Businesses are increasingly leveraging AI and data-driven strategies to drive innovation. SAP, a leader in enterprise solutions, has embraced a suite-first and AI-first approach to transform how businesses interact with technology. HCLTech, as a key strategic partner, is playing a crucial role in enabling enterprises to unlock the full potential of SAP’s ecosystem through AI, cloud and integrated data solutions.

Ajay Pasuvula, Senior Vice President & Global SAP Ecosystem Leader at HCLTech, spoke to the Trends and Insights team about the pivotal role of AI and data in SAP transformations and how HCLTech is driving real-world implementations.

"AI is a fundamental driver of business transformation. By integrating AI and a suite-first approach, we are ensuring that enterprises can achieve seamless process optimization while unlocking the full value of their SAP investments," said Pasuvula.

At this year’s SAP Sapphire, HCLTech is focused on "AI that Delivers ROI, Accelerating Delivery, Transforming Processes and Supporting Continuous Innovation." He shares his insights on how the combined strengths of HCLTech and SAP are shaping the future of SAP transformations through a suite-first and AI-first strategy.

SAP’s Suite-first and AI-first approach

SAP’s suite-first strategy is centered on creating integrated backend solutions that unify its product portfolio, ensuring customers derive value at a process level. According to Pasuvula, SAP’s approach eliminates silos by seamlessly integrating products within its ecosystem.

SAP’s strategic direction has been clearly outlined in recent announcements by CEO Christian Klein and Muhammad Alam. Their focus is on creating a fully integrated suite of solutions that allow data to be extracted and utilized efficiently across business processes. To facilitate this, SAP has introduced the Business Data Cloud, a comprehensive platform integrating products such as DataSphere and other solutions. Additionally, SAP’s collaboration with Databricks allows non-SAP data to be integrated seamlessly, helping enterprises unify their data landscape.

The role of semantic models in data integration

A key element of SAP’s data strategy is the use of semantic models, which help customers leverage structured data to optimize business processes. Pasuvula explains:

“SAP is trying to create semantic models of data so that customers can leverage those models and derive value from the data at a process level. For example, total workforce management solutions involve a combination of SAP SuccessFactors, Fieldglass, and other components. These semantic models enable seamless process integrations across all the value chains.”

Beyond SAP’s own products, the integration of third-party data is also being streamlined. Solutions like UKG, which manage workforce data outside SAP, are now being brought into SAP’s semantic models via Databricks. This integration ensures that customers can work with a unified data model, eliminating inefficiencies caused by disparate data sources.

SAP is also introducing data products to further refine this approach. These products—such as payroll data products, employee central data products and learning data products—are built on SAP-specific semantic models. By incorporating non-SAP data into these models, businesses can gain a holistic view of their operations, leading to more informed decision-making.

Laying the foundation for AI in SAP transformations

Pasuvula emphasizes that AI can only be effective when the underlying data strategy is robust, he said: “Until the data strategy is foolproof, the AI strategy doesn’t work. To ensure AI-infused business scenarios provide value, SAP is launching data products that are based on structured semantic models. These models reduce complexity and eliminate silos, ensuring that AI operates with high accuracy and reliability.”

SAP’s investment in structured data models ensures that businesses can seamlessly integrate AI into their operations. Without a strong data foundation, AI-driven insights may not be reliable or actionable.

SAP’s data products, combined with its Knowledge Graph, enable businesses to map their data to predefined processes, ensuring accuracy and reliability. This structured approach allows AI to deliver meaningful business insights rather than producing speculative or misleading outcomes.

SAP holds a unique position in the enterprise software market, managing nearly 85% of the world’s transaction data. With access to insights from over 30,000 customers, SAP has a deep understanding of business processes across industries. This legacy, combined with structured data models and AI-driven enhancements, gives SAP a significant advantage in enabling business transformation.

“SAP has been in the ERP segment for almost 50 years, and they understand customer processes inside and out. They have built best-in-class processes and created model companies that customers can leverage. With structured data and well-defined processes, AI use cases become more relevant and valuable.”

Instead of building proprietary large language models (LLMs), SAP is leveraging existing foundation models and pre-training them based on customer needs.

“SAP is leveraging top foundation models, tailoring them to customer needs and integrating them with SAP's structured data. This ensures AI delivers precise results without disrupting critical business processes,” he mentioned.

The future of AI-driven SAP transformations

Pasuvula believes that SAP’s suite-first and AI-first strategy is well-positioned to drive business transformation. By eliminating data silos, integrating non-SAP data and developing robust semantic models through SAP Databricks, SAP is enabling customers to streamline operations and improve efficiency. The introduction of data products further simplifies data integration, allowing businesses to focus on process optimization.

As organizations continue to embrace AI, SAP’s structured approach ensures that AI-driven insights are reliable and contextually relevant. This not only enhances decision-making but also reduces operational complexities. With SAP’s comprehensive strategy, enterprises can confidently leverage AI to optimize processes and achieve tangible business outcomes.

“SAP is ensuring that businesses can integrate AI without compromising process integrity. They are creating a structured data environment where AI can work seamlessly, providing accurate and relevant insights that drive operational efficiency.”

This structured approach to AI and data integration positions SAP as a leader in driving business efficiency, helping enterprises transform their operations in a way that is both practical and impactful.

HCLTech's journey toward a Suite-First strategy with AI-first initiatives is rooted in real-world challenges and transformations. One such example is the development of a reference architecture during the COVID-19 period when digital transformation demands surged. In 2021, HCLTech identified a skills gap challenge—customer demands were shifting, yet internal capabilities were not fully aligned.

To bridge this gap, HCLTech embarked on an HCM transformation journey with SAP to enhance its workforce capability alignment, with the solution set to go live in the coming months. The initiative exemplifies a broader strategic approach: reducing operational silos and ensuring comprehensive enterprise solutions via a suite-first model.

HCLTech’s AI and Cloud-Native Lab, in Munich, plays a crucial role in fostering digital transformation by offering:

• Inspiration – The lab introduces clients to SAP’s latest innovations, co-developed solutions, and real-world applications.
• Ideation – Utilizing a human-centric design approach, the lab works with clients to identify and solve specific business challenges using AI and SAP technologies.
• Innovation – Once solutions are defined, the lab's innovation team prototypes and refines them, offering tangible mock-ups and integration roadmaps.

Use cases for North America manufacturing customer, AI-driven logistics optimization and AI-powered order automation for automotive industries highlight the lab’s effectiveness in delivering AI-infused business solutions.

The HCLTech-SAP partnership: A 360-degree collaboration

HCLTech and SAP share a deeply integrated partnership that extends across multiple dimensions:

• SAP as a consumer – HCLTech implements SAP solutions for internal transformation, including AI-first strategies.
• HCLTech as an enabler – Over 1,700 HCLTech engineers collaborate with SAP on cloud and AI developments, contributing to key SAP solutions such as SuccessFactors.
• Co-development – While confidentiality restricts specific disclosures, HCLTech actively contributes to SAP’s next-gen AI and cloud solutions, ensuring enterprise-ready implementations.

By embedding AI-first strategies into SAP’s Suite-First model, HCLTech is shaping the future of enterprise solutions—leveraging semantic models, next-gen SAP technologies, and AI-driven decision intelligence to solve complex industry challenges.

As enterprises navigate digital transformation, the synergy between HCLTech and SAP serves as a powerful catalyst for innovation. By embracing an AI-first approach and a Suite-First strategy, HCLTech is redefining enterprise capabilities, ensuring agility, scalability and long-term business success. This partnership is set to drive the next wave of intelligent, integrated solutions that empower businesses to thrive in an AI-driven world.