Background –

IBM and SAP have recently announced an enhanced and extensive collaboration for integrating their generative AI capabilities with the industry-specific cloud solutions, promoting extensive and enhanced business value. This ‘value generating and enhancing’ partnership specifically emphasizes on principles of - open ecosystem, trustworthy approach, and purpose-built models for optimizing business outcomes, expediting the innovation outcomes and providing individual clients with a definitive and competitive edge. Furthermore, this initiative aims at transforming the existing clientele into next-generation enterprises making extensive use of generative AI. Ultimately, this collaboration seeks to enable the SAP customers towards achieving extensive growth and transformation by leveraging cloud, and AI technologies.

It should be noted that, with expertise in experience design, strategy, technological capabilities, and operations, IBM Consulting has been a consistent and trusted partner to leading global companies, modernizing, revolutionising and securing complex systems. IBM Consulting promotes accelerated business transformation through use and implementation of AI technologies and a hybrid cloud approach, leveraging an out and out open ecosystem of partners. It’s team of consultants is known to employ an open working model along with the IBM Garage methodology, which promotes scaling innovative ideas into actual and tangible outcomes. It's a given that IBM consultants supporting enterprise clients on SAP projects can leverage the IBM Consulting Advantage, IBM’s AI services platform, and its portfolio of proprietary methods, assets, and assistants. Additionally, SAP would be enabled to access IBM’s Granite Family of large language models (LLMs) for developing niche and curated AI use cases, further enhancing the partnership's value by leaps and bounds.

Analysis –

This expanded partnership seems directed towards helping increasing number of clients in accelerating their cloud journeys, through the generative AI-based services which would be offered via the RISE with SAP framework. It should be noted that this framework is a structured methodology that provides relevant and precise tools, relevant best practices, and curated services for guiding the migration - from an SAP ERP application into SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud edition. Surely, IBM is continuously developing an extensive and exhaustive portfolio of drilled down AI solutions across business lines, industries, and product delivery lines, which would be accessible through the global IBM Innovation Studio  and SAP Experience Centre sites.

The ‘upgraded value generating’ initiative by IBM Consulting and SAP seems aimed at enhancing the client productivity and innovation approach, through robust generative AI capabilities and industry-specific cloud solutions. This would enable accelerated transformation with the infusion of ‘RISE with SAP’ in key areas as follows -

• Enhanced Industry Innovation Approach - The partnership would be focusing on extensively  creating intelligent industry use cases, which would be powered by drilled down data-driven insights thus driving the industry innovation agenda. Initially areas such as consumer packaged goods (CPG), industrial manufacturing, defence, retail, utilities, and automotive, would be focussed more upon. It should be noted that, IBM is developing over 100 AI solutions for these specific sectors, enabling provision of prescriptive industry value maps, which would be outlining the next-generation business processes.
• Next-Gen AI infused Business Processes – It is clear that IBM and SAP are collaborating for integrating their generative AI capabilities into the SAP's RISE with SAP and other relevant cloud solutions, for promoting enhanced business processes across multiple industries. This initiative seems aimed at incorporating AI into the SAP’s supply chain, financials, customer experience, human capital, spend management, and other such solutions. IBM seems poised to undertake utilization of SAP Signavio and SAP Business AI for developing the next-generation and relevant business processes, through a ‘proof-of-concept’ adoption program.
• Drilled Down Platform Architecture and Customer Adoption Approach – IBM seems ready to introduce the next-generation reference architectures for the enterprises making use of SAP’s solutions, providing an enhanced emphasis on a clean core approach. Furthermore, by leveraging SAP Signavio, the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), and LeanIX - would result in providing assistance in standardizing the data, systems, processes, and device integration. Also, the IBM Consulting Advantage - an advanced AI services platform, would be used for enhancing the SAP project delivery, promoting improved productivity and considerably reduced risk through the usage of generative AI. This would benefit tasks like - test script creation and implementation, user story generation, modifying and finalizing the change management content, training module generation, and streamlined code creation, amongst others.
• IBM’s Watson AI embedded in the SAP Solutions – Through this enhanced collaboration, IBM’s Granite Model Series  would be made readily available on the SAP’s generative AI hub, automatically enhancing the SAP’s cloud solutions with advanced AI capabilities. This expands the existing integration of IBM Watson AI into the present SAP solutions as well. In this regard, the IBM Consulting would be building customised extensions making use of the watsonx.ai Granite on the generative AI hub for select customers, demonstrating the model’s extensive capabilities.
• Future Rapid Ecosystem Expansion – It's interesting to note that IBM and SAP would jointly and extensively collaborate towards developing the cutting-edge and next-generation talent, thus increasing the key expertise level around the SAP solutions, from within their existing consulting workforce. On-going initiatives in this regard would include key partnerships with relevant employee network groups, the existence and functioning of ‘SAP University Alliances’, and key social impact programs like training the ‘at-risk youth’ in relevant IT programs, and integrating local, small-scale, social businesses into the ambit of global supply chains

Summary -

It could be said, that this partnership between IBM and SAP is categorically aimed towards driving innovation across several key industry sectors, initially focusing on retail, industrial manufacturing, automotive, defence, and utilities, amongst others. Building strongly on their existing 5 decades of collaboration, this initiative would further leverage in-depth technological and industrial expertise, ultimately reaffirming their strong commitment towards prioritizing the clients’ needs and standing firmly to the dynamic market demands and trends. This collaboration thus seems surely poised for transforming the manner in which ‘Enterprises leverage AI’, fostering continuous and incremental growth and innovation.

Author: Apoorva Dawalbhakta, Associate Director (Research) at Quadrant Knowledge Solutions