The Operational Excellence Tools Series | #19: Produce More with Fewer People: An Operational Excellence Perspective from SAP and Its Competitors.

What every business can learn from how tech giants balance AI, finance, and efficiency.

Welcome to the unique weekend article for the Loyal Fan subscribers-only edition.

This is the #19 article of The Operational Excellence Tools Series.

Outlines and Key Takeaways

Part 1 – The Opening Picture: The Statement and Its Meaning

Part 2 – Operational Excellence Tools in Action

Part 3 – Finance, Strategy, and Change Management

Part 4 – What Can We Learn from the Giants?

Over the past two years, artificial intelligence (AI) has moved beyond the experimental stage to become a survival foundation for many of the world’s leading corporations. If between 2017–2020, AI was primarily discussed in research labs, tech conferences, or small pilot projects, then by 2023–2025, AI has stepped straight into the strategic core of global enterprises. Major technology players have all simultaneously announced large-scale AI plans, treating it as a tool to generate competitive advantage and ensure long-term survival.

Microsoft, for instance, has integrated Copilot AI into the Office suite and the Azure cloud platform, turning AI into a “digital colleague” for hundreds of millions of office workers. Salesforce, with Einstein AI, has made AI an indispensable part of customer relationship management (CRM) systems, helping businesses analyze data and personalize services. Google and Amazon, the giants of the cloud space, have embedded AI into every product—from data infrastructure to developer tools. In entertainment, Netflix applies AI to refine its recommendation engine, keeping audiences engaged with highly personalized experiences.

In this landscape, a statement from SAP—a business software corporation with more than 50 years of history—created particular resonance. In an interview with Business Insider in September 2025, Dominik Asam, SAP’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), declared:
“AI will help us produce more software with fewer people.”

This statement is noteworthy on multiple levels. First, it came from the CFO, not the CEO or CTO. That signals that AI is no longer just a technical or product story, but has become a financial and strategic lever for survival. Second, the statement touches on the core of operational philosophy: how a global organization can produce more, faster, and better, while using fewer resources. Third, the comment places SAP squarely at the center of the technology race, where Microsoft, Salesforce, and Oracle are fiercely competing for enterprise software market share.