SAP is a core engine that helps the world’s largest enterprises operate smoothly. However, within this imperative system that keeps the day-to-day ticking, a few core aspects restrict businesses from taking full advantage – limiting efficiency gains, data transparency and intelligence, and concrete decision-making over the short and long term.
Despite the sheer power of SAP, businesses face depleted SAP expertise, tough-to-fill skills gaps, and, consequently, a fear of change that leaves them stagnating. The reasons for these challenges are numerous and complex, and yet, as the efficacy of AI technology rises in crucial Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) practices, a new dawn looks bright.
Reasons for restricted change management in SAP
Fading expertise, rising skills concerns
SAP began providing services over 50 years ago, with ERP gaining consistent momentum through the 70s, 80s, and 90s, reaching the monolith of business management it is today. The problem is, that although plenty of savvy IT engineers, transformation experts, and system integrators gravitated towards SAP expertise, flashier technologies, such as cloud services, have absorbed much of the IT talent pool over the last twenty years. As SAP experts move on to more senior, often C-Suite roles, or as some retire, enterprises have consistently struggled to plug the gap. This is a problem, because as technology increasingly drives business, IT teams (specifically SAP change managers) should be in the driving seat.
This shift has created SAP teams that, although highly competent, are often fearful of making changes, given that a change done wrong can result in severe consequences, including operational failure. Therefore, a widespread culture of “just keep it running” has pervaded the majority of enterprises. Of course, this impedes the notion that change can be made for the better, meaning businesses are losing the competitive edge to more ‘change-ready’ competitors. It’s also fair to say SAP experts left much to be desired in terms of comprehensive documentation, training, and mentoring for their successors.
The severity of change gone wrong
Equally, it only takes one poorly managed change to scare most SAP teams into second-guessing and often stopping changes in the future, for fear of repeating their mistake.
This dynamic has been apparent for two decades. Being unable to predict the impact of transformation, combined with a lack of historical change data and the absence of technologies that can supply context and risk assessments of each change before a change is made, IT teams decided en masse that no change at all was better than making the wrong change.
You can’t blame them. SAP change is expensive, albeit worth it, when executed correctly – and takes time, two things growing enterprises in competitive landscapes can ill afford if the change goes wrong.
The AI opportunity for Intelligent Change Management
What if there was a way to harness technology to provide insight, foresight, best practices, sturdy historical change data, and automated efficiency for SAP transformation? It is a reality many IT teams would not have believed possible just a handful of years ago, and yet, with the rise of AI, it’s already here. We’re entering an exciting moment, where technology and human expertise combine to ensure ‘the right change’ is ‘changed right’.
With Intelligent Change Management, AI and automation are leveraged to provide insights into the impact of change before the change is executed. This is done by utilising aggregated data insights from previously successful SAP implementations across a host of industries, then using AI’s contextual advantages to deliver specific, step-by-step options relative to an individual business’ landscape and specific requirements.
It’s difficult to ignore the radical benefits the AI applications at the heart of this shift can supply to businesses transitioning to S/4HANA within the proposed 2027 deadline, where maintenance for ECC systems will be turned off or accessible only through additional investment. During this transition, improper planning brings resource and economic expense. The frontrunners in these AI applications operate within existing governance frameworks, evaluating timelines, risks, and trade-offs to provide IT teams that may not necessarily be SAP experts with the confidence they need to action change – the right change, done the right way – at pace.
The rise of generative AI applications, chiefly OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has accelerated and democratised business and consumer access with an interactive software experience. Innovative AI applications for SAP change management have taken this into account, too, once more alleviating skills fragilities across enterprises. The best of these applications enable users to ask questions, prompt answers, and ultimately gain a tailored, comprehensive understanding of the change they wish to make, its potential impact, and whether their decision-making is sound – a ‘blueprint’, if you like.
This is imperative to transformation buy-in, as SAP change is costly, and IT teams are empowered by AI innovations to evidence the advantages of their proposal and predict ROI with greater accuracy.
Limitations
As the business world is quickly learning when it comes to AI, the technology is not a silver bullet.
AI governance and data protection are still being ironed out by IT teams and should be considered a priority. Equally, while emerging AI-based ERP products accelerate Intelligent Change Management, we’re not yet at the point where it can execute actions autonomously. In fact, many argue this should never be the case and that human oversight should always be required. So, while new applications can reduce stark skills gaps, make up for a lack of expertise, and alleviate a fear of change, teams still require support, adequate resources, and enterprise buy-in to succeed.
Recent innovations are ready to transform SAP change management, helping IT teams progress from maintenance to progression while unlocking efficiency and impactful, data-driven decision-making along the way. With AI, change can be finally embraced as a core driver of business growth, with change managers leading the way.
