Credit: Peter Sayer/IDG
SAP is partnering up with heavyweight consulting firms Accenture, Capgemini and Deloitte in a bid to accelerate customer adoption of its S/4HANA Cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) offering in the process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing and service verticals.
The collaboration efforts, which were announced during the German software vendor’s Sapphire Now conference in the United States this week, are intended to see the companies develop new solutions around the so-called “intelligent enterprise”.
SAP claims that the move will mean its customers will get access to differentiated industry capabilities and faster innovation cycles with SAP’s S/4HANA Cloud ERP suite of products.
“SAP is working closely with Accenture, Capgemini and Deloitte to help customers in the process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing and service industries become intelligent enterprises by implementing support for a new generation of business processes,” SAP digital core and industry solutions president Franck Cohen said.
“With a user experience that no longer requires a keyboard, and manual processes that are automated with the help of artificial intelligence, our customers will be empowered to reimagine their business models while keeping cost to a minimum."
The co-development initiatives SAP is launching itself into with the three consulting and integration firms are expected to cover broad aspects, from working together with pilot customers to joint innovation, development and go-to-market strategies.
Key focus areas include support for industry-specific, next-generation business processes powered by artificial intelligence (AI), along with automation in SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
Specifically, Accenture and SAP have started to co-develop and jointly go to market with a solution running on SAP S/4HANA Cloud for the oil and gas industry.
Capgemini and SAP, meanwhile, are working together to accelerate a long-term co-development and co-innovation road map for S/4HANA Cloud in discrete manufacturing industries, with an initial focus on the automotive segment.
Additionally, Deloitte and SAP are expanding their existing collaboration efforts by accelerating market adoption of the vendor’s cloud ERP offering in the sub-sectors of the service and process manufacturing industries.
At the same time, SAP said it has more than doubled the number of its digital innovation solutions and expanded its design-led engagement services with the launch of the SAP Leonardo Partner Medallion Initiative, built around the vendor's end-to-end digital innovation system platform.
The initial partners for the SAP Leonardo Partner Medallion Initiative include Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, EY, HCL, Hitachi Consulting, KPIT, Mindtree’s SAP practice Bluefin, NTT, PWC, TCS and Wipro.
The vendor said the new initiative expands the number of solutions and teams available to organisations wanting to innovate with SAP-certified technology from a global network of trusted providers.
Altogether, the initiative counts an initial 13 SAP partners to develop and deliver new industry innovation solutions.
The initiative sees SAP provide support and certification for new industry innovation accelerators, including collections of tools and materials for specific industries and business functions that can be tailored for each customer.
“The number of organisations seeking transformation is immense,” SAP Leonardo and data and insights president Mala Anand said. “The SAP Leonardo Partner Medallion Initiative brings the strength of SAP’s trusted ecosystem to deliver digital innovation to help our customers solve strategic business problems.
“Together with our partners, we are enabling industry innovation and offering customers easy, progressive paths to achieve specific use cases with quick time to value,” Anand said.
