SAP honours Woolworths & Zespri in ANZ tech awards

SAP has named the winners of its Best Tech Awards 2026 across Australia and New Zealand, recognising projects at organisations including Woolworths, Sigma Healthcare, Zespri and Country Fire Authority.

Several winning projects delivered measurable operational changes, including shorter technology upgrade cycles, faster contract processing and supply chain decisions linked to higher returns. The recognised work spanned retail, healthcare, agribusiness, emergency services, energy and transport.

Woolworths won the Next Gen Innovator category after replacing fragmented point-to-point and on-premises messaging systems with an event-driven architecture. The retailer said the shift supports real-time data distribution across more than 25,000 point-of-sale registers, increased throughput to more than 600 transactions per second and cut upgrade time from 24 months to four weeks.

Sigma Healthcare took the Human Capital Management award after overhauling HR processes following its merger with Chemist Warehouse. It reduced employment contract turnaround from 30 days to three, cut manual data entry by 70%, made onboarding 80% faster and achieved full completion of mandatory compliance training.

Zespri won the Supply Chain Management category for replacing a spreadsheet-based global market allocation process with a planning system built on SAP Integrated Business Planning. The kiwifruit marketer said it reduced scenario runtime from hours to under 30 minutes, improved weekly sales forecast variance to plan by 11% and supported allocation decisions that added NZD $18 million in grower returns and NZD $910,000 in margin.

Country Fire Authority received the Fast Growth ERP award after implementing cloud ERP in 10 months following Victorian fire services reform. The agency said it standardised finance, procurement, asset management and supply chain, with no reported interruption to operations through its first fire season after go-live.

Across sectors

Other winners included LION in Business Transformation, Adore Beauty in Customer Experience, SA Power Networks in both Industry Disruptor and Data Analytics and Business AI, Transport and Main Roads Queensland in Intelligent ERP, and Fonterra in Spend Management.

LION replaced an end-of-life customised customer relationship management environment while keeping customer service and order-to-cash operations running across Australia and New Zealand. It said the move standardised workflows, supported almost 97% of users and reduced custom development time from three weeks to two days.

Adore Beauty was recognised for changes to its customer engagement systems across email, app, web, SMS and loyalty channels. The retailer reported more relevant campaigns, stronger customer engagement and efficiency gains from automation.

SA Power Networks won the Industry Disruptor award for a digital connections portal that simplified electricity connection processes for customers, electricians, retailers, meter providers and internal teams. The business said the system reduced temporary disconnection and reconnection requests by 43%, automatically approved about 220,000 small embedded generation applications and served 5,000 to 6,000 unique users every 90 days.

In the Data Analytics and Business AI category, SA Power Networks was also recognised for consolidating connection workflows into a single digital experience. It said embedded AI helps staff interpret applications and process guidance while maintaining contact centre service levels.

Modernising systems

Transport and Main Roads Queensland won the Intelligent ERP category after modernising a 28-year-old SAP ECC environment used by more than 11,500 employees. The department said it modernised 88 interfaces, deployed 89 SAP Fiori apps, saw more than 6,000 employees log into the new system within three hours of go-live and completed stabilisation six weeks ahead of schedule.

Fonterra received the Spend Management award for standardising travel and expense management across about 16 countries. The co-operative said the new platform reduced approval times, improved approval rates and removed manual card reconciliation.

The results highlighted a broader pattern among large organisations in Australia and New Zealand as they replace legacy systems, connect operational data and reduce manual administration. Many of the recognised projects centred on high-volume processes such as retail transactions, workforce administration, procurement, logistics and public sector finance.

Angela Colantuono, President and Managing Director, SAP ANZ, said the recognised organisations had started with operational problems rather than technology choices.

"What connects every organisation recognised in this year's awards is where they started: with a problem worth solving, not with a technology decision. Whether that was systems too complex to adapt, processes held together by manual workarounds or frontline teams spending too much time on administration, they chose strong foundations over shortcuts. The results show it, from time returned to frontline staff, to application delivery that has gone from months to days. Those same foundations can help organisations move AI use cases from pilot stages into operational setting, and the channel partners who worked alongside these organisations deserve real credit for how that value was delivered," Colantuono said.