SAP and Accenture Collaborate on Getting to Value Faster with SAP Business AI

Generative AI is the number one driver of transformation today. While it may not be the only or final technological breakthrough, embracing generative AI requires both a multi-year change agenda and a continuous transformation program.

And it all starts with value and elevating IT for the AI era with a strong and secure digital core. This includes emphasis on adopting ready-to-scale AI models, a modern data foundation, and a flexible AI architecture that supports the use of multiple foundation models to future-proof organizations from the evolution of technology and model changes.  

According to Accenture research, 40% of C-suite leaders believe their organization will fully scale generative AI enterprise-wide in six to 12 months. Currently organizations are scaling generative AI in select business areas either extensively (56%) or in a limited way (nearly 30%). Only 10% say they have scaled generative AI with extensive adoption across their entire enterprise, and just 13% are “extremely confident” they have the right data strategy and core digital capabilities in place to effectively leverage generative AI.  

That’s why organizations are increasingly turning to SAP and its partners to help them completely transform their business, and why SAP and Accenture are working together to help their customers make SAP Business AI and data their number one competitive advantage.

Accenture Embraces SAP Business AI to Advance Business Outcomes

By Marc-Oliver Klein and Stephanie Guimbellot

SAP and Accenture have been collaborating and working with customers on technology evolution for over 40 years, using their unique strengths to help industries transform and lead in the market.

As AI is integrated into business applications, it is unleashing new levels of productivity and creativity while forging a path to the future that is different and faster than any previous technology wave.

For many clients, 2023 was a year of experimentation with generative AI. In 2024, we’re focusing on helping clients realize value at scale by going after the business potential in enterprise data with AI, strengthening digital core with embedded AI capabilities, enhancing business functions with AI insights, and accelerating revenue growth with SAP Business AI offerings like Joule, generative AI hub, SAP Datasphere, and SAP HANA Cloud vector engine.

“In partnership with SAP and its customers, we’re emphasizing must-dos for the C-suite,” said Lan Guan, chief AI officer at Accenture. “That includes leading with value, investing in a digital core, nurturing talent, practicing responsible AI, and committing to continuous reinvention. This is how you capitalize on AI’s inflection moment strategically.”

And with Joule, business process reinvention and change adoption in cloud ERP just got easier through new capabilities to boost IT and business user experiences. Accenture plans to embrace the consulting capability for Joule and ABAP code generation in compressed cloud ERP transformations and will collaborate on the consulting capability for Joule with a team of AI experts and prompt designers to facilitate relevant user responses aligned with SAP industry best practices and clean core strategies.

“Our ecosystem plays a critical role in helping our customers adopt SAP Business AI to get immediate value from these exciting new technologies and solutions,” said SAP Chief AI Officer Philipp Herzig. “We very much value our long-standing partnership with Accenture. They have long been an important partner in the industry for bringing innovation to our joint customers, now also by activating SAP’s embedded AI capabilities, including Joule, and building customer use cases on SAP Business Technology Platform with SAP AI Core and generative AI hub. I look forward to our continued collaboration and the outcomes that generative AI will deliver in both business transformations and operations for our customers.”

Accenture is already working on various use cases that leverage SAP Business AI offerings, and the company continues to take an early leadership position in SAP Business AI.

• Accenture’s financial advisor, an SAP 2024 Innovation award winner, uses SAP AI core and large language models (LLMs) to deliver untapped financial value in financial ledgers and transactions. It is helping Accenture business and finance leaders reduce decision-making time by 15%, reduce financial narrative efforts by 60%, and mitigate risks with real-time financial data insights, including 13,000+ user alerts per month.
• Accenture’s supply chain nerve center uses AI models to enable intelligent, responsive, and risk-resilient supply chains to help clients manage disruptions, identify improvements, and resolve issues. The nerve center uses SAP’s generative AI hub and SAP Business Technology Platform, which connects to an LLM fully integrated with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Integrated Business Planning, and SAP Intelligent Asset Management.

Accenture is also evolving its assets and platforms including GenWizard, SynOpps, and AI Navigator for Enterprise to help clients move to cloud ERP faster and achieve earlier business outcomes.

Make Decisions Easier with SAP Business Transformation Solutions and Large Process Models

By Hartmut Poppinga and José Morán Moya

SAP and Accenture are teaming on SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX solutions to help customers with the quantitative insights they need to get alignment and buy-in on cloud ERP and the foundation to tap into the full value of generative AI.

The combined power of SAP and Accenture is helping customers examine business processes at every level of the organization, establish what works, discard what doesn’t and use their own data to create a business case and measure success and value over time. SAP is helping with foundational implementation and Accenture teams are providing analysis, insights, advisory and process modeling. This collaboration is significantly reducing the time it takes clients to complete current state and gap analysis to get to value faster.

“The long-standing partnership between Accenture and SAP is characterized by delivering successful transformation outcomes to our mutual customers,” said Mani Pirouz, chief business officer of SAP Signavio and LeanIX. “Through our joint offerings we help companies become agile, resilient, and intelligent enterprises. SAP Signavio plays a crucial role in transformations by providing insights, collaboration, governance, and execution capabilities for continuous process improvements. These allow companies to unlock business value above and beyond their technical road maps.”

SAP and Accenture’s focus is grounded in a value-led method, cloud ERP business case, and road map that takes a holistic approach to an organization’s full value chain and helps customers:

• Understand the potential to reinvent the value chain and develop end-to-end capabilities powered by generative AI and new ways of working
• Be value-led in every business capability chosen to reinvent with generative AI
• Identify strategic bets where the technology creates differentiated sources of value that cannot be easily captured by competitors
• Reorient the organization from siloed functions to end-to-end business capabilities and decision-making through a unified data architecture and cross-functional teams

“Combining Accenture’s deep industry expertise with SAP solutions helps clients define and realize value in a systematic way,” said Caspar Borggreve, senior managing director and lead of Accenture SAP Business Group. “This is about shifting the focus from siloed use cases to a holistic look at industry value chains to prioritize investments, achieve efficiencies, benefit from generative AI, and scale competitiveness.”

Learn more about Accenture + SAP.