Posted: 10 May 2023 4 min.

The intelligent technologies are here – but will we finally use them in 2023?

Topic: SAP

For 14 years now, Deloitte’s Tech Trends report has explored the impact of emerging technologies on ground-breaking innovations and foundational business areas. This year is no different, and you can read our 2023 report here.

One chapter in particular caught my S/4HANA eye, which is the chapter about opening up to AI. And of course, we’re not talking about AI “monsters” such as ChatGPT, which has generated global attention over the last few months with many experts and authorities rightfully raising concerns over the accuracy, obscurity and possible exploitation of information through such very potent AI whose power we are only beginning to understand. No, in the context of SAP S/4HANA, we’re talking about controlled, transparent and well-understood AI whose output isn’t followed blindly, but used by savvy people to build an intelligent enterprise that can thrive in the digital economy.

The story of SAP and artificial intelligence
As someone who works with SAP-enabled transformation every day, of course I see first-hand how companies are taking on these brand new opportunities offered in particular by the S/4HANA technology.

I’ve written about this development several times: how the old “SAP monolith” has shrunk massively since the rearchitecting of SAP S/4 HANA, with the core application being much smaller than before while industry-specific and functional area solutions are now typically launched as cloud-native-satellites around the core, connecting via open APIs. The result is a much more responsive, intelligent ‘Kinetic Enterprise’ with data that is unlocked and available in real-time, enabling the launch of innovative digital products and supporting the business with digital intelligent technologies.

Intelligence in the form of machine learning (ML) is thus already at the core of SAP S/4HANA. For simple or moderate ML requirements, companies can rely on the HANA database and the SAP Analytics cloud where classic algorithms like regression, clustering, classification and time-series are already embedded and ready to use. However, also advanced ML scenarios can be handled side-by-side based on the SAP Business Technology Platform using APIs. These scenarios include image recognition, natural language processing, sentiment analysis and deep learning based on complex algorithms and external data, to name a few example.

However, for many companies, the mere fact that the ML facilities of SAP S/4HANA offer so many opportunities to detect anomalies is in itself a huge improvement from the massive master data uploads of the past – and the many hours typically spent on correcting data errors. And financial data is just one element; across the entire supply chain, from manufacturing to sales data, manual maintenance of essential data is slowly being replaced by more intelligent use of machine learning and AI to facilitate data input, detect anomalies and help with forecasting.

Are we ready for a new team mate?
What this all means is that over the next year, and the next decades, we will likely see more and more employees actively engaging with AI consistently during their regular workday – requiring us to not just collaborate with our human colleagues, but also to “collaborate” with smart machines.

In other words, we are seeing a massive movement right now from machines replicating work (with human oversight as needed) to machines sequencing work (humans and machines perform work separately and in sequential order but check on one another’s work) towards machines suggesting and iterating, i.e. machines making real-time suggestions that humans consider, with a frequent and iterative dialogue and loop between the two.

As my American colleagues write in our Tech Trend report: Think of deploying AI like onboarding a new team member. We know generally what makes for effective teams: openness, rapport, the ability to have honest discussions, and a willingness to accept feedback to improve performance. Implementing AI with this framework in mind may help the team view AI as a trusted co-pilot rather than a brilliant but silent critic. When applications are transparent, resilient, and dependable, they can become a natural part of the workstream.

The next step for artificial intelligence
In 2023, several of Deloitte’s most ambitious SAP S/4HANA transformation programmes will go live, and I’m excited to see how our clients will embrace the new possibilities – and what resistance they might encounter along the way.

Leading organisations are already working on solving issues that diminish trust in AI implementations. Some of the most effective approaches treat AI not so much as a point technology but rather as a piece in a larger process, considering the various stages where humans interact with the AI system and working to identify and address areas of potential mistrust. Acknowledging that AI tools are techniques to be woven into the larger tapestry of processes within an organisation can make it easier to fix trust issues proactively. Forward-thinking enterprises are also leaning on data transparency and algorithmic explainability, which could be one of the biggest differentiators between the successful use of AI at scale and failure to reap returns on AI investment.

What’s certain is that companies will benefit most if humans and AI work together instead of displacing one another within the work. Even the most sophisticated AI applications today can’t match humans when it comes to purely creative tasks such as conceptualization, and we’re still a long way off from AI tools that can unseat humans in jobs in these areas. A smart approach to bringing in new AI tools is to position them as assistants, not competitors – and thus move towards augmentation and collaboration.

AI continues to push into new use cases through emerging capabilities that most people thought would remain the exclusive domain of humans. In the future, companies that strategically pair people with technology will have the potential to reinvent themselves in ways we can’t even imagine today. That’s an exciting prospect for 2023 and beyond – and surely a huge motivation for all of us working with digital transformation every day.

 

Are you ready to create a responsive and intelligent kinetic enterprise? Are you ready to innovate?

Watch the video and learn how you can leverage advanced digital technologies such as Machine Learning and Augmented Reality to fast-track innovative projects and create new business opportunities using your core SAP platform. We promise you will be inspired. 

Forfatter spotlight

David Colgan

David Colgan

Partner

Ask me about: SAP, S/4 HANA, Digital transformation, IT strategy, Program management, Digital Finance function, Cloud David is a partner in Deloitte and the Nordic Lead of our SAP Practice. David has a background as a Chartered Accountant but has more than 25 years of experience with SAP transformation programs, where the underlying theme is SAP and financial & digital optimization. David works with Danish as well as Nordic companies advising on SAP-enabled digital transformations and delivering SAP S/4HANA.

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