SAP NOW AI Tour London Puts AI to Work for Finance and Procurement

Finance Leaders Head to London for SAP NOW AI Tour

SAP NOW AI Tour arrives at ExCeL London on 22 October, bringing finance and procurement leaders together to see how AI, data and integrated applications deliver measurable results. The focus: faster sourcing, tighter control of third-party risk, smarter contract intelligence and end-to-end spend transformation.

Expect working demos, hands-on sessions and access to specialists who can map AI use cases to ROI. Sessions connect finance, procurement, supply chain and operations with the systems that run them across manufacturing, retail and services.

Why this matters for CFOs, CPOs and COOs

• Reduce cycle times in source-to-contract and procure-to-pay.
• Lower total cost through AI-driven demand, category and supplier decisions.
• Improve compliance and audit-readiness with automated controls and insights.
• Strengthen resilience with supplier risk scoring and early-warning signals.
• Connect working capital and payment terms with cost, risk and service levels.

What you'll see on the floor

• AI-powered sourcing recommendations and event design to compress time-to-award.
• Supplier risk scoring that blends internal data with external signals for faster approvals.
• Contract intelligence to extract obligations, clauses and dates at scale.
• Integrated spend management across SAP Ariba, Concur, Fieldglass, Taulia and S/4HANA Finance.

For context on SAP's spend and finance portfolio, see the overview on SAP Spend Management & Business Network.

Enterprise leaders sharing practical playbooks

• Karl Ace, Head of Procurement Digital Transformation, GSK - Product lifecycle, NPI and packaging innovation across pharma and consumer lines, with a push for quality, speed and cost efficiency.
• Anthony Breach, Director, Procurement CoE, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners - Multi-market process improvement across finance operations, sourcing and cost optimisation.
• Joseph Harrison, Head of Procurement Operations & Third Party Risk, The AA - Source-to-pay transformation and risk management in both regulated and non-regulated settings, with operating model simplification.

Regional perspective from SAP leaders

• Mo Ahmad, Head of Market Strategy & Development, Finance & Spend Management, EMEA - Data intelligence connected to SAP's product stack to drive enterprise change.
• Mervi Saarikorpi, Senior Director, Market Strategy, Finance & Spend Management, EMEA - Strategic sourcing, category management and analytics in a single operating model for better spend decisions.
• Jamie Taylor, Regional Leader, Solution Advisory, Spend Management, EMEA - Supplier performance, payment processes and sourcing outcomes aligned to strategy.
• Manuel Palanca, Chair of Strategic Customers, Finance & Spend Management, EMEA - Customer and partner engagement across SAP Ariba, Concur, Fieldglass, oCFO, S/4 Finance Public and Taulia for operational control.
• Julien Barthelemy, Senior Director, Market Strategy & Development, Finance & Spend Management, EMEA - Governance models and purchasing structures for decentralised businesses with fast, visible impact.

Business transformation and digital adoption

• Emily Gastle, Senior Solution Advisor, SAP Business Transformation Management - Cloud procurement for services and external workforce with tighter spend control.
• Peter Anderson, Solution Advisor Expert, BTM WalkMe, EMEA - Digital adoption embedded into SAP to accelerate user proficiency and process compliance.

How to turn the day into ROI

• Bring three priority processes (e.g., supplier onboarding, contract review, PO cycle time) and baseline the current metrics.
• Ask for live demos against those processes and define what "good" looks like in 90 days.
• Map data sources required (ERP, T&E, supplier data, risk feeds) and confirm integration effort.
• Quantify impact: cost-out, maverick-spend reduction, cycle-time cuts, DPO improvement, and compliance rate.
• Agree on a pilot scope, owners and timeline before you leave the venue.

Questions worth asking

• Which AI models power each use case and how are they governed for accuracy and audit?
• What data quality is required and which enrichment services are available?
• How are exceptions handled in source-to-pay without adding manual work?
• What change management and digital adoption tooling is included or recommended?
• What time-to-value and payback period do similar customers see?

Targets you can hit in 90 days

• Cut contract review time by 30-50% using clause and obligation extraction.
• Shorten supplier onboarding by 20-40% with AI-assisted risk checks.
• Reduce off-contract spend by 5-10% via guided buying and policy prompts.
• Improve invoice auto-match rate by 10-20 points to lower rework and late payments.
• Lift on-time payment and optimise terms to balance cost, service and cash.

Event details

SAP NOW AI Tour takes place at ExCeL London on 22 October. It is built for finance, procurement and operations teams that want to connect AI with daily decisions and tangible outcomes.

If you're building team capability around AI in finance, this curated guide to tools can help: AI tools for Finance.