Integrate Chatbots with SAP ERP to Drive Efficiency

SAP ERP platform has good business functionality and is helping businesses streamline processes, automate tasks and tap data. The integration of chatbots in SAP ERP has the potential to elevate the entire experience to a new level and deliver more benefits to businesses.

Any website you visit today will have a messaging window popping up to offer assistance. We tend to mistake it for a customer support executive offering you help. But it’s a software called chatbot that has become widespread in usage from websites, social media platforms to enterprise systems.

MarketsandMarkets, a research firm estimates that global chatbot market size is set to grow from US$2.6 billion in 2019 to US&9.4 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 29.7% during the period. The chatbot market growth has driven advancement in technologies like AI, NLP etc., increase pressure on businesses to lower operation costs, automate processes in addition to rising customer demand for self-service and 24X7 assistance.

SAP ERP is a powerful platform with a range of functionalities to streamline business processes. However, at times it can be a daunting task to manage the platform. Chatbots, a software that uses rules and now artificial intelligence (AI) to power interactions, can help businesses make better use of the platform and leverage data. If you’ve not built and integrated chatbots with your SAP ERP platform then you’re missing on a lot of things.

At Gemini Consulting & Services, we help businesses build and integrate chatbots for SAP S/4 HANA, SAP ERP and other SAP applications.

Most of the ERP systems, including SAP platform depend on the recurrence of events, structured data and static rules to work. The ERPs are not built to process unstructured data. However, the digitalization of businesses has led to the generation of volumes of unstructured data in the form of emails, messages, social media posts, images etc. Managing these unstructured data and converting them into a structured form requires a lot of resources and time.

Chatbots can help businesses in automating several recurrent tasks thereby allowing the organizational workforce to focus on complex tasks that require higher skills and decision-making capabilities. Chatbots integrated with your SAP ERP can help you tap all your ERP data and automate many tasks.

To know more about how Gemini Consulting & Services can help you with chatbot development, click here.

1. Asset Management : Nowadays, companies that need to maintain and manage a lot of expensive machines and instruments leverage sensors to track their assets. The data emitting from these sensors can also be used to understand the maintenance requirements of the assets. In SAP ERP Plant Maintenance, chatbots can be integrated to communicate with relevant personnel. Every time there’s a failure identified by the sensor, the chatbot can automatically relay the information to predefined users. Chatbots can also be used to provide information on the status of the machines. Your staff can query the chatbot on maintenance history, the next maintenance date and other information of a particular machine or equipment and get details on it.
2. Field Customer Support : Integration of SAP ERP with chatbots can also empower field customer service team in your business. When your customer puts up a request for equipment maintenance support on a planned date, a chatbot can offer assistance by requesting for support and communicate the new request with your service team. On approval from your service team, the chatbot can communicate the same to the user on acceptance of the request. Once the support work is complete, the chatbot can trigger an acknowledgement and customer satisfaction survey. All the data generated in the process can then be collected at the SAP backend for further processing and extracting insights.
3. SAP Security : SAP security involves monitoring access to the SAP applications depending on the roles and responsibilities of the individuals. The support team has to handle hundreds of individual requests, support tickets, phone calls etc. A chatbot integrated with the SAP ERP can help businesses in minimizing personnel efforts in SAP security. Routine and recurring tasks such as providing access to the applications, answering queries, generation of reports, etc., can be handled by chatbots. This will help businesses reduce the turnaround time and save a lot of man-hours.
4. Customer Service : The integration of chatbots with SAP ERP can transform customer service operations and free a lot of your agents’ time. Chatbots can be used to handle several recurring and routine tasks like checking order status, providing shipment tracking info, generation of support requests and escalation of complaints. Automation of such tasks can significantly increase the bandwidth of your agents and help them focus on complex tasks.
5. Human Resources : Chatbots in SAP HCM can help your HR team in many ways, including enhancing the employee experience, quick resolution to queries, leave approval process and many small recurring, mundane tasks. It can manage queries, trigger notifications and alerts and provide information when queried by other departments. For example, in case of leave approvals sent to the HR, the chatbot can sort and direct these requests to predefined managers for approvals, provide them with data on the employee’s leave history, leave balances etc.,

SAP ERP has an excellent business functionality and integration of chatbots can greatly accentuate the user experience and deliver many benefits to your business, including higher productivity, process automation and quick turnaround time.