As enterprises across Asia Pacific (APAC) continue to deepen their commitment to digital transformation against the backdrop of emerging disruptive technology like AI, the demand for skilled SAP consultants has never been higher.
Armed with real-world expertise and extensive know-how, SAP consultants act as a bridge between the business and technology domains – bringing hundreds to thousands of hours of hands-on experience and best practices in implementing, customising, and managing SAP roll-outs.
In fact, SAP consultants are such crucial pieces of the digital transformation puzzle that the global market for SAP consulting is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.8% between 2025 and 2035 to USD 38.98 billion[1].
Earlier this year, we launched SAP Joule for Consultants to further supercharge the way millions of SAP consultants work, helping them augment their productivity, cut down time-consuming searches, and make better-informed decisions.
Joule for Consultants draws from SAP’s vast knowledge base – including over 9TB of expert-curated SAP knowledge, 3 million non-public documents, 250 million lines of ABAP (advanced business application programming) and 30 million lines of CDS (ABAP core data services) code – and turns that institutional expertise into a real-time, context-aware assistant. It understands the solution landscape a consultant is working in, interprets code on the fly, and surfaces relevant guidance in seconds.
“SAP Joule for Consultants provides faster access to accurate answers from SAP’s trusted knowledge base including SAP Online Service System Release Notes (OSS), leading to significant productivity improvements through prescriptive suggestions. It empowers consultants with immediate expert-level guidance, enabling confident navigation of complex projects. This increased efficiency allows our functional consultants to focus on high-value added tasks and accelerate project timelines, ensuring greater client impact. As a RISE with SAP validated partner, Joule for Consultants empowers our consultants to ensure direct alignment with RISE with SAP Methodology, guidance on Clean Core Principles, and AI features.”
– Tarang Puranik, Executive Vice President, Global Service Offering Head (SAP) & Head of Delivery for EMEA, Infosys.
Across APAC, a significant number of SAP partners and consultants have already adopted SAP Joule for Consultants and are using the tool across various phases of SAP implementation projects.
Early pilots show clear value: faster delivery cycles of up to 14%, smoother onboarding, and as much as 1.5 hours saved per consultant per day. The payoff is not simply efficiency but the ability for teams to spend more time on strategic design, stakeholder engagement, and delivering tangible outcomes for customers.
“By integrating SAP Joule for Consultants into our consulting workflows, Westernacher empowers our teams to reduce time spent on research, navigate complex system landscapes more efficiently, and deliver solutions faster. This enables our consultants at all levels – from junior talent to seasoned experts – to focus on strategic, high-value tasks while ensuring technical accuracy and business alignment.”
– Neil Wightman, COO SEA Westernacher Consulting.
AI-Powered Consulting: the Next Frontier for SAP Partners
According to the recent SAP Value of AI study conducted by Oxford Economics, AI is expected to drive an average ROI of 16% (US$4.7M) per organisation this year, a figure which will nearly double in two years’ time to 31% (US$12.3M). Businesses also ranked “alignment with business strategy” and “availability and quality of data” as the top two strategies for maximising ROI from AI.
SAP Joule for Consultants has the potential to help SAP partners drive this ROI, and is designed with quality data and expert-aligned advice based on SAP best practices for businesses across industries. With AI itself acting as a productivity enabler, consultants are able to accelerate delivery and increase consistency across projects – ultimately driving greater customer impact.
“Our clients around the world are digitally transforming in the cloud. As leaders in tech and consulting we have a rich legacy in both data and AI. But even for our internal teams we can embed generative AI to increase productivity through insights, drive more efficiencies by aligning with best practice, and ultimately make customer transformations simpler, quicker, and more effective. By using SAP Joule for Consultants, we’re able to showcase the power of SAP Business AI to our customers even while we work with them to make their transformation journeys successful.”
– Srinivas Sai Nidadhavolu, Vice President & Global SAP Practice Head, Wipro.
Importantly, SAP Joule for Consultants is not replacing consultants; it is enhancing their expertise. Instead of spending hours searching documentation or manually comparing configurations, consultants can ask targeted questions and receive contextual, SAP-specific answers in natural language.
Routine tasks – from generating sample code to drafting configuration notes – can be automated, freeing consultants to focus on advising stakeholders, shaping roadmaps, and managing change.
“Piloting SAP Joule for Consultants has proven its impact in the field: consultants deliver with greater precision and speed while continuously building skills, and customers benefit from quicker, higher quality outcomes. Together with SAP, we see Joule for Consultants unlocking a new, AI-first operating model for the customer ecosystem.”
– Shashikant Walimbe, Vice President & Global Head – SAP Practice, LTIMindtree.
SAP Joule for Consultants also helps ensure consistency and quality at scale. Teams across markets and time zones can draw on the same trusted guidance, cross-check design decisions against proven implementation patterns, and onboard new colleagues more quickly.
By embedding best practices directly into project execution, Joule for Consultants extends SAP’s long-standing investments in enablement and certification, turning static learning into live support. In doing so, it helps the next generation of consultants build confidence faster and deliver better outcomes for customers from day one.
“Whatever, Whenever and Whoever. Whether it’s an implementation or operations, SAP Joule for Consultants has helped everyone at ABeam in every role throughout all phases. It effectively works for not only younger generations, but also experienced consultants and users used the solution to cover gaps in areas of expertise outside their domains. Joule for Consultants is not only an efficient tool for doing daily tasks but a trusted advisor for developing new skills and even challenging new career.”
– Arata Nishii, Senior Expert, ABeam Consulting Ltd.
SAP Partners as Catalysts of AI-First Transformation
SAP’s partner ecosystem remains central to our AI-first, Suite-first strategy, and partners throughout APAC are leading the shift towards AI-enabled consulting. As SAP Chief Partner Officer Karl Fahrbach highlighted at SAP Global Partner Summit at SAP Sapphire earlier this year: “Partners will deliver the promise of SAP Business Suite.”
In APAC, partners such as ABeam Consulting, Infosys, ITSN Korea, LTIMindtree, Westernacher Consulting, Wipro, and many more are already embedding SAP Joule for Consultants into their methodologies and training programmes to enhance delivery speed and collaboration.
KPMG, for example, was the first global partner to pilot Joule for Consultants with SAP, and together with SAP, have been spotlighted in the World Economic Forum 2025 MINDS cohort for delivering meaningful real-world AI transformation.
The APAC region is already seeing tangible impact when SAP partners combine industry expertise with AI-powered innovation. SAP Joule for Consultants is guiding faster design, sharper diagnostics, and cleaner architectures that help our joint customers realise value sooner.
“We expect that through the introduction of SAP Joule for Consultants, we will be able to further advance our internal consulting capabilities and provide customers with faster and more accurate services.”
– Han Sang-yeol, Head of the AI Center at ISTN.
From Pilots to Practice
The next chapter for SAP partners is about scaling AI adoption and innovation. Many partners are moving beyond pilot programmes and embedding SAP Joule for Consultants into their standard methodologies. Others are co-innovating with SAP to explore capabilities like AI-driven diagnostics or automated value-tracking.
As SAP expands enablement programmes across APAC, our partners are also building AI-native skills that go far beyond using a tool: they’re redesigning how projects are delivered, how teams collaborate, and how value is measured.
And that may be the greatest impact of SAP Joule for Consultants. It doesn’t just make consulting faster – it makes it smarter, more consistent, and more accessible to the next generation of talent, elevating the work consultants can do, giving them the space to focus on insights, relationships, and results.
Partners have always been the engine of SAP’s ecosystem. With tools like SAP Joule for Consultants, they are now supercharged with the intelligence layer needed to drive new transformations across APAC.
Peter Moore is the Regional Head of Partner Ecosystem Success at SAP Asia Pacific.
