SAPinsider Awards 2026 Winners Driving SAP Transformation

From revolutionizing the utilities sector with their digital transformation to securing national defense systems, this year’s SAPinsider Award winners rewrote the playbook on business transformation.

Selected from a competitive pool of 21 finalists and announced on Day 1 of the SAPinsider 2026 Conference in Las Vegas on March 16, these winners represent avante-garde implementation of the SAP ecosystem.

They range from multinational behemoths like Nestlé to agile innovators like Fit Foods. What unites them is a shift in focus: SAP projects are all about coming alive by using technology to empower people, secure critical data, and drive tangible, human-centric value.

We give you an exclusive look at the winners of the SAPinsider Awards who are setting the standard for 2026.

SAP Woman of Impact

Carol McMillan, Senior Director IT & Head of IT, Naturipe Farms

At Naturipe Farms, Carol McMillan defines success through the longevity and growth of her team rather than just system uptime. With over two decades in the produce industry, she views people as her most sustainable resource, fostering a culture of upskilling and constant innovation. McMillan is a proven trailblazer, having led a rapid migration to SAP S/4HANA in under six months and serving as an early adopter of SAP’s Blockchain program for farm-to-consumer traceability.

A frequent industry speaker, McMillan champions internal mobility by transitioning non-technical talent into IT leadership roles. By coaching her developers to become speakers at major conferences, she ensures Naturipe’s digital evolution is powered by empowered professionals who lead with purpose.

Nominated by: Navisite, Part of accenture

Cybersecurity Project of the Year

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is fortifying its massive SAP ERP environments against evolving cyber threats by deploying a robust Zero Trust framework. Across the U.S. Army and USINDOPACOM, the DoD implemented NextLabs Zero Trust Data Security to manage GFEBS-SA cloud migrations and secure Mission Partner Environments. By utilizing Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), the solution enforces real-time, least-privileged access, ensuring sensitive data is segregated, masked, and encrypted.

Developed alongside Accenture Federal Services, this architecture secures SAP and Microsoft ecosystems using a data-centric approach. The impact is mission-critical: the framework automates compliance and slashes manual provisioning overhead. Most importantly, it enables secure collaboration with international allies, allowing for the safe sharing of information without compromising national security. By moving beyond traditional perimeters, the DoD has turned data security into a strategic enabler for global defense operations.

Nominated by: NextLabs, Inc.

Innovation Vanguard – Customer of the Year

Nestlé

Nestlé unified its global operations by transitioning from six aging on-premise datacenters to RISE with SAP on Microsoft Azure. This monumental migration—one of the largest data transfers in history—involved shifting 1,200 TB of data, 200 SAP instances, and 10,000 servers across 185 markets with near-zero disruption. By standardizing on Azure’s hyperscale infrastructure, Nestlé established a resilient foundation for AI-driven decision intelligence and predictive analytics.

The impact is transformative: system availability reached 99.97%, while critical platform incidents plummeted by 80%. Processes that previously took hours now run in seconds, enabling predictive supply chain management and faster product time-to-market. By consolidating its landscape, Nestlé has turned 300 global factories into a high-velocity, cloud-native network. This shift doesn’t just secure their digital backbone; it empowers their global workforce to orchestrate complex manufacturing with unprecedented speed and precision.

Nominated by: Microsoft

Digital/Cloud Transformation Project of the Year

Eugene Water & Electric Board

After 30 years of navigating rigid legacy systems and spreadsheet silos, the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) launched a Greenfield transformation to RISE with SAP S/4HANA. Facing an urgent need for climate resilience, Oregon’s largest customer-owned utility prioritized a Clean Core approach to unify its Finance and Customer Information Systems. By integrating SAP Service Cloud and SAP BTP, EWEB replaced manual guesswork with a resilient digital infrastructure that connects directly to the community’s needs.

The results mark a new era for the utility: 99.5% of daily billing is now automated, while a centralized Customer 360 view enables agents to resolve issues with unprecedented speed and empathy. Beyond the back office, real-time insights from SAP Analytics Cloud empower EWEB to optimize critical infrastructure. This modernization ensures that even amidst supply volatility, the community’s water and energy security remains protected by a data-driven foundation.

Nominated by: Eugene Water & Electric Board

Next-Generation Leader of Impact

Erin Hughes Head of Cybersecurity and Compliance Advisory, SAP

As SAP’s Head of Cybersecurity and Compliance Advisory for the Americas, Erin Hughes transforms security from a technical hurdle into a strategic competitive advantage. Over six years, she has bridged the gap between risk management and business innovation, translating complex regulations into actionable strategies for SAP S/4HANA migrations and hybrid cloud architectures.

Hughes champions a people-first philosophy, believing that technical excellence requires empowered, inclusive decision-making. Beyond her technical expertise, she is a fierce advocate for diversity, mentoring women and early-career professionals to dismantle barriers in the cyber field. By merging deep fluency with inclusive leadership, Hughes ensures SAP customers embed trust directly into their digital core, allowing them to innovate with resilience, clarity, and unwavering integrity.

Nominated by: KPMG

AI-Powered Innovation Project of the Year

Fit Foods

In 2025, Fit Foods overhauled its manual Accounts Payable by launching VisionAP, an intelligent procure-to-pay solution built to support double-digit growth. By integrating SAP Business One with Vision33’s iDocuments platform via Saltbox iPaaS, the company replaced fragmented, email-based workflows with a centralized, AI-driven system. The architecture utilizes OCR and secure DI API connections to capture invoice data with high precision, automating PO matching and enforcing tiered approval matrices.

The results are transformative: manual processing time plummeted by 70%, and an 85% PO auto-match rate was achieved. This shift allows the finance team to transition from data entry to high-value exception management and strategic analysis. Crucially, VisionAP enables Fit Foods to scale its North American operations—accommodating 12–15% annual volume growth—without increasing headcount, turning a back-office bottleneck into a scalable engine for digital finance.

Nominated by: Fit Foods

ERP Transformation Project of the Year

Microsoft

Microsoft managed a high-stakes migration of its 70 TB SAP ECC/BRIM landscape—the backbone of its global revenue—to SAP S/4HANA with a strict zero-disruption mandate. Partnering with SNP, the company utilized the Bluefield selective data migration approach and the SNP Kyano platform to transition only essential data. This precision enabled a single-weekend cutover with just 24 hours of downtime, successfully modernizing a system that manages everything from individual subscriptions to massive enterprise agreements.

The results were monumental: migration effort plummeted by 90% compared to traditional methods, achieving a flawless go-live with zero critical incidents. By enforcing clean core principles and purging decades of technical debt, Microsoft streamlined its architecture to cut future upgrade timelines by 40%. This new foundation ensures real-time billing accuracy and faster market entry, saving millions in potential disruption costs while securing the company’s long-term financial agility.

Nominated by: Microsoft