One of the biggest advantages of intelligent ERP is that it enables enterprises to access real-time data—this is a game-changer, since it allows business leaders to take quick decisions.
Adapting to unforeseen changes in a VUCA world is not an option, but a necessity. Industries are advancing at a lightning pace. And, it’s time to re-imagine workplaces.
Intelligent ERP or i-ERP is a term coined by IDC to cover ERP solutions that are driven by machine learning along with advanced analytics and offer a range of opportunities to help businesses compete in the digital age.
Here’s how ERP helps businesses achieve 3-dimensional growth.
Dimension 1: Context-based data accessibility
Intelligent ERP is all about curated data sets, with each application having access to its own set of data relevant for specific contexts. An i-ERP system relies heavily on data and excels in tracking, analysing, predicting and recommending everything that can be churned out from the available data. The role of the system here is not just to convert raw data into meaningful information, but also to identify where this information is applicable.
Now, different departments of your enterprise may be accessing chunks from the same data source but may not need the same information. This is what usually leads to duplication of data. And, here is where curated data sets can come to rescue. Curated data sets give businesses the ability to customize accessibility according to different use cases.
One of the biggest advantages of intelligent ERP is that it enables enterprises to access real-time data—this is a game-changer, since it allows business leaders to take quick decisions.
Dimension 2: Automation, augmentation and redefinition of processes
Intelligent ERP calls for automation of not just routine tasks, but also tasks that involve crucial decisions. The speciality of an intelligent ERP system lies in being able to leverage machine learning to accomplish activities that are not programmed by traditional programming approaches specifying a sequential set of instructions. Being able to recognize patterns and trends at scale, machine learning often also transcends human capability in many domains.
Be it deployment of new products or services, supplier transactions or even exception-handling- aided by machine learning, a number of tasks can be handled in a fully automated manner. Or, the organization can choose to manage these tasks with the help of intelligent recommendations to be considered by employees/managers.
The focus of all this is not just to automate manual tasks, but enrich them with more powerful, data-driven decisions.
Dimension 3: Enhanced and intuitive user interface
Often, after implementing an ERP system, organizations struggle with a complicated user interface and the fact that only the employees extensively trained in operating this system can perform complex tasks. This restricts ERP usage to a select few and hence limits the overall impact that ERP can have on any organization.
The aim of an intelligent ERP system is to provide an enhanced user experience that is more assistive and conversational in nature. A conversational AI assistant helps simplify user input by making use of natural language processing. The time taken in learning the system significantly reduces and the extent of users who can now leverage information easily and smoothly increases. With available options for customization and data security impositions, an intelligent ERP enables personalized access in context of the work activities.
Moreover, combining the power of predictive analytics, the advanced user interface can help assess outcomes in different simulated environments and recommend the next-best action to take.
The assistive and conversational format takes user-annoyance out of the picture and instead converts it to user-delight by making apparently tedious tasks easier and speedier.
Intelligent ERP helps your organization become agile in its true sense and provides the flexibility and assistance to react faster to change. By triggering intuitive automated operations, innovative business processes, and smarter insights, intelligent ERP is becoming the backbone of digital transformation for businesses.
Request a personal demo of intelligent, cloud-based ERP software from SAP.