Spotlight on SAP Business AI: Nestlé’s Journey and Customer Benefits at SAP Sapphire
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Key Takeaways
⇨ SAP is embedding AI throughout its products, enabling automation and transformation of daily processes, as highlighted by the growth in SAP Business AI usage among customers.
⇨ Companies utilizing SAP Business AI, such as SA Power Networks, BT Group, KPMG, and Bosch, are experiencing productivity increases and efficiency improvements in their operations through the adoption of AI solutions like Joule.
⇨ Establishing a robust data foundation is crucial for maximizing AI value, as demonstrated by Nestlé's integration of standardized processes and technology across its global factories to facilitate AI adoption.
A critical element of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the enterprise is to automate and even transform daily, often routine, tasks to become more efficient. AI is becoming the primary way in which end-users engage with SAP systems. SAP Business AI aims to achieve this, integrating AI into everyday business processes using SAP systems. At SAP Sapphire in Orlando on May 20, SAP detailed the latest SAP Business AI updates and brought Nestlé on stage to share its data-driven AI journey.
“AI is becoming the new user interface,” said Brenda Brown, Chief AI Marketing Officer at SAP, in a session at SAP Sapphire. “Embedded AI is being infused directly into workflows across the entire SAP Business Suite.”
Brown detailed how there are now 34,000 customers on SAP Business AI, a 26% increase over the past year. The product now features more than 230 embedded AI use cases, with a target to hit 400 by the end of 2025. SAP claims that these use cases yield a 30% increase in productivity for key personas.
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Customer Success with SAP Business AI
SAP customers SA Power Networks and BT Group have experienced significant benefits from the deployment of SAP Business AI. The former has saved over $1 million on inspection-based costs while establishing an SAP AI hub. The latter is utilizing Generative AI (GenAI) in SAP SuccessFactors, resulting in an 85% reduction in the time taken to evaluate candidate skills and match them to open positions.
One of the key components of SAP Business AI’s offering is Joule, SAP’s AI Assistant, which is integrated into business processes and is available through mobile applications. Currently, Brown stated that Joule handles 80% of common SAP transactions, encompassing more than 1,600 skills across 11 languages.
Joule also provides role-specific support for consultants and developers. For example KPMG utilizes Joule “pervasively” among its group of consultants to help meet customer needs. Power-tool manufacturer Bosch employs Joule for its ABAP developers, experiencing a 10% productivity increase.
Bosch also utilizes pre-built SAP AI agents for customer experience (CX) automation. An SAP AI Agent assists with automatic ticket creation and email classification, resulting in a 35% improvement in ticket classification accuracy.
While SAP currently offers only pre-built AI agents, it plans to launch Agent Builder by the end of 2025, allowing its customers to create their own custom AI agents.
Nestlé’s Data-Driven Push Towards AI Value
Chris Wright, the CIO of Nestlé, joined SAP’s Brown onstage at Sapphire to discuss how, as an early adopter of SAP, the food and beverage company has become fully standardized and digitally connected across 300 factories in 188 countries. That standardization has generated a wealth of data, which Wright said comes from “the power of common processes.”
As Nestlé advances its enterprise technology stack, it is upgrading its platforms to SAP S/4HANA through the Rise with SAP program. “Where we are at now is not just how to drive value from data, but to establish a real-time, connected enterprise end-to-end across our full value chain.”
The data foundation, backed by Nestlé’s globally standardized SAP systems, is delivering advantages in AI and machine learning. Wright states that Nestlé’s AI value currently manifests in two ways: by leveraging machine learning to optimize factory processes and employing AI to provide recommendations to customers.
Going forward, the emergence of GenAI has created a “big change,” according to Wright, and Nestlé is partnering with Microsoft and SAP to integrate GenAI into their processes. This initiative began with piloting Joule’s free capabilities.
“As we have first looked at GenAI, we are starting to see how we can reimagine processes, make processes more efficient,” said Wright. He mentioned that the goal of Nestlé’s partnership with Microsoft and SAP, powered by SAP Joule, is to improve collaboration with partners upstream and enhance the experience for consumers downstream.
Ultimately, it will be not just about making fulfillment across Nestlé’s business more efficient but reimagining the processes entirely.
What This Means for SAPinsiders
- SAP is embedding AI throughout its products, so SAPinsiders need to explore areas where AI can generate value in their daily processes. Sometimes, it involves minor efficiency increases and could also transform processes entirely and engage with business end-users to identify the pain points that products like SAP Business AI and SAP Joule can address.
- Companies are generating value from SAP Business AI, seeing productivity increases for ABAP developers, business consultants, and customer experience processes.
- Nestlé’s case study illustrates the importance of establishing a robust data foundation, which includes standardizing processes and technology across all locations. This data foundation will facilitate the piloting and eventual adoption of new AI opportunities that stem from accurate and clean data inputs.
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