SAP Industry Cloud Innovation Value Stories with Capgemini

[anita_riegel]

“Attitude is everything” applies to a whole lot in life, and the cloud is no exception.

To reap the full benefits of their cloud investments, companies need the right platform and the right partners. But just as importantly, they must adopt what Josean Mendez calls a “cloud mindset.”

Mendez, a Capgemini vice president and the firm’s Global SAP Partner and Ecosystem Lead, describes that mindset as one that simultaneously embraces “agility and abundance.”

“When you’re agile, there are no limits, because the cloud allows you to start very small but then scale up,” he said, adding that the cloud’s inherent scalability lends itself to exactly this approach.

But even as they start small, Mendez urges his clients to dream big. That’s the abundance part.

“Dream as big as you can, but then move very agilely. Try to put the next possible piece in place to move you toward that vision, and then do it fast,” he says. “And if we fail – because sometimes with what we’re trying to do, we don’t have a perfect way to get there – let’s do it fast and recovery very quickly.”

Capgemini, an SAP Global Strategic Service Partner, is working closely with SAP to co-develop solutions in SAP Industry cloud. These efforts started in discrete manufacturing and have since expanded to other industries, including automotive and retail grocery.

In automotive, Capgemini’s SAP industry cloud solutions have helped get electric vehicle (EV) companies out of the gate quickly.

One EV manufacturer started with core financial applications and then extended the Capgemini SAP industry cloud solution into manufacturing. Capgemini based their software on preconfigured scenarios that integrated with the best practices embedded within SAP. That enabled a robust solution to be built quickly.

“Fast time to market is the most important thing, and then being agile,” Mendez says.

In retail grocery, rapidly evolving consumer tastes and cutthroat competition make speed imperative. But cost control is just as important, Mendez says. Take the example of curbside pickup, a feature that went from rare to ubiquitous during the first couple of months of the coronavirus pandemic.

“That forced years of program work into the span of a few months,” Mendez says. “And, unfortunately, that came with a sacrifice, which was cost.”

Now retail grocers are aiming to keep curbside pickup and other recent innovations while lowering costs and boosting efficiencies, he says. “That’s what we’re trying to do in the retail grocery space.”

Those two industries are just the beginning, Mendez says. Given the prospects for industry-specific innovation at speed and with the practically infinite scalability of Capgemini’s SAP industry cloud solutions, Capgemini expects double-digit growth from the partnership. But Capgemini’s and SAP’s ultimate successes will rest on those of their end clients.

“We would like to inspire our clients to do something new, and we want them to consider Capgemini and SAP as the two partners that can actually get them there,” Mendez says. “SAP’s industry cloud is the way to get there.”