The SAP INDUS Annual Conference 2024, held on November 14 at The Westin Powai Lake, Mumbai, proved an important milestone for business leaders, innovators, and technologists across India. As an SAP Gold Partner, Percipere participated in this high-profile event, which brought together the full spectrum of the SAP ecosystem—including partners, industry leaders, and decision-makers—focused on the future of enterprise transformation.
From SAP Business AI to cloud migration and AI-driven business process management, the discussions highlighted the tremendous opportunities and significant challenges for companies seeking to thrive in the digital-first era. For Percipere, a global leader in business process transformation and AI-driven enterprise solutions, the conference reinforced our vision for empowering organisations to unlock value through SAP’s cloud-based enterprise technologies.
This article distils the key insights from the conference. It explores how Percipere plans to help its enterprise customers capitalise on the AI revolution, cloud transformation, and business process optimisation discussed at the event.
The Growing Role of SAP in Building Resilient and Future-Ready Enterprises
The conference began with an illuminating fireside chat between Manish Prasad, President & MD of SAP India, and Rucha Nanavati, CIO of Mahindra Group. Together, they discussed SAP’s pivotal role in equipping organisations with the tools needed to meet future business challenges. Through its flagship offerings like RISE with SAP, SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), and SAP Business AI, SAP is leading the way in helping businesses become resilient, relevant, and responsible in a rapidly changing world.
At Percipere, we share this vision. As a partner committed to helping businesses drive end-to-end transformation, we recognise the urgency for enterprises to leverage these cutting-edge tools to stay competitive. The journey to a future-ready enterprise demands not just the adoption of technology but also a cultural shift prioritising agility, innovation, and continuous learning—principles that we actively champion in our collaborations with clients.
AI: A Productivity Multiplier, But Only if Adopted at Scale
One of the most profound insights from the conference was that AI has become a business productivity multiplier. Still, its true potential will only be realised if organisations can accelerate its adoption. Manish Choksi, Vice Chairman of Asian Paints, spoke to the need for enterprises to not only deploy Business AI but to do so at scale—ensuring that AI touches every facet of the organisation, from finance to HR to supply chain.
However, as Manish rightly pointed out, the speed of AI adoption has its challenges. Enterprises must overcome cultural inertia and organisational silos that hinder the widespread integration of AI solutions. Moreover, the governance of AI will soon become one of the most important aspects of adoption, with rising regulatory oversight and the need for robust risk management frameworks to ensure responsible use.
At Percipere, we understand that scaling AI across an organisation requires more than just technology—it requires an enterprise-wide strategy. Our role as trusted SAP partners is to help businesses navigate this adoption roadmap, ensuring they can embed SAP Business AI in a way that drives real value, mitigates risk, and unlocks new levels of efficiency and innovation.
Navigating the Cloud Journey: From On-Premises to Scalable AI Solutions
Another key takeaway from the conference was the growing importance of cloud technologies in enabling businesses to harness the full potential of AI. Himani Agrawal, Chief Partner Officer at Microsoft India & SA, explained that the cloud is the foundation for organisations to scale AI and gain deeper insights from their data. According to Himani, this journey is powered by the fusion of data and intelligent technologies, a space where SAP and its partners, like Percipere, play a critical role.
Moving from on-premises systems to cloud environments can be daunting for enterprises, especially as many face costs, security, and system integration challenges. However, RISE with SAP methodology for customer enablement is designed to simplify this transition by providing businesses with a comprehensive cloud adoption strategy that de-risks migration while enabling them to optimise operations and innovate faster.
For Percipere, helping our clients make this shift is central to our value proposition. It is our job to ensure seamless and data-driven transitions to the cloud, optimising costs, minimising disruptions, and enabling businesses to capitalise on AI-driven insights quickly.
SAP Business AI: Relevance and Depth Across the Enterprise
One of the standout discussions at the event was the emphasis on relevance in SAP’s AI offerings. As SAP Business AI continues to evolve, its capabilities are becoming increasingly contextual and embedded in the day-to-day operations of businesses across multiple domains. From finance and procurement to HR, IT, and customer experience, SAP’s AI portfolio is deep enough to provide meaningful, actionable insights across all facets of the business.
For Percipere, this is a crucial point of affirmative intervention as a partner. By focusing on contextualised AI—delivering solutions tailored to specific industry needs and business models—, we help our clients implement AI that is not just technically advanced but also reliable, responsible and relevant for their specific operational challenges. We are committed to assisting businesses in exploiting AI across the entire enterprise value chain, driving faster decision-making, enhancing operational efficiency, and improving customer satisfaction.
Generative AI and Business Process Transformation: A New Era of Process Modeling
The integration of Generative AI with Business Process Management (BPM) tools was another key highlight at the SAP INDUS Conference 2024. Bhargav Vasudevarao, Director of SAP Business Transformation Management, highlighted the growing role of Generative AI in business process optimisation through SAP Signavio. With Large Process Models (LPM), businesses can now translate natural language inputs into process models and transformation roadmaps—helping organisations automate workflows, identify inefficiencies, and streamline operations in ways that were previously unimaginable.
For Percipere, as the only partner with a cross-skilled team and a home-grown process mining platform, this marks a new frontier in business process management. Incorporating Generative AI into SAP Signavio opens up a new horizon of opportunities to help our clients automate process design, enhance their process mining capabilities, and enable continuous process transformation. It is especially critical for enterprises that must optimise complex workflows across various departments and functions.
Driving Digital Transformation with a Culture of Trust and Innovation
As businesses undergo digital transformation, the need for trust and reliability in their systems has never been more important. Sanjay Chavan, Head of Enterprise Applications at Mahindra Group, discussed a roadmap that emphasises a culture of trust, supported by reliable data and AI constructs. He pointed to principles like hyperautomation, low-code/no-code(LCNC) development, and system consolidation as key transformation drivers while advocating for a mobile-first approach to make systems more accessible and user-friendly.
For Percipere, this roadmap is foundational. We believe that the future of digital transformation is not just about adopting the latest technologies but about creating a culture that values data integrity, process innovation, and user-centred design. By embedding AI, cloud, and automation in every facet of an organisation, we help businesses build systems that are resilient, adaptable, and ready for the future.
Reimagining Spend Management with AI
Spend management, particularly in high-growth environments, can often become an afterthought, but AI-driven solutions are changing these dynamics. Smita Minakshi, Product Manager at SAP Ariba, demonstrated how AI-powered tools like SAP Spend Control Tower are transforming the Source-to-Pay (S2P) process. With capabilities that span supplier management, strategic sourcing, and procurement, AI enables businesses to gain greater visibility and control over their spending operations, all while ensuring transparency and compliance.
At Percipere, we recognise the complexity of spend management for fast-growing organisations. By leveraging SAP Ariba and AI-driven spend management solutions, we help clients not only streamline procurement processes but also drive efficiency, reduce costs, and improve supplier relationships.
The Road Ahead
The SAP INDUS Annual Conference 2024 reinforced the idea that AI and cloud are no longer just the domains of large enterprises but are fundamental to the success of businesses of all sizes. At Percipere, we are fully committed to helping our clients navigate this evolving landscape—empowering them to embrace AI at scale, optimise their processes, and build a future-ready enterprise.
Through our expertise in SAP Business AI, cloud technologies, and business process transformation, we are ready to help organisations drive innovation, enhance operational efficiency, and unlock new avenues for growth in the digital age.
The insights from this event will serve as a springboard for launching the next phase of our enterprise transformation capabilities, and we are excited about the prospects! Please get in touch to learn how it brings value to your organisation.
