2024 has drawn to a close, and here at Innovative Solution Partners we are looking toward 2025 with anticipation and optimism.
Here are five things that stood out during the past year for us and our clients — and what we see is important for 2025.
Acceleration of AI
In 2023, Generative AI leaped onto the worldwide stage and the intersection of AI and business was top of mind. In 2024, SAP and other companies leveraged AI’s immense capabilities to help companies increase efficiencies and Innovative Solution Partners helped them do this. In 2025, we expect to see an acceleration of moves to cloud-based systems so that organizations can take best advantage of AI integrations in these systems.
An October 2024 Pulse Survey by PwC stated clearly what AI means for organizations that embrace it sooner rather than later:
“With AI increasingly powerful and reliable, it’s time to embed it in your operational fabric. If you don’t, your competitors who do may establish lasting advantages.”
According to an July 2024 report by McKinsey, CFOs report that for finance functions already using AI technology, 71 percent indicate the tools have boosted worker productivity, and 54 percent say it has improved the use of data for decision making.
CIOs see the future of AI but report challenges. Ninety-two percent of CIOs surveyed by Gartner in September 2024 believe AI will be implemented in their organizations by 2025 and say that they face surging expectations from their CEOs and boards. And yet turning the promise of AI into reality is not a given: 49% of leaders highly involved in AI report that their organizations struggle to estimate and demonstrate the technology’s value.
We saw with our own clients the increased use of AI-driven systems to drive revenue increases, particularly in supply chain and inventory management. In December, industry expert Lisa G. Smith joined Mustansir Saifuddin on his “Tech-Driven Business” podcast to talk about how organizations can leverage SAP in their business transformations, and in particular to drive supply chain efficiencies.
In April, Todd Kackley, vice president and CIO of Textron, joined the podcast to talk about how businesses can successfully navigate the landscape of GenAI.
Participation in international AI conference
In addition to the work we did with our clients, Innovative Solution Partners was fortunate to be invited in the fourth quarter of 2024 to be on speaker panels at two international events focused on AI, business and technology.
CEO and co-founder Mariyah Saifuddin spoke in November at the Women and Democracy’s 6th International Women and Justice Summit in Istanbul, Turkey, with the theme “Artificial Intelligence and Women.” She was invited back in December for the International Strategic Communication Summit 2024, which brought together the world’s most prominent leaders, experts, and professionals to discuss the opportunities and challenges posed by artificial intelligence in both national and international strategic communication.
Both of these experiences, Saifuddin said, expanded the company’s views on the impact of AI around the world.
“Meeting with leaders in other countries who are also whiplashed by the speed at which AI is transforming the world emphasizes the importance of communicating and sharing as we learn,” Saifuddin said.
That learning helps the Innovative Solution Partners team to better understand the needs and challenges for its clients, all of whom are experiencing AI at the speed of light, Saifuddin added.
Why AI changes are important NOW
AI’s importance is something businesses of all sizes recognize. What is not always understood is how putting off AI-related updates and implementations can put organizations at a competitive disadvantage.
At the same time, developing and executing AI strategies may require expertise not present in current teams, making it advantageous to seek out experts such as those at Innovative Solution Partners who can streamline the process and ensure it is done well.
Workforce woes and needs
While AI continues to dominate tech innovation, the experts inside and outside of Innovative Solution Partners see 2025 as a time when the “human” is put back in “human-centered AI” and investment in analytics allows business leaders to use metrics to fuel business decisions.
As a 2025 tech lookahead by McKinsey puts it: “Few organizations have meaningful productivity metrics in place, which makes it hard to accurately assess if what they’re doing works or to understand why it isn’t, so they can fix it.”
McKinsey points out: “It’s never just tech when it comes to capturing gains from tech. In 2025, CIOs and their teams will need to redesign roles, adjust incentives, and potentially restructure teams to capture productivity gains.”
The power of AI is clear. But without ensuring the people using it are knowledgeable and prepared, much of that power will be unrealized.
In 2024, it was clear there was a shortage of trained IT experts who are able to fully implement and make use of the latest generation of programs and systems, and C-suite executives began to see the implications. This continues into 2025, exacerbated by the increased need for experts with AI-related skills who also understand the legacy systems.
According to a Statista survey of 1,200 , 85.8% of organizations worldwide reported a shortage of skilled IT security staff in 2024.
Furthermore, a 2024 report by the staffing firm Robert Half said that nearly all tech leaders (95%) report challenges finding skilled talent, and more than half (51%) predict a significant hiring challenge will be a lack of applicants with the skill sets needed to support essential initiatives.
The skillset gap is likely to widen in 2025
As we move into 2025, the gap in skills needed in IT is likely to actually widen. According to “The Transformational Opportunity of AI on ICT Jobs,” report, which was produced by the recently formed AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium and was released in August 2024, 92% of IT jobs will see a high or moderate transformation due to advances in AI.
Having the right IT professionals with the training and understanding of your systems is imperative to business success. Recent studies and surveys show that business leaders are not only looking to “upskill” current employees but also recognize that they require a “talent ecosystem” approach that brings in expertise from outside to augment internal IT teams.
Business outlook and the economy
Heading into 2025, there’s more optimism about the economy than we’ve seen in several years. At Innovative Solution Partners, we talk with clients for whom the improved economic landscape is leading to investment in the IT systems that will give them a leg up on their competitors.
According to a JP Morgan survey released Jan. 7, 2025, nearly three-quarters of business leaders surveyed expect revenue increases in 2025, and 65% project higher profits. The report says: “With 71% seeing no recession on the horizon, the focus has shifted from caution to growth.”
This is a marked difference from the caution we saw at the beginning of 2024, where uncertainty reigned and nearly 40% of those surveyed anticipated a recession.
Workforce issues could hinder growth
Despite optimism at growth in 2025, the concerns over labor issues remain. Nearly half of survey respondents cited workforce challenges, including shortages, retention and hiring.
Simply put: CIOs are putting energy into metrics and reporting as well as AI adoption in financial systems. But last on the list of priorities: Finance tech selection and deployment. In our experience, the need to ensure the proper systems are in place are imperative before any of the other things on the list even come into play, and having the right individuals in place for that implementation is key to an organization’s success.
At Innovation Solution Partners, as an SAP partner and as a member of SAP’s External Executive Advisory Team we have seen increased need from organizations that require the sophistication and deep background of IT and analytics experts as they tackle cloud migration and AI-related integrations in all their systems.
According to IgniteSAP, a community for SAP experts: “As more businesses move their ERP systems to the cloud, the need for skilled consultants to manage these transitions will become more urgent. The integration of AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics into S/4HANA Cloud will require consultants who are proficient not only in SAP, but also in these emerging technologies.”
ASUG, Sapphire and learning from one another
The Michigan Chapter of Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG) continued in 2024 to provide opportunities for us to learn from users and industry leaders. With chapter meetings in both the spring and fall, members networked, attended educational breakouts and shared insights. Data migration played heavily in both the spring and fall meetings. In May, ASUG CEO Geoff Scott joined Mustansir Saifuddin on the “Tech-Driven Business” Podcast to talk about the power of GenAI for businesses.
In May 2024, our team attended Sapphire 2024, which offered a wealth of opportunities for learning and additional opportunities to connect with other experts. Here were some of the team’s takeaways.
In a recent podcast, Innovative Solution Partners co-founder Mustansir Saifuddin talked further with Barry Sjostedt and Julea Ferrera about Sapphire 2024 and its key takeaways.
In 2025, both ASUG and Sapphire, as well as other SAP learning and networking opportunities, will be integral to helping our clients with the best and latest IT integrations.
Migration to SAP Datasphere
iAs much as 2024 was defined by the acceleration of AI it was also marked with both grandiose plans and angst over cloud migration. Organizations continued to struggle to ensure the right pieces are in place to take advantage of AI, and for SAP clients the move to SAP Datasphere has a hard deadline that can’t be ignored but is sometimes taken for granted.
One of the things we hear from clients is that they are putting off the move, or planning to handle it with existing IT staff. But CIOs who put off tech upgrades and moves to the cloud are losing out on the efficiencies and savings they can realize now with those upgrades. In our experience, pushing implementations and upgrades down the road also is fraught with competitive disadvantages.
“The primary risk for SAP customers who delay their migration roadmap is in their losing the competitive advantage,” says Mustansir Saifuddin. “There is a higher likelihood of those teams encountering difficulties regarding access and analysis of critical business data. There also will be increased costs of maintaining on-prem systems.”
SAP Datasphere allows SAP clients seamless access to their data, and as we work with clients in 2025 we are guiding many of them from BW/4HANA to Datasphere and helping them to configure their cloud-based software in ways that deliver actionable insights for the entire organization.
What’s on the horizon for 2025?
2024 was a year dominated by AI and all its challenges and implications for companies. The beginning of the year presented economic challenges. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report, skills gaps are the biggest barrier to business transformations worldwide.
According to the report, 85% of employers surveyed plan to prioritize upskilling their workforce, with 70% of employers expecting to hire staff with new skills, 40% planning to reduce staff as their skills become less relevant, and 50% planning to transition staff from declining to growing roles.
A new survey of SAP customer organizations shows that, despite AI experimentation, few have implemented AI and generative AI technologies across their enterprises. Organizations that are eager to leverage AI for process optimization and data analysis, though, say lack of expertise is slowing progress. In addition, about security, data quality, and governance remain hurdles.
As Innovative Solution Partners leverages our 25 years of technology and industry experience to help clients navigate monumental business transformations, we continue, in 2025, to be the go-to analytics and data experts for each and every business we work with.
While AI use and integration accelerates into every aspect of business processes and cloud-based platforms become the norm, our clients are among the businesses across the country that struggle with ensuring their current IT teams receive the training necessary to be up to the challenges of 2025.
