Vendor Collaboration for Automation

🚀 SAP and Google Cloud are joining forces in a collaboration that could reshape how SAP professionals interact with AI-driven workflows. 🤔👇 This shows how AI will influence how SAP consultants work, learn, and lead projects in the years ahead. 🔄 SAP and Google Cloud are co-founders of the Agent2Agent (A2A) Interoperability Protocol, an open standard for AI agent collaboration. It is a common language that allows AI agents from different vendors to work together in enterprise environments. 🧠 SAP is positioning Joule to be the primary agent in this AI system, integrating actions across business processes. Consultants will soon be leading projects where Joule coordinates agents in cross-application processes, reducing context-switching for users. 📡 The A2A protocol creates secure, real-time cooperation in a new kind of automation where agents initiate actions with each other without needing human prompts, which could accelerate SAP S/4HANA and cloud solution implementations. 🌐 SAP’s generative AI hub now supports Gemini 2.0 Flash and Flash-Lite. These offer multimodal reasoning and can be embedded within SAP BTP applications. This gives SAP customers access to high-speed, low-latency AI services tuned for enterprise-grade performance. 🧰 With Google’s Vertex AI now accessible through ABAP, developers can call Gemini models directly from SAP applications. This gives consultants new tools to build intelligent features within their client environments. It also allows tight integration between SAP core systems and AI services without needing third-party platforms. 🎥 SAP is using Google’s Video Intelligence and Speech-to-Text APIs (RAG) to power smarter training content. That means better, more searchable knowledge resources. The structured data from video indexing includes timestamps and metadata, making retrieval precise and contextual. 📈 By time-aligning video and audio insights, SAP allows users to retrieve context-specific information with precision. This directly improves support documentation, training, and knowledge management for SAP delivery teams. Consultants can expect more intelligent help systems, where training clips respond to real-time usage scenarios. 🛡️ This is happening within SAP’s governed, business-context-rich environment: giving reassurance for clients worried about data compliance, integrity, and governance. SAP ensures that AI operates within enterprise-grade boundaries, avoiding shadow AI or uncontrolled experimentation. 🤝 Both SAP and Google are committed to AI that is open, composable, and embedded in real workflows. The focus is on use cases like supply chain automation, finance process optimisation, and HR decision support. 🔮 AI agents can support consultants in everything from approvals to analytics. Expect to see these capabilities become part of everyday delivery models. Have you already seen AI changing your role? Share your thoughts in the comments below. ⬇️ #IgniteSAP #SAPAI #SAPInnovation

If your platform 𝗮𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗽𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝟯𝟬%, do you have the option to leave? 𝗶𝗳 𝗻𝗼𝘁, 𝗬𝗢𝗨'𝗥𝗘 𝗟𝗢𝗖𝗞𝗘𝗗 𝗜𝗡. When defining your technological stack for a long-term Intelligent Automation strategy, it is crucial to analyze vendor dependency and the ability to switch between different providers. 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗴𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲𝘀: When you're completely locked in a given vendor, every investment made in your initiative is tightly coupled with that specific vendor's dependency. Budget allocation and risk mitigation in your company might take this into account, and the scope of your initiative might be constrained. 𝗠𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 (𝗠&𝗔) 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: Microsoft acquired Softmotive, the creator of WinAutomation, in 2020. Following Microsoft's acquisition of Softmotive, the company made the decision to discontinue WinAutomation in favor of focusing exclusively on Power Automate. This left companies locked in with WinAutomation needing to find an alternative and invest in migration or discontinuation. 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗽𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝘂𝗿𝘀𝘂𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀: Some platforms used their strong bargaining power due to clients' dependency on raising prices abruptly. Clients depend on their platform to keep the automation in their company's core running and did not have the option to switch to another platform. 𝗠𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿: Migrating from one platform to another takes work and investment and demands time. A feasible strategy in the short term is adding another platform to your initiative and having the freedom to allocate your budget considering the relationship with each vendor. Since you're already adding a new platform, consider adding a new value composition like a platform that supports automation in code natively (without proprietary components), reducing lock-in and your total cost of ownership (TCO). 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗹 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗸-𝗶𝗻: Developing automation with open technologies and official SDKs from the best technology companies in the world is gaining momentum. This allows you to remove vendor lock-in in the development and component side and only depend on a platform for automation governance, security, and intelligence. We know governance is crucial, and you will need a platform for that, but now you have the option to leave a given vendor and deploy and manage your automation, developed in open technologies, in another platform. === 𝗗𝗿𝗼𝗽 𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝗗𝗠 for discussing your specific use case. 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸-𝗶𝗻: https://lnkd.in/dv7rsE46

📢 Proud to share our latest case study with the team at Machinage Piché and Genius Solutions. Machinage Piché has been designing and building custom automated equipment for the wood processing industry for over 40 years. Their procurement team was already running Genius ERP—but like many manufacturers, they were still juggling emails, PDFs, and shared drives to manage supplier communications and daily purchasing tasks. Together, we worked on a way to reduce the manual effort while keeping everything connected inside Genius ERP. A few months later, here’s what changed: ✅ Buyers are now 25x more efficient—cutting order processing time from ~50 minutes to just a few ✅ Tasks are easier to delegate, even between teams ✅ Supplier communication is centralized and proactive ✅ PDF quotes and confirmations are now automatically read and updated into Genius ERP In a context of ongoing supply chain disruptions, these gains in efficiency, visibility, and collaboration are key to helping the company stay agile and adapt to changing conditions. One of my favorite quotes from the project: "Since we've been using Axya, even some of our suppliers have become more proactive! And most importantly, we save an incredible amount of time thanks to automated supplier PDF reading and process automation. It's truly magical."  – Maude Guénette, IT Business Analyst, Machinage Piché Huge thanks to the team at Machinage Piché for their trust—and to Genius ERP for making this level of integration so seamless. Also, congratulations Alexandre Laliberté and Karim Besbes, for making this deployment in record time! You can find the whole case study here: https://lnkd.in/gCNHmzuZ #manufacturing #procurement #supplychain

Article I wrote for Forbes: Supply Chain Visibility: Only Possible With Supplier Collaboration. Meet Becky the Buyer. She’s a stone-cold procurement expert, & she’s an incredibly hard worker. Becky focuses a lot of her time communicating with suppliers, doing everything she can to stay in the know about orders, line changes and shipments. Becky rules. When Becky’s information is accurate, forecasting, demand planning and inventory planning are much easier and much more accurate. When her information is outdated or erroneous, issues arise quickly. Unfortunately, most of the time, it’s outdated or erroneous. At the root of Becky’s problem is a lack of true visibility across the supply chain. She and her team don’t have it because they rely on email & spreadsheets to communicate with suppliers and collect the information they need. Emails & spreadsheets?! 2010 called and they want their manual processes back. Disruptions are more common than ever, so you as a supply chain leader must be able to ascertain the problem, develop a solution and pivot quickly to mitigate risk and protect cash flow. If a shipment is going to be late or partial, you need to know immediately—not in a day or two when the email is found in a cluttered inbox (or worse, when the shipment arrives on the dock). I interview supply chain leaders every day who experience many of these same challenges. Their buyers are overloaded with clerical work, the process is slow and error-prone and they don’t really know the full story of what’s going on across the supply chain. Of course, there’s a solution to all this madness, and technology provides it. Modern supplier collaboration solutions bring buyers together with their suppliers in software that consolidates communication and automates the PO workflow from beginning to end. Instead of hoping to catch an email in a stack of emails, Becky’s team is notified the instant a message is sent. All communication happens within the context of specific POs, so everyone is always on the same page. At any moment of the day, Becky can see exactly what’s happening with an order—every last update, line change & acknowledgment. All of this information is written directly into the ERP, which eliminates the need for error-prone manual entry & guarantees the data is much more accurate. Now, demand planning and inventory planning are more accurate and forecast adjustments can be made quickly when new information is available. This exchange of information between buyers and suppliers is true collaboration. Without that seamless connection, there is no complete visibility and everything downstream is affected. A collaboration solution can provide real-time supplier scorecards so you can monitor on-time delivery, responsiveness and other critical key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be tailored to specific suppliers. We call this mutual accountability. 👉👉Full article: bit.ly/3qMYHe4