There is currently significant interest in leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) within corporate SAP landscapes; however, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the specific business benefits the technology can actually deliver. For many SAP customers, this challenge is particularly acute because AI functionality—such as Joule and various AI services within the SAP portfolio—can entail substantial licensing and usage costs. Furthermore, it is often difficult to identify the right use cases, develop realistic business cases, and demonstrate that the benefits justify the investments.
This study, conducted by SSON (SSON) examines a select group of 20 highly admired global Shared Services (GBS) organizations—most of which are SAP customers—that have documented tangible gains from using AI. While not all of our members operate a GBS, the key takeaway is that AI offers significant potential for value creation in business areas focused on processing various types of vouchers and documents. Perhaps unsurprisingly, but nonetheless notably, these gains are measured exclusively in terms of reductions in full-time equivalents (FTEs)—that is, headcount. Over 40% of the organizations surveyed have achieved an FTE reduction of more than 10%, with 12% seeing their headcount reduced by as much as half over the past 12 months. (See the table.)
However, these same companies continue to work on "traditional" automation through RPA, iRPA, workflow automation, and ML. Gains in the form of a 5% or greater reduction in operating costs are achieved by 45% of the sample.
Regarding "touchless processing"—or the absence of manual intervention in end-to-end transactions—the table below shows the status for this sample: 48% have an automation level of 60% or higher, most fall between 40% and 60%, while an estimated two entities in the sample have an automation level exceeding 90%.
Takeaways
Given the calculations required to justify the implementation of AI, it seems reasonable to assume that FTEs, operating costs, and the degree of automation will be key factors.
Didrik Arstad
Head of Innovation Team Finance & Analytics and Innovation Team HR
SAP User Group in Norway - SBN - SAP Brukerforening i Norge
Cell: +47 90562921
Email: didrik.arstad@adfahrer.com
LinkedIn: https://no.linkedin.com/in/didrikarstad