User Review
( votes)Artificial intelligence (AI) will have a significant impact on companies and their business models over the next five years—85 percent of CEOs surveyed in PwC’s 22nd Annual Global CEO Survey are convinced of this.
The Future of AI
The Future of AI-But with only 33 percent having dipped their toe into AI for ‘limited uses’, and fewer than one in ten using it on a wide scale, the range of applications has been limited so far. However, this is soon set to change.
Despite the use of AI being a distant dream for many businesses, the current maturity of intelligent technologies and the expectations of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in particular—to support innovations—have fundamentally changed business demands. ERP systems need to lose their cumbersome heritage and open up to third-party applications, in order to help businesses benefit from technological innovations more quickly. This is a demand that ERP providers and user companies must meet in equal measure, as set out in the following four expectations for AI-enabled ERP.
Expectation 1: Flexible process for the introduction of intelligent technologies
Intelligent ERP is not based on a specific technology, but on the ability of an ERP system to access a variety of technologies for intelligent functions. In most companies, this starts with automating repetitive routine processes in the background. In time, other functionalities are added—such as machine learning and deep learning for error detection in production, predictive analytics for demand planning and forecasts, natural language processing for voice-controlled systems in production or in the warehouse, and learning algorithms for autonomous systems.
This approach ensures the cost-effectiveness of innovations and simplifies their acceptance in everyday work. On the role of intelligent ERP, IDC research manager, Alexandros Stratis, states, “An assistive user interface is key in enabling today‘s knowledge workers to become the digital knowledge workers of tomorrow, and though true conversational interfaces are a future goal, the quality of the interaction will improve over time, enabling flatter organisations, a fluid work environment, and goal-oriented and redefined back-office processes.”
ERP systems must therefore be able to integrate with innovative applications, and grow according to a company’s requirements.
