The News: Energy and utilities vendors can get deeper expert advice and assistance for their SAP S/4HANA cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations to bolster their ongoing digital transformations through a broadened partnership between IBM Consulting and KPMG. The partnership aims to help improve and streamline the cloud ERP implementation process for energy and utilities vendors as they drive continuing digital transformations in their core business processes. Read the full press release about the expanded partnership on the IBM Newsroom website.

IBM and KPMG SAP S/4HANA Expertise for Energy and Utilities Industry

Analyst Take: This move by IBM Consulting and KPMG to bring their expertise together to help energy and utilities vendors implement their SAP S/4HANA cloud ERP projects is a smart move that will make those implementations better and bring valuable advice and guidance on what can be one of the most critical deployments for any enterprise.

IBM Consulting and KPMG have been helping clients together for years, but this latest partnership is particularly important because it focuses on assisting with cloud ERP from SAP S/4HANA, where careful planning, monitoring, implementation, and maintenance is critical across an enterprise’s complex IT infrastructure.

I believe it makes a lot of sense to target this expertise specifically to energy and utilities companies because the IT skills for ERP implementations might not be as expansive and familiar in this very specialized industry. So much of an energy and utility vendor’s existing expertise is in energy production, monitoring, maintenance, and related areas, where ERP implementations might have taken a back seat in the past. But today, as many enterprises continue to take steps to strengthen their overall digital transformations to modernize and upgrade their infrastructures, cloud ERP is another area where real progress can be made to bring operational benefits.

And as many business leaders know from reading the headlines over the past few decades, many highly touted large ERP projects have failed due to poor planning and implementations. Enterprises that do not learn from past disasters are missing out on valuable lessons that could prevent their own similar debacles.

That is why I believe that this broadened partnership between IBM Consulting and KPMG will pay big dividends for energy and utility vendor clients that integrate these helpful services and deep expertise in these critical IT endeavors. Without robust and up-to-date knowledge, ERP implementations can be very tricky tasks, and having trusted and known partners such as IBM Consulting and KPMG can in my view make the difference between success and failure.

What Energy and Utilities Vendors Will Get from This Expanded Partnership

From expertise in consulting, business operations, taxes, risk, finance, and more, IBM Consulting and KPMG will bring their combined wealth of technology assistance to energy and utilities companies to assist them in their cloud ERP implementation processes under this expanded partnership. IBM Consulting has decades of experience in helping clients with SAP digital transformations using a broad range of IBM services, including AI, hybrid multicloud technologies, and more. KPMG has also been a longtime SAP partner, delivering broad consulting help across the energy and utility industry.

Through this expanded partnership, IBM Consulting and KPMG will certainly help energy and utilities clients capitalize on their SAP investments in SAP S/4HANA ERP deployments as they continue and refine their digital transformations across their IT infrastructures. Through these relationships, I firmly believe in the promise of this partnership and the positive results it will bring for customers.

Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.

Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.