It’s not just a tech refresh—it’s a bid to future-proof the company against industry upheaval and redefine what enterprise IT can deliver across a 6,000-user, 140-location footprint.

Semler’s legacy infrastructure included 45-year-old systems built on mainframes, Lotus Notes, and custom code. Reliable? Sure. Agile and scalable? Not so much.

“The system worked, but our customers demanded more,” says Christensen. “Volkswagen Group, our key OEM partner, expects digital innovation. Internally, our teams needed smarter workflows and real-time data. We couldn’t deliver that with old tech.”

Enter: a cloud-based ERP overhaul using Microsoft Dynamics 365, enhanced with Icelandic ISV Anetta’s automotive layer. With rollout scheduled for September 2026, Semler is staging a “big bang” go-live across 4,000 users in a single day. That means not just migrating data—but transforming processes, retraining staff, and building an entirely new operating model.—

Embracing Generative AI and Azure Innovation

Semler didn’t stop at Dynamics. The company has embedded Azure OpenAI into its ecosystem with a custom-built language model called “Semler GPT.” Originally a proof-of-concept Power App in 2023, the assistant has matured into a full enterprise AI companion.

“One use case is for our used-car sales advisors,” Christensen says. “They enter a registration number, and the AI pulls data from factory systems and our databases to generate a listing. It writes the ad with the right tone of voice—Audi luxury feels different than a Volkswagen Golf.”

Even more impressive? The tool also estimates optimal pricing by analyzing market dynamics and historical sales data.

But Christensen is clear: this isn’t about cutting jobs. “It’s about quality. Freeing up people’s time for more meaningful tasks. We’re not reducing FTEs—we’re raising the bar.”

Digital Adoption: Where Whatfix Fits In

Semler’s definition of transformation success isn’t just about deployment—it’s about adoption. “We talk about the J-curve,” Christensen explains. “Productivity drops right after go-live. But the faster we get our people climbing the curve again, the faster we unlock business value.”

That’s where Whatfix, a digital adoption platform, comes into play. “We’re integrating Whatfix with Semler GPT. So when users ask how to do something—like ‘create a sales order for a new car’—they’re not just shown a document. The AI starts the process for them. Eventually, agents may do the entire task.”

This “one interface to rule them all” vision is foundational to Semler’s user experience strategy. From booking time off to checking lunch menus, the enterprise interface is being simplified and reimagined through AI.

Data Readiness and Integration: Not Just a Checkbox

With AI, everything hinges on data readiness—and Christensen knows it.

“GDPR forced us to start cleaning customer data back in 2018,” he says. “Since then, every automation project has pushed us to mature our data governance.”

Even so, some use cases—especially customer-facing AI—are still out of reach. “We have high internal usage, like call-center assistants. But until data quality improves, exposing these tools externally isn’t feasible.”

To unify its systems, Semler built an integration platform in Azure. Over 200 integrations—ranging from OEM factory systems to tire partners—run through this layer. It’s not a traditional enterprise service bus, but rather a loosely coupled microservices model. “It gives us full control, auditability, and scalability,” Christensen says.

Industry Matters

Why Microsoft? The availability of a complete platform—ERP, cloud, AI, Power Platform, and Office 365—played a role, but Christensen says the ISV offering was the clincher.

“We needed a full-scale automotive solution,” he notes. “When we found out Anetta was building that on Dynamics, and that we already used Microsoft heavily, it made sense. That said, CE and Finance and Operations aren’t fully integrated. It’s not quite plug-and-play.”

Semler’s also helping shape the Anetta solution, providing requirements and helping the ISV meet Volkswagen certification standards. “It’s a co-build, not just an implementation,” Christensen says.

Looking Ahead: From AI to In-Car Commerce

Christensen sees the future filled with agentic AI, embedded services, and predictive analytics.

“We’re starting to support in-car commerce—apps people can buy directly from their car’s interface. That has to connect back to our ERP,” he explains. “We’re also investing in predictive inventory management. When you hold a car, you’re tying up a lot of capital. Forecasting demand more precisely will be crucial.”

As compute power increases and models evolve, Christensen expects more business decisions to be AI-assisted. But first? “Still a lot of data governance to do,” he admits with a smile.

What this means for ERP Insiders

ERP is now an ecosystem, not just a system. Semler’s transformation illustrates a broader market shift: ERP is no longer a monolith. It’s a foundation that’s only valuable when paired with cloud-native integration, AI augmentation, and continuous user enablement. Microsoft’s platform strategy—combining Dynamics 365 with Azure, Power Platform, and copilots—lets companies design modular, adaptive ecosystems. ERP leaders should not only focus on core functionality, but also on how AI agents, digital assistants, and self-healing data architectures amplify value across the entire process landscape.

AI is real, but readiness is everything. Semler GPT shows that even mid-sized companies can build custom AI assistants if they have the right cloud infrastructure, data models, and culture of experimentation. But most ERP customers are still in “data denial”—overestimating the cleanliness and usability of their information. Tech leaders must prioritize metadata enrichment, master data consolidation, and data governance policies now, or risk failing to operationalize AI even when tools like Whatfix or Microsoft Copilot become turnkey.

Digital adoption platforms could be the missing link. The biggest ROI blocker for ERP investments isn’t architecture—it’s behavior. Semler’s pairing of Whatfix with AI assistants provides a compelling blueprint for how to accelerate user adoption and shorten the post-go-live productivity dip. By embedding training, guidance, and automated workflows directly into the user interface, companies can shift from “train the user” to “empower the user.” For Microsoft Dynamics customers especially, combining Whatfix’s contextual guidance with Azure-native AI could be a game-changer for long-term ERP success.

The post From Mainframe to Microsoft: Semler’s Epic ERP Overhaul to Drive a Data-Powered, AI-Enabled Automotive Empire appeared first on ERP Today.

After assessing their legacy platforms like NetSuite, Workday, and Salesforce, Fluence determined that they wouldn’t scale to $10 billion in revenue. The team initiated a 13-month SAP implementation covering finance, supply chain, analytics, and sustainability. The result? A 99.7% clean core SAP deployment on Google Cloud via RISE with SAP. “We couldn’t afford custom processes,” Crounse said. “Clean core and standardization were essential to scale at this velocity.”

Speed, in fact, has been a strategic mantra for Crounse. “Speed over perfection,” he says. “In hypergrowth, an MVP mindset is critical. You can’t wait for perfect—you iterate, pivot, and move.”

Listen to this podcast from SAP Sapphire 2025, where Crounse speaks with ERP Today’s Mark Vigoroso on Fluence’s SAP journey and how its large SAP footprint is the result of an “end-to-end orchestration—from project inception to delivery and long-term asset maintenance.”

The post In Hypergrowth, an MVP mindset is critical: Dean Crounse on Fluence’s Journey with SAP appeared first on ERP Today.

Thomas Saueressig, SAP Board Member for Product Engineering, opened the keynote by reminding the crowd that “the pace of change has never been this fast—and yet it will never be this slow again.” He emphasized that transformation today is the foundation for tomorrow’s resilience. “We shipped, we delivered, but we cannot stop here,” he stated, citing customers’ demand for “faster time-to-value, innovation cycles, and cost control.”

But this keynote was different. Less monologue, more dialogue. Throughout, live audience polling was used to surface concerns, with one striking result: 40% of the world’s GDP is now touched by customers using Rise with SAP. SAP Sapphire 2025 showcased a confident, customer-aligned SAP—one that understands its own complexity and is willing to rewire itself alongside its users. “The best is yet to come,” promised SAP’s new Chief Customer Officer. But for enterprise leaders, the time is now. Transform not because it’s trendy—but because today’s decisions, like SAP says, “will shape tomorrow’s resilience.”

From Legacy to Lift-Off: Mercedes-Benz, Mars, Phoenix Global

Mercedes-Benz, a symbol of precision engineering and innovation, shared how it’s tackling complexity head-on. With over 10,000 enterprise applications—1,200 of them SAP-related—CIO Cathey Lehman turned to Rise with SAP to rationalize and modernize the company’s digital core. “We grouped and tackled systems using the TIME method—transform, invest, migrate, eliminate,” she explained. More than just cloud migration, this strategy underpins Mercedes’ AI ambition, from engineering (via GitHub Copilot) to a natural-language interface for shop-floor problem solving.

“We’re leveraging AI across our entire value chain,” Lehman emphasized. “We’ve deployed our internal ChatGPT-like solution, and we’re excited to expand with SAP’s Joule and Business AI stack.”

At Phoenix Global, a metals and mining company, the transformation story was existential. After explosive growth led them into bankruptcy, new CIO Jeff Salentros spearheaded a radical reboot: eight sites replatformed in 8 months using SAP Public Cloud ERP. “We ripped out everything—paper and pen, fragmented systems—and replaced it with best-practice SAP,” said Salentros. “We’ve already returned millions through better equipment maintenance, utilization, and embedded AI.” It’s a textbook example of cloud ERP enabling not just operational agility, but financial recovery.

Mars Inc. highlighted the scaling power of SAP’s three-tier ERP strategy. The confectionery giant runs flagship brands like M\&M’s and Snickers—but it’s their newer acquisitions (True Fruit, Kind Snacks, Nature’s Bakery) that demanded a flexible ERP backbone. CIO Bill discussed how Mars deploys SAP Public Cloud for agile startups, a Rise instance for retail, and a customized S/4HANA template for its core operations. “It allows small businesses to plug in fast and scale,” he said. VP Praveen Muthuraj added, “With model-driven architecture and embedded analytics, we’ve seen huge productivity gains—especially from Joule and real-time automation.”

The Age of Agentic ERP: SAP’s Response to AI Uncertainty

Amid enthusiasm for AI, the audience revealed a common concern: data remains the biggest barrier to value realization. SAP responded with a clear direction—business-ready AI, embedded natively, governed responsibly.

With the SAP AI Foundation and Joule, SAP aims to democratize AI across finance, HR, procurement, and operations. Embedded copilots will become ubiquitous, from quality issue detection on factory floors to onboarding via natural language prompts. “This isn’t just AI—it’s agentic AI,” said Thomas, referring to SAP’s vision of interconnected, autonomous agents coordinating tasks, governance, and outcomes across the enterprise.

SAP also unveiled a new partnership with AWS, offering a “dedicated AI co-innovation fund” to accelerate industry-specific AI applications built on SAP BTP using AWS models and infrastructure. This move signals SAP’s commitment to unlocking verticalized, customer-defined AI without the technical sprawl or cost typically associated with custom builds.

Complexity: The Silent Killer of Productivity

A striking revelation came during a poll about enterprise application growth. In 2000, the average $10B company ran just 10 core applications. In 2025? Over 600. The cloud has enabled rapid adoption—but at the cost of fragmentation.

Christian Klein’s message was clear: “More technology doesn’t equal better business outcomes. In fact, global productivity growth has declined—despite SaaS explosion.” From 1995–2005, productivity grew 2.6%. From 2005–2025? Just 1.5%. SAP’s proposed antidote: an integrated, harmonized enterprise foundation, powered by Business Technology Platform (BTP), unified data models, and embedded AI.

Saueressig reinforced the point with use cases:

• BHP created $500M in value by using Signavio to orchestrate process redesign and shared services reinvention.
• Nestlé reclaimed 105M work hours by leveraging SAP Enable Now across 200+ applications.
• First Abu Dhabi Bank reduced its application landscape by 25%—streamlining cost and complexity.

What this means for ERP Insiders

Reinvent your core with fit-to-suite, not fit-to-standard. SAP’s evolution of Rise with SAP—from “fit to standard” to “fit to suite”—is more than marketing lingo. It reflects a new model of cloud ERP implementation: one that embraces tailored lifecycle orchestration, custom dashboards, and embedded AI for transformation readiness. CIOs should evaluate SAP’s new transformation prep services and explore toolchains that cut project costs by 30%—critical at a time when many SAP S/4HANA programs still run in the $100M+ range. For example, Mercedes-Benz’s use of AI-guided migration is a leading model worth emulating.

Use AI as a business lever, not a side project. SAP’s embedded Joule copilot and BTP-based agentic AI framework are designed to operationalize AI at scale, from procurement to HR. But successful adoption depends on unified data models and strong governance. Mars’ model-driven architecture and tiered ERP rollout show how to scale AI across M&A-heavy portfolios. Tech leaders should build AI competency centers and partner with SAP on use-case co-creation—particularly via the new AWS/SAP AI fund. Start with low-lift, high-impact scenarios like maintenance scheduling or finance forecasting to prove value.

Tame application sprawl—focus on integrated outcomes. The statistic that productivity has dropped despite a 60x increase in application count is a wake-up call. Instead of expanding toolsets, CIOs should consolidate workflows around unified platforms. SAP’s BTP, Signavio, and Business Data Cloud (BDC) provide foundational capabilities to align business processes, enable reuse, and simplify integration. Start by auditing your application portfolio and building a business capability map to drive rationalization. As Phoenix Global’s turnaround showed, even a complete rip-and-replace can be profitable if guided by simplicity and standardization.

The post SAP Sapphire 2025 Customer Keynote: “Bring Out Your Best” and Reinvent the Future of Enterprise ERP appeared first on ERP Today.

It’s also critical to streamline, simplify and automate business procedures, from receiving raw materials to delivering products to customers. After all, efficient operations are a key differentiator for the best performing players in the fresh produce industry. This is where a state-of-the-art enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution comes in.

The right ERP software will make an immediate positive impact, providing specialized tools for the fresh produce industry, facilitating your processes and promoting visibility of vital information. By choosing and deploying a top-tier system, you can streamline your entire supply chain into one seamless workflow, boosting profitability and customer satisfaction.

Stay ahead of market demands and changes by taking full advantage of what the right technology solutions have to offer. Invest the necessary time and energy into researching your options so that you can move forward with confidence. Make your organization’s digital transformation a strategic move, not a leap of faith.

Download the Buyer’s Guide

The post The Fresh Produce ERP Buyer’s Guide: Finding the Right Solution for Your Business’s Needs appeared first on ERP Today.

Between tough competition, changes in consumption patterns and increasing costs for raw
materials, utilities and logistics, beverage businesses today face significant challenges. No
longer are natural flavors, aromas, sweeteners and water the only vital ingredients for success in the market.

It’s also critical to streamline, simplify and automate business procedures, from receiving
raw materials to delivering products to customers. After all, efficient operations are a key
differentiator for the best-performing players in the beverage industry. This is where a modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution comes in.

The right ERP software will make an immediate positive impact, providing specialized tools for the beverage industry, facilitating your processes and promoting visibility of vital information. By choosing and deploying a top-tier system, you can streamline your entire supply chain into one seamless workflow, boosting profitability and customer satisfaction.

Don’t fall behind the curve. Invest the necessary time and energy into researching your options so that you can move forward with confidence. Take the next step in your organization’s digital transformation.

Download the Buyers Guide

The post The Beverage ERP Buyer’s Guide: Finding the Right Solution for Your Business’s Needs appeared first on ERP Today.

Unit4 is a major player in this arena, offering a purpose-built platform that empowers public organizations to reimagine how they operate, serve, and adapt in an increasingly complex world. Its platform integrates core capabilities such as Financials, Budgeting and Financial Planning & Analysis, Fixed Assets, Procurement, Human Capital Management (HCM), Payroll, Travel Expenses, and Project Lifecycle Management. This comprehensive suite is delivered through a single, unified system—eliminating siloed tools and rationalizing the back-office technology landscape. 

By consolidating functions on one platform, organizations can reduce the total cost of ownership, increase operational transparency, and improve service reliability. The consistent user experience and centralized data architecture enable faster decision-making, easier compliance with statutory requirements, and better cross-departmental collaboration. 

Unit4 supports digital transformation by automating routine transactions and streamlining back-office functions, allowing organizations to shift their focus toward higher-value, citizen-facing activities.  

“The migration has reduced the time spent on manual routine work, making finance teams more productive, and offering an enhanced user experience,” said Duncan Squires, Finance Systems Manager at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which deployed Unit4 ERP in 2020. 

Crucially, Unit4’s flexible architecture supports interoperability with other systems, enabling seamless data integration and simplifying statutory reporting. Its open approach ensures that public sector organizations can evolve their technology stack without disrupting critical operations—an essential requirement in today’s fast-changing environment. 

Modernizing internal systems is only part of the equation. Unit4 also helps public sector organizations build a more engaged, digitally empowered workforce. With embedded tools for talent management, training, and recruitment, the platform supports workforce development and retention initiatives while providing employees with easy-to-use tools that improve productivity and morale. Built-in predictive analytics and contextual insights help decision-makers understand operational dependencies, allocate resources effectively, and adapt to evolving demands. 

“A manager can see that they have spent 60% of their budget, right down to individual cost line items and expenses. They can look at the labor by employee, by team or function. Armed with these insights, they can better plan how to allocate the balance of the budget, ensuring they don’t overspend,” said Tyson Ganske, Finance Planning Manager at the City of Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada, which deployed Unit4 in 2021. 

At the citizen level, Unit4’s platform enables rapid reconfiguration of services to meet changing needs, enhancing agility in areas like healthcare, education, infrastructure, and housing. By automating administrative processes, organizations can redeploy staff and resources to improve front-line services. Importantly, the platform ensures that sensitive data is managed securely and in compliance with relevant legal and regulatory frameworks. 

What this means for ERP Insiders 

Unifying operations on a single platform reduces complexity, improves control, and lowers costs. Many public sector organizations struggle with fragmented systems and siloed processes across finance, HR, procurement, and planning. Unit4’s integrated platform consolidates these functions into a single, cloud-based solution, reducing the administrative burden and IT overhead associated with managing multiple systems. This streamlined architecture enables better data visibility, enhances auditability, and supports more consistent decision-making—while also lowering total cost of ownership through simplified support and maintenance. 

Automation and integration free up resources to improve citizen-facing services. By automating time-consuming back-office processes—such as payroll, budgeting workflows, expense tracking, and compliance reporting—Unit4 allows public institutions to shift focus from transactional tasks to mission-critical outcomes. The platform’s ability to integrate with existing systems and technology stacks further ensures smooth data exchange and reduces manual intervention. As a result, teams can reallocate capacity toward areas like public health, education, and infrastructure, enhancing the quality and responsiveness of citizen services. 

Modern tools enable agile planning, scenario modeling, and long-term resilience. Public sector leaders need tools that support proactive planning and rapid adaptation. Unit4 delivers capabilities such as predictive analytics, in-context reporting, and what-if scenario modeling, allowing organizations to simulate budgetary outcomes, manage financial risk, and forecast resource needs. These features help decision-makers build more resilient operations, ensure accountability, and stay aligned with evolving policy and community demands. 

The post Transforming Public Sector Operations with Unit4 appeared first on ERP Today.

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At the heart of that journey: SAP. But for Crounse, this wasn’t a routine ERP upgrade. “This was not just about SAP—it was a digital transformation and simplification mandate,” he says. “We needed a platform that could orchestrate our global supply chain and help us deliver massive $300 million projects on time, or face serious financial penalties.”

Fluence doesn’t manufacture batteries—it orchestrates them. Its business model revolves around designing, delivering, and maintaining utility-scale energy storage systems that stabilize power grids around the world. That requires real-time visibility into a vast, globally distributed supply chain and contract manufacturing network—something Crounse says only SAP could deliver at scale.

After assessing their legacy platforms like NetSuite, Workday, and Salesforce, Fluence determined that they wouldn’t scale to $10 billion in revenue. The team initiated a 13-month SAP implementation covering finance, supply chain, analytics, and sustainability. The result? A 99.7% clean core SAP deployment on Google Cloud via RISE with SAP. “We couldn’t afford custom processes,” Crounse said. “Clean core and standardization were essential to scale at this velocity.”

Speed, in fact, has been a strategic mantra for Crounse. “Speed over perfection,” he says. “In hypergrowth, an MVP mindset is critical. You can’t wait for perfect—you iterate, pivot, and move.”

That mindset also shaped how Fluence approached its implementation partners. While Deloitte handled the front end, Crounse emphasized the importance of transition planning. “I didn’t want to be on the consultant drug forever,” he joked. “We deliberately brought in a boutique partner and built a global delivery model to move from lights-on support to sustainable internal operations.”

Fluence’s SAP footprint is large: it spans S/4HANA, SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), Integrated Business Planning (IBP), Sustainability Control Tower, and Signavio. “This wasn’t a finance-only project,” Crounse emphasized. “It was about end-to-end orchestration—from project inception to delivery and long-term asset maintenance.”

With installations across 24 countries and a growing physical presence in strategic markets like India, Germany, and the U.S., Fluence’s localization strategy relies heavily on SAP’s global capabilities. “Made-in-America is part of our strategy, but so is ‘sold-by-Germans-in-Germany’—it’s about being present where sustainability matters most,” Crounse said.

SAP’s role at Fluence also extends into sustainability and AI. As a green energy company, Fluence is exploring SAP Green Ledger and other emerging tools. “We were one of the first to sign up for RISE,” says Crounse. “But I’ve told SAP: I don’t want to be half-in. We need end-to-end cloud-native capabilities, especially as we lean into AI and agent-based operations.”

While Crounse doesn’t foresee AI fundamentally reshaping Fluence’s core engineering work in the short term, he does see operational use cases exploding. “Can I cut my development team by 20% with GenAI? Can we automate testing or generate telemetry insights from our battery systems? These are the questions I’m asking today,” he said.

Fluence’s systems already collect data from thousands of IoT-connected devices, calling home to report temperature changes, performance degradation, or potential safety risks. “Our Battery Management System (BMS) sends alerts like: ‘I’m overheating—turn me down or I’ll shorten my lifespan,’” said Crounse. “This telemetry is where GenAI and SAP tools like AI Core and the Sustainability Control Tower can have real impact.”

The value isn’t just internal. Fluence’s long-term strategy revolves around recurring revenue from post-installation service and maintenance—an area that increasingly relies on smart analytics, AI, and predictive maintenance driven by SAP’s integrated platform capabilities.

For those embarking on similar journeys, Crounse offers straightforward advice: “Keep moving. You won’t hire perfect candidates, you won’t scope perfect processes—but the faster you move, the faster you learn, pivot, and scale. That’s how we’re building Fluence for the long run.”

What this means for ERP insiders

Think clean core for real scale. Fluence’s 99.7% clean core SAP deployment allowed it to grow from $900 million to $4 billion in two years—without tripping over customization bloat. For CIOs facing hypergrowth, clean core isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a requirement. SAP S/4HANA’s standardized processes and modular extensions (like SAP BTP and Signavio) let companies move fast while retaining governance and future-proofing their enterprise stack.

Make your supply chain predictive, not reactive. Fluence treats its global supply chain as a dynamic network, not a linear chain. SAP IBP and SAC provide forward-looking insights that help avoid penalties for late delivery on $300M projects. Tech leaders should invest in predictive analytics and supply chain orchestration platforms that turn data into timely action—especially in capital-intensive industries like energy, aerospace, and automotive.

Lean into sustainability and AI – but don’t get stuck in pilots. From Green Ledger to AI-generated code, Fluence is moving beyond buzzwords. CIOs should evaluate how SAP’s AI Core, Joule, and Sustainability Control Tower integrate with real business scenarios. Don’t pursue AI as a science project—pursue it to reduce headcount where possible, automate processes, and deliver smarter service to customers already demanding accountability and uptime.

The post From SAP Sapphire 2025: Fluence Commits to ‘Speed Over Perfection’ on Hypergrowth Trajectory with SAP appeared first on ERP Today.

“We needed a platform that could handle global scale, localization, and compliance right out of the box,” said Christensen. SAP provided that foundation early on, enabling Jabil to achieve SOX compliance while supporting lean, highly standardized operations. Over time, SAP’s role has expanded, powering everything from supply chain management to finance and regulatory compliance.

Today, Jabil runs the majority of its operations on just two SAP instances across 135 global sites. That’s an anomaly in the enterprise world, where 20 or more instances are not uncommon. “We’re consolidating even further,” Christensen noted. “And that simplicity is a strategic asset—it’s what gives us the ability to respond to tariffs, chip shortages, or pandemics in real time.”

That ability to respond swiftly and intelligently underpins Jabil’s definition of resilience. SAP, acting as the company’s single system of record for supply chain data, enables real-time analytics and scenario modeling across operations. During the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent supply chain turbulence, this data backbone allowed Jabil to make instant adjustments and reconfigure supply models—without waiting 12 hours for an analyst to re-run reports.

“It may sound simple, but having the right data at the right time changed how we survived disruption,” Christensen said. “That’s what resilience looks like.”

Jabil’s move from ECC to S/4HANA is another example of its pragmatic innovation. Initially, the company piloted a Greenfield implementation. But after assessing organizational impact, they pivoted to a Brownfield approach. That decision, supported by SAP MaxAttention and advisory services, enabled Jabil to migrate 250 accounts to SAP S/4HANA within 18 months—at enterprise scale.

SAP’s ongoing innovation in AI has caught Christensen’s attention as well. Jabil was an early adopter of AI and machine learning, using them to improve forecasting and automate processes through RPA and NLP. Now, with the rise of generative and agentic AI, Jabil is evaluating SAP Joule and other emerging tools—but with a healthy dose of skepticism.

“We exist in a hybrid environment—on-premise, cloud, Rise with SAP—and we’re not going to rewrite everything overnight. We need to understand how tools like Joule complement our current stack and where the ROI really is,” he said.

That demand for value realization is a recurring theme. Christensen emphasized the importance of holding partners accountable—not just for delivery, but for outcomes. “I pay SAP a lot,” he said, half-joking. “I want net-new value from what I’m already paying, not just more licenses. That means tangible ROI from the tools we’ve already bought.”

This pragmatic mindset extends to Jabil’s entire innovation strategy. “We don’t invest in the shiniest object,” Christensen said. “We invest in what moves a metric. If we can’t see a business case in a few weeks, we shut it down.” That fail-fast, scale-fast mentality allows Jabil to stay competitive without becoming chaotic.

Jabil also leverages SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), SAP Integration Suite, and Signavio to drive business architecture maturity, connect legacy systems, and manage compliance across diverse regulatory environments. They’ve prioritized integration layers, document management, and GTM alignment tools to future-proof their SAP investment.

That investment is also about people. As AI agents evolve, Christensen sees the opportunity not as replacing jobs but as augmenting employees—especially in manufacturing and supply chain roles. “Yes, we’re rebalancing the workforce,” he said. “But it’s about removing the menial tasks so employees can do higher-value work. That’s the real power of AI.”

He also believes that workforce transformation will be driven by generation shifts. “More digital natives are entering the workforce, and they expect systems to work like their phones. We have to design for that.”

Ultimately, Jabil’s vision is one of controlled transformation—moving quickly, but never recklessly. “We have a North Star,” Christensen concluded. “And every technology decision—whether it’s SAP, AWS, or GenAI—is about getting us closer to that vision without losing what makes us operationally excellent.”

What this means for ERP Insiders

Prioritize simplicity in global ERP strategy. Jabil runs its global operations with just two SAP instances across 135 sites. For ERP leaders, that’s a compelling argument for consolidation and standardization. By minimizing ERP sprawl, organizations can unlock agility, reduce risk, and improve response times during disruption. SAP customers should evaluate the feasibility of single-instance strategies using SAP S/4HANA, Integration Suite, and BTP to centralize operations.

Embed real-time decision support in supply chain operations. Christensen highlighted that Jabil’s ability to re-run supply models in minutes was critical to their pandemic and tariff resilience. SAP customers should focus on embedding real-time analytics using SAP HANA Cloud and SAP Analytics Cloud to enable instant scenario modeling. Resilience is about responsiveness—and that starts with trustworthy, accessible data.

Invest in AI use cases that augment, not replace. Jabil’s approach to GenAI is rooted in augmentation—freeing up supply chain professionals and analysts to focus on what matters most. SAP customers can replicate this with Joule and SAP AI Core, targeting use cases like invoice reconciliation, contract analysis, and demand forecasting. When AI removes low-value tasks, humans can focus on strategic impact.

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