AI and Cloud ERP: From Operational Excellence to Competitive Advantage

For several decades now, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Systems have formed the backbone of core business processes – manufacturing, supply chain, project management, finance, human resources etc. – in organisations in every industry. They have come a long way since the early days of on-premises installations to evolve into AI-enabled, Cloud-based ERP systems.

Cloud ERP is transforming businesses by providing a level of scalability, agility, and accessibility that is beyond the reach of on-premises systems. The incorporation of AI (artificial intelligence) technologies is expanding these capabilities to drive automation, insight, and innovation across core operations. In the supply chain function, for example, the AI plus Cloud ERP combination is automating myriad tasks, from demand forecasting to inventory management to bottleneck identification, recommending next-best steps to enhance decision-making, and even triggering certain actions without human intervention. To illustrate, anticipating a supply disruption in a particular location, the solution recommends an alternative vendor to ensure there is no break in production.

Alongside optimising business processes, advances in generative AI and predictive analytics are opening up other possibilities, enabling enterprise systems with natural language capabilities and intelligent decision-making to drive competitive differentiation.

Enabling and initiating innovation

Packed with the cloud’s elastic compute and storage, and AI’s analytical prowess, AI plus Cloud ERP enables enterprises to gather and process vast structured and unstructured data into insights to automate various tasks, make faster, more accurate decisions, and also drive innovation. For example, financial institutions running core banking on the cloud can integrate and exchange data with their ecosystems to switch to innovative business models, such as financial and non-financial marketplaces, and embedded banking. Manufacturers can innovate multiple product design options meeting specific criteria at a speed and cost efficiency that is impossible with manual product development.

What’s more, as they learn and improve continuously from their environment, AI and Cloud ERP solutions can even initiate the innovation process by identifying target opportunities, highlighting improvement areas, and recommending actions to resolve various problems.

Improving customer service experiences

By combining AI solutions endowed with Natural Language Processing abilities with Cloud ERP, organisations can achieve significant improvement in customer relationship management operations. Chatbots and smart assistants can interact with customers using natural language to answer their queries, provide information, and even guide them through multi-step processes. Reachable 24/7 from anywhere in the world, these tools help customers resolve their problems quickly without depending on customer service executives, to minimise friction and improve satisfaction in customer service. Starting by assisting with routine tasks, chatbots are rapidly evolving in capabilities: for instance, while answering questions about a product or service – which is when customers are most engaged with a company’s offerings – they can present timely upselling / cross-selling propositions.

Optimising resources

With machine learning algorithms, predictive analytics, and Cloud ERP, enterprises can analyse huge quantities of data to discover patterns and correlations not visible to traditional analytical methods; this allows them to make superior decisions to maximise business outcomes. Consider resource management, for instance; by providing real-time visibility into resource consumption from end to end, AI technologies allow businesses to rationalise usage, allocate resources to activities that generate the most value, and arrest wastage, underutilisation, and other inefficient practices; predictive analytics enables enterprises to forecast demand and supply trends, and respond quickly to fluctuations in resource availability.

Beyond operations

There is hardly any area that Cloud ERP and AI do not impact. This powerful combination makes businesses more cost-efficient, productive, and agile; it empowers them with real-time intelligence so they can make informed decisions and create better innovations.  Continuously learning and improving on its own, AI-powered Cloud ERP makes sure enterprises are up-to-speed with new trends and developments. Thus, the latest ERP systems are not only the operational backbone of enterprises but also a major driver of competitive advantage.

Written By - Sreekumar Sreedharan, SVP and Service Offering Head, Oracle Practice, Infosys

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