Technology used to be an enabler of business a decade back. But not with the growth of internet usage, technology has opened up access to the end consumers. With this the volume of data has increased massively. Technologies such as AI / ML which have been there since mid-1900’s have suddenly found their need not as a novelty or experiment, but as mandatory to handle this volume and variety of data. All this has led to new business models suddenly coming up and in many cases disrupting the traditional businesses sometimes driving them to oblivion.
In light of this, Businesses no longer look at Technology as an enabler, but a driver of business and more importantly survival. If businesses have adopted technology early enough, they are thriving. If they have lagged behind, they are already facing he heat from new-age competitors.
We work extensively in the FMCG space. One of our customers is a new age Direct-to-Consumer company founded a few years back. Another is a traditional FMCG player founded decades back. The D2C company has already crossed the other in terms of revenue. And this blistering pace is because of the new business model of selling direct to consumer (D2C) which has been driven by technology
Impact of Complex Technologies on the Traditional Methods of doing Businesses
Business is run through a set of transactions done by the people in the organization. One example is invoicing. If these transactions are done using complex technologies, there is chance of failure. The trend now is simplification of technology from a user perspective. This is what we call Humanizing Technology. Why should the user be exposed to the complexity inside the system. The recent trends like Low Code No Code platforms allow even non-technical people to create apps for instance are making things simpler to create and run. The recent launch of CHATGPT is an example of how technology is simplifying things for us. Hence traditional businesses are looking at simplifying their processes using technologies that are complex under the hood.
How SAP enables transformation within organizations
SAP has created a vision for enabling organizations to become Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprises. And the vision is backed by the required IT applications and a clear roadmap under the Rise with SAP package. The organization need not look around for different solutions in the market. They are all available under one SAP umbrella. Be it adopting RPA in the sales process or generating forecast or creating dashboard with the industry KPIs – It’s all there. This is a never before offering for organizations to leverage technology without the complexity of researching, evaluating, implementing and maintaining solutions from ten different vendors.
Having worked with 100’s of customers, we understand that there are a set of common requirements in specific industries and countries. And we have packaged these by preconfiguring them on Rise with SAP. So, for example, a customer in Consumer goods industry need not explain most of their process, control and reporting requirements to our teams as these are already prebuilt and ready to use. This leads to saving in time, better adoption by users as well as improving the quality of the implementation. We have very successfully deployed these packages at multiple customers in CPG, Industrial Machinery and Components industry.
Since digital transformation is a journey, we keep helping organizations after the implementation by continuously enhancing the system, enabling unused features and implementing new features as they are introducing in new versions of the SAP software.
Manufacturing industry and the new technological standards
The manufacturing industry has been an early adopter of technology. But had been using it in silos. In recent years, they are able to look at the entire supply chain from one vantage point. They are able to see the impact of change in customer demand and percolate it in real time to their suppliers and sub-contractors. This is enabling them to optimize the usage of resources leading to higher profitability and improved cashflows. Without the real time connection, it would have taken weeks if not a month for the information of changed market demand to reach the supplier to increase or decrease their production. But now it can be passed on in real time. The adoption of Industry 4.0 is helping the industry in finding, understanding and acting on root cause of quality issues thereby improving the overall quality level.