Building connected data ecosystems for AI at scale

The ability of AI to achieve such results depends on a company’s ability to move clean data, quickly, across the entire organization. Meanwhile, AI itself has the potential to reshape the integration landscape. Cloud-native integration platforms are beginning to incorporate AI-powered capabilities that automate flow design, detect anomalies, recommend optimal connections, and even self-repair broken data pipelines. This creates a virtuous circle: integration enables AI, and AI in turn stimulates integration.

In addition to the technical benefits, intelligent automation facilitated by modern integration improves overall operational efficiency and cross-functional collaboration. Business processes become more responsive, data is accessible across departments, and teams can adapt more quickly to changing market or customer requirements. As integration platforms handle more of the routine work of wrangling data, human teams can shift focus to higher-value priorities.

Pre-built connectors enhanced with knowledge graphs speed up communication across diverse systems, while real-time monitoring provides predictive insights and early warnings before issues impact business operations.

We are already seeing real-world examples of how thoughtful integration is enabling organizations to become more agile and AI-ready. Here are three companies that use SAP Integration Suite to streamline their data flows and simplify their operations.

• Siemens Healthineers: In the healthcare sector, where data accuracy, timeliness and security are non-negotiable, Siemens Healthineers uses integration solutions to make health services easier and more personalized.
  Siemens Healthineers operates a diverse portfolio of businesses spanning diagnostics, medical imaging and therapy, each with unique data requirements and processes. To enable more independent decision-making, the company’s integration layer helps simplify core financial processes, such as closing and reporting, while supporting flexible planning and real-time insights into operations. It also enables seamless access to data across systems without the need for data duplication, an important consideration in a highly regulated industry.
• Harrods: Luxury retailer Harrods operates a complex hybrid IT landscape supporting its London flagship store and growing e-commerce business; The company now offers 100,000 products online and processes 2 million transactions daily through digital channels. To modernize and simplify this growing footprint, Harrods leverages SAP’s pre-built B2B connectors and Event Mesh architecture to orchestrate more than 600 integration flows across key business processes.

  Since implementing SAP solutions, Harrods has reduced integration process times by 30% and reduced total cost of ownership by 40%. Most importantly, the company has created a database and intelligent applications that can adapt as customer expectations – and digital retail technologies – evolve.

• Forwerk: German direct selling company Vorwerk, known for products such as smart kitchen appliances and cleaning systems, has undergone a comprehensive digital transformation in recent years. Between 2018 and 2023, the company increased its digital sales from just 1% to 85%.

  Vorwerk relies on SAP solutions to automate data flows across critical systems, including customer relationship management, inventory management, payment processing and approval management. The updated system has helped eliminate manual paperwork, dramatically accelerate order-to-cash cycle times, and improve the accuracy and consistency of customer data.

Using SAP solutions, retailers Harrods and Vorwerk are poised for success in the age of artificial intelligence.

Digital growth

Vorwerk Digital
Boost transformation
Digital sales

Process efficiency

Harrods Data Infrastructure
Evolved with technology
And customer expectations

As these examples demonstrate, connectivity is a fundamental foundation of AI in almost every industry. With the healthcare industry rapidly embracing AI, for example, strong integration is a prerequisite for use cases such as diagnostic imaging and predictive care. Strict regulatory requirements also require accurate and transparent data processing and traceability across systems.

In retail too, unified event-driven integration supports AI-driven innovations from dynamic pricing and personalized product recommendations to predictive inventory management – ​​all of which require fast and accurate data flows across sales, inventory, customer and partner systems.

In direct-to-consumer models like Vorwerk’s, integration enables new levels of personalization, real-time marketing, and enhanced supply chains. Such capabilities can help D2C companies stay competitive and responsive in highly dynamic markets – essential as more than 70% of consumers now expect personalized experiences from the brands they buy from. Going forward, AI (particularly generative AI) will likely play a pivotal role in scaling these personalized experiences and enabling brands to deliver personalized messaging with the right tone, visual clues, and copy to fit the moment.

While many companies see value in consolidation, technical challenges and skills gaps remain barriers to simplification. There’s another structural issue: a third of organizations don’t think about integration until after the system has already been implemented, limiting opportunities to design future-ready data flows from the beginning.

Sustained innovation and agility in the long term depend on whether the infrastructure is able to develop as quickly as the company’s ambitions. Modern integration platforms provide the connective tissue that makes this kind of adaptability possible.

A unified integration strategy provides a way forward. An integration roadmap can help companies shift from fragmented reactive efforts to a more defined, scalable foundation—one that supports current business needs and requirements for AI-driven innovation.

The cities that thrive today are not those that manage traffic flow by simply widening their highways or adding frequent roundabouts, but rather those that have completely reimagined mobility. In enterprise IT, the same principle applies: sustainable innovation and long-term agility depend on whether the infrastructure is able to evolve as quickly as the company’s ambitions. Modern integration platforms provide the connective tissue that makes this kind of adaptability possible.