SAP NOW India 2024, held at the Jio World Convention Center in Mumbai on April 29th, 2024, lived up to its theme of “India: Incredible to Inevitable.” The event mirrors the strength of SAP’s robust partner ecosystem, which is pulsed with energy and insightful discussions. It showcased the global enterprise technology leader’s unwavering commitment to empowering Indian enterprises on digital transformation journeys and making the most of the country’s spectacular economic resurgence.
A Vibrant Gathering of Industry Leaders and Customers
With over 3,200 attendees this year, SAP NOW India witnessed a diverse audience of customers and partners actively participating in panel discussions and knowledge-sharing sessions. Industry leaders shared their experiences of adopting and utilizing SAP cloud solutions underpinned by AI and intelligent technologies to drive growth, innovation, and sustainability.
A key highlight of the day is that 86% of Indian businesses acknowledge the strong correlation between sustainability and profitability, indicating the growing demand for eco-conscious solutions. The announcement of 30+ new AI scenarios across the SAP portfolio since late 2023, with plans for over 100 more this year, underscores SAP’s commitment to stepping into this gap and driving green economic growth for India with AI-powered innovation.
India’s Skyrocketing GDP Ambition: Powered by Technology and Business AI
The keynote address by Paul Marriott, President of SAP Asia Pacific Japan, and Manish Prasad, President & Managing Director – SAP Indian Subcontinent, set the context for the day, bringing into focus India’s aspirations to achieve a 10x GDP increase by 2047, fuelled by its vast talent pool, aspiring startup ecosystem, and affirmative governance. However, the adoption of the right tech drivers at pace and their intelligent applications were highlighted as critical to achieving this growth.
With its 27-year legacy in India and 60% of the country’s GDP currently touching its systems, SAP has an unavoidable obligation and an undeniable role to play in this mission. Notably, 80% of SAP’s Indian customers are medium enterprises, demonstrating the company’s commitment to inclusivity and its fundamental nature in strengthening the country’s economic backbone
Here, SAP’s dedication to paving the way for responsible and accelerated growth for Indian enterprises was pointed out by both Manish and Paul, helping them to compete at scale at the global level. The key thrust areas in this aspect are recounted to be as follows:
- Making supply chains intelligent and sustainable
- Innovating at the speed of customer demand with SAP Business AI
- Stimulating India’s economic growth by empowering its SME landscape.
Leadership Fireside Chat: Charting the Course for Indian Enterprises
The leadership fireside chat, moderated by Manish Prasad, President & Managing Director, SAP Indian Subcontinent, emphasized the crucial shift from implementation-centricity to driving process optimization and user adoption for successful transformation. This focus on maximizing the value of cloud solutions and putting the customer at the center, resonated throughout the event, reaffirming the SAP’s core ethos of empathy and customer success.
Furthermore, the discussion highlighted SAP’s robust partner ecosystem, with over 4600 partners across APJ and a strong network spanning 130 Indian cities. This extensive network ensures last-mile support and comprehensive guidance for Indian businesses of all sizes embarking on their digital journeys in any corner of the country.
Intelligent Enterprise Management: Empowering Businesses at Scale
Recognizing India’s growing focus on environmental sustainability, Peter Moore, Chief Revenue Officer, SAP Enterprise Cloud APJ, emphasized the company’s commitment to this critical aspect and balanced it against customers’ need to improve the bottom line. SAP’s AI strategy, built on reliability, responsibility, and relevance pillars, promotes weaving Artificial Intelligence upgrades like SAP Joule AI Assist and SAP Business AI across its enterprise management offerings portfolio, empowering Indian businesses to operate with both environmental compliance and profitably.
SAP NOW India’s dedicated Enterprise Resource Planning Breakout showcased how SAP’s RISE with SAP migration and modernization program and its robust partner ecosystem empowers Indian enterprises to achieve clean core operations and leverage AI for guided onboarding, process optimization, and deviation control.
The Cloud ERP session witnessed a packed house eager to learn about the journey towards clean core operations and rapid innovation adoption. SAP’s Enterprise Cloud team and esteemed guest speakers like Chetan Trivedi from Vedanta Group and Rahul Sharma from Tata Projects captivated the audience by inspiring RISE with SAP success stories.
Notably, RISE with SAP is a comprehensive cloud-based offering designed to help large enterprises migrate their existing on-premises ERP systems, such as SAP ECC, to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. It goes beyond a simple migration, acting as a “Business Transformation as a Service” package.
RISE with SAP bundles various services and functionalities, including secure and smooth migration, clean core establishment, continuous innovation, enhanced analytics and intelligence with AI, advanced application lifecycle management, and much more. The package aims to deliver a holistic cloud transformation experience, enabling large enterprises to unlock the full potential of SAP S/4HANA Cloud and leverage Business AI capabilities while streamlining operations, boosting agility, and driving sustainable growth.
On the other hand, targeting mid-market enterprises, GROW with SAP offers a quick, cost-effective, and predictable entry point into the cloud ERP world, enabling them to leverage the power of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition for enhanced agility, scalability, and continuous innovation. It delivers an accelerated implementation experience within 4-8 weeks using preconfigured workflows, Industry Best Practices, knowledge resources, and expert implementation services.
Signavio and LeanIX: Paving the Way for Streamlined Cloud Migration
Rahul Mainkar, Head of Signavio, SAP APJ, shed light on the pivotal role of Signavio and LeanIX in building a comprehensive digital roadmap for a seamless transition from on-premises ERP to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. This shift mirrors the transition from physical maps to real-time, digital navigation, offering businesses in-depth process visibility and the ability to optimize their future cloud landscape with SAP S/4HANA.
Business Technology Platform: A Catalyst for Transformation
The Business Technology Platform track at SAP NOW, India, set beyond doubt the prominent role that SAP BTP intends to play in helping SAP customers consume Generative AI capabilities in fuelling business-centric innovations. Understandably, Generative AI capabilities in SAP BTP will improve the developer experience, how integrations are done, processes are automated, analytical insights are delivered, holistic plans are laid down, and administrative tasks are simplified. The keynote address to the breakout session by Subramanian Ananthapadmanabhan, Chief Revenue Officer – Business Technology Platform, SAP Asia Pacific Japan, highlighted this fact, emphasizing SAP BTP’s profound impact on technological evolution within businesses and for their stakeholders.
While the grand unveiling of the BTP theatre drew an impressive audience of CXOs eager to explore the platform’s transformative potential, sharing her organization’s success story by Susheela Dube, Principal Enterprise Applications, Mahindra & Mahindra, added to the thrill. The Indian automotive leader’s digital transformation journey, marked by innovation, clean core, and data democratization, resonated deeply with the audience and showcased the transformative potential of SAP BTP.
Percipere at SAP NOW
As a multi-country SAP Partner and a Gold Sponsor, Percipere actively participated in SAP NOW India 2024, demonstrating its full spectrum capabilities across SAP S/4HANA Cloud Consultancy, SAP Business AI, Finance Transformation, SAP Analytics Cloud & Datasphere, SAP BTP, deploy-ready AI/ML use cases and NextGen AMS model.
We are the only SAP partner with the distinct capability of leveraging process intelligence with SAP Signavio and communication and task mining by UiPath to plot a value-focused and KPI-driven roadmap to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. At SAP NOW, India, our focus has been to help businesses explore the possibilities of fast and risk-free SAP S/4HANA Cloud migration driven by process insights and innovation with AI and Machine Learning. For this, we engaged through:
Interactive Booth: Our booth showcased our expertise in SAP technologies, including industry-specific solutions, sustainability solutions, and Percipere’s best-of-breed AI-powered innovations like PerciScan, PerciLens, and PerciRIO. We engaged with industry leaders, providing personalized consultations and demonstrations of our capabilities.
Networking Opportunities: We actively participated in networking events, fostering valuable connections with influencers, opinion builders, and technology partners, broadening our understanding of how to address the needs of our valued customers best.
SAP NOW India 2024 served as a powerful platform for showcasing the transformative potential of digital technologies in driving India’s economic and social progress. Percipere, as an SAP partner and a leading technology solutions provider, stands committed to playing a vital role in this journey. By harnessing the power of innovation, sustainability, and collaboration, we can collectively contribute to building an “inevitable” future where India thrives as a digital leader and a pluralistic society that is a responsible steward of the environment.
