The SAP Business AI Experience Center serves as a hub for enterprises to explore the latest advancements in AI technology and its applications within various business domains. Through interactive demonstrations, visitors can witness firsthand how SAP’s Business AI can be seamlessly integrated into key processes such as sales, talent management, and marketing. The center’s focus is not only on showcasing technology but also on fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange among enterprises and partners. By doing so, SAP aims to create an environment where businesses can gain valuable insights, enhance their agility, and unlock new levels of creativity.

Esmond Tong, Managing Director of SAP Hong Kong and Macau, highlighted the strategic importance of the center in empowering businesses. He emphasized that SAP’s cloud platform, supported by over five decades of industry expertise, is designed to meet the diverse needs of businesses across all sectors. The center provides a platform where enterprises can explore the potential of AI and understand how it can be harnessed to drive business success. SAP’s solutions are tailored to accelerate growth and development, regardless of the size or stage of the enterprise.

SAP at the Forefront of Artificial Intelligence

SAP, a global leader in enterprise software, has been at the forefront of integrating AI into business processes. The company’s AI strategy is centered on enhancing the functionality of its cloud-based solutions, enabling enterprises to achieve greater efficiency and productivity. Earlier this year, SAP announced the integration of business AI into its cloud portfolios, along with the introduction of Joule, a generative AI copilot. Joule is expected to revolutionize business operations by managing the majority of routine tasks, thereby improving work quality and boosting productivity. With this innovation, SAP aims to make its products more accessible and effective for the 300 million end users worldwide.

SAP’s commitment to AI extends beyond its own solutions. The company has established strong collaborations with global technology giants such as Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud, and NVIDIA. These partnerships are focused on advancing the enterprise application of generative AI, ensuring that SAP’s clients benefit from the latest technological advancements. By integrating AI into its offerings, SAP is enabling businesses to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Demonstrating Innovation at the SAP Business AI Experience Center

The SAP Business AI Experience Center in Hong Kong features four key demonstration scenarios that highlight the innovative applications of SAP’s AI technology. These scenarios provide a glimpse into how AI can be utilized to streamline operations, improve decision-making, and enhance customer engagement.

One of the highlighted demonstrations is “Joule in ERP,” which showcases how AI can automate and manage sales orders and related processes. This innovation is designed to significantly improve the efficiency of sales operations, allowing businesses to achieve better performance outcomes.

Another key feature is “Just Ask,” a conversational AI analysis tool that offers deep insights into sales data. This tool empowers businesses to make informed, data-driven decisions that drive sales performance and overall business success.

In the realm of human resources, the “Talent Writing Assistant” demonstrates how generative AI can assist managers with performance reviews, talent management, and compensation processes. By streamlining HR operations, this tool helps improve managerial effectiveness and enhances the overall employee experience.

Lastly, the “Joule in Customer Experience” scenario illustrates how AI can boost marketing efforts by enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction. This tool leverages AI to optimize social media posting and generate exploratory questions, thereby increasing brand visibility and impact.

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The seminar commenced with a welcoming speech by Eunyoung Shin, CEO of SAP Korea, who emphasized the significance of the AI-based supply chain innovation solutions presented by SAP at the Hannover Messe. The event featured case studies from renowned companies such as SYSTEMA and Bosch, highlighting their successful implementation of SAP’s cutting-edge solutions. (InsideSAP Asia often references articles from websites in other languages to bring you as much information as possible.)

In the afternoon session, attendees engaged in a thought-provoking discussion on digital supply chain strategies and the importance of sustainability and resilience in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. The session also included captivating case presentations and demonstrations from Zinus, Dongkuk Systems, and TeamViewer, which garnered significant interest from the visiting customers.

Eunyoung Shin expressed her hope that the seminar would provide domestic manufacturing companies with valuable insights on overcoming the challenges of maintaining a flexible and sustainable supply chain amidst the current global uncertainties. She further emphasized SAP’s commitment to supporting the enhancement of smart manufacturing capabilities among domestic manufacturing companies.

SAP Innovation Day: Unveiling the Future of Supply Chain Management

According to the Global 2024 IDC Infobrief “The Importance of AI in Supply Chain and Operations,” sponsored by SAP, a significant majority of supply chain executives (63%) and operations executives (52%) have established AI strategies aligned with their business objectives. The survey, which included 2,000 respondents, revealed that 51% of companies are integrating AI into their supply chain planning processes and key applications to enable real-time decision-making. Additionally, 58% of the respondents reported using AI to boost operational efficiency and employee productivity.

SAP’s AI-based supply chain solutions are at the forefront of transforming the manufacturing industry by delivering real-time, data-driven processes that enhance profitability and promote sustainability. These innovative solutions empower customers to adapt to the ever-changing business environment by leveraging AI insights for optimized decision-making and improved operational efficiency, ultimately paving the way for a smarter and more sustainable future.

The SAP Innovation Day event served as a platform for industry leaders and experts to exchange ideas, share best practices, and explore the potential of AI in revolutionizing supply chain management. By showcasing real-world success stories and demonstrating the tangible benefits of SAP’s AI-powered solutions, the seminar provided attendees with valuable insights and inspiration to embark on their own digital transformation journeys.

As the manufacturing industry continues to evolve and face new challenges, the adoption of AI-based supply chain solutions has also become a critical factor in maintaining competitiveness and ensuring long-term success. SAP Korea’s commitment to supporting domestic manufacturing companies in their pursuit of smart manufacturing capabilities further underscores the company’s dedication to driving innovation and empowering businesses to thrive in the digital age.

With events like SAP Innovation Day, SAP Korea continues to lead the way in showcasing the transformative power of AI in supply chain management, inspiring manufacturers to embrace cutting-edge technologies and redefine their operations for a more efficient, sustainable, and profitable future.

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Before the inception of ChatGPT, SAP had already commenced its exploration of generative AI. The focus was primarily on the auditing sector where it used this AI type to validate contracts and legal notices within its applications. Utilizing Google’s existing LLMs, SAP developed and implemented innovative models internally.

However, the leap towards a broader application occurred in 2023 when SAP Labs India in Bengaluru launched the ‘Generative AI interest group’. The formation of this group, part of the Leader Together Data Science forum, sought to inspire a spirit of curiosity and exploration among AI enthusiasts in the company, urging them to discover the potential of generative AI and foundational models.

This endeavor was successful in attracting an astounding 2,500 participants, encompassing developers, product owners, and UX/UA designers. The highlight of the group’s initiative was the ‘Idea2Impact’ generative AI hackathon, which happened in March 2023 across SAP Labs India. The primary goal of this hackathon was to uncover generative AI applications in product innovation, developer efficacy, and social impact, among others. A total of 179 ideas were submitted by more than 550 participants, leading to 40 ideas reaching the Proof of Concept stage, and 11 showcased at the Development to Community event. Impressively, one idea even spurred a patent application.

Generative AI’s Integration Across Core Domains and the SAP AI Vision

In a strategic move to drive innovation and efficiency, SAP has been incorporating generative AI across its suite of applications, from SAP Transportation Management to SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Signavio Process Manager, and the SAP Digital Assistant. One such example is its application in SAP’s document processing solution for the automotive and manufacturing industries. Generative AI automates manual checks of goods receipts and delivery notes, leading to significant time and cost savings.

Partnerships are also on the horizon, as seen with SAP’s collaboration with Microsoft on SAP SuccessFactors. The partnership aims to streamline recruiting and employee development processes, including auto-generating job descriptions and interview questions via GPT models provided through the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service.

The SAP AI strategy is not confined to in-house development and deployment. The company also aims to create a diverse ecosystem of partner technologies, factoring in variables such as cost, enterprise readiness, economies of scale, market reach, and data privacy. The objective is to select and integrate technologies that align best with SAP’s offerings and provide the most value to their customers.

SAP’s endgame with its AI strategy is to deeply embed AI into business applications and processes. Leveraging its own AI technology and strategic partnerships, SAP envisions a future where its solutions will generate insights and optimizations by connecting relevant business knowledge and process data. This transformative vision sees AI making businesses more productive, efficient, and resilient.

However, the German tech giant firmly believes in a human-centric approach, and therefore, they design their AI solutions to keep humans in the loop, approving AI-generated information. This way, SAP is not just harnessing AI’s potential but also shaping the future of AI-human collaboration.

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AI Designed for Business Success

SAP is strengthening its commitment to embedding powerful AI capabilities throughout its portfolio, empowering customers to tackle critical business challenges seamlessly within their workflow. With the latest advancements in SAP Business AI, customers can engage with personalized customer experiences, enhance procurement productivity, and effectively identify and develop key talent across their entire workforce. SAP’s responsible approach to AI ensures that customers can leverage SAP Business AI with confidence, knowing that ethical considerations are at the forefront of these innovative solutions.

SAP also leverages its robust ecosystem to benefit customers. A notable collaboration was announced with Microsoft, expanding their longstanding partnership. This integration involves the integration of SAP SuccessFactors solutions with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot in Viva Learning, along with Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service. By accessing powerful language models for natural language analysis and generation, organizations can expect new and improved experiences that optimize talent management processes, including attracting, retaining, and upskilling employees.

Advancing Sustainability with the Green Ledger

Building upon its revolutionary enterprise resource planning (ERP) software from half a century ago, SAP is expanding the concept of resources to encompass carbon in the reinvented “R” in ERP. Addressing evolving regulatory requirements and growing stakeholder pressure for sustainable operations, SAP’s green ledger initiative offers an auditable, transparent, and reliable accounting system for carbon emissions. This enables companies to manage their environmental impact with the same precision and confidence as their financial data.

As part of the initiative, the German tech giant is updating its SAP Sustainability Footprint Management solution, enabling comprehensive calculation and management of corporate, value chain, and product-level emissions. Additionally, the company introduced the SAP Sustainability Data Exchange application, facilitating a secure and standardized exchange of sustainability data between enterprises and their partners and suppliers. By integrating the green ledger initiative into the RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP solutions, SAP further underscores its commitment to sustainable business practices.

SAP Innovations the Entire Solutions Portfolio

SAP unveiled a range of innovations across its entire portfolio, demonstrating its commitment to bolstering customer resilience. SAP Business Network for Industry combines the benefits of networked supply chains with SAP’s industry expertise, enabling customers in consumer products, high-tech, industrial manufacturing, and life sciences to enhance supply chain resilience swiftly.

Furthermore, advancements in the SAP Business Technology Platform accelerate business process organization and facilitate enterprise automation at scale. SAP Signavio solutions provide critical process insights in a matter of hours, SAP Integration Suite unifies holistic processes across SAP and non-SAP systems on-premise and in the cloud, and event integration capabilities in SAP Build solutions empower business experts to trigger automation throughout all business processes.

Recognizing the challenges posed by fragmented data landscapes, SAP expanded its partnership with Google Cloud to offer an extensive open-data solution. By combining the SAP Datasphere solution with Google’s data cloud, customers gain access to an end-to-end data cloud that consolidates data from across the enterprise landscape, enabling deep, actionable business insights.

SAP also reaffirmed its commitment to upskilling two million individuals worldwide by 2025 to meet the increasing demand for top-notch professional developers. The company announced new programs aimed at meeting the growing need for SAP experts within its ecosystem, ensuring ongoing business transformation for customers in the cloud.

As SAP continues to drive innovation, collaboration, and sustainability in South East Asia, businesses across the region are well-equipped to navigate the challenges of the digital economy. Through the integration of responsible AI, the green ledger initiative, and a comprehensive range of innovations, SAP empowers businesses to adapt, thrive, and lead in an ever-evolving marketplace.

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As many businesses reinvent themselves through the pandemic, many are hyper focused on leveraging big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence to improve their business processes, personalize the customer experience or monetize data.

This requires integrating data across multiple systems; migrating compute and data storage to scalable cloud platforms; and expanding access to business-ready, up-to-date information to everyone in the organization.

But to accomplish this, businesses need flexibility.

Flexibility to unlock and provide governed but easy access to business data in systems, such as SAP and others; flexibility to choose any cloud compute and storage platform based on their companies’ needs and commercial economics; and flexibility to scale experimentation with big data machine learning models.

Responsive, automated data platforms underpin this agility with technology capabilities, such as no-code or low-code application development; more configuration versus manual coding; and active intelligence that makes continuous, up-to-date information available at the speed of business.

At Qlik, we are committed to helping organizations unlock and accelerate their full innovation potential. The Qlik platform enables real-time, cost-efficient data integration automation and world-class modern data analytics. Powerful data replication and automated analytics data pipelines make available enterprise data across diverse platforms and hybrid on-premise or cloud environments.

And the recently announced SAP solution accelerators jump start and accelerate end-to-end data modernization, helping businesses gain competitive advantages. SAP solution accelerators are now available for Order-to-Cash, Financials and Inventory Management.

Working hand-in-hand with our technology partners – Snowflake, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud – Qlik has developed solution accelerators that build upon our proven data and analytics platform. Acceleration comes from agile data integrations, ever-refining data models, tailored key performance indicators and purpose-built analytic dashboards (see an example below).

These solution accelerators not only provide enormous value for SAP customers but also for Qlik partners in the SAP ecosystem. Remember this mantra: innovation, flexibility and acceleration.

Our SAP solution accelerators are just one way we can help you break away from the pack. For more information on how Qlik data integration and analytics solutions supercharge your SAP data in a trusted way that’s SAP certified, download your free copy of “3 ways to transform SAP data into value” now.

This article is sponsored by Qlik

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More and more businesses are responding to the difficulties created by the COVID-19 pandemic by accelerating the digital transformation (DX) of their supply chains. Similar to the strategic alliance made by NTT Corporation and SAP in December 2020, the collaboration between NTT DATA GSL and Verusen also aims to address the challenges faced by the industry today. By utilising real-time inventory data management capabilities and a cloud-based AI platform, the new supply chain solution will strengthen clients’ SAP inventory management deployments and further increase their business productivity.

On top of inventory visibility, Verusen’s cloud-based platform optimises clients’ supply chain by forecasting demand based upon efficient sourcing and accurate inventory data.

In a press release statement, NTT DATA GSL President and CEO Motonobu Isoya has highlighted the partnership’s goal to deliver more resilient and agile supply chains to businesses today. He said:

“This alliance will help organisations tackle the growing need for more intelligent supply chain management infrastructures that can respond efficiently to changes in the market and society.”

“Our SAP users will benefit significantly from the integration of Verusen’s AI supply chain platform to help harmonise and optimise material and inventory data to realise maximum business results,” Isoya asserted.

Meanwhile, Verusen Founder and CEO Paul Noble supported Isoya’s remarks. He added that:

 “Today, with companies’ technology infrastructures stretched to their limits to meet the growing demand for their offerings and products, it is critical that global organisations implement intelligent and agile supply chain infrastructures to ensure long-term business success.”

SAP Supply Chain and Inventory Management’s Transformation Through AI

Through the purpose-built AI platform, a supply chain solution has been created to optimise material data and transform inventory management to bring material truth to businesses. The solution helps customers avoid opportunity loss due to either deficiency or surplus inventory, and increase their working capital by analysing the inventory data saved at different locations.

Additionally, Verusen’s platform can operate with multiple systems including SAP ERP to improve supply chain and inventory management on SAP S/4HANA using the latest AI technologies.

“By partnering with NTT DATA Global Solutions, we will be able to help their SAP users significantly improve their business productivity and help quickly address ever-changing supply chain challenges using our cloud-based AI platform,” Noble stated, stressing the importance of the partnership.

The alliance will mark the launch of the AI platform offered by Verusen in the Japanese market. Through this partnership, NTT DATA GSL will deliver Verusen’s platform to its clients using SAP S/4HANA. Following the announcement, the two companies have begun joint marketing and have scheduled a full-scale deployment of the service in May. 

About NTT DATA GSL

NTT DATA GSL was formed in July 2021 to address the demand for system globalisation amid the growing number of Japanese companies branching out internationally. As a member of the SAP Global Support System of the NTT DATA Group — the company looks to integrate SAP business expertise and solutions by delivering services such as the implementation of ERP system to maintenance operations and expansion of systems. NTT DATA GSL delivers information technology services to various clients through an advanced, one-stop global management platform.

About Verusen

Verusen, a supply chain intelligence company focused on materials management, utilises AI technology to innovate data for procurement intelligence and inventory management. The company’s platform integrates different material data across numerous ERP systems to establish trust in production uptime and reduce inventory costs. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Verusen is a portfolio company of SAP.iO, SAP’s startup accelerator program.

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SAP, a global leader in application software, is encouraging the local government units in the city of Davao to leverage technology that can boost processes and improve the delivery of services to their local communities.

SAP Philippines introduced the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, S/4 HANA, with its goal of establishing Smart Cities in mind. The said software can consolidate real-time data to be used for immediate decision-making.

Virna Naomi Venturanza of the SAP Corporate Affairs said:

“Instead of writing the reports, you will just be downloading it and decide. The leaders can make more strategic decisions because the operations and processes are smarter. The manual process will be lessened so the people can focus on other tasks needed to run a city.”

Edler Panlilio, managing director for SAP Philippines, shared how S/4 HANA can help local governments achieve smarter operations. He also shared the possibility of integrating technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain, as well as storing big data.

He said:

“Blockchain is also something that you can put to the LGUs like when you start tracking assets at certain milestones from the design phase, production phase, down to the operational phase, you are able to detect those milestones. It is being used in banks also.”

Panlilio also said that data collected by the software could help government leaders in improving health coverage or providing education cluster, which can be used to create instructional materials for students. Additionally, he said that they are working to align their initiatives with the internet providers of the Philippines.

The LGUs in the city of Davao can available a subscription of the software’s cloud.

The post SAP Encourages Tech in the City of Davao appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

Channel Asia asked eight leading cloud computing experts based in Southeast Asia. They have shared that the abovementioned factors impact the market on top of the changing market dynamics in Indonesia and Singapore. This is creating an ecosystem of cloud providers that is more collaborative with VMware as the glue.

The cloud computing experts came from emerging startups and established technology providers. They represented the entire cloud ecosystem in Asia and had skills in platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, Oracle, SAP, ServiceNow, and VMware.

Workloads

Varoon Rajani, Blazeclan’s CEO, acknowledged the existence of multiple battlegrounds in the cloud market.

He said:

“I believe enterprise workloads will be the biggest battleground for the next three years. AWS aligned with SAP early to become platform certified for running SAP workloads, but now Microsoft Azure and GCP have got platforms certified for SAP also.”

He further emphasised that the top vendors are united in pursuing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

CloudGo’s founder and CEO, Rory Fitzpatrick, believes that the replacement of legacy on-premise applications is the priority of customers. And so will be the movements of workloads to the hybrid platform-as-a-service (PaaS) or infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) environments.

He said:

“Many organisations are looking to lift-and-shift to the first two options and need to step back and consider whether PaaS platforms are a better way to go. We find with the secure infrastructure, pre-configured database, identity, and role management and workflow automation of ServiceNow we can often get a far better result, far faster.”

Cloud specialists’ say on AI

Establishing itself as an emerging technology, some market leaders have turned to AI to achieve their business outcomes. Bijjala Radhakrishna, CEO of Total eBiz Solutions, said that AI would be cloud’s next battleground.

“The rise of cloud has created lots of data that no-one owns. This abundance of data is going to make AI, and machine learning models work better and democratise AI, which removes the need for a qualified or experienced data scientist. Instead, this can be done by automation and AI.”

He said:

Additionally, Rajani of Blazeclan said that AI, ML, and server-less services generate “insignificant” revenues despite representing key innovation areas. He pointed out that it will evolve into a battleground within the next three years.

Syner-G Technologies’ CEO, Roger Siow, said that cloud could create a platform that will facilitate the growth of AI and ML.

He said:

“Cloud vendors must also compete in user experience to gain market share. Security can also be enhanced using AI and ML to prevent complex viruses and spyware. A good example is Google Cloud using AI to improve the cloud experience of users. Gmail now can predict what you want to say in an email and help you type even before you even think of the statement. Therefore, I believe the fight now is centred on gaining market share by providing more advanced and safer features through the development of AI.”

Pro-Datech systems’ executive director and co-founder, Siew Kheng Chew, shared that customers have placed more focus on cost control over security.

“The priority is around who can provide the most cost-effective cloud. Whether hybrid cloud or multi-cloud, the conversation is still about cost. The market talks about security, but it’s no longer the main concern given the amount of solutions now available.”

Dynamics in the market

On another note, Cloud Comrade’s co-managing director and founder, Andy Waroma, identified the “three distinctive areas” that will define cloud managed service providers (MSPs) in the ASEAN market within the next 1 to 2 years.

Waroma stated that the Singaporean government would push towards the public cloud. This will be followed by the ASEAN financial services sectors’ adoption of cloud services, and then, Indonesian organisations will migrate to cloud after AWS and Google Cloud open regions in the country.

He added:

“While it can be thought of as battleground, the market will be so big that cloud MSPs will start running out of capable resources and therefore, they need to start thinking about resource optimisation through coopetition. Each cloud-focused MSP will have their own unique strengths, and rather than going head-to-head in every deal, there will be new synergies that will emerge to benefit customers, cloud platform providers, and of course, the MSPs themselves. Let the battle commence.”

Taking the next phase with multi-cloud

ViBiCloud’s COO, Ramon Hadypratomo, cited multi-cloud as the next phase for the expanding cloud market in Indonesia.

He shared not only how Indonesia’s market is growing and emerging, but also the need to improve the infrastructure and awareness of digital transformation.

He added:

“Indonesia is pursuing a multi-cloud strategy because customers are uncertain about cloud reliability. It’s like the market wants to put their eggs (cloud) in some of baskets (cloud platform) which is managed by one MSP such as ViBiCloud.”

Cloud Ace’s cloud solutions architect, Avinash Bodapati, shared that at an enterprise level, a ‘one single cloud fits all’ approach may not be able to cover everything. He emphasised how every cloud provider in the market has its own strengths, but cannot be expected to give up on its existing investments in the form of on-premises environments.”

Rajani of BlazeClan agreed with Bodapati stating that “Hybrid cloud is a reality.” There is no all-in-one single cloud platform, and large-scale businesses will opt to work with a multi-cloud approach or deploy workloads based on the cost of the underlying resource.

He concluded that although cloud players have signed up with VMware, leaders in the market have released AWS Outposts, Azure Stack, and Google Anthos, which provides individual hybrid offerings.

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Singapore’s Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing stated in his speech at the Parliament earlier this month that deep technology industries such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics are the “linchpin for the future economy”. He also stressed that Singaporeans have to welcome tech-skilled foreign workforce to remain competitive.

“We have only a small window to build a critical mass of high-end professionals, start-ups, and companies,” he said with emphasis on acting fast.

Sing has emphasized how crucial the Singapore officials’ actions are in pursuit of making the small city-state a deep tech hub. He stressed that with that goal, time is of the essence making it imperative for everyone to move now and fast. 

“If Singapore sits back and does nothing, we will almost certainly be left behind,” he stressed.

Considering the current global race in attracting highly skilled technology professionals in the fields of AI and cybersecurity, the Trade Minister cited how Thailand, China, and France have gone into the direction of embracing global integration. France and Thailand have created special visa programmes to make it easier for technology talents to work in their countries.

France has the French Tech Visa, a simplified, fast track procedure for three types of international tech talent to obtain a residence permit known as the “Passeport Talent” (“Talent Passport”). Open to three categories of tech talent namely startup founders, employees, and investors, this type of French visa allows them to live and work in France.

According to Sing, the opportunity to meet the demand for technology professionals can be resolved by complementing Singapore’s growing deep tech talent with skilled foreign workers. Failing to recognize this might affects the country’s competitive edge. He explained:

“In a world where multi-sectoral, cross-discipline and cross-cultural teams are increasingly common, Singaporeans must learn how to work with people from all around the world. This will increase their competitiveness as individual employees and make them more attractive to employers.”

In the same event, Trade Minister Sing also shared the application requirements for Tech@SG, a programme to be launched by end of 2019 giving tech firms more flexibility in employment pass (EP) applications in hiring foreign talents.

Below are the requirements set to guarantee the companies’ commitment to building teams and products in Singapore:

• Must be incorporated in Singapore
• Must have a digital or technology offering or a business model built around proprietary technologies, research or hardware
• Must secure more than US$10 million (S$13.9 million) in venture capital funding and have received in the last three years funding from a venture capitalist that Tech@SG recognizes.

Tech Giants and MNCs Thriving in SG

Alibaba, Grab, SAP, and Taiger are some of the companies with expansion plans in Singapore according to Trade Minister Sing. Complementing their local workforce with global talent will scale up their operations as planned. He commented:

 “These are often people that can marry both technical leadership and commercial acumen, manage larger tech teams in the hundreds and thousands, and are highly valued because they are in short supply.” 

As innovation and deep tech advocate, SAP had a head start in 2016 when it has chosen Singapore to host its global Innovation Centre for Machine Learning as the company takes AI and Machine Learning into the folds of its customer offerings that would enable and empower businesses of the future. The German software giant has recognized Singapore to have the highest number of people with Machine Learning expertise.

With regards to the issue on the impact of the foreign talents in the society, Sing assured the House saying that:

 “We will never stop putting Singaporeans at the heart of everything we do and will continue to develop every Singaporean to their fullest potential so that they can fulfill their aspirations and seize opportunities in Singapore and beyond.” 

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This year, Gartner released a study that only 7{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of CIOs in the Asia-Pacific Region have no interest in Artificial Intelligence technologies.

Both data sets confirm that despite the unique obstacles and bottlenecks in the deployment of the technology, more and more CIOs are embracing AI’s application in their organization’s critical business points.

In this age of digital transformation, CIOs are expected to adopt, engage and lead the company in its business strategies by building a solid digital enterprise.

In the recent round table discussion held at SAP Asia-Pacific, CIOs of SAP and MyRepublic shared how they leverage AI capabilities in their organizations and how they manage the roadblocks of their AI initiatives.

SAP’s AI Efforts

For many years now, SAP has been at the forefront of digital innovation driving and expanding its business globally, now taking full advantage of SAP Cloud Platform and the AI capabilities from its SAP Leonardo portfolio.

Manik Narayan Saha, CIO of SAP Asia-Pacific, has stated that today’s business problems are underpinned by AI thinking. In fact, the company’s center of excellence already had the initiative of building AI models not just for analytics, but also to automate transactions, effectively moving rule-based to pattern-based automation.

In SAP’s APAC headquarter in Singapore, an AI team of experienced data scientists are now put to work. Saha said,

“We’re starting to reach the hockey stick moment where we’ve built enough organizational competencies that can be used across the board… The next step would be to use external data to provide our sales teams with news and other information about their customers.”

One of the company’s AI projects is to develop a digital assistant that would use natural language processing to help its sales team manage accounts and opportunities in their sales pipelines.

MyRepublic’s AI for better CX

Eugene Yeo, group CIO and CEO of MyRepublic, a multinational telecommunications company delivering fiber broadband, voice and digital services to homes and businesses across APAC, recognizes the contribution of AI in helping the company understand its customers better.

“We’ve focused a lot on gathering customer data, as well as external data, to understand our customer segments, including their values, interests, and connections with other people over time,” he said. “This will enable us to create better product bundles catered to their needs.”

The company also recently formed a data science team to support its AI initiatives.

Clearing the bottlenecks

The two CIOs explained how they have managed the key challenges they encountered in rolling out their AI initiatives. Below are the ones mentioned:

Lack of computing power

According to Saha, this is the bigger bottleneck than data issues, particularly when running highly specialized algorithms and models that could take days to generate an outcome.

As with MyRepublic, Yeo said that the company is now using cloud-based serverless computing services to ease the computing crunch needed in driving sales and marketing initiatives.

Utilizing Chatbots

Yeo said that instead of powering chat bots with a knowledge base, his team is working with Google to build a chat bot powered by user stories helping their customers step-by-step through digital interaction.

Saha stated that at SAP, chat bots handle 10-15{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the million IT support requests from employees they receive yearly, which emphasizes the importance of achieving scale in AI deployments.

ROI on AI

“To get full value from AI, you need to deploy it at scale, simply because the upfront investment is significant,” Saha said. “If you are only doing it in one subsidiary or country, it is unlikely that you will get a good return on investment.”

In the same context, Saha warned that AI projects do not always deliver guaranteed results based on a certain metric and within a specific period of time.

“But one thing that’s different between AI and other projects is that the returns from AI will get better as the machine gets smarter and more optimized over time… Just look at Amazon’s Alexa, which can now handle exponentially more scenarios than when it was first released.”

Saha said SAP has embarked on explainable AI projects to look into the factors that influence AI decisions.

Read the Gartner report here.

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