At ASUG Best Practices, attendees will take a deep dive into key trends, challenges, and strategies for SAP customers across chemical, oil, gas, energy, mill products, mining, and industrial manufacturing sectors.
Around networking sessions and learning labs, the event will feature customers and industry leaders sharing their insights on cloud transformation, the move to SAP S/4HANA, how artificial intelligence (AI) is driving innovation, and proven strategies for optimizing asset management and supply chains.
Legacy to Cloud Transition
With mainstream maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 – including SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) – ending in 2027, the shift to SAP S/4HANA will be top of mind for attendees. Recent ASUG research reveals that more ASUG members are now engaged in SAP S/4HANA migration initiatives than ever before, with nearly 47% of business in the event’s core industries either live on SAP S/4HANA or currently migrating.
Mill products and mining industry leaders are generally ahead in making the transition, with 56% of companies in this sector already live on or now transitioning to SAP S/4HANA. Many of these organizations operated legacy systems for decades, resulting in significant customization and complex modifications. This deep-rooted reliance on older systems makes successful migrations to cloud-based solutions a particularly critical imperative for organizations in these sectors.
The move to the cloud requires these companies to standardize processes and adopt industry best practices, said Stefan Weisenberger, Global VP and Head of the Industry Business Unit (IBU) for Process Industries & Natural Resources at SAP. Cloud migration also demands a shift in mindset, he recently told ASUG. As organizations move away from heavily customized systems, they must carefully evaluate where, when, and how to deploy public and private cloud resources. Weisenberger emphasized this transformation represents a tremendous change for many businesses, not just technologically but also in terms of how they operate and think.
Stephane Lauzon, Global Head of the Oil, Gas, and Energy Industry with the Energy and Utilities IBU at SAP, echoed this sentiment.
Leaders must address several key questions, Lauzon said: “How do you change that mindset? How do you approach these types of problems? And as you look at digitizing, how do you look at more industrialized and standardized ways of doing things?”
Lauzon will -present the "Oil, Gas, and Energy Visioning" session following Bill Keillor, VP of Business Transformation at ExxonMobil Global Services Co., to discuss how organizations like ExxonMobil are transforming their business through cloud migration.
Chemical companies are also making notable progress with SAP S/4HANA implementation. ASUG research indicates that 53% of chemical companies are either live on SAP S/4HANA or in the process of transitioning. However, the industry has faced a variety of challenges in recent years, including supply chain disruptions, changes in taxation, climate-related policies and regulations, and significant financial straits.
“The chemical industry is under a lot of cost pressure,” according to Muriel Rakotomalala, Global Head of Chemical Industry at SAP, who recently told ASUG that the challenge of transitioning from legacy ERP systems to SAP S/4HANA is rooted in this sector’s history of long-term capital investments in IT. Leaders typically expect enterprise technology investments to deliver value for decades.
Twenty years ago, the last IT that they invested in was their last ERP technology, she added. “Making sure you have a good value case for your digital transformation is very important.”
Today’s chemical industry leaders are looking for opportunities to drive operational efficiencies, enhance data management, and enable innovation—an imperative that has led many toward SAP S/4HANA.
AI Driving Innovation
Another topic of interest at ASUG Best Practices will be the key role of artificial intelligence (AI) in enhancing quality control, asset management, and other core business areas. Predictive analytics, for instance, have already contributed significantly to ensuring high-quality production outcomes in the chemical and manufacturing sectors.
AI use cases for quality control and asset management are already well-established in the chemical industry, helping plant managers anticipate maintenance needs and to minimize—or sometimes avoid—disruptions to operational processes. Within the chemical industry, Rakotomalala added, high-quality outcomes are crucial, especially given the degree of time invested by business leaders in long-term planning.
Another important use case, Rakotomalala added, given the current economic climate, involves cash applications. As in mining, chemical industry leaders deal with made-to-order processes and manage numerous customers and suppliers. Handling invoices, payments, and order collections can be time-consuming and complex. Using AI to automate cash applications and streamline workflow management has become highly attractive.
AI applications in these industries rely heavily on the quality of an organization’s underlying data, Weisenberger noted. Clean, standardized data is essential for the successful implementation of AI and generative-AI technologies. “Many companies I talk to basically say, ‘We have first done a data cleanup project, and then we’re doing the right transformation and applying AI on top of it,” he said.
Inconsistent or incomplete data can severely hinder AI’s ability to perform predictive analytics, automate processes, and optimize operations. In predictive maintenance, poor data quality can lead to incorrect forecasts, resulting in unplanned downtime or premature maintenance, both of which could increase operational costs.
Lauzon also stated the important role of clean data to the oil, gas, and energy industry: “Everyone is experimenting with [AI] and seeing potential.” However, many are realizing that, before they can fully leverage AI, process optimization and data cleansing is essential. Also driving the push for digital transformation, these priorities require leaders to focus on minimal customization and adhere to a clean-core methodology. These efforts ensure better AI implementation with cleaner, more accurate data.
At the same time, organizations are starting to ask: What data will truly make a difference? That’s where SAP comes in, said Lauzon. SAP has coined the term 'Business AI' to emphasize that harnessing AI is not simply about gaining access to large language models. The real power lies in leveraging a company's own business data to create AI that is contextual, meaningful, and impactful.
At ASUG Best Practices, attendees will discuss how organizations are prioritizing robust data governance, cleaning, and standardization efforts to ensure AI and generative-AI technologies can truly enhance efficiency, decision-making, and innovation across various industrial sectors.
Supply Chain and Asset Management
Supply chain resilience will be another key focus at the conference. In recent years, geopolitical turmoil, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the worsening climate crisis have put global supply chains to the test. As companies seek to strengthen their supply chains and become more proactive and efficient in managing them, transportation management systems connected to business networks can provide real-time updates, while AI-driven solutions are improving planning and manufacturing capabilities.
“We are seeing a big shift into supply chain resilience,” said Weisenberger, adding that organizations are now asking how they can address increasing volatility in supply chains. More than an internal company issue, supply chain management has become a cross-industry challenge, and the focus is now on how supply chain solutions can help businesses become more reactive, to quickly understand and respond to the turbulence.
Asset management will also be explored in the context of AI. Predictive maintenance powered by AI can help plant managers anticipate when assets need maintenance, minimizing downtime and reducing costs. Visual AI, which uses cameras to detect issues on the production floor, is also being used to trigger maintenance events and quality checks.
“In order to minimize the amount of downtime in a factory, using artificial intelligence to predict beforehand and reduce the amount of maintenance is a great use case for the chemical industry,” noted Rakotomalala.
Sustainability, Regulatory Demands and Building New Markets
Remaining sustainable and meeting regulatory demands will also be top of mind for conference attendees, particularly those working for organizations in the oil, gas, and energy industry.
Oil, gas, and energy remains very dynamic and, volatile, Lauzon said. These companies are in the midst of transformation and diversification; to do so effectively, leaders must carefully balance energy security—and ensuring a reliable and secure supply—while keeping both sustainability and affordability in mind.
It’s not as simple as saying: ‘I’m going to introduce a new business model or bring a new energy product to the market.’ Lauzon noted that the questions executives should be asking also concerns the rate at which new markets and infrastructure to support them are emerging.
As oil and gas companies consider expanding into hydrogen production, for example, they must remain conscious of the size and scale of that market. Building new markets takes time. “This is not something that happens overnight,” Lauzon said.
"We will have the battery materials recycler and metal producer Ecobat speaking at the conference," added Weisenberger. "They take an interestingly different angle at sustainability that goes beyond carbon: how can technology help to waste less, to recycle better, and to keep more valuable materials out of landfills? The circular economy is for them a massive business opportunity and a growth strategy, driven not by regulation but by business opportunity."
Several sessions will focus on the transition toward more sustainable practices and the need to establish standard practices for transformation, particularly when it comes to emissions tracking and reporting.
“We're starting to see better coalescing around Scope-1 and Scope-2 emissions,” Lauzon said. “But Scope-3? Not so much yet, at least for downstream Scope-3.” In the United States, for example, states like California, Washington, and Oregon have varying rules around carbon intensity fuels, fuel taxes, and credits tied to regulation, but there's no uniformity yet across North America. It's developing in pockets in both Canada and parts of the U.S.
Ultimately, as economies and people change, the question is how it all comes together. “The common thread in all of this is determining how to be nimble and resilient all at once, and that’s where we see digital platforms and the digitizing of processes as key," Lauzon said.
For more insights into ASUG Best Practices (in Houston, October 14–16; register now), dive into Qorvo’s business process transformation journey with SAP Signavio, learn more about Mohawk Industries’ supply chain journey with SAP Integrated Business Planning, discover how Ecobat is digitizing the circular economy of batteries via RISE with SAP, and join the SAP Customer Evolution team to get the most out of your existing SAP investment