How SAP S/4HANA Brings AI-Powered Business Capabilities to ERP

Its latest platform S/4HANA, with its numerous benefits, now also has business capabilities enabled by AI, Machine Learning, and Big Data

With technology-led transformations, enterprises have continued to meet customer expectations and address their needs. But for a while now, customer expectations have surpassed the conventions. Today’s customer wants an effortless, personalized experience. Current legacy infrastructure and processes may, however, hinder organizations to curate such experiences. With changing demands, needs and expectations, a new transformation led by the latest technological capabilities are brewing.

Some technologies, that we have talked about for decades, have now matured to a stage where they can create value in our everyday lives. And this business value is unlike anything we have seen before. The ERP giant, SAP, has begun to leverage their immense potential. Its latest platform S/4HANA, with its numerous benefits, now also has business capabilities enabled by Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Big Data.

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In this blog, we will explore what value SAP S/4HANA can create for enterprises with Artificial Intelligence in its arsenal.

Building the World’s Most Intelligent ERP

Following the vision of redefining work, SAP has been automating different manual processes that hamper employee efficiency today. SAP S/4HANA is the flagship ERP solution that has been fulfilling this vision of efficient automation.

With every new release of S/4HANA, SAP continues to add more AI capabilities to help organizations become truly intelligent enterprises. SAP has claimed its 1805 release as the most AI-driven HANA yet. Let’s take a look at some of these capabilities:

Conversational User Interface and What It Means for You

Work will be hands-free. You won’t have to do multiple clicks or type in a series of commands to extract the value that you need from your ERP. The 1805 release gives a conversational user interface by integrating with SAP CoPilot digital assistant technology.

This has the potential to fundamentally change how the world looks at ERP. A context-aware digital assistant will be the new face of ERP. You will have the latest statuses and actionable insights available to you — all you will have to do is ask. The assistant is capable of continually improving to become more context-driven. This way, it can fulfill your needs better helping you meet your goals seamlessly.

Intelligent Automation and How It Helps

Automation redefines work. Your work no longer involves manual and repetitive tasks. New business capabilities enabled by Machine Learning can help you focus on creating business value. Your employee team can be a strategic partner for your business now.

With latest versions, SAP is adding more industry focus AI to its flagship ERP. SAP S/4HANA is now automating most redundant functions such as chemical compliances, matching customer payments with open receivables, intercompany processes across different industries.

The automation is further complemented with real-time analytics and actionable insights allowing you to optimize processes and avoid any possible bottlenecks.

How Machine Learning Is Transforming Business Functions

All these business capabilities enabled by Machine Learning have one purpose — make the employee’s day easier and productive.

Sven Denecken, SVP, Head of Product Management, Co-Innovation SAP S/4HANA at SAP SE, talks about the employee functions that have been transformed with these capabilities —

1. Sales
   With conversational user interface leveraging CoPilot, the whole process of sales quotes to sales orders can be simplified and automated. This allows salespeople more time to do sales.
2. Finance
   By automating tasks such as matching payments with invoices, S/4HANA can enable efficient payment collection and processing. When it comes to paying for procured goods, receipts often don’t match. But these exceptions can now be handled by S/4HANA as it suggests the best course of action after analyzing the historical data.
3. Sourcing and Procurement
   S/4HANA can facilitate smart buying with predictions based on actual consumption. Smart buying coupled with conversational user experience can boost team productivity, accelerate purchase decisions and minimize errors.
4. Project Management

Sticking to your project budget will be easier as S/4HANA enables you with cost forecasting. Moreover, the                 managers will have easier access to insights whenever they want with a conversational user interface.                           Leveraging these insights, managers can drive goals for their business.

Adopting AI Capabilities

Users are more than likely to adopt if they see business value. They will start leveraging chatbots and AI-powered digital assistants if it makes their day easier and efficient. If SAP S/4HANA can boost their productivity, they will adopt it with its conversational user interface and intelligent automation.

We have worked closely with some of the industry leaders in retail, manufacturing, and hospitality. And in implementing S/4HANA for them, we have realized that business goals for industries, with legacy infrastructure, can be better driven by selectively migrating processes with high ROI. These industry leaders now continue to be ahead of their competition as they leverage SAP S/4HANA capabilities. We are witnessing the business value created by intelligent automation and conversational user interface first-hand.

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