Kathy Gibson reports from Saphila Transcend in Sun City – AI is no longer an option for companies. Those that adopt it faster and better and smarter than others, and do it in the right way, are the companies that will succeed.
This is according to Stefan Steinle, executive vice-president: customer support and cloud lifecycle management at SAP, who points out that heavily customised, outdated systems impede innovation.
“But many companies find themselves in this place,” he says. “They have customised systems with a mix of models – a bit of best of breed, a bit of cloud, maybe some isolated AI scenarios.”
As a result, IT organisations spend a lot of time integrating systems and trying to make sense of disconnected data. “”But what they need to be doing is providing good outcomes for the business.”
What’s needed, says Steinle, is a transformation that brings together all the platforms and data.
SAP helps its customers make this transformation through its SAP Rise programme for existing customers, and SAP Grow for new customers.
Importantly, while these programmes aim to let customers embrace SAP S/4 HANA, they also integrate non-SAP solutions.
“And they are not simply products, but include a methodology, services, and guided implementation,” Steinle adds.
“We want customers to reach the stage where they are able to overcome challenges, and to embrace the benefits of continuous innovation, agility, and flexibility.”
Any SAP solution begins with the SAP Business Suite, he explains. “From an SAP perspective we believe there is a lot of sense in running end to end processes on a fully integrated and harmonised stack in the cloud. We think it’s better than picking and choosing best of breed solutions – and it means customers don’t have to manage the integration and getting sense from the data.”
This is important, he adds, because IT organisations today spend about 80% of their time just on maintaining their current landscape, keeping it compliant, and integrating systems.
“You probably want to spend more than 20% of your time providing value to business users.”
SAP’s Business Data Cloud (BDC) is a harmonised suite of applications that allows customers to import data from SAP applications and integrate it with data from other applications.
“You can bring together data from SAP, a non-SAP source, and unstructured data. And, with the help of BDC, you can make sense of that data and generate value.”
Steinle says this can be useful in operational processes, to expand reporting, and for integrated planning. “And you can use it for AI.”
Which brings him to the third pillar of the SAP Business Suite: SAP Business AI. “This system can make sense of all the data and enable customers to build automated processes to enable new business scenarios. And AI can be embedded in your business processes.”
Joule is SAP’s AI-powered digital assistant that also orchestrates user experiences end-to-end across SAP and non-SAP processes.
“It is also a platform for customer AI,” Steinle says. “Not every scenario can be provided out of the box, but Joule gives users a responsible and resilient way of building their own AI applications with the help of our platform.”
Many of these features are a reality today, and SAP developers are focused on making AI-first a reality, Steinle adds.
But software on its own doesn’t deliver value, which is why SAP offers a range of services in RISE and Grow that include an entire integrated tool chain to help customers on their transformation journey.
“We aim to provide a fast, rich, seamless experience, with prescriptive guidance. And it’s not just reactive support, but support for customer strategy,” Steinle says. “We use a lot of AI capabilities to respond better, or give self-service options. And we use a lot of the SAP products to improve our customers’ experiences.”