SAP unveils artificial intelligence-powered ERP cloud solution for India

German IT services and solutions provider SAP has made S/4HANA, its artificial intelligence and machine learning-driven cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) software-as-a-service (SaaS), available in India, a company statement said.

SAP said that the new solution combines automation of mundane tasks with pre-emptive decision making, to increase overall business agility. "With the S/4HANA Cloud, businesses will be notified of the latest innovations through quarterly updates, granting them access to the latest innovations in areas such as predictive analytics," Debdeep Sengupta, president and managing director, SAP, India and the  Subcontinent, said in the statement.

He added that the new cloud-based service will also come with a Siri-like assistant called ‘CoPilot’ and will enable users to get their work done more quickly and efficiently, while increasing teamwork across business processes. 

"Powered by machine learning and AI, SAP CoPilot is aware of business contexts, driving efficient collaboration, quickly recognising and connecting to business data and offers in-context chat," he explained, adding that India is expected to be among the top cloud markets in the world by 2020, with $4.1 billion market opportunity.

The company also said that other functionalities of the new service include localised solutions such as GST vendor classification, invoicing party (required for calculation of taxes), field enablement to maintain GST registration numbers, tax and pricing procedures, invoice generation for logistics scenarios such as procurement for direct materials and services, and subcontracting among others.

In April, SAP had said that that it successfully integrated its S/4HANA business suite with Larsen & Toubro Infotech to enhance its operations globally.

In the same month, SAP had formed a partnership with British telecom major Vodafone Plc. to develop Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for Indian enterprises. Both companies had said that they will look to develop communications solutions for enterprises by leveraging SAP’s Leonardo platform and Vodafone’s IoT Managed Connectivity platform to enable efficient use of scarce resources, automate routine manual tasks, and improve decision-making across the utilities, manufacturing, automotive, transportation and logistics sectors. 

Also, SAP had released its digital manufacturing cloud solution to push enterprises towards adopting Industry 4.0 standards that looks at optimising performance, elevating production quality and promoting efficiency.

Industry 4.0 is a new standard in manufacturing that uses automation and data exchange to streamline operations. The standard includes cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things, cloud computing and cognitive computing.