Why Your AI Strategy Must Go Beyond an Upgrade for A Faster RISE

Consider this statistic from recent SAPinsider research: 96% of organisations have executive mandates to explore or implement AI. However, the study has also found that these business leaders see AI adoption as directly linked to migrating their operations to the cloud. These contrasting figures present a unique dilemma.

Today’s businesses have bold ambitions for predictive analytics, generative AI-powered user experiences, and intelligent automation. However, their core systems are based on custom code, technical debt, and rigid processes that were built for a different era.

It is at this juncture that the conversation around RISE with SAP (SAP ERP Private) often gets mistranslated. Many organisations still view it as a mandatory technical upgrade, which is a complex, multi-year journey to the cloud with unclear ROI. However, the real value of RISE with SAP lies in the strategic business transformation that lays the essential groundwork for becoming a future-proof, AI-enabled enterprise.

How RISE Features Fuel Readiness

Organisations require a specialised engine to operate sophisticated AI. Due to its design, RISE with SAP builds this engine for the company. Here’s how:

• A Clean Core: Adopting a clean core approach through RISE means standardising processes and moving customisations to the periphery. This creates a stable, agile foundation where new AI services can be easily plugged in via APIs, rather than being surgically implanted with significant risk.
• SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP): If the clean core is the stable launchpad, BTP is the mission control and R&D lab. The organisation’s data scientists and developers can build, test, and deploy AI and machine learning models on this platform. Moreover, BTP is the integrated environment where these innovations come to life and are directly connected to core business processes without destabilising them.
• Inherent Scalability: AI consumes vast amounts of data and computational power, particularly during model training and large-scale inference. The hyperscaler infrastructure that underpins every RISE with SAP deployment provides the on-demand, elastic scalability needed to handle these intensive workloads.

Accelerating Migration with DXC Fast RISE

Organisations that seek an accelerated, business-focused approach to RISE with SAP turn to strategic accelerators like DXC Technology’s Fast RISE. This accelerator simplifies and speeds up an organisation’s SAP S/4HANA migration journey. The company’s proprietary technology helps businesses to:

• Get faster outcomes through DXC’s proven methodology that reduces time-to-value.
• Reduce costs, risks and disruption through automated and preconfigured migration accelerators
• Eliminate the complexity of legacy systems and processes during the migration process
• Reduce exposure to vulnerabilities of legacy systems by moving to a more secure, resilient platform
• Maximise SAP capabilities such as real-time analytics and AI to drive growth and transformation

DXC Technology’s approach is fundamentally business-centric. The company collaborates with business units to map their current processes against future-state ambitions, posing the key question: “In a world with AI, how should this process run?” The real digital transformation happens through this process redesign, turning technical migration into a strategic overhaul of how the organisation operates.

Thus, by untangling the past and redesigning for the future, Fast RISE delivers a modern ERP and a business that is ready to innovate.

What This Means for Mastering SAP Insiders

Mastering SAP Insiders should take note of the following steps so that they don’t let legacy complexity hold their future ambitions hostage:

1. Assess your foundation. An organisation’s vision for AI needs a solid launchpad. Take a hard look at the current landscape and ask if it’s an enabler or a roadblock. A workshop with SAP implementation partners, such as DXC, can help map the company’s current technical reality to its future business goals.
2. Blueprint your future state. A successful migration is achieved only by untangling past complexity, as it enables future innovation. An expert assessment can help the company define what to keep, what to discard, and how to redesign processes for an AI-first world.
3. Find your co-pilot. Organisations must see firsthand how an automated, business-centric approach can accelerate their journey and mitigate investment risk.