How AI and Machine Learning benefit SAP

SAP AI benefits

According to a 2017 study performed by consulting firm PwC (PwC’s Global Artificial Intelligence Study: Sizing the prize), AI could contribute up to an incredible $15.7 trillion to the global economy in 2030. The following major contributors can be identified:

• Productivity gains from businesses automating processes
• Productivity gains from businesses augmenting their existing labor force with AI technologies
• Increased consumer demand resulting from the availability of personalized and/or higher-quality AI-enhanced products and services.

Obviously, AI has enormous potential for almost every company. SAP® customers are therefore faced with the question which AI technologies are available to them, to upgrade and enhance their existing business processes.

SAP

SAP SE has also recognized the added value that AI and Machine Learning technology can bring for their customers, and as such have invested seriously in the area. The most notable is of course the SAP® AI business services offering (SAP AI Business Services | SAP Community). The SAP community describes the product offering as follows: “SAP AI Business Services provide strategic services and applications that automate and optimize corporate processes and enrich customer experience across the intelligent suite. They are provided as re-usable services for SAP BTP customers.”  So a very broad range of solutions is covered.

The wider market

The potential benefits of the application of AI and Machine Learning have not gone unnoticed. As such there are many providers of intelligent solutions available in the marketplace today. Some of these solutions address very specific problems that many companies have to deal with on a daily basis. Therefore it can be very rewarding to assess the possible solutions the extended marketplace has to offer for SAP® customers trying to solve a very specific problem.

Procure2Pay

A great example of such a problem solving solution is the use of Artificial Intelligence in combination with OCR technology in the Procure2Pay process. The problems and possible improvement areas are well known to anyone familiar with the process. The process is labor intensive, repetitive and it is error prone due to the large amount of manual data entry. Furthermore, the process is often very slow, resulting in lost discount opportunities and unnecessarily incurred dunning charges. AI and OCR to the rescue!

Security and Remote work

As an added benefit of the use of AI with OCR technology in the Procure2Pay process, we can establish that the digitization step will also greatly reduce or will even eliminate the amount of paper copies in the process. Obvious benefits are increased security, reduced costs for paper consumption and the added environmental benefits. And of course, not to be underestimated in these times where being able to work remotely is becoming an absolute must, a solution that makes the invoices digitally accessible for all authorized employees is a true benefit and adds a huge amount of value.

The AMP Intelligent Invoice processing solution offers SAP companies an easy way to benefit from the latest advances in AI to better manage the Procure2Pay process and to gain the added benefits from document digitization.