SAP achieves over 400 percent return on investment from Mural collaborative intelligence

Study shows using MURAL increased team productivity through improved employee efficiency, enhanced project quality, and reduced travel costs, saving SAP over $47 million

June 7, 2022

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — June 7, 2022 — Today MURAL revealed that SAP achieved a 404 percent return on investment and a cost savings of $47.3 million by deploying the company’s collaborative intelligence software. These findings were part of The Total Economic Impact™ of MURAL at SAP, a May 2022 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of MURAL. This TEI study examines the return on investment enterprises may realize by utilizing the MURAL platform. Based on interviews with SAP employees, all of whom are experienced with MURAL, Forrester Consulting projected a three-year financial outlook and found that through the use of MURAL, SAP improved team productivity, improved employee efficiency, enhanced project quality, and reduced travel costs in a hybrid work environment.

“Teams at global enterprises like SAP rely on MURAL because they know collaboration can’t be left to chance. They use MURAL to design how their teams work together, making collaboration intentional, visual, and inclusive,” said Mariano Suarez-Battan, co-founder and CEO of MURAL. “SAP has crafted this collaboration culture over the years, using MURAL to deploy collaborative intelligence one space at a time. We believe this study reaffirms the impact MURAL has on team productivity at its core and the business value collaborative intelligence provides at scale.”

SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best. It is the largest Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendor in the world, with customers who generate 87 percent of total global commerce ($46 trillion). SAP has deployed MURAL across multiple geographies and a wide variety of teams including presales, service sales, UX design, and new employee onboarding. Teams at SAP use MURAL for design thinking projects, which helps them share ideas, understand problems, and solve them. SAP specifically used MURAL to facilitate workshops in its design thinking process with both internal and external participants. 

The TEI study found both tangible and intangible benefits from implementing MURAL. Over a three year period, SAP will realize: 

  • Increased design efficiency in presale, client solutions, and internal solutions applications, providing a combined $36.1 million in value.
  • Improved efficiency of employee onboarding, providing more than $1.4 million in value and enabling new employees to be onboarded an average of 2.6 hours faster.
  • Increased business value of about $2.0 million from custom design projects that would not have been possible to complete in a hybrid world. 
  • Avoided travel costs due to effective hybrid remote collaboration, providing more than $19.5 million in value and eliminating 1.9 million kg in carbon emissions.
  • Other benefits included more inclusive engagement in meeting settings and less attrition among UX designers who, before MURAL, were often frustrated by inefficient feedback mechanisms. 

Collaborative intelligence with MURAL is a new systematic approach designed to increase the innovation capacity of the enterprise. With MURAL, teams can collaborate visually from anywhere and at any time, whether the team is “back” in the office or somewhere in between. Leaders use MURAL to design collaborative experiences that unlock the entire potential of the team so that ideas are never lost. 

Key takeaways SAP interviewees shared when asked how MURAL had made an impact:  

  • “I cannot imagine doing a brainstorming workshop without MURAL … It’s really the onsite whiteboard translated into the virtual world. Taking MURAL away would be like taking away my computer. This is something that I really need for work.” — Innovation manager
  • “Dropping MURAL to go back to [other tools] would basically be like going back in time…. Now that we are more inclusive with MURAL, there are more iterations at the beginning of projects. But then once everybody is on the same page, projects tend to move faster, we discover all the communication issues a lot earlier, and failure rates are ultimately coming down.” — Director of design strategy and systems
  • “The whole idea [with MURAL] is solid. The customer enjoyed it. They feel like we are teaching them something beyond selling them software. Simply the opportunity to have a conversation through [the MURAL platform] changed the whole buying experience for the customer.” — Global learning business partner
  • “MURAL can save presales 6 to 10 hours of a workshop with an entire team, and you can do that from your home. It saved my team easily 60 percent to 75 percent of their workshop time. It’s crazy.” — Global learning business partner
  • “The main reason we chose MURAL was the way they supported us. They were strong in enablement. We had a colleague from MURAL in the company who ran a lot of sessions for employees. This was one of the drivers of collaboration with MURAL.” — UX designer
  • “[Before MURAL], we would have virtual meetings. We would talk a lot, but there was no record of what we discussed. This was dangerous because then four people go off with four different ideas of what we agreed on. MURAL makes us more effective in workshops and, as we do this now more remotely, it saves travel costs. You get productivity gains, shorter and more intense workshops, more engagement from people, and more creativity.” — Head of user experience IT

The full TEI study findings will be shared on Wednesday, June 15th at 8:00 am Pacific, where guest speaker Christopher Layton from Forrester will participate in a live Q&A hosted by MURAL. The Total Economic Impact™ of MURAL at SAP is available for download at https://www.mural.co/get/sap-impact.

ABOUT MURAL

MURAL is a collaborative intelligence company. We connect teams to unlock their potential, increasing the innovation capacity of the enterprise. MURAL creates a culture of effective collaboration — where everyone is connected, contributing, and empowered to deliver business-driving outcomes. Try MURAL for free www.mural.co.

MURAL is a registered trademark of Tactivos, Inc.

Media Contact:
Rachel Shatz / Senior Manager, Communications