This year’s SAP for Energy and Utilities Conference, held in Toulouse, France, marked a notable first: the inaugural presentation of the Energy and Utilities Innovation Award. Companies whose projects stood out were honored in the categories AI, Innovation, Transformation, Customer Experience, and Best Team.
AI as a key element
In the AI category, the Austrian energy company OMV prevailed with its SAP Business AI transformation project. Building on an existing SAP S/4HANA landscape, the transformation focused on intelligent automation, advanced analytics, and AI-driven decision-making in core business processes. A key factor for success was a step-by-step approach: instead of a hasty implementation, OMV first laid a solid foundation and introduced AI in a targeted manner into the user experience and business processes. The focus was on regulation, security, and continuous evaluation. The clear principle was to standardize, integrate, and establish a stable data foundation before it scaled more broadly. Early in the process, the company relied on Joule in SAP SuccessFactors solutions and SAP S/4HANA. In the next step, the transformation will continue so OMV can make even greater use of AI.
