While it’s important to stay up to date on the latest and greatest trends impacting your industry, it’s an entirely different animal responding to them. From industry convergence and supply chain resilience to the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and sustainability, there’s a lot to unpack.
That’s why it’s important to create “semantic integrity” across the entire value chain in today’s hyper-connected world, according to Sven Denecken, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer for SAP Industries and CX.
Denecken was the keynote speaker at a recent SAP for Process Industries and Natural Resources Conference in Vienna, where he set the stage for hundreds of attendees spanning different industries including chemicals, paper and packaging, metals and mining and building materials.
Sven Denecken, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer for SAP Industries and CX.
SAP
“What you do, what you produce, what you are in charge of fuels the energy of the worldwide economy,” said Denecken. “But that is also why we need to work together when it comes to responding to emerging trends because it influences what we do.”
Shattering the cubicle mindset
Denecken stressed the importance of looking beyond one’s own industry, “above the cubicle mindset” as we are all connected to value chains. Mega trends like supply chain resilience and everything-as-a-service are changing the way we work. Take, for example, the container ship blocking Suez Canal for six days in 2021 which made it clear that the supply chain changed from demand driven to constraint driven.
“These are trends we need to observe and also understand how those business processes fit together across the entire value chain,” said Denecken. “Data that comes from a semantic compatibility can help us respond faster.”
Industry convergence and collaboration
Recent data suggests a rising number of companies are investing in other industries which means there are learnings in certain industries that can be leveraged in others, according to Denecken.
“I get goosebumps when I walk through the revolving doors of an SAP office because SAP customers close to 87% of total global commerce. “It’s an obligation for us to look at these trends and figure out what we can do together.”
Sustainability, for example, is the perfect trend to underscore the importance of addressing industry convergence and collaboration.
“In many ways, sustainability has been at the forefront of driving some of these trends,” said Denecken. “You have given us very clear feedback and insights which has allowed us to meet with the wider ecosystem to help you. The openness we have with our platform and the connectivity is something that we invest in.”
A Platform that Means Business
Denecken made it clear that SAP’s Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) is the premier tool to help build the semantic integrity businesses need to remain competitive.
“We understand the business language and we built resilient services for business,” said Denecken. “And we’re constantly investing into new capabilities that includes your feedback.”
SAP BTP is home to more than 400 industry specific applications across 25 industry verticals, 80% of which were developed by partners either on their own or in collaboration with SAP.
“Around 2,000 customers are using those extensions, which sometimes are very specific, resilient services,” said Denecken. “They use the data compatibility and all of the services we’re building in the future, including AI.”
The Business of AI: Delivering Proof And Value
Denecken believes that the disruption AI is causing is something to embrace and not turn away from.
“What we call ‘Business AI’ is the transformational element,” he said. “We all know it, feel it and are experimenting with it. Even though we are in an experimental phase, I believe that time is quickly running out. We need to deliver proof and value.”
Denecken believes AI value is easier to achieve in an SAP landscape, especially with AI co-pilot SAP Joule.
“If you want to interact with your enterprise system differently SAP Joule is the way to do it,” he said. “We are in an era where employees believe the outcome of technology, of a system, of something that is presented to them. What technology we apply, what belief we create, is equally important to them.”
Microsoft co-pilot is equally flexible in an SAP environment because they are “connected at the hips,” according to Denecken.
“Either SAP Joule or Microsoft Co-pilot will understand what you’re asking them and then bring you the right answer. It is a trajectory and we’re inviting everyone to give us feedback, to be under the early adopters.”
Denecken said more AI capabilities will be embedded into SAP solutions.
“We are training those algorithms on a more than 27,000 customer data set which we can then apply to the solutions when ready. “We’re not creating a large language model, we’re creating an AI foundation.”
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