How the Akeneo SAP S/4HANA Accelerator Powers the Future of Product Data

It’s been about two weeks since the team here at Akeneo announced a new Accelerator for SAP S/4HANA during our Autumn Release, and we felt it deserved its own call-out. Why? Because nearly half of Akeneo’s customers who use an ERP rely on SAP. 

That makes this announcement both exciting and essential for enterprises seeking a faster, more flexible, and future-proof way to synchronize product information between Akeneo Product Cloud and SAP S/4HANA.

And the timing couldn’t be better. As Digital Product Passport (DPP) requirements come into effect in 2026, we’re entering an era where product data must be richer, traceable, and more transparent than ever before.

That means that product data can’t simply flow one way anymore. It must move in both directions, from suppliers and manufacturers into the PIM (Product Information Management system) and then back out to consumers, partners, and regulators. Businesses using SAP and Akeneo together will be better prepared to meet these requirements, and our new Accelerator is designed precisely to make that happen. 

What is SAP S/4HANA?

SAP S/4HANA is SAP’s modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite, designed to run on a real-time, cloud-based architecture. It’s where many of the world’s largest and most complex organizations manage their core business operations, everything from finance and logistics to product and pricing data.

In this ecosystem, Akeneo PIM plays a complementary role. While SAP serves as the backbone for operational and transactional data, Akeneo empowers teams to enrich, organize, and distribute product information across every customer-facing channel, from eCommerce platforms and mobile apps to print catalogs and in-store experiences.

Together, SAP S/4HANA and Akeneo PIM create a bridge between operational efficiency and customer experience excellence. And now, with the new Accelerator, that bridge just got stronger.

What is the Akeneo SAP S/4HANA Accelerator?

The Akeneo SAP S/4HANA Accelerator is designed to make connecting SAP and Akeneo faster, more flexible, and easier to maintain than ever before.

In the past, Akeneo’s SAP integrations followed a recurring model: we owned and maintained the connection, and customers relied on us for every update or change. While this approach worked, it created dependencies that slowed down innovation and limited flexibility.

The new Accelerator model changes that entirely. Instead of a fixed connector that requires recurring updates, the Accelerator is a delivered framework; a blueprint customers can build on and tailor to their specific needs. It is the foundation for integration between SAP and Akeneo, built upon SAP guided best practices, but now the control of configuration and customization lies where it belongs: in the hands of the customer.

Built on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and powered by Akeneo’s preconfigured iFlows, the SAP S/4HANA Accelerator helps customers and system integrators reduce complexity, speed up time-to-value, and scale with confidence. The result is deeper, more flexible connectivity between two highly configurable systems without the ongoing maintenance burden.

This new approach promotes agility and autonomy. Customers can configure integrations to match their SAP setup, extend them as their business evolves, and maintain them independently without waiting for product updates. 

Benefits of the Akeneo SAP S/4HANA Accelerator

The Akeneo SAP S/4HANA Accelerator delivers tangible advantages for enterprise teams looking to connect product and operational data seamlessly. From faster implementation to greater flexibility and scalability, it’s designed to simplify integration while empowering businesses to move at the speed of their markets. 

In particular, this new feature enables:

• Faster connection setup: The Accelerator provides a pre-built integration foundation that shortens implementation timelines and gets your systems talking to each other sooner.
• Greater flexibility: Every SAP environment is unique. The Accelerator allows customers to customize integrations for their particular data structures, business processes, and regional requirements.
• Improved governance: With a standardized framework and consistent data mapping, organizations can maintain a single source of truth across SAP and Akeneo, improving product data quality and governance.
• Lower maintenance: Because customers can make adjustments directly, there’s no need for recurring updates or dependency on vendor releases. The framework is stable, modular, and self-sustaining.
• Future scalability: As your business evolves, your data model will too. The Accelerator’s flexible architecture ensures it can scale alongside your product catalog, market expansion, or system evolution.
• Reduced cost of ownership: Built on SAP’s high-performance Integration Suite, the Accelerator provides a reliable blueprint for connecting SAP ERP and Akeneo PIM, reducing custom development, manual work, and maintenance costs.
• Faster time-to-market: The Accelerator automates the activation of ERP information into Akeneo PIM, so teams can quickly enrich product data and share it across all channels, accelerating the entire go-to-market process.

How the SAP S/4HANA Accelerator Works

At its core, the Akeneo SAP S/4HANA Accelerator enables bidirectional data flow between SAP ERP and Akeneo PIM. Product information moves seamlessly between the two systems using prebuilt iFlows that handle everything from data import and transformation to event-based synchronization.

From ERP to PIM

When product data originates in SAP, the Accelerator ensures it reaches Akeneo efficiently through three main stages:

1. Import batch data: Define how product data is collected and filtered from SAP S/4HANA, then send it to the orchestration flow for processing.
2. Message mapping: Transform SAP data fields into Akeneo’s format and structure so that product attributes, categories, and hierarchies align perfectly.
3. Batch orchestration: Manage the end-to-end process — authentication, data mapping, validation, and final delivery into Akeneo PIM — ensuring the right data arrives in the right place.

From PIM to ERP

Enriched product information can also flow back into SAP through event-based communication. These iFlows ensure near real-time synchronization so that updated product data in Akeneo is reflected in SAP automatically.

1. Create a subscriber to the Akeneo Event Platform: Generate a subscriber ID to receive events from Akeneo PIM.
2. Create a subscription: Select which events to subscribe to (for example, when product data is updated or published).
3. Akeneo PIM event listener: Capture events in a queue as they occur.
4. Akeneo PIM event consumer: Deliver these events back to SAP or another system of choice, ensuring synchronized and up-to-date product information across the enterprise.

The result is a robust, real-time data exchange that keeps every product record consistent, from the ERP backbone to the digital shelf.

Empowering the Next Era of Product Transparency

The Akeneo SAP S/4HANA Accelerator represents a significant step forward in unifying product information management with enterprise operations. It simplifies integration, accelerates deployment, and empowers customers to maintain control over their connections, all while laying the groundwork for a more transparent, data-driven future.

As global transparency standards like DPP take effect, businesses will need to ensure every product carries a complete, trustworthy data record; one that can be accessed by consumers, partners, and regulators alike. That means operational and marketing systems can no longer live in silos. They must work in concert to tell the full story of every product.

With the new Accelerator, SAP and Akeneo customers are equipped to do exactly that. By connecting the dots between supply chain and product experience data, organizations can ensure accuracy, traceability, and sustainability across every touchpoint.

To learn more about the Akeneo SAP S/4HANA Accelerator, you can register for our live Deminar on December 3 to see how you can create richer, more efficient product experiences with Akeneo and SAP today.