Blogs

AI Era Ushers in Drones as Infrastructure Inspectors and Algorithms as Failure Predictors

At the IFS Connect North America 2025 conference, Deloitte unveiled an AI-powered remote sensing solution using drones to predict infrastructure failures before they occur, aiming to transform how cities manage aging infrastructure through enhanced data collection and analysis, ultimately improving safety, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

Enterprise Content Management

GAF’s Lean Journey: How North America’s Largest Roofing Manufacturer Digitized Tribal Knowledge with IFS Poka

At IFS Connect North America 2025, Lauren Fourt shared GAF's innovative strategy to preserve the knowledge of retiring workers through a digital transformation initiative that combines lean manufacturing principles with real-time content creation via Poka, aiming to enhance workforce competency and streamline knowledge transfer in the roofing industry.

Analytics and AI

Beyond AI Theater: How Industrial Leaders Are Actually Making Money with AI

At IFS Connect 2025, executives learned that focusing on practical generative AI solutions integrated with organizational data, rather than consumer-grade productivity tools, is essential for achieving measurable ROI amid the growing demand for Industrial AI.

ERP Strategy and Planning

Industrial AI with Swagger: Keynote Insights from IFS Connect North America 2025

IFS Connect North America 2025 in Nashville showcased the transformative potential of embedded industrial AI in enhancing operational efficiency, demonstrated through real-world applications and tangible ROI, urging enterprises to move beyond theoretical pilots to actionable implementations for improved business outcomes.

Quality and Testing

Fónua Maintains Testing Agility in Move to Infor CloudSuite with Assist from Original Software

As businesses rapidly migrate to cloud ERP, traditional testing methods struggle to keep pace with frequent updates, prompting a shift towards no-code testing platforms that enable faster, more agile quality assurance and position companies like Fónua for competitive advantage amidst growing digital transformation demands.

Cloud Platform and Technology

How Inetum’s BOS2 Win Signals a New Era for UK Public Sector Tech

The UK's civil service faces a digital skills gap with only 4.5% of its workforce in tech roles, presenting a significant opportunity for private sector innovation, exemplified by Inetum's strategic entry into the BOS2 procurement framework, which allows access to robust SaaS solutions that could transform public sector services amid rising demand for digital transformation.

Enterprise Architecture

The U.S. Cash Exodus: Why Your Mission-Critical Systems Aren’t Ready for Tomorrow’s Digital Economy

As cash usage declines in the U.S., the digital payment market is set to grow significantly, highlighting that many companies remain ill-prepared for this transition due to outdated infrastructures and regulatory complexities, underscoring the urgent need for strategic modernization in order to remain competitive.

ERP Strategy and Planning

The $2 Billion Cloud ERP Shake-Up: Why Vista’s Acumatica Bet Changes Everything

Vista Equity Partners' $2 billion acquisition of Acumatica signals a transformative shift in the mid-market ERP landscape toward innovative, cloud-native solutions and AI integration, challenging legacy giants while enhancing Acumatica's potential to dominate the underserved market of mid-sized businesses.

Analytics and AI

Salesforce To Acquire Informatica: Fueling the Next Generation of Enterprise AI

Salesforce has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Informatica for approximately $8 billion, aiming to enhance its AI capabilities by integrating Informatica's data management expertise to create a robust foundation for autonomous AI solutions in enterprise operations.

Application Development and Integration

Is AI the Death of ERP? Not Quite. But It Might Just Kill the Front End.

As generative AI advances in 2025, the debate over its role in enterprise software, particularly ERP systems, intensifies, with implications for user interaction and system architecture, highlighting a shift towards AI-driven processes and the need for robust governance and integration capabilities.

ERP Strategy and Planning

SAP Sapphire 2025 Customer Keynote: “Bring Out Your Best” and Reinvent the Future of Enterprise ERP

At SAP Sapphire 2025, leaders emphasized that agility is essential for survival in a rapidly changing business landscape, showcasing innovative transformations from major companies like Mercedes-Benz and Mars Inc. and announcing a focus on embedded, agentic AI to overcome data barriers and complexity in enterprise applications.

Business Process Management and Automation

Unsung Signavio: Business process kingmaker?

Celonis is suing SAP for alleged antitrust violations related to data access, asserting that SAP's practices favor its own business process product, Signavio, amidst a shifting landscape where companies vie for dominance in process mining and data control.

Analytics and AI

From SAP Sapphire 2025: Sean Kask, Chief AI Strategy Officer, Opens SAP’s AI Playbook, Covers Agentic Intelligence, Strategic Differentiation, and the Race to Real Adoption

At SAP Sapphire 2025, Sean Kask, SAP’s Chief AI Strategy Officer, emphasized a customer-focused AI strategy that integrates various models and maintains ethical standards, showcasing the potential of tools like Joule to autonomously execute complex processes while leveraging proprietary knowledge graphs for contextual accuracy, positioning SAP as a leader in AI-powered enterprise solutions.

ERP Strategy and Planning

From SAP Sapphire 2025: Fluence Commits to ‘Speed Over Perfection’ on Hypergrowth Trajectory with SAP

Fluence rapidly grew from $900 million to nearly $4 billion in two years under Dean Crounse's leadership by implementing a 99.7% clean core SAP deployment for digital transformation and supply chain orchestration, enabling them to manage large-scale energy storage projects while focusing on sustainability and AI integration.

ERP Strategy and Planning

From SAP Sapphire 2025: How SAP Helps Jabil Achieve Resilience at the Speed of Industry

Chase Christensen, Jabil's Vice President and CIO, emphasizes resilience as a business imperative, showcasing how the company's strategic partnership with SAP enables operational efficiency and adaptability through a consolidated ERP framework, real-time analytics, and a focus on AI-driven augmentation of workforce capabilities.

Analytics and AI

From SAP Sapphire 2025: How SAP and Google Cloud Are Accelerating Real-World Impact from AI

The collaboration between SAP and Google Cloud focuses on developing practical, AI-powered enterprise systems that enhance innovation and reduce project risk, leveraging tools like SAP Joule and Google’s Gemini models for real-time access to actionable data and robust infrastructure, exemplified by successful implementations at companies like AMD and Suzano.

Analytics and AI

From SAP Sapphire 2025: Joule Everywhere – How SAP Is Making Business AI Omnipresent and Proactive

SAP's upcoming Joule Everywhere update in 2025 integrates generative AI agents across its entire ecosystem, enabling intelligent co-piloting and seamless decision-making within workflows while enhancing security and governance.

Analytics and AI

From SAP Sapphire 2025: The New Operating System for Business AI

SAP introduces AI Foundation, a unified operating system for Business AI that simplifies enterprise AI development, reduces costs, and accelerates innovation through features like low-code tools and built-in governance, empowering organizations to quickly transform data into actionable insights.

Business Process Management and Automation

From SAP Sapphire 2025: Smart Suite, Fast Track – SAP’s Packaged Approach to Business Transformation

SAP is transforming enterprise application consumption and implementation with its Business Transformation Packages, which offer pre-integrated, outcome-focused solutions designed to facilitate faster, modular cloud ERP modernization tied to key business objectives.

Analytics and AI

From SAP Sapphire 2025: Agentic AI in Action – SAP’s New Network of Autonomous Business Agents

At SAP Sapphire 2025, SAP introduced a production-grade network of autonomous business agents integrated with SAP Joule, enabling organizations to execute end-to-end processes across finance, HR, procurement, and supply chain without custom code, while ensuring governance and compliance through SAP LeanIX.

ERP Strategy and Planning

From Greenhouse to Datahouse: How Metrolina Is Cultivating a Modern ERP Mindset with Sage X3

Metrolina Greenhouses in North Carolina is transforming its operations by adopting Sage X3 to create an integrated, data-driven enterprise, emphasizing technological adoption and user-friendly systems for its diverse workforce, while also preparing for future advancements in precision farming.

Data and Data Management

Cutting Clean: How SNP Enabled Lulu Group’s IPO-Ready SAP Carve-Out in Record Time

Lulu Group International achieved a significant business transformation by successfully migrating 20% of its 6-terabyte SAP database from non-retail units in India, Egypt, and the UAE to new systems with minimal downtime, thanks to SNP SE's technology-driven approach, ahead of its IPO, setting the stage for future SAP S/4HANA migration.

Application Development and Integration

Beyond the Interface: How Whatfix Is Redefining ERP Adoption for the AI Era

Vara Kumar, co-founder of Whatfix, emphasizes the importance of digital adoption in enterprise software beyond basic training, advocating for personalized, ongoing support that integrates seamless human and AI collaboration to enhance user experience across diverse applications.

Digital Commerce

Marketplace Momentum: How Google Cloud is Rewiring the Economics of Enterprise Software

Google Cloud is transforming its Marketplace to drive growth and streamline partner economics through a new variable revenue share model, simplified commit drawdown for channels, and customer incentives, positioning itself as a central hub for enterprise software procurement and AI solutions.

ERP Strategy and Planning

Unlocking Efficiency for Public Education: Chicago Public Schools Goes All-In on Oracle Fusion

Chicago Public Schools is transitioning to Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications to enhance its operational efficiency and resource allocation by moving from outdated systems to a unified, AI-driven cloud platform that will streamline finance, HR, and supply chain management.

ERP Strategy and Planning

Structural Technologies Reinforces Vision with Rootstock ERP

Structural Technologies has upgraded to Rootstock's cloud-based ERP system to address the limitations of its outdated legacy system and enhance operational efficiency, real-time visibility, and scalability across its manufacturing processes.

Cloud Platform and Technology

EY and SAP Launch Integrated Finance Managed Service Built on S/4HANA Cloud

EY and SAP have introduced an Integrated Finance Managed Service solution utilizing SAP S/4HANA Cloud to enhance enterprise transformation by streamlining critical functions and leveraging AI capabilities, enabling organizations to focus on strategic growth.