How will Artificial Intelligence Impact ERP Software?

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is set to change how we live and work and where a perfect example of this is the evolving pace in which business management software solutions such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems are being re-designed with AI at the heart of this evolving ERP technology. The pressing question now is all about – How will Artificial Intelligence Impact ERP Software?

This post looks at some of the key areas of how and where AI will impact the ERP Software industry and where already global market leaders in the AI driven ERP space such as Microsoft are continuing to make significant investment in innovation to focus on delivery of game-changing ERP AI driven capabilities which will revolutionise how we do business.

Introduction:

AI is the driver of the new digital transformation era and where this AI driven automation will deliver a new layer of significant value-add in how organisations manage the end-to-end business functions to enable organisations to scale new levels of productivity and performance, reduce costs and gain and maintain a competitive edge.

How will Artificial Intelligence Impact ERP Software?

How will AI impact ERP systems? – The Impact of AI in Business:

How AI impacts the ERP software industry will also be a determining factor in how we do business in the future. For many organisations, AI driven ERP technology is critical to the overall business strategy and objectives and as evidenced with the success of AI technologies such as Microsoft’s Copilot and OpenAI Chat GPT will now enable AI opportunities for to just about everyone. ERP solutions are a key part of how organisations manage their end-to-end business operations and with the advancing AI in ERP capabilities presents significant opportunities in how businesses will leverage ERP technology in the future and where AI’s role in ERP is going to be the game-changer.

What is Enterprise Resource Planning ?

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software systems enable organisations to automate and streamline end to end business operations including Finance, operations, sales and marketing, Service, HR, supply chain, manufacturing, distribution, logistics and more. The evolution of ERP systems today is mainly driven by the introduction of AI-powered ERP technology and is hugely significant in how it will impact the ERP Software Industry.

What is Artificial Intelligence ?

In simplistic terms, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the term used to describe the use of “intelligent technology” to perform tasks that previously were carried out by humans and/or required an input of human intelligence. AI’s role in ERP will define the next generation of ERP Software Systems, for example, Generative AI is artificial intelligence which is capable of generating images and text using generative models. How Generative AI works is that AI models learn the structure, trends, and patterns of existing data sets and then will generate new data that has similar features. Today, AI is everywhere from smartphones and devices to smart homes to enabling a new generation to work smarter. AI technology innovation is at the heart of how we now deliver and manage resourced to efficiencies and sustainability to smart economies and is shaping the new AI digital footprint of the future.

How Organisations are embracing AI to manage end-to-end business operations:

More and more organisations are realising the true potential of AI in ERP Software systems and particularly the opportunity to scale to whole new levels of productivity and the resultant gains. Many of the leading ERP Systems now facilitate AI through the integration of advanced technologies including predictive analytics, virtual assistants, bots, machine learning algorithms, generative AI, OpenAI, Copilot capabilities and much more. This merging of ERP and AI enable organisations to access meaningful actionable insights generated by the huge reams of data generated across the systems, enabling them to automate and streamline often complex business processes, scale to whole new levels of productivity and efficiency, enhanced planning and forecasting with proven AI infused data-driven decision making.

The advancement of ERP Cloud Solutions is opening the opportunity for more organisations to leverage AI capabilities and features and to meet growing customer and industry demand. More and more industries are beginning to reap the benefits of AI infused ERP technology. Let’s take a quick look at two industries by way of examples. The Service industry is transforming how they manage customer support and service by utilising AI technology to optimise agent productivity and delivering enhanced quality and intelligence led service with AI-powered agent assist / virtual assistant tools.

This AI transformation of the customer experiences is enabled by empowering agents to deliver faster and smarter support / issue resolution with automation and AI. In the manufacturing industry, they are leveraging AI capabilities and features for enhanced quality control, intelligence-based production scheduling and order management, real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance and more.

What is the Influence of AI on Data Handling & Business Intelligence?

At the centre of any organisation is its data and information and the ability to derive the greatest business intelligence results and insights from this data. AI is revolutionising the whole data handling and business intelligence process and is a game-changer in the wider BI & Analysis space. Introducing AI tools into how to handle data empowers organisations to access the most value-add driven insights from their data more efficiently and enable organisations to make informed and trusted data-driven decision making.

What is AI’s Impact on Process Automation?

Traditionally, organisations used the traditional ERP tools to help to streamline and automate the business processes. In the new era of AI infused ERP Software systems, we are now seeing the trend of where more and more organisations are introducing AI and no-code / low-code tools and is changing the whole process automation landscape as we know it.

The role of AI in process automation is hugely significant as it enables organisations to introduce AI tools and algorithms to breakdown the layers of data sources enabling them to build powerful knowledge bases to provide them with new ways in which to deliver greater efficiencies and productivity across the business processes and workflows. This can generate significant AI driven improvements such as automation of repetitive tasks, freeing up personnel to focus on more priority areas and better resource and time allocation and ultimately significant cost savings.

How does AI Improve User Experience in ERP systems

The ERP User Experience

One of the key challenges in any ERP environment project often lies in the User Experience. If the design concept is restrictive and not user friendly, this leads to an “unfriendly user experience environment” and can have a negative impact across the organisation and getting a poor ERP user buy-in. Users may find the ERP solution difficult to navigate, struggle with performing simple tasks or just finding the right data and information and at the right time.

AI-infused ERP has totally transformed the user experience for the better by making the everyday processes and tasks easier to navigate and automate and freeing up valuable time and resources. A great example of how AI enhances the user experience is very evident in the Services space. With users now having access to virtual agents / remote assistants and bots all guiding the user interaction through to the service / support issue resolution cycle.

Who are the ERP AI Software Market Leaders?

Many of the leading ERP Vendors making significant progress in the ERP AI space include Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle amongst others. Leading ERP Software Vendors have very much positioned AI at the heart of their strategy to deliver the next generation of intelligent ERP Software Solutions and are influencing – the whole – how how will Artificial Intelligence Impact ERP Software scenarios. .

Some features and benefits of AI-Enabled ERP

Traditional ERP Software Systems were always about enabling organisations to delver business benefits and wasn’t without its challenges. With AI led intelligent ERP software systems will revolutionise how organisations can seize the AI ERP technology opportunity to truly deliver on the business strategy and objectives – and ultimately scale new levels of performance and growth to drive impactful successful business outcomes.

Now that organisations recognise the true potential of AI infused ERP solutions, is enabling them to move to “intelligence led automation” of the end-to-end business processes and where in response to this, ERP software vendors are rapidly expanding AI capability and features, and this is essentially revolutionising Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software Systems.

The following is an overview of where and how ERP Software Vendors are offering game-changing ERP features and capability. Some of the terminology for the business processes is still familiar, the difference now is how organisations leverage the integration of AI infused ERP software and which ultimately will be the deal breaker for operating in the new era of the “intelligence led” drivers for business strategy and objectives.

Features & Benefits of AI Infused ERP Software Solutions:

How will Artificial Intelligence Impact ERP Software?

Automation of end-to-end business processes – AI technology enables the automation of both complex and repetitive tasks and frees up valuable resources to focus on the more priority tasks. Intelligent automation also helps reduce the exposure to human error.

Scale to new levels of Productivity and Efficiency – AI automation opens up the opportunity to further enhance departmental teams’ collaboration, productivity, and efficiency.

Access to the real Business Insights which matter – AI-infused ERP data and analytics provide powerful value add to the deep Insights which really matter to the business.

Real-time Reporting & Analysis – Improved AI infused Reporting & Analysis lends to more, accurate, timely and reliable data which you can trust to enable informed intelligence-led data driven decision making.

Enhanced Forecasting & Planning – AI led forecasting and planning uses the data algorithms to see patterns, forecast trends and make predictions and greatly reduces the incidence of human error or judgement leading to more accurate, timely and trusted forecasting and planning. Enhanced Customer Experience Excellence – AI powered virtual assistants and bots enhance the customer and employee service interactions for speedier and accurate response leading to a greatly improved customer service experience.

Enhanced Customer Engagement Experience – AI enables for more effective end to end customer engagement strategies. This approach offers greater ROI in the technology investment and helps deliver greater customer loyalty and retention.

Enhanced Manufacturing Processes – manufacturing AI capabilities and features offer enhanced quality control, intelligence-based production scheduling and order management, real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance and more.

Informed data-led Decision-Making – AI facilitates intelligence led data-driven decision-making by discovering and opening up access to the real business insights, often hidden within reams of ERP data and information.

Featured Spotlight of an ERP AI Software Vendor – Microsoft

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has developed as part of the transformative ERP technology that is revolutionising the way we do business. Many of the leading ERP Software Vendors have put AI at the forefront of their ERP offerings to enhance “intelligence led end to end business operations” which enables an AI-led work smart approach to significantly enhance productivity and efficiencies. Microsoft is one of the global market leaders when it comes to integration of AI into its ERP Solutions with its Microsoft Dynamics 365 Platform.

Dynamics 365 is built on the Microsoft Power Platform – which is a collection of tools that enable organisations to automate business tasks and processes, analyse data, build apps, and create virtual agents / chatbots. The Dynamics 365 Platform offers a range of business software applications including ERP and CRM Customer Engagement applications for Finance and Operations, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Project Operations and PowerApps. The following is a brief overview of how Microsoft ERP AI Software solutions are changing the ERP Software Industry.

Copilot AI for Microsoft ERP Software Solutions

One of Microsoft’s key advantages is that not alone does the Copilot AI technology power its ERP business management software solutions, but so too does Microsoft AI lie at the heart of other familiar Microsoft products and solutions including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, as well as a wide range of other applications that are all linked to AI assistance driven technology which is revolutionising the workplace.

AI for Sales – This tool uses AI to provide actionable insights for sales teams, helping to prioritise leads and opportunities with the highest likelihood of conversion.

AI for Customer Insights Data – An AI-powered feature that aggregates data from various sources to create a 360-degree view of customers, enabling personalised engagement. Quickly and easily generate AI driven Insights such as:

Customer lifecycle value: Predicts the potential revenue of a customer throughout the entire lifecycle of interactions with a business.
Product recommendation: Suggests sets of predictive product recommendations based on purchase behaviour and customers with similar purchase patterns.
Subscription Status analysis: Predict whether a customer is at risk of no longer using your company’s subscription products.
Transactional Status analysis: Predict if an individual customer will no longer purchase your products within a certain time frame.
Customer Sentiment analysis: Analyse sentiment of customer feedback and identifies business aspects that are frequently mentioned.

AI for Customer Insights Journeys – With AI and natural language input assistance, business users can build trigger-based journeys that reach customers across multiple touch-points, growing relationships from prospects, through sales and support. Customer Insights – Journeys enables organisations to:

Engage customers in real time – With trigger-based customer journeys using email, text message, or push notification channels, organizations can trigger customer journeys in real time, pick the right channel for everyone, and react to customer-led actions in the moments that matter.
Win customers and earn loyalty faster – Working across all customer touchpoints, real-time customer journeys are truly an end-to-end experience.
Personalize customer experiences with AI – Turn insights into relevant action with AI-driven recommendations for content, channels, and analytics.
Grow with a unified, adaptable platform – Easily customise and connect with tools you already use.
Compliance – Efficiently manage compliance requirements

AI for Customer Service – gives you actionable insights into critical performance metrics, operational data, and emerging trends from your Dynamics 365 Customer Service organisation.

Cash flow forecasts in D365 Business Central ERP – Set up cash flow forecasts using Azure AI in Dynamics 365 Business Central. Cash flow forecasts can use Azure AI to include documents with a due date in the future.

Sales and Inventory forecasts in D365 Business Central ERP – The Sales and Inventory Forecast extension predicts potential sales by using historical data and gives a clear overview of expected stockouts.

Late Payment Predictions in D365 Business Central ERP – Predict late payments for sales documents in Dynamics 365 Business Central – the Late Payment Prediction extension can help reduce outstanding receivables and refine your collections strategy by predicting whether sales invoices will be paid on time?

AI Supply Chain Management – AI functionalities in Dynamics 365 optimise supply chains by predicting disruptions, automating inventory management, and offering intelligent order fulfilment suggestions.

AI Fraud Protection – Dynamics 365 uses AI to detect and prevent fraudulent activities in real time, safeguarding financial transactions and customer data. AI Virtual Agents – AI-driven virtual agents can engage with customers and employees, providing instant responses and support to improve satisfaction and productivity.

What is Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP?

Dynamics 365 Business Central is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software Solution aimed towards the small to mid-sized businesses and can be expanded to meet the needs of the larger enterprise business models also. Microsoft have positioned Business Central as a cloud ERP AI powered software solution. As one of the leading market ERP AI solutions, D365 Business Central enables organisations to deliver effective business continuity with a cloud solution that connects sales, service, finance, and operations teams to adapt faster and deliver results. The benefits of Dynamics 365 Business Central are many and enabling you to:

Take your business on the go with “AI intelligence-led” automation
Rapidly deploy either in the cloud or on-premise
Be ready and adapt as your business grows
Store and transmit data across your systems
Extend the solution with industry-specific apps
Tailor the software to your specific needs and much more
AI Powered ERP software solutions for all

What next for AI powered ERP Software Solutions?

The Future of AI powered ERP systems

As the AI ERP journey is relatively new, this technology will continue to evolve with input from some of the leading technology giants including Microsoft, OpenAI and Google and where many more partners in this field have yet to fully enter this market space! The connection between AI and ERP will grow stronger and is set to redefine the ERP industry as we know it. AI powered ERP Software will become a fiercely competitive space with ERP software vendors fighting for market share and dominance and will give rise to possible trends in the How will Artificial Intelligence Impact ERP Software? including:

Expanding the human and AI intelligence will open an AI ERP solution to all and where we will see a growing demand for industry specific focused AI ERP solutions
Powerful and flexible AI integration across ERP platforms and solutions
AI ERP Regulatory Control will place more obligation on vendors, users, and customers to be accountable and transparent in how they engage and interact with AI.
Mergers and acquisitions by the larger market players to seize potential opportunities of acquiring further AI tools
Evolving AI infused ERP Software systems will continue to drive research, development, and innovation in this space.

Conclusion

Even in this relatively early life of the AI infused ERP software environments, the above has clearly highlighted the many aspects of How will Artificial Intelligence Impact ERP Software? And where the potential and benefits are many. With AI infused ERP software systems enabling automation of the end-to-end business operations from automating of repetitive tasks, access to AI infused data driven Insights and empowering organisations with the flexibility and agility to easily scale to adapt to evolving AI driven end to end business process and automation needs.

Essentially, AI infused ERP software systems are the new digital transformation drivers which are changing the way we do business. With the emergence of “AI intelligence led business strategies and models” and enhanced AI User adoption and experience will enable organisations to scale to whole new levels of productivity and opportunities in the new AI driven business climate. How Artificial Intelligence Impacts ERP Software will be an unfolding story and is one where we need to keep a close eye on – so, watch this space!

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