Event success story: Learn how SAP teamed with Axians IT Poland at SAP Connect Day for Utilities to provide SAP customers with a hands-on environment to experience integrated business decisions in real-time.
Event Overview: ERPsim at SAP Connect Day for Utilities in Poland
Participants
SAP customers from medium and large utility organizations.
Event Objectives
Help utility organizations experience SAP capabilities in action, allowing them to better understand the value of an ERP transformation.
Solution
ERPsim Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) scenario running on a live SAP S/4HANA.
Event Outcomes
Connected cross-functional dependencies and data-driven operational strategy to successful transformation.
The Challenge
For many utility organizations, ERP transformations can be viewed as disruptive, costly, and difficult to justify because the business value is not always easy to visualize. Traditional demonstrations often show what the system can do in isolation, but not how integrated processes and data can improve performance across the organization.
At SAP Connect for Utilities in Poland, utility organizations ranging from mature operations to those pursuing further digitalization gathered to explore new ways to drive efficiency.
The Solution
SAP wanted to move beyond a feature-based presentation of the system. It decided to showcase the value of an ERP system across the entire process chain. Together with its partner, Axians IT Poland, the companies organized an event based on the ERPsim simulation game experience in the area of enterprise asset management (EAM).
Participants formed cross-functional teams responsible for maintaining a portfolio of critical assets within a live SAP S/4HANA environment. Their primary objective was to improve asset reliability while balancing maintenance costs.
Throughout the simulation, they leveraged real-time IoT sensor data, conversational AI, and AI Agents to track equipment conditions, prioritize maintenance activities, and monitor spare parts inventory. As the experience evolved, participants were introduced to different maintenance strategies, experiencing firsthand how high-quality data and analytics can anticipate failures, reduce downtime, and drive operational efficiency.
We had the opportunity to experience firsthand what is, so to speak, the most important aspect of the system.
The ERPsim Experience
As the competitive simulation unfolded, participants quickly realized that siloed decision-making led to sub-optimal performance. A decision to defer maintenance to save immediate operational costs led to asset failure, spiking emergency repair inventory costs and damaging financial returns in later rounds.
To succeed, team members had to collaborate continuously across maintenance, inventory, resource planning, and finance. By navigating these trade-offs together, they experienced how a single operational decision creates ripple effects across the entire organization. The competitive atmosphere kept teams highly engaged while fostering active discussion, strategic alignment, and cross-functional problem-solving.
The Results
The hands-on simulation proved that successful digital transformation requires more than simply implementing new technology, it requires cross-functional alignment and systems thinking.
By experiencing the immediate consequences of their operational choices in a realistic business environment, participants gained a stronger appreciation for:
The importance of data-driven decision-making in complex business operations.
Workforce readiness in increasingly data-driven and AI environments.
Cross-functional collaboration in managing integrated business processes.
Maintenance strategy to improve reliability and performance.
As ERPsim Facilitator Adam Adamczyk observed:
They learned the differences between predictive, preventive, and reactive maintenance. Thanks to ERPsim, they’ll know how to apply these concepts in practice.
Ultimately, the experience sparked meaningful conversations around maintenance strategy, integrated operations, and the vital role that smarter, cross-functional decision-making plays in driving successful digital transformation.
About Baton Simulations
We help organizations explore enterprise transformation through experiential learning and simulation-based training, including AI-enabled learning experiences. To learn more, contact info@batonsimulations.com.
