidance
SAP Innovation Awards 2025 Pitch Deck Guidance to help structure the pitch deck effectively for entry submission. Download the DocumentSAP® Innovation Awards 2025
Entry Pitch Deck Instructions and Guidance
1. TITLE ................................................................................................................................................. 3
2. COMPANY INFORMATION .............................................................................................................. 4
3. SUMMARY AND QUOTE.................................................................................................................. 5
4. PARTICIPATING PARTNER INFORMATION .................................................................................. 6
5. CHALLENGES AND OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................. 7
6. PROJECT OR USE CASE DETAILS ............................................................................................... 8
7. BENEFITS AND OUTCOMES .......................................................................................................... 9
8. ARCHITECTURE(OPTIONAL) ....................................................................................................... 11
9. DEPLOYMENT ................................................................................................................................ 12
10. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ........................................................................................................ 13
11. GENERAL GUIDELINES AND TIPS .............................................................................................. 14
12. APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................... 15
12.1. EXAMPLES OF BENEFITS AND OUTCOMES ............................................................................. 15
12.2. HOW TO COMPLETE THE ENTRY FORM .................................................................................... 15
Entry Pitch Deck Instructions and Guidance
1. TITLE ................................................................................................................................................. 3
2. COMPANY INFORMATION .............................................................................................................. 4
3. SUMMARY AND QUOTE.................................................................................................................. 5
4. PARTICIPATING PARTNER INFORMATION .................................................................................. 6
5. CHALLENGES AND OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................. 7
6. PROJECT OR USE CASE DETAILS ............................................................................................... 8
7. BENEFITS AND OUTCOMES .......................................................................................................... 9
8. ARCHITECTURE(OPTIONAL) ....................................................................................................... 11
9. DEPLOYMENT ................................................................................................................................ 12
10. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ........................................................................................................ 13
11. GENERAL GUIDELINES AND TIPS .............................................................................................. 14
12. APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................... 15
12.1. EXAMPLES OF BENEFITS AND OUTCOMES ............................................................................. 15
12.2. HOW TO COMPLETE THE ENTRY FORM .................................................................................... 15
2
Thank you for your interest in the SAP® Innovation Awards for 2025. You can participate by submitting an
entry pitch deck that shares your story of breakthrough innovation in a creative and compelling way.
The pitch deck template is a vital tool in preparing your pitch deck. As a supplement to the template, this
document provides detailed instructions, tips, and guidance for crafting your pitch deck.
Here are several tips and general guidelines to consider and apply throughout the pitch deck.
• Be authentic and stick to the facts. No one knows your innovation story better than you do.
• Include simple, clear, and quotable statements. Avoid jargon or abbreviations.
• Use short but complete sentences. Bullets generally are less effective for conveying a story.
• Make sure that your entry covers all four perspectives of your project: Why? When? What? How?
• Describe how you are using SAP products and solutions to achieve your innovation rather than
explaining the features and functions of the SAP products and solutions.
• Explain the context of the use case – for example, what metrics negatively impacted or challenged
your organization.
• Explain the context of the challenges and benefits so that someone not in your industry would be
able to appreciate them.
• Follow the recommended word count for each of the content areas. Don’t reduce the font or change
the format to pack more details on the slide. Instead, find a way to shorten your sentences and stick
to what is most important. Add additional slides as needed (preferably in the appendix) where you
can provide details.
• Insider tip: For inspiration, review the 2024 winning submissions.
• And finally, go ahead and brag. Tell us why you and your company are especially proud of what you
have accomplished – don’t be shy!
In the end, we want your pitch deck to tell a compelling narrative that goes beyond process and
implementation details and includes stories about the benefits/impact on “people’ - on a direct individual level
if possible - versus merely citing “improved workforce productivity by 30%.”
To get started, you can access and download the SAP Innovation Awards Pitch Deck Template from the
How to Enter Page. Remember to delete the guidance text boxes before submitting.
Participants may submit multiple entries, but each entry must be about a separate project or use case. We
recommend focusing on a single well-developed entry rather than multiple entries.
Note: For the 2025 program we require all submissions to be live and deployed i.e., NO Proof of Concept
(POC) allowed.
For partners:
Most of the suggestions and guidance included in this document apply equally to both customer and partner
participants. We have also included additional guidance for each slide specific to partners based on the 3
different ways to participate – see title slide below for details
Partners may submit multiple entries. However, we recommend that partners submitting entries for the
Partner Paragon category for developing a next-gen application (partner IP) should focus on a maximum of
five entries, emphasizing the quality of entries of customers that have deployed the application over the
quantity of good ideas. In the Partner Paragon category, the partner is the participant, and the type of entry
on the entry form is “partner”.
Please Note: For partners submissions to be eligible, next-gen application must be deployed by 1 or more
customers, be intended to be sold to customers, use at least one cloud technology from SAP Business
Technology Platform and licensed via the SAP Build or Tech adoption program.
Thank you for your interest in the SAP® Innovation Awards for 2025. You can participate by submitting an
entry pitch deck that shares your story of breakthrough innovation in a creative and compelling way.
The pitch deck template is a vital tool in preparing your pitch deck. As a supplement to the template, this
document provides detailed instructions, tips, and guidance for crafting your pitch deck.
Here are several tips and general guidelines to consider and apply throughout the pitch deck.
• Be authentic and stick to the facts. No one knows your innovation story better than you do.
• Include simple, clear, and quotable statements. Avoid jargon or abbreviations.
• Use short but complete sentences. Bullets generally are less effective for conveying a story.
• Make sure that your entry covers all four perspectives of your project: Why? When? What? How?
• Describe how you are using SAP products and solutions to achieve your innovation rather than
explaining the features and functions of the SAP products and solutions.
• Explain the context of the use case – for example, what metrics negatively impacted or challenged
your organization.
• Explain the context of the challenges and benefits so that someone not in your industry would be
able to appreciate them.
• Follow the recommended word count for each of the content areas. Don’t reduce the font or change
the format to pack more details on the slide. Instead, find a way to shorten your sentences and stick
to what is most important. Add additional slides as needed (preferably in the appendix) where you
can provide details.
• Insider tip: For inspiration, review the 2024 winning submissions.
• And finally, go ahead and brag. Tell us why you and your company are especially proud of what you
have accomplished – don’t be shy!
In the end, we want your pitch deck to tell a compelling narrative that goes beyond process and
implementation details and includes stories about the benefits/impact on “people’ - on a direct individual level
if possible - versus merely citing “improved workforce productivity by 30%.”
To get started, you can access and download the SAP Innovation Awards Pitch Deck Template from the
How to Enter Page. Remember to delete the guidance text boxes before submitting.
Participants may submit multiple entries, but each entry must be about a separate project or use case. We
recommend focusing on a single well-developed entry rather than multiple entries.
Note: For the 2025 program we require all submissions to be live and deployed i.e., NO Proof of Concept
(POC) allowed.
For partners:
Most of the suggestions and guidance included in this document apply equally to both customer and partner
participants. We have also included additional guidance for each slide specific to partners based on the 3
different ways to participate – see title slide below for details
Partners may submit multiple entries. However, we recommend that partners submitting entries for the
Partner Paragon category for developing a next-gen application (partner IP) should focus on a maximum of
five entries, emphasizing the quality of entries of customers that have deployed the application over the
quantity of good ideas. In the Partner Paragon category, the partner is the participant, and the type of entry
on the entry form is “partner”.
Please Note: For partners submissions to be eligible, next-gen application must be deployed by 1 or more
customers, be intended to be sold to customers, use at least one cloud technology from SAP Business
Technology Platform and licensed via the SAP Build or Tech adoption program.
© 2024 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. See Legal Notice on www.sap.com/legal-
notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material. 3
1. TITLE
On this slide enter title, participant company,
Participant company logo, Participant
name(optional), Participant photo(optional),
Participating Partner logo(optional) and
Participant Industry.
The pitch deck title is critical and a great way
to introduce and differentiate your entry. The
most effective titles are short but specific and
emphasize the outcome. As with any good
news headline, the objective of the title is to
entice the reader to want to know more.
We suggest following these steps for creating compelling titles:
1. Start with an action: reducing, delivering, saving, etc.
2. Follow the action with what is impacted and be as specific as possible: online shopping experience,
patient care recommendations, time to fulfill customer orders, etc.
3. Optionally, finish with a phrase that conveys the most important element of the use case: machine
learning, next-generation digital supply chain, real-time analytics, etc.
Here are examples of past entry titles that incorporate one or more of these steps:
- Taking Action on Customer Insights Leads to Breakthrough
- Turning Customers into Brand Ambassadors
- Achieving Intelligent Enterprise Through SAP S/4HANA Transformation
- Saving Patient Lives with SAP Data Intelligence
- Taking a Fast Train to Reshape Rail Asset Management
HINT: If your logo does not have your company name included in English, we recommend you add your
company name in the title so that it displays on pages where only the logo and title are listed, e.g., on finalist
and winners pages Entries (sap.com)
If you are a customer, enter your company name as the participant company name.
For partners:
There are three possible ways in which an SAP partner may participate in the SAP Innovation Awards:
1. Submit your own company as an SAP customer. In this case,
• Your company is the participant company name and will win the award (and Sapphire pass
and winner’s trophy) if selected as winner
• Your use case must be about how your company uses SAP products for your own benefit
and not be an application you developed for sale to your customers.
• Delete participating partner slide, which is only relevant when submitting on behalf of your
customer. In this instance:
2. Submit on behalf of one of your customers. In this case,
• Enter your customer’s company name as the participant’s company name.
• Make sure you have approval from your customer to submit on their behalf. Be sure to share
with them a copy of the official rules, which they need to agree to.
• Do not include the partner name on the title slide – you have an opportunity to include
information about your company and your role as participating partner in the project on
participating partner slide.
Slide 1-1 Title
notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material. 3
1. TITLE
On this slide enter title, participant company,
Participant company logo, Participant
name(optional), Participant photo(optional),
Participating Partner logo(optional) and
Participant Industry.
The pitch deck title is critical and a great way
to introduce and differentiate your entry. The
most effective titles are short but specific and
emphasize the outcome. As with any good
news headline, the objective of the title is to
entice the reader to want to know more.
We suggest following these steps for creating compelling titles:
1. Start with an action: reducing, delivering, saving, etc.
2. Follow the action with what is impacted and be as specific as possible: online shopping experience,
patient care recommendations, time to fulfill customer orders, etc.
3. Optionally, finish with a phrase that conveys the most important element of the use case: machine
learning, next-generation digital supply chain, real-time analytics, etc.
Here are examples of past entry titles that incorporate one or more of these steps:
- Taking Action on Customer Insights Leads to Breakthrough
- Turning Customers into Brand Ambassadors
- Achieving Intelligent Enterprise Through SAP S/4HANA Transformation
- Saving Patient Lives with SAP Data Intelligence
- Taking a Fast Train to Reshape Rail Asset Management
HINT: If your logo does not have your company name included in English, we recommend you add your
company name in the title so that it displays on pages where only the logo and title are listed, e.g., on finalist
and winners pages Entries (sap.com)
If you are a customer, enter your company name as the participant company name.
For partners:
There are three possible ways in which an SAP partner may participate in the SAP Innovation Awards:
1. Submit your own company as an SAP customer. In this case,
• Your company is the participant company name and will win the award (and Sapphire pass
and winner’s trophy) if selected as winner
• Your use case must be about how your company uses SAP products for your own benefit
and not be an application you developed for sale to your customers.
• Delete participating partner slide, which is only relevant when submitting on behalf of your
customer. In this instance:
2. Submit on behalf of one of your customers. In this case,
• Enter your customer’s company name as the participant’s company name.
• Make sure you have approval from your customer to submit on their behalf. Be sure to share
with them a copy of the official rules, which they need to agree to.
• Do not include the partner name on the title slide – you have an opportunity to include
information about your company and your role as participating partner in the project on
participating partner slide.
Slide 1-1 Title
© 2024 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. See Legal Notice on www.sap.com/legal-
notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material. 4
Slide 2-1 Company Information
• Your customer will be eligible to win the award (and SAP Sapphire Orlando conference
pass and winner’s trophy) if eligible for monetary prizes
• Your company will be named as the partner in winner announcements, and you will
also receive a winner’s trophy.
• Submit your company (as a partner) for developing a next-gen application (partner IP) to compete
for the Partner Paragon award. In this case:
• Enter your company name as the participant company name and delete participating
partner slide, which is only relevant when submitting on behalf of your customer.
• In the entry form select Partner as the type of entry.
• Your company will win the award (and Sapphire pass and winner’s trophy) if selected as
winner.
• Note that there are additional eligibility requirements for this type of submission. These
include:
- Your application has been successfully deployed and is in production (live) for at
least one customer.
- Your application is licensed via the SAP Build or Tech adoption program.
- Your application is intended to be sold to your customers.
- Your application uses at least one of the cloud technologies from SAP Business
Technology Platform solutions.
Please note: Partners must have built and sold solutions for SAP customers
2. COMPANY INFORMATION
On this slide, provide a brief introduction about the
participating company.
The simplest option for customers is to include the
company’s standard boilerplate overview and
provide details about how the company is becoming
an intelligent enterprise.
• Keep it concise – no more than a few sentences. You may use paragraphs or bullets, whichever
works best for you.
• Describe the purpose of your company. Who are your customers, and what do they desire in terms
of a customer experience from your business?
• How does your corporate culture foster success among employees, customers, and partners?
• How is your company an innovator within your industry?
• Include any other information that is relevant or specific to the innovation story. How is your
company operating more sustainably, and what are the outcomes of this action? How are you
measuring your carbon footprint?
• Social Responsibility: Does your company have any specific programs that actively engage with the
broader community around social or environmental issues? If so, what are some of those initiatives,
and how do you execute them? Cite examples of the programs’ positive impact, if available.
notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material. 4
Slide 2-1 Company Information
• Your customer will be eligible to win the award (and SAP Sapphire Orlando conference
pass and winner’s trophy) if eligible for monetary prizes
• Your company will be named as the partner in winner announcements, and you will
also receive a winner’s trophy.
• Submit your company (as a partner) for developing a next-gen application (partner IP) to compete
for the Partner Paragon award. In this case:
• Enter your company name as the participant company name and delete participating
partner slide, which is only relevant when submitting on behalf of your customer.
• In the entry form select Partner as the type of entry.
• Your company will win the award (and Sapphire pass and winner’s trophy) if selected as
winner.
• Note that there are additional eligibility requirements for this type of submission. These
include:
- Your application has been successfully deployed and is in production (live) for at
least one customer.
- Your application is licensed via the SAP Build or Tech adoption program.
- Your application is intended to be sold to your customers.
- Your application uses at least one of the cloud technologies from SAP Business
Technology Platform solutions.
Please note: Partners must have built and sold solutions for SAP customers
2. COMPANY INFORMATION
On this slide, provide a brief introduction about the
participating company.
The simplest option for customers is to include the
company’s standard boilerplate overview and
provide details about how the company is becoming
an intelligent enterprise.
• Keep it concise – no more than a few sentences. You may use paragraphs or bullets, whichever
works best for you.
• Describe the purpose of your company. Who are your customers, and what do they desire in terms
of a customer experience from your business?
• How does your corporate culture foster success among employees, customers, and partners?
• How is your company an innovator within your industry?
• Include any other information that is relevant or specific to the innovation story. How is your
company operating more sustainably, and what are the outcomes of this action? How are you
measuring your carbon footprint?
• Social Responsibility: Does your company have any specific programs that actively engage with the
broader community around social or environmental issues? If so, what are some of those initiatives,
and how do you execute them? Cite examples of the programs’ positive impact, if available.
© 2024 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. See Legal Notice on www.sap.com/legal-
notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material. 5
For partners:
Complete this slide based on the way how you as a partner are participating.
• If you are submitting on behalf of one of your customers, provide a brief introduction about the
customer’s company per the guidelines above.
• If you are submitting your own company as an SAP customer, provide a brief introduction about
your company per the guidelines above. Be sure to enter your relationship with SAP in the entry
form as “SAP customer.”
• If you are submitting your own company (partner) in the Partner Paragon category for having
developed a next-gen application, provide a brief introduction about your company and include key
market facts for developing the application.
Please note: Partners must have built and sold solutions for SAP customers
3. SUMMARY AND QUOTE
This slide is your submission’s elevator pitch and
the most important slide in the pitch deck.
The slide should tell a story – a narrative –
effectively conveying the challenge, the solution,
and the result or outcome affecting not only your
company, your workforce, and your customers, but
the global community as well.
Provide at least three business proof points and metrics that reflect the business outcome achievement. The
proof points and metrics should reinforce and provide credibility to the impact and results.
Challenge: Why did the project happen? What was the primary struggle that the company was hoping to
address?
Solution: Provide the solution concept, not a list of what products were bought. What was the approach,
why, and how was the solution expected to address the challenge?
Outcome: What happened? Did the solution work, and how do you know? What has changed for the
company, individuals, or community since the project went live? Do you have any future plans as a direct
result of the outcome?
Be sure to include how the use case represents progress in the company’s journey toward becoming an
intelligent, sustainable enterprise.
Finally, make sure you consider the judging criteria for the awards as you create this slide. For the 2023
awards, the criteria are:
1. Use Case Creativity: How compelling and disruptive is the use case described in the entry? Does
the use case involve a big idea and innovative approaches? Can it drive significant change?
2. Tangible Outcomes: What was the result of the project? What is the magnitude of the outcome;
what is the impact on individuals; and how compelling are the quantified results? Does the
Slide 3-1 Summary
notice for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material. 5
For partners:
Complete this slide based on the way how you as a partner are participating.
• If you are submitting on behalf of one of your customers, provide a brief introduction about the
customer’s company per the guidelines above.
• If you are submitting your own company as an SAP customer, provide a brief introduction about
your company per the guidelines above. Be sure to enter your relationship with SAP in the entry
form as “SAP customer.”
• If you are submitting your own company (partner) in the Partner Paragon category for having
developed a next-gen application, provide a brief introduction about your company and include key
market facts for developing the application.
Please note: Partners must have built and sold solutions for SAP customers
3. SUMMARY AND QUOTE
This slide is your submission’s elevator pitch and
the most important slide in the pitch deck.
The slide should tell a story – a narrative –
effectively conveying the challenge, the solution,
and the result or outcome affecting not only your
company, your workforce, and your customers, but
the global community as well.
Provide at least three business proof points and metrics that reflect the business outcome achievement. The
proof points and metrics should reinforce and provide credibility to the impact and results.
Challenge: Why did the project happen? What was the primary struggle that the company was hoping to
address?
Solution: Provide the solution concept, not a list of what products were bought. What was the approach,
why, and how was the solution expected to address the challenge?
Outcome: What happened? Did the solution work, and how do you know? What has changed for the
company, individuals, or community since the project went live? Do you have any future plans as a direct
result of the outcome?
Be sure to include how the use case represents progress in the company’s journey toward becoming an
intelligent, sustainable enterprise.
Finally, make sure you consider the judging criteria for the awards as you create this slide. For the 2023
awards, the criteria are:
1. Use Case Creativity: How compelling and disruptive is the use case described in the entry? Does
the use case involve a big idea and innovative approaches? Can it drive significant change?
2. Tangible Outcomes: What was the result of the project? What is the magnitude of the outcome;
what is the impact on individuals; and how compelling are the quantified results? Does the
Slide 3-1 Summary