Introduced by SAP
SAP consulting initiatives in the present day contain an unlimited quantity of documentation, a number of stakeholders, and compressed timelines, which frequently require handbook data retrieval from on-line SAP documentation. On the identical time, cloud ERP packages now demand sooner design cycles, steady enhancements relatively than big-bang rollouts, and near-real-time decision-making. Joule for Consultants, SAP's conversational AI resolution, was designed to assist meet these expectations and assist consultants all through their each day duties, from reconciling finest practices and validating design issues, to navigating SAP’s increasing AI, knowledge, and utility panorama.
The consequence: consultants work extra productively than ever earlier than, with superior outcomes, and ship sooner, high-quality SAP cloud transformations.
That promise attracted early consideration from KPMG corporations, which turned a number of the largest SAP enablers taking part within the Joule early entry program, and one in every of SAP's largest prospects total. The group has onboarded 29 KPMG member corporations all over the world so far, and now hundreds of KPMG consultants are utilizing Joule for Consultants of their each day work.
"For us it wasn’t about experimenting," says Valentino Koester, international head of the SAP360 and SAP AI program at KPMG Worldwide. "It was extra about positioning our individuals and member agency shoppers on the forefront of AI-enabled consulting."
Data on a worldwide scale
"Aggressive stress is intense within the SAP implementation market," Koester says. "The core asset you could have as a consultancy is data and expertise, bundled in all types of how. AI and Joule for Consultants permit us to scale that data immediately throughout our international community, ensuring prospects can entry it from all around the world, regardless of who they discuss to within the group."
Whether or not it's a junior guide or a senior supervisor, Joule ensures SAP finest practices, business benchmarks, and the innovation a company has invested in for years just isn’t siloed someplace in a group, or someplace in a rustic the place it could possibly’t be shared at velocity and with accuracy.
"This makes our groups extra agile in responding to rising consumer wants or regulatory shifts, when new market entrants emerge or expertise adjustments," Koester says. "The agility our consultants acquire permits us to advise prospects not simply reactively, however proactively. In lots of instances, it turns into a type of early forecasting."
For instance, consultants can spot potential provide chain dangers early by AI-enabled course of mining they’ve carried out for a buyer, or apply analytical capabilities with SAP Analytics Cloud earlier than these dangers really materialize.
Overcoming challenges, assuaging ache factors
KPMG buyer transformations usually comply with KPMG’s Transformation methodology, which is intently aligned with SAP’s RISE methodology. RISE strikes by six SAP Activate phases: uncover, put together, discover, understand, deploy, and run, and every has recurring challenges that may sluggish momentum if not addressed early, Koester explains.
Within the uncover section, groups make investments closely in business-case modeling, benchmarking, and stakeholder alignment — actions which can be time-intensive and troublesome to finish with out full visibility. The put together section introduces in depth venture mobilization, reporting calls for, early danger identification, and governance setup, any of which may stall progress earlier than execution begins.
In the course of the discover and understand phases, lengthy design workshops and piles of documentation can bathroom down decision-making. Defects and bottlenecks have to be recognized as early as attainable, or they danger cascading downstream as rework. Within the deploy and run phases, organizations should develop and ship coaching content material whereas overcoming change resistance, which requires sustained communication to take care of adoption. As soon as dwell, steady KPI monitoring and course of optimization helps forestall points from settling into the working mannequin and eroding worth over time. AI may help consultants carry out these duties, in addition to any crucial evaluation and corrections, with a better diploma of accuracy, and extra rapidly than ever earlier than.
"By adopting instruments like Joule for Consultants, we need to improve the work our professionals do, making them simpler and extra productive, so that they have extra time to concentrate on what issues most," Koester mentioned. "That's the consumer relationship, strategic decision-making, and delivering measurable enterprise outcomes. "
How AI adjustments the transformation strategy
Joule for Consultants isn’t solely lowering repetitive work; it’s additionally reshaping how KPMG approaches SAP-enabled transformations. The AI software has surfaced insights that historically required deep experience and fast recall, enhancing consultants’ capability to answer market dynamics and aggressive stress.
For instance, in early design workshops with prospects, until there have been extremely skilled consultants on web site who, in actual time, may reply each query about enterprise processes, in addition to clarify the design issues and all of the technical logic within the new system, consultants regularly needed to defer solutions or validate them later, particularly when novel questions or edge instances got here up, slowing the momentum of the transformation.
“With Joule for Consultants, we have been hoping to validate the steerage our consultants can provide on the spot, in actual time, to take care of implementation momentum and strengthen consumer confidence of their SAP system and KPMG advisors," Koester mentioned. "Our individuals can immediately floor SAP finest practices, pointers, and danger eventualities throughout workshops now, permitting our groups to maneuver ahead, serving to scale back delay throughout the engagement."
They’re seeing the identical success throughout inner studying and enablement or sales-related actions. Joule has supercharged KPMG's inner SAP College, a studying program for brand spanking new staff. Lately, junior consultants have been capable of put together and current advanced and technical RFP responses with confidence, regardless of restricted expertise, as Joule guided them by every step in a structured, high-quality manner.
Making a profitable roll-out
To make sure a easy inner roll out course of to analysts, KPMG positioned Joule not because the introduction of a brand new software, however because the adoption of a brand new manner of working.
"We emphasised the organizational impression it could have, with Joule enabling smarter, simpler methods of working," Koester mentioned. "Consultants rapidly noticed advantages, akin to much less time spent trying to find technical data and extra time to spend advising their prospects and doing the practical work we’re very robust at."
Accountable AI remained a core pillar of the rollout. Along with aligning the initiative with KPMG’s Trusted AI Framework, each taking part KPMG agency carried out a danger evaluation to mitigate potential dangers for shoppers and guarantee compliant, safe use of Joule for Consultants. Early adoption subsequently started with awareness-building conversations throughout the community, serving to groups perceive what these “new methods of working” seem like and the place AI can genuinely assist supply. KPMG additionally appointed a devoted enablement group to make sure Joule for Consultants is built-in into the broader organizational image.
"We’re working week after week on growing the energetic adoption by consultants, whereas additionally utilizing the prospect to get their suggestions," he explains. "Our grassroots innovation suggestions instruments don't simply ask what they like and dislike, however what profitable use instances they're uncovering, and the way a lot time they assume they're saving."
The aim, he provides, isn’t to automate consulting, however to allow consultants to do their jobs higher. And since Joule for Consultants is constant to evolve, KPMG expects its position to increase considerably over time. SAP continues to boost function units and response high quality with every launch, whereas it really works on growing AI brokers that collaborate with consultants and automate some parts of chosen workflows intelligently. KPMG is collaborating intently with SAP to responsibly combine these capabilities into extra phases of transformation initiatives as they mature, in order that Joule turns into part of its total strategy to consulting.
“If early alerts maintain, Joule for Consultants isn’t only a useful software — it’s on observe to turn out to be an ordinary in how SAP initiatives are delivered,” Koester says.
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