The greatest certainty for today’s business leaders is uncertainty. Economic challenges and supply chain disruption continue to persist across industries, with new world-changing events happening seemingly every day. There’s no denying that unpredictability must become a permanent part of the planning process.
Simply put, private and public organizations alike must reinvent their business strategies for an ever-disruptive environment — and position themselves for growth and innovation along the way. And it is the role of every organization’s leadership to not just recover, but to rebound, regenerate, and forge a new approach that puts their company ahead of its competitors.
That’s why we recently announced the strengthening of our partnership with the global strategy consulting firm Kearney, in a collaboration that is well suited to meet the moment. Together, our companies carry decades of technical expertise and technological experience, and our combined knowledge and strategies can offer a distinctive framework for modern businesses looking to navigate contemporary upheaval.
Why SAP and Kearney, and Why Now
For decades, SAP and Kearney have each stood out as leaders in business transformation. Today, we are building a foundation that will help ensure continued customer success amid the biggest change of all: moving to the cloud.
Trusted advisors are vital to the digital future, and together SAP and Kearney are collaborating to unlock a distinctive framework to help companies navigate upheaval and craft a competitive edge through:
Depth of Experience
Kearney’s deep history of driving operational resiliency pairs well with SAP’s industry-leading background in technology innovation. Our partnership focuses on making it easier to analyze and interpret operational and procurement data for customers — so they can act quickly and decisively.
Business Model Innovation
Kearney’s strength in strategy execution and artificial intelligence (AI) innovations can offer greater transparency and predictive capabilities in networks across the value chain such as SAP Business Network. These insights can enable improved real-time customer decision making abilities thanks to a wealth of real-time, actionable information.
Quicker Execution
SAP and Kearney’s cloud-first approach means quicker deployment for enterprise users. Together we are building a new, flexible model that can give the customer complete and total control over their journey.
How We’ll Make an Impact
What can quicker execution, depth of experience, and business model innovation actually look like in practice? The combination of Kearney’s data-driven solutions with SAP technology can help clients both mitigate risk and embrace opportunity. We are working together to make an impact in three key areas:
- Digital supply chain regeneration: By combining our technology and expertise, SAP and Kearney aim to create increased visibility, greater intelligence, and improved agility for customers. Our collaborative strategy also aims to help support a sustainable supply chain and, ultimately, a circular economy.
- Technology-enabled business transformation: Together, SAP and Kearney are working to enable a quicker, more flexible approach to implementation, with lower total cost of ownership and a strong base for innovation.
- SAP Business Network: Integration and scalability are offered through SAP Business Network and SAP Business Technology Platform. The multi-tier platform aims to offer alternate sources of supply impact analysis, and — combined with Kearney’s AI and analytics solutions — can help equip enterprises for truly predictive decision-making.
“To adapt to uncertainty and volatility of today’s world, companies must reinvent themselves,” said Scott Russell, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Customer Success. “For years, Kearney has made significant investments to provide its clients with better insights into their operations and business networks. Customers are telling me they need to adapt with speed and agility. They need to be nimble and get more out of their technology investments. That’s what this partnership is all about.”
“Our focus on operational excellence, regeneration, and reinvention pairs well with SAP technology,” said Alex Liu, managing partner and chairman, Kearney. “Through acquisitions like Optano and Cervello, and our in-house investments in advanced analytic solutions, we’re pushing the envelope to improve decision-making speed across their business network and facilitate better decision-making.”
While more benefits await, it is clear that the combination of SAP and Kearney can help businesses modify their supply chain and other operations to best handle today’s upheaval — while also helping them face the world of tomorrow.
The Bottom Line
The SAP and Kearney partnership will make it possible to cut down on disruption-related risks while maintaining detailed end-to-end visibility. It will make it easier to respond to problems more quickly and more effectively. And it will help ensure that businesses fully maximize their technology investments by driving value in the cloud.
Muhammad Alam is president and chief product officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP.