COVID-19 has had a seismic effect on consumer sentiment, with shoppers gravitating towards brands that demonstrate purpose. Recent research released by Capgemini underscores this point with more than half of respondents reporting that they expect organizations to showcase their sense of purpose and give back to society both during the crisis and beyond.

For brands, this concept is the foundation of emotional loyalty—the act of connecting with customers on a deep and personal level within their daily lives. More than ever, people want to know what companies stand for and how they advance those values in society.

Demonstrating purpose: What consumers look for in brands

While many brands effectively communicate their brand promise, far fewer are able to demonstrate it through action. In the COVID era, this is no longer enough. Our research identifies the following ways that organizations live their purpose, as well as examples of brands that have done so especially well recently:

Supporting staff: Making sure workers have the necessary health, safety, financial and logistical resources. For example, in the UK, Tesco increased staff discounts to 15 percent to show workforce appreciation and help alleviate financial hardship.

Assisting at-risk groups: Offering exclusive hours or designated channels for the elderly, immunocompromised or essential workers. In France, Carrefour set up a telephone ordering service for shoppers unable to place online orders.

Bolstering suppliers: Providing financial support for struggling supply chain players, especially smaller organizations. For instance, Unilever has offered a €500M cashflow relief fund to support small- and medium-sized suppliers.

Community donations: Demonstrating a commitment to society by addressing product scarcity, mobility or other underlying widespread challenge. One example is PepsiCo, which directed $45M to communities hardest hit by the pandemic.

Building emotional loyalty by creating value for consumers

While many consumers will appreciate brands that demonstrate their purpose for society at-large, emotional loyalty will also be driven by the value the brand creates for the individual. This means being able to reach customers on a personal level, providing relevant and timely offers and doing so with authenticity and credibility.

To drive emotional loyalty, brands must not just sell products, but solve problems. For example, delivery service Instacart addressed the lack of delivery windows during stay-at-home mandates with a “Fast & Flexible” option. This feature enables customers to have their order delivered in the first-available delivery window, which provided more flexibility to the organization. As a result, delivery options increased by 50 percent and 85% of orders were delivered during the earlier part of the estimated delivery period.

Another area of value creation is through simplifying the shopping experience, particularly on digital channels.  Bundling, or grouping together frequently purchased items in a single order, is one way that grocers and other retailers can help busy shoppers get the products they need. For example, Carrefour has created two grocery boxes specifically for elders, one with food and the other with cleaning products.

Another means of simplification is through product recommendations, which helps shoppers select items more quickly based on data-driven insights, local trends and other variables. For instance, in China, Yonghui supermarkets provides online recommendations to help consumers choose combinations of fresh produce rather than select items individually

Finally, brands can drive engagement through content. Many retailers are experimenting with live streaming during COVID-19, often helping consumers adapt to quarantine living. For example, Nike engaged its customers through its fitness app which streams training programs and workout videos. UK-based brewery BrewDog has created an online virtual bar experience to encourage social distancing, opening online locations and hosting digital events such as beer tasting, pub quizzes, music and comedy shows.

It is through this combination of value creation for the individual and a demonstrable commitment to society that brands can begin to build emotional loyalty, reaching consumers on a deeper, more personal level.

For more information on building emotional loyalty, please contact Chloe Buckland—and stay tuned for our next post: Creating a high-impact loyalty program in a touchless way.

A discussion with Philippe Vié, Global Head of Energy, Utilities and Chemicals at Capgemini,

In March, a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder reported that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is the smallest it has been since it was discovered in the 1980s. This progress can be attributed in large part to efforts put forth by the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which was signed by 197 countries and phased out the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances. Many in the scientific community consider the Montreal agreement the single most effective and successful environmental effort to date and have taken it as proof positive that progress can be made on climate change, especially if there is a united, global strategy.

Encouraging as this news is, it is not indicative of overall progress on a global climate change agenda – even when coupled with new emissions goals laid out in the Paris Agreement. The Future of Energy, Capgemini’s latest piece of research that explores the evolution of global energy policy, technologies, infrastructure investments, energy market evolution, and consumer behavior, depicts an industry experiencing a significant and urgent need for change over the last two decades. Here we are joined by Philippe Vié, global head of Energy, Utilities and Chemicals at Capgemini, to review the report’s key findings and discuss the future of energy:

Urgent as climate change is, the most pressing topic on everyone’s agenda today is the public health emergency. Can you tell us what effect this event is having on the way utilities operate or invest?

First of all, this is a devastating and disruptive global event, the full implications of which we don’t yet know. Within the context of the energy industry, we see demand decreasing, along with a slowdown in commodities pricing. As a result, we’re seeing companies find new ways to be more efficient – for themselves, their clients, and society.

One interesting point to come out of this health crisis is how the environment is responding. We are seeing improvement in air quality all around the world as greenhouse gases drop. For the first time, we’re seeing oil & gas companies reduce CO2 emissions. People are traveling less, driving less. And, a lot of the conversations surrounding this public health emergency have an undertone of sustainability. Though we need to keep these changes in the proper context –there are many lives at risk – there are some signs that this health emergency could serve as a wakeup call for how our industry and the world should respond to climate change. It may even trigger more sustainable ways of living, working, and travelling in the post-crisis world.

To that end, what role do utilities play in driving the climate change agenda and sustainability efforts?

Utilities play an absolutely critical role in driving the climate change agenda forward. Most of these organizations have drastically reduced their emissions, which account for about one-third of all global emissions. In addition to serving as a positive example and leader on this issue, they have also helped their customers reduce emissions. We see now that customers are consuming less, which means that utilities are selling less. That may seem counterintuitive for the utility, in that they are helping customers buy less, but that is hardly a new concept. Utilities have been fully engaged in sustainability for quite some time.

The Energy and Utilities companies that have become or will become sustainability champions and that remain committed to their clients’ results, will lead the game, becoming preferred suppliers or even partners to their clients. They may also create new sources of revenue from selling sustainability-related products and services; in the process, it’s possible that they will avoid taxes, such as carbon taxes or energy efficiency obligations, from direct or indirect emissions. To be competitive, these players of the new age will need to completely renew their product and services portfolios.

Along the same lines, utilities have acknowledged that they alone are not responsible for change. There is a need to create public and private partnerships and forming ecosystems to address these issues more effectively. In our most recent World Energy Market Observatory (WEMO) report, we outline how utilities can adopt the role of orchestrator, working with a wide range of stakeholders, including technology companies, the investment community, or consulting partners to develop solutions, identify funding, and implement them at scale.

What role will technology play in transforming the energy industry?

Unfortunately, our research shows that no energy-related technical breakthrough is expected over the next two or three decades to address climate change issues. However, that is not to say that technology will not play an important role in shaping the industry’s future. The digital revolution, combined with sector technology evolution, is primed to disrupt the energy landscape and help organizations overcome core challenges in this area. Competitiveness will also be derived from the growing use of technologies and services at scale. This is a really important point when you think about competitiveness. Who would have imagined 15 years ago that renewables could compete with existing nuclear?

Further, sector technologies, such as renewables, hybrid farms, storage, hydrogen, or the smart grid, in conjunction with intelligent automation such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), and the internet of things (IoT), can create meaningful impact – far more than the deep technologies by themselves. For example, advances in intelligent automation will continue to decrease the cost of renewables by enabling the development of hybrid farms. In order to enable a larger share of variable renewable energy in the energy mix, utilities can shift from an experimentation mindset to at-scale deployment of the smart grid. In turn, the increased use of the smart grid will improve system reliability by managing key attributes of intermittency and distribution of new energy sources as they are added to the system.

What closing thought would you like to leave with readers?

The world is not changing fast enough. Even areas such as Europe, which are leading global efforts, are not aggressive enough in terms of their climate agenda. Again, there is no silver bullet solution, no technological breakthrough expected to address these issues. And so, we need to act – every country, every company, every consumer.

To learn more about the key findings of Capgemini’s research, read The Future of Energy report or download the most recent edition of the World Energy Markets Observatory (WEMO).  

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Jim Hutcherson Principal, Capability Cross Cut Mr. Hutcherson is the Technology Capability Lead and Salesforce Practice Lead.  In this role, he is responsible for the overall management of Technology, Cloud and SaaS solutions, including deliverable quality and service level achievement, with a goal of working closely with clients to design, develop, and enhance scalable solutions that meets client needs.

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Manufacturing companies have a big appetite for 5G.

That was the top-line takeaway from a 2019 survey conducted by Capgemini Research Institute, which explored how next-gen networks will benefit industrial operations.

After surveying around 800 manufacturing and “asset-intensive” companies across the world, researchers found that 75% of respondents believe 5G will unlock their digital transformation within five years. In terms of importance, 5G ranked second only to cloud (at 84%) among nine key technology and innovation enablers. What’s more, these companies are willing to pay a premium to get it.

“We concur that the long-term impact of 5G is huge,” says Karl Bjurstrom, EVP of Capgemini Invent. “We think there’s money to be made now.”

Read the full article on Forbes

Cooper Standard, headquartered in Novi, Michigan US, is a leading global supplier of systems and components for the automotive industry. Products include sealing, fuel and brake delivery, and fluid transfer systems. Cooper Standard employs approximately 28,000 people globally and operates in 21 countries around the world.

Our work with Cooper Standard is a true partnership. We began with the company when it needed to move all its facilities to a single instance of SAP. Cooper Standard had made a number of acquisitions and therefore ended up with multiple systems around the world. The goal was to create one global standardized template.

We jointly developed a roadmap so it could accelerate the roll-out to the more than 70 global locations. Last year, we decided it made more sense to move everyone to SAP S/4HANA rather than continue with the remaining locations on SAP ECC.

The key drivers for the migration were

• Digital access rights – With Industry 4.0 and robotic process automations, the user-based license model has become obsolete and a need for digital access has thus a potential liability exposure for organizations.
• Business growth​ – Establish a platform to meet current and projected growth objectives, including non-automotive cross industries. ​
• Modernization​ –  Cloud migration, system performance, data, analytics, and user experience are updated and improved​.
• Features/capability​ – The latest versions of the applications include the regulatory changes and many updated or new functional capabilities​
• Simplification/user experience​ – Many of the capabilities and functionality have been included in the base applications allowing some applications to be decommissioned​
• End of life​ – Maintenance on software and hardware is at or nearing end of life.​

Doing the implementation this way means Cooper Standard can improve processes incrementally rather than engaging in the usual monstrous change-management activities and the issues that come with that approach. It allowed the company to shift to a new technology, get a better baseline of the possibilities, and have a smoother roll-out of SAP S/4HANA across the entire organization.

The roll-out was a significant undertaking. The SAP S/4HANA 1809 conversion project included 74 plants in North and South America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. It needed to support 12 languages, six million business transaction a day, and 6,350 users, migrated from on-premises to the cloud along with the conversion of the software and data.

SAP S/4HANA means Cooper Standard can move to a new SAP data center as part of its cloud-first, mobile-first strategy. It now has a clear roadmap to enable new business functionality and explore new business models.

We expect other automotive suppliers will look at this model for their move to SAP S/4HANA. Cooper Standard benefited from using Capgemini’s close partnership with SAP, our in-depth expertise in Automotive and our global presence.

Change management can be disruptive but tapping into the power of SAP S/4HANA now will help Cooper Standard remain an automotive leader.

Mike Latkovic is passionate about helping clients achieve positive outcomes, capture big opportunities, and solve tough challenges. He is the North American Automotive Supplier Leader and works with clients to evolve and adjust in this very dynamic market. He can be reached at mike.latkovic@capgemini.com.

Mike Latkovic

Expert in Asset management, Manufacturing

I cultivate and oversee Capgemini relationships in Manufacturing, ensuring we maximize value to our clients most critical efforts and help them achieve profitable outcomes.
I represent the full portfolio of Capgemini’s services utilizing our global reach and integrated team of professionals. I dedicate myself to serving Manufacturing oriented clients striving to optimize product, customer experience, revenue, and profitability.
I had the honor of serving as the Capgemini Program Manager and Client Partner for an enterprise process and capability transformation and ERP implementation for a Fortune 150 steel company, accelerating their commercial excellence and internal cross business unit collaboration.

The COVID pandemic has significantly decreased demand and disrupted the supply chains of manufacturers. As organizations look to ramp up production, they will need to completely revamp operating procedures. Health and safety – a key pillar of manufacturing – have taken on a whole new meaning in the current pandemic.

Manufacturers now need to adopt new procedures across all areas of operations, whether on the shop floor, in the break room, or even offsite. They require new sanitization routines, contact-less procedures, and to monitor temperature and other symptoms as well as monitor travel history or potential virus exposure for their crews. On-site workers need to change their behavior to include enhanced use of personal protective equipment (PPE), strict social distancing, restricted movements, and altered team structures, including predetermined pod structures with little intermingling. Additionally, operations managers need to conduct contact tracing if a crewmember falls sick.

Business impact of changing operation procedures

This new normal for manufacturing operations will have some implications for the business. It will mean that productivity on the shop floor will take a significant hit as shift sizes reduce and overlapping shift handovers are eliminated. Safety-related costs will also increase with manufacturers having to invest in increased training, new signage, more extensive sanitizing and cleaning routines, and so on. Additionally, the risk profiles of companies will be re-evaluated by the capital markets, and manufacturers with more automation (and therefore less risk) will be poised to receive favorable treatment.

Strategies that companies need to adopt now

While greater factory automation is a strategy that manufacturers will need to embrace in the long-term, short-term operational procedures focused on social distancing, contactless interactions, and contact tracing need to be adopted immediately. Digital tools built around mobile technologies, wearables, and analytics, coupled with training and behavior-modification exercises, can help manufacturers adapt quickly.  These are some actions that manufacturers can take now:

• Create a digital employee and visitor system that captures self-declarations and transactional data, like employee temperatures. Simple analytics and alerting can reduce the impact of common human errors.
• Leverage mobile apps that enable centralized and peer-to-peer communication while maintaining a history of contacts leveraging Bluetooth or GPS, depending on indoor or outdoor locations. They can also provide cues for safe behavior and offer insights to offset productivity challenges
• Enable Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons on personnel to ensure that social distancing norms aren’t violated. When set up in the plant, they provide zoning and exact indoor positioning, which also enables full contact tracing if needed.
• Use analytics from swipe systems or turnstiles in order to carry out contact tracing. Image analytics running on security camera footage can also be used for social distancing.
• Ensure the privacy of all employees by securing systems and using features like redaction and anonymization.

Taking the next step

By taking these steps today, manufacturers can significantly reduce the risk of plant closure by ensuring distancing guidelines are met and speeding up accurate contact tracing. These approaches will help maintain productivity and must be implemented right away. In this current pandemic, manufacturers must take to heart the adage “perfect must not be allowed to become the enemy of good.”

Capgemini has vast experience in building and deploying solutions for worker safety, leveraging wearables, IoT sensors, and mobile devices. These solutions are at the forefront of ensuring productivity and safety to the manufacturing, energy, utilities, and chemical industries, and have been expanded to meet the needs of the current pandemic.

Chiranth Ramaswamy

Expert in Digital Manufacturing, Pre-sales, Program Management

Senior Director, Capgemini
Every client has their own ambitions and each project its own objectives. No matter the goal, I believe technology is part of the solution and that it has power to achieve improvement and growth.
At Capgemini, I am a Senior Director who leads a Digital Solutions and Consulting team. My focus is on helping our clients leverage the latest technologies and business practices to pivot to the digital economy.
I am responsible for conceptualizing and developing software and business solutions, and for providing thought leadership to drive value for our clients and strengthen our partnerships. I also actively plan and execute outcome-focused technology initiatives.
Technology is my passion. I am fascinated by its potential to transform business, and therefore committed to helping our clients gain a competitive advantage through its use.
Some of my recent work includes
Building a business case for an S/4HANA-based digital transformation for a specialty chemical manufacturer with a revenue of $5 billion
Building an industrial IoT and big-data-based predictive-maintenance product, improving asset performance for a major company in the industrial-gas industry.
Before joining Capgemini, I led software development teams at Wipro and Tata. I had different responsibilities, including working with a global automobile company to drive down material costs and improve product-development workflows. I am also knowledgeable on supply chain. Whenever I can, I leverage my expertise in enterprise asset management, service management, and manufacturing to solve problems and deliver business benefits.
And another thing…
I love to travel. In my spare time, I also enjoy good books and playing with my kids.

In my first blog post in this series, I talked about the definition of AIOps and the five key processes for enabling AIOps in your organization: observe, contextualize, think, act, and learn. Many organizations are already working towards enabling these AIOps processes.

However, ensuring the success of these AIOps initiatives requires a pragmatic approach. A recent  Capgemini Research Institute report, The AI-powered enterprise: Unlocking the potential of AI at scale suggests that wide-scale deployment of AI is a challenge, with just 13% of organizations having scaled AI across multiple teams. One of the key findings is that organizations that deployed AI at scale are the ones that realized quantifiable benefits from their AI deployments.

Hence, it is especially important to pick the right AIOps use cases that not only provide the required scale but also deliver those benefits. So, what are the AIOps use cases and how do they help your organization’s automation journey?

A view of the AIOps use cases mapped to your AIOps maturity model is provided below. We recommend organizations look at this maturity model and enable the right AIOps use cases.

In my view the seven fundamental use cases for AIOps are:

1. Intelligent alerting – Intelligent alerting helps find abnormal behavior or anomalies based on past data using machine learning.
   This reduces the number of false alerts and not only enables prioritization and proactive alerting through incidents but can also recommend actions for self-remediation.
2. Intelligent co-relation – Finds connections between alerts from multiple systems using multiple criteria (e.g., event/alert times, frequency, topological proximity, contextual similarity, etc.) using machine learning.
   This enables automated correlation of alerts into actionable scenarios and recommends actions for self-remediation.
3. Single visualization – Of the business service or application and allows IT operation teams to see a single source of truth in order to visualize the system as a whole and enable self-remediation workflows.
   This reduces the mean time to detect and resolve incidents.
4. Causal analysis and self-remediation – Causal analysis allows the examination of all underlying components in order to identify root causes based on machine learning in which an automation-assigned confidence score drives self-remediation actions based on pre-defined self-heal solutions.
5. Predict outages and failures – Early warnings/alerts and prediction of outages based on learnings from past data using machine learning allow us to take early actions to prevent them.
   Reduction in critical outages saves millions of dollars in lost revenue or productivity loss. This also improves SLA compliance and reduces the number of incidents.
6. Capacity planning and resource management – Based on current use and forecasted trends, using AIOps enables proactive capacity upgrades, thus reducing outages and increasing overall resource utilization.
7. Change and impact analysis – Modelling system behavior using AIOps allows us to do impact analysis by simulating conditions and deploy the changes.

Picking the right use cases as per your AIOps maturity model enables you to scale your AIOps investments and realize quantifiable benefits. As organizations move up the maturity model, end-to-end automation can be realized through operational, predictive, and prescriptive use cases, thus enabling organizations to realize value through their AIOps investments.

To find out more about how our AIOps maturity model and intelligent automation platform can provide a unique blend of technology agnostic, agile approach to create enterprise wide AIOps (AI enabled IT operations) at scale, visit the Capgemini Intelligent Automation Platform (CIAP) web page.

To read the first of this series of blogs, where the author explores the definition of AIOps and why is it important for your organization, click here.

With restaurants needing to match customer expectations not just in food quality but, more importantly in a post-COVID scenario, in safe door delivery, the role of food delivery services has become critical.

The behemoth global online food-delivery services market is expected to touch $200 billion by 2025, according to Frost & Sullivan. North America has more than 10 online food-delivery companies; Grubhub, the largest player, accounts for more than one third of the market. Uber Eats is currently valued at $20 billion; with revenues of $1.4 billion annually and a presence in more than 670 cities on six continents, it delivers almost a billion meals every year. Europe’s Just Eat is present in eight countries in the region and holds more than 83% of the UK market. Interestingly, it recently acquired Grubhub for $7.3 billion. But the Asian markets rule, with a massive 55% share of the global online food-delivery market – with China alone registering over $34 billion in online food delivery revenues in 2018, according to that same study.

In other words, last-mile delivery is the biggest piece of the revenue pie in the restaurant business and it cannot be ignored.

Costs of last-mile delivery

Still, it is true that one of the biggest challenges this sector faces is profitability. Last-mile logistics is the most cost-intensive factor in the entire process of getting the food to the customer’s doorstep. A primary issue is that most of the process is still manual or executed with basic and siloed technologies. Ordering, routing, timely deliveries, billing, customer satisfaction – all face challenges. Even Amazon had to shut the doors on its Amazon Restaurants food-delivery service after the company attempted various strategies and even led a $575 million funding round for Deliveroo, a UK-based food-delivery company.

It’s not just a numbers game

The payoff in food delivery is more than just the valuations and revenue – the holy grail is actually the customer. The one who owns the last-mile delivery owns the customer’s loyalty. Take a typical family weekend dinner or even a meal for one: the food that gets ordered is influenced by the delivery app. Who delivers faster, has more restaurant options, provides lower delivery charges? These are the deciding factors. Some even have loyalty programs that deliver more value for money. So, the big factor at stake in the valuation chain here is brand loyalty.

Delivered by technology

While every business model is constantly iterating, last-mile delivery services are particularly challenged, and more so now in the post-COVID scenario. Some of the companies that have gotten it right adapted a suite of technologies to realize their goals. AI, data analytics, and machine learning play a significant role in enhancing real-time, micro-optimization of dynamic demand supply. Cloud technologies and automation play a huge role in significantly bringing down costs.

The customer is still at the heart of the experience. Apps that are built using AI and data analytics provide personalized and curated choices to customers that go a long way in attracting the customer’s loyalty. This, combined with an intuitive UX, will have the customer reaching for the app every time hunger strikes.

A great last-mile delivery service that delights consumers will go a long way towards attracting and retaining customers and significantly enhancing revenues.

Figure 1: Capgemini Research Institute Last-mile delivery consumer survey, Oct–Nov, 2018, N=2,874 customers

To learn more about Capgemini’s Restaurants & Retail practice, contact Lokesh Chawla, Director of Strategy, Execution and Global Sales at Capgemini for Retail, CPG, Logistics & Distribution at lokesh.chawla@capgemini.com .

Lokesh Chawla

Lokesh Chawla is a Principal leading the restaurant sector for Capgemini, where he is responsible for strategy development and industry-specific solutions for Capgemini’s restaurant customers.
In his most recent role as restaurant industry leader, Lokesh focused on building solutions globally and in-market to drive business value for clients, with a focus on Guest Experience Platforms, Restaurant Management and Operations, Menu Management, Restaurant Analytics, and Digital/Cloud solutions in and above the store.
Lokesh has 20 years of experience designing and delivering technology solutions and services to help restaurant operators to create frictionless guest experiences, franchises to run profitable restaurants, and restaurant team members to provide exceptional guest services. Lokesh has a global context of working and forming teams across North America, Europe, Asia and LATAM.

From addressing outages to repairing equipment, successful field-service operations are critical for telco, healthcare, and manufacturing companies. In these industries, providing a great customer experience is dependent on field services quickly and efficiently responding to problems or proactively working to prevent them.

Demand and capacity planning are the most crucial elements of successful field-service operations, ensuring that when there’s an issue it can be resolved quickly. However, companies face many challenges in planning adequate capacity of staff and resources, so technical resource utilization often falls well below optimal rates.

Challenges with resource planning and demand management

Too often, field-service operations are bogged down by manual, inefficient processes that prevent effective problem resolution. When they are unable to resolve the issue right away, material and logistics costs increase. Additionally, without appropriate planning, unexpected circumstances may mean missed appointments or failure to meet service commitments, which can result in costly penalties. Advances in technology have only added to the challenge by introducing additional complexity to these operations.

For effective demand and capacity planning, organizations need a better view into what drives fluctuations in requirements and to analyze data quickly enough to make timely and informed decisions. Though there are a variety of tools available to help, they generally aren’t sufficient for accurately estimating workloads. Typical limitations include volume caps, inability to scale, ineffectiveness at responding to business demands, and lack of automation. Current tools tend to focus on available data points, but accuracy is tougher to achieve when predicting new data points. Additionally, experts are generally needed to validate forecasts, which can be expensive and time-consuming.

AI/ML: The key to successful resource planning and demand management

With the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning, organizations can dramatically improve their approach to resource planning and demand forecasting for better field-service operations. With AI/ML, organizations can build robust forecasting solutions that are much more accurate for short- and long-term planning. In fact, we’ve found it’s possible to achieve a forecast accuracy of up to 95 percent using AI/ML. Additionally, algorithms can be trained on new data fed into the system, which means that, as more data is captured, planning becomes more accurate. Additionally, AI/ML solutions can be implemented on premises or in the cloud and be configured to accept data from various sources.

Better work-order forecasting

Thanks to increased accuracy, AI/ML can help organizations improve productivity, optimize resources, and improve both scheduling and response time. Capgemini recently worked with a geographically dispersed telco organization offering different types of services to leverage AI for better work-order forecasting. As a result, the company boosted productivity by 40 percent, reduced costs by 10 percent, and decreased both call volumes and resource utilization.

AI/ML isn’t currently being leveraged by many field-service providers but, given the widespread uptake of AI/ML, the time is right for organizations to take advantage. We recommend beginning with a pilot and then scaling to other sites. Additionally, it’s important to include both technical and process considerations when planning to use AI/ML. Because of the newness of the technology, organizations can face challenges with buy-in, talent, compliance, and security. However, the right partnership can solve these problems. Capgemini brings the experience and expertise in cloud and AI/ML to help you build and then optimize a solution that works for you.

Authors:

Pradyumna Pendse

Most companies lack the ability to run reports quickly enough for them to stay relevant. For example, in some companies, running a Materials Requirement Planning (MRP) report can take up to 12 hours. You can only run it once a day or even a couple of times a week.

That means the ability to run an MRP report in 20 minutes is a true competitive advantage, because it is close to real-time information. And if you need to, you can run another one to check your numbers or analysis. Standing in the way of doing this are complex and customized legacy ERP systems.

In the old ERP days, you had to develop solutions and then support and maintain them. An upgrade would affect the customization, and then you had to re-do the whole thing. SAP S/4HANA solves this data challenge. Its in-memory processing power delivers near real-time data. Companies can harness their information from data in the cloud and actually run reports that make a difference to the business. Moving to the cloud means you use the latest technologies all the time.

Do not approach SAP S/4HANA as a technical upgrade. This is not like upgrading SAP ECC. This platform gives companies the flexibility and agility to find new ways of working and new business models. Every industry is facing disruption and being nimble is the key to success. SAP S/4HANA drives innovation.

The in-memory processing means companies can access data in milliseconds. Now you can run multiple MRP reports in one day. The power of the cloud means SAP S/4HANA can crunch data at the speed of business. And, as you get more intelligence about your business you can make more informed decisions. This is one of the most important techniques for business operations in a disruptive environment  – focusing on exception management and “what-if” scenarios. SAP S/4HANA architecture, allowing in-memory processing of MRP, allows for more powerful event analysis and alerting; and embedded analytics and FIORI allows users to readily access data and seamlessly build what-if scenarios on the fly. This enables business self-service and helping change the mindset from an operational task-oriented system to true business decisioning.

If you want to explore artificial intelligence and machine learning, you need a trusted data pipeline. SAP S/4HANA can provide the data to power those technologies. It has embedded analytics to make reporting faster and easier. No more spreadsheets and tables. Employees will need to change how they work, but they will get to focus more on value-added activities rather than clerical duties. It is a new mindset.

Early adopters of SAP S/4HANA will have a competitive advantage. Do not approach this as a lift and shift, because then you will not realize the true benefits of the platform. It delivers more opportunities for growth, for innovation, and for exploring new technologies. It is time to seize the data advantage.

Mike Latkovic is passionate about helping clients achieve positive outcomes, capture big opportunities, and solve tough challenges. He is the North American Automotive Supplier Leader and works with clients to evolve and adjust in this very dynamic market. He can be reached at mike.latkovic@capgemini.com.

Mike Latkovic

Expert in Asset management, Manufacturing

I cultivate and oversee Capgemini relationships in Manufacturing, ensuring we maximize value to our clients most critical efforts and help them achieve profitable outcomes.
I represent the full portfolio of Capgemini’s services utilizing our global reach and integrated team of professionals. I dedicate myself to serving Manufacturing oriented clients striving to optimize product, customer experience, revenue, and profitability.
I had the honor of serving as the Capgemini Program Manager and Client Partner for an enterprise process and capability transformation and ERP implementation for a Fortune 150 steel company, accelerating their commercial excellence and internal cross business unit collaboration.