IBM Global Business Services (GBS) is the consulting arm of IBM comprised of a team of business, strategy, and technology consultants who help clients reap benefits from connected processes, AI and automation, and hybrid cloud architecture.
In June 2020, IBM and SAP announced that their next evolution partnership is geared towards driving faster business transformation time to value, accelerating industry innovation through industry-specific data value offerings, livening up customer and employee experiences, and providing ultimate flexibility and choice to run customers’ workloads in hybrid cloud environments. IBM was among the many SAP strategic partners that have expressed early support to the German software enterprise’s RISE with SAP, a milestone offering to propel customers’ holistic transformation into intelligent enterprises. Furthermore, the two tech giants have co-developed several industry offerings that leverage AI, automation, and analytics and complement SAP’s latest Business Transformation as a Service.
As RISE with SAP continues to gain traction around the world, IBM and SAP’s shared goal of enabling customers to achieve end-to-end transformation amidst the pandemic forges ahead. In India, Virescent Infrastructure, a renewable energy platform backed by leading global investment firm KKR, has tapped IBM Global Business Services (GBS) and SAP to accelerate the organisation’s journey to the cloud through RISE with SAP.
Kamal Singhani, Country Managing Partner –IBM Services, India/South Asia said:
“With deep industry and technology delivery expertise in the energy sector, we are in a unique position to help customers leverage IBM industry expertise to build upon our 49-year global partnership with SAP. Our collaboration with Virescent Infrastructure will result in augmented workflows and enhanced business processes being delivered on cloud. The company will not only be able to take advantage of automation capabilities from top management to the lowest rung, but also drive sustainability across organisation.”
IBM Global Business Services and SAP Enable Modernisation
Virescent Infrastructure has selected to deploy RISE with SAP through IBM GBS to enable the company to modernise its processes and achieve better outcomes leveraging SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Business Network, and core business applications. The transformation project was slated in seven months and designed in two phases–with the first phase consisting of the core SAP S/4HANA and other critical components and the second being the SAP Business Planning and Consolidation application– was anticipated to deliver automation and improved governance across the organisation. Moreover, the deployment project also leveraged SAP Fiori user experience to ensure delivery of a smart integrated view of data.
Launched in October 2020, the Mumbai-headquartered company aims to expand its diversified portfolio of operational renewable energy assets in India. Now competing in the fast-growing renewable energy sector and managing several assets across India, including the 394.35 MW of solar assets located in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, it was critical for Virescent Infrastructure to modernise its processes to keep up with the growing business.
Aside from automating stock reports & inventory management, procurement & vendor management, and pricing & tax calculation, the company was also in need of centralising and consolidating visibility across operations to be able to make faster and informed decisions.
Identifying RISE with SAP Deployment Goals
Through RISE with SAP and in collaboration with IBM GBS, Virescent Infrastructure intended to achieve:
- Automation and improved governance across multiple levels of the organisation, reducing the overall turnaround time and human errors.
- Delivery of clear, unified visibility of its stocks and assets to streamline employees’ output, allowing them to devote efforts to other critical tasks
- Consolidation of the procurement function to streamline the invoicing processes, tracking of stocks, and vendor management to improve quality, compliance, and governance
- Accessibility of online data with in-built analytics to provide the management team with real-time insights into the organisation
“RISE with SAP gave us a more flexible operational environment and helped us standardise and automate processes and integrate multiple functions seamlessly. Working with IBM as our trusted partner in accelerating our journey to hybrid cloud has resulted in faster access to information, better meaningful controls, and increased productivity,” said Kushal Kumar Varshney, Chief Technology Officer, Virescent Infrastructure.
Subramanian Ananthapadmanabhan, Vice President –Mid-Market, SAP Indian Subcontinent explained how the software company has been helping its customers accelerate and simplify their transition into future-ready organisations. He highlighted:
“Through RISE with SAP, we are providing customers the power to transform their business on their own terms and on their own timeline in the cloud. Virescent Infrastructure has taken a lead to become a future-ready organisation to work toward its vision of providing access to affordable and clean energy for all by 2030.”
