Video interview
NewestEvery Customer’s ERP Journey Is Different
ERP success story · Interview conducted by Ramesh J. Chougule
An ERP migration sped up and strengthened data governance, simplified processes and laid the foundation for cloud and AI.
Blog & Podcasts
Ideas on purpose, value and AI
More than 25 years of articles, podcasts and talks by Ramesh J. Chougule on one question: why enterprise technology runs, but doesn’t always pay off, and what to do about it before your next AI investment.
45articles
10podcasts, videos & webinars
7talks & interviews
1999first published
Start here
The latest from Ramesh
Podcast
How AI Will Change ERP: What’s Now, Near, and Next
The Future of ERP · SAP · Episode 99 · 31 min
With SAP’s Effie Calandra and Eric Annino, Ramesh explains why ERP remains the operational backbone AI needs. He covers data readiness, AI governance, and how to stop pilots that never scale.
Article
Now, Near, and Next: How to Build Your AI Cloud ERP Roadmap
SAP blog · By Eric Annino, SAP
SAP distills Ramesh’s three-horizon roadmap for AI and cloud ERP, and his view that AI will not replace ERP but depend on it: ERP is the system of record where trusted data is created.
The library
Everything, newest first
RecentAI, cloud and S/4HANA journeys
Panel discussion
The Power of AI and Cloud in S/4HANA Transformation Journeys
Infosys US Analyst and Advisor Meet, New York · Moderated by Ramesh J. Chougule
Ramesh sat down with the Director of IT, SAP and Enterprise Infrastructure at a leading material-handling equipment manufacturer, and Ajit Kaicker, Global Vice President, Business Technology Platform at SAP. The customer shared the candid challenges and real benefits of its SAP transformation; Ajit showed how embedded AI and Business Data Cloud create business value on a scalable cloud foundation for S/4HANA.
Presented to industry analysts and advisors
Research journal
SAP Journal: What Makes S/4HANA Deliver Lasting Value
Infosys Knowledge Institute · Expert contributor: Ramesh J. Chougule
Infosys research on why SAP S/4HANA programs succeed or stall, drawn from a survey of 350 large enterprises. Ramesh contributes in two chapters: why a program must treat process, people, value, change and technology together to be a real transformation, and his “Shades of Blue” idea, where every program balances reuse and redesign and chooses how far to go rather than facing an all-or-nothing decision.
Book chapter
Insights for CFOs Navigating the SAP S/4HANA Transition
SAP Idea Exchange, Infosys · Chapter 1, by Ramesh J. Chougule
The opening chapter of Infosys’ SAP Idea Exchange. Ramesh sets out what finance leaders face in an S/4HANA transformation: restructuring accounting processes, evolving finance through shared services, moving to service-centric business models, and managing the financial supply chain in disrupted markets.
2017 – 2022Cloud ERP and the value question
Video
Infosys Builds “ERP as a Service” Alongside RISE with SAP
Cloud Wars · Video interview
How ERP as a Service turns cloud ERP programs that used to take years into faster moves to SAP S/4HANA, while cutting total cost of ownership by 30–40%.
Podcast
Supply Chain Perspectives: A Chat with Srinivas Krishnamoorthy and Ramesh Chougule
The Digital Supply Chain podcast · 24 min
With host Tom Raftery, Ramesh and Srinivas share what an Infosys customer roundtable revealed about inventory disruption, supply chain risk and shifting demand in retail, consumer goods and manufacturing.
Video
Live Enterprise with SAP for HXM: A Fireside Chat with SAP and Infosys
Infosys & SAP SuccessFactors · Fireside chat
Ramesh and Kevin Spencer, COO of SAP SuccessFactors North America, discuss the three bundles of the RISE with SAP HXM offering and Infosys’ Live Enterprise strategy with SAP.
LinkedIn Live
Public Sector: Driving Government Transformation with Purpose & Technology
Cloud Wars · LinkedIn Live · Hosted by Bob Evans · 45 min
Cloud Wars creator Bob Evans talks with Ramesh, Bill Greeves of SAP and a technology leader from a large US school district about better outcomes for citizens through data-driven insight, optimized processes and a purpose-driven focus: leading with purpose, operational excellence and resilience, and turning data into insight.
Webinar
Build Your Career with Infosys and SAP
Infosys, SAP & Fayetteville State University · 60 min
For students and SAP career starters: how RISE with SAP and Infosys Live Enterprise are reshaping the market, and how bringing SAP, cloud and AI/ML together will redefine business models and careers over the next five to ten years. With Dr. Murat Adivar of Fayetteville State University and Colleen Raftery of SAP Next-Gen.
Article · in French
Businesses on Alert Facing a Cloud-First Future
Journal du Net · By Ramesh J. Chougule · “Les entreprises sur le qui-vive face à un avenir cloud-first”
After the pandemic, cloud is no longer optional for digital transformation. Ramesh argues that companies must restructure organizationally and culturally around three goals: personalization, sustainability commitments and resilience.
Webinar
Modernizing SAP with Infosys and Google Cloud
Infosys & Google Cloud · Webinar
Ramesh and Edy Sardilli of Google Cloud walk through packaged services, deployment templates and a reference architecture for moving SAP to Google Cloud faster.
Article
Innovative Pricing for ERP-as-a-Service
Infosys Knowledge Institute · By Ramesh J. Chougule and S. Ramachandran
How cloud ERP providers can use regression models to set prices that are fair to both vendor and customer, and why hybrid pricing that combines hardware, software and services beats per-user or tiered SaaS models.
Video
SAP Quick Bites: Gain Insights into the SAP Ecosystem
Infosys · Ramesh’s chapter: “SAP on Cloud”
A short Infosys video series on the fast-changing SAP world. Ramesh, then SAP Cloud and Digital Lead, covers SAP on cloud, alongside chapters on the changing SAP landscape and on using SAP S/4HANA to build intelligent ERP.
Watch on Infosys.com →Ramesh’s chapter starts at 2:44
Article
Building Enterprise Capabilities for Success in a Cloud-First Future
ETCIO, The Economic Times · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Cloud adoption has moved from why to when and how, driven by business change: the segment of one, sustainability, resilience and AI on shared data. Ramesh sets out the organizational fabric a cloud-first enterprise needs: a culture of real-time decisions, IT that consumes and integrates rather than builds, a focus on business outcomes over security fears, and business leaders, not just IT, shaping a data-driven architecture. His closing point: success depends not on the tools but on a strategy that delivers demonstrable business value.
Article
Why ERP Fails After the Successful Implementation
IT Briefcase · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Go-live is not the finish line. Ramesh sets out the strategic reasons organizations fail to reap the benefits of their ERP investments: an early statement of the idea behind The Purpose Debt.
Article
Where Purpose Debt beganWhen Does ERP Fail? Before or After the Implementation?
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
A CFO’s question in a proposal meeting leads to the real one: does ERP fail during implementation, or after? After watching ERP ecosystems for more than ten years, Ramesh concludes that most failures happen after go-live, when the organization stops nourishing its ERP with the right purpose, processes and people.
2014 – 2016Data, cloud and life sciences
Article
Simple ERP: Why Is the Fortune Not Yet Found?
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Boards ask what a move to Simple ERP is really worth. Ramesh’s answer: about 80% of the value comes from business transformation and only 20% from the technology itself. The fortune sits at the bottom of the process pyramid, at levels 4 to 6, where changes are visible and can be tied to KPIs, then to the P&L and the balance sheet.
Article
Simple ERP: Do You Want to Make an Agile Move into Your Model Home?
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Best practices plus agile is like touring a model home: it works only if the home already fits the family. Ramesh argues that a “best practice” must be the best-fitting practice for a narrowly defined segment, by industry, sub-segment, size, geography, products and channels, so modifications stay few and adoption stays high.
Article
Artificial Intelligence: Mahabharat and Phuntroo
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
From Arjuna summoning an arrow with his mind to Phuntroo, the Marathi film about a self-learning virtual girlfriend, Ramesh asks what AI will make real. His answer, written in 2016: self-learning programs will become part of daily life, close the gap between human thought and machine action, and transform both industrial automation and human relationships.
Article
Simple ERP: Why Is It a Box Office Super Hit?
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
What a low-budget Marathi blockbuster teaches about ERP. Like the film, Simple ERP succeeds because it is genuinely simpler, rebuilt from the database up rather than wrapped around 20 years of complexity, so leaders ask how to adopt it, not why. Ramesh predicts that 20 years on, it will give way to “No ERP”.
Article
Simple ERP: Does It Mean “Ready for a Consumer-Centric Business Model”?
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Two companies chase the same goal, selling directly to consumers, with opposite IT bets: one builds on a single unified ERP backbone, the other keeps a plug-and-play architecture to match the pace of change. Ramesh asks whether simple can also be flexible, interoperable and fast enough for a consumer-centric business.
Conference talk
Innovating the E-commerce Experience with SAP HANA
SAP Sapphire · Case study
A pharmaceutical company’s vaccines business, and how SAP HANA helped it give customers a faster, richer e-commerce experience.
Presented on stage
Conference talk
Advantage You: Be More, Do More with Infosys and Microsoft
Microsoft Envision 2016 · Panel, Infosys Consulting
Why a pharmaceutical company chose Microsoft Dynamics AX for its clinical trial supply chain, and how clients “renew the core” while innovating into new businesses with Infosys best practices, micro-vertical solutions and the Microsoft stack. Ramesh spoke as Partner, ERP-enabled Transformation, at Infosys Consulting.
Presented on stage
Article
Simple ERP: Not a Simple Software but a Simple Business Footprint in the Software
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Two companies, one after a digital push and one after an acquisition, both had to redraw their product hierarchies to see true product profitability. Ramesh argues that the ERP template phase decides more than today’s structure: it sets how easily the business can absorb future acquisitions, market shifts and changing customers.
Article
Where the Value Compass beganSimple ERP: Business Value Is at the Grass Root, the Level 6 Process Step
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Every CFO asks what a multi-million-dollar ERP program will return. Ramesh introduces the Value Compass, a tool that traces a single level 6 process step, such as real-time instead of overnight inventory updates, back through the supply chain to COGS, revenue, working capital and asset efficiency, and benchmarks the result against industry peers.
Article
Simple ERP: An Opportunity to Redefine Your Product Definition
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
A business built to sell by the case has to learn to sell by the each once orders come through the web, and an ERP designed around cases can’t cope. Ramesh argues digital transformation and a new, simpler ERP need each other: the product structure must let every channel order, produce, ship and account in the unit that suits it best.
Article
Simple ERP: Dig Deeper into IT Benefits and the Business Case Is Around
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
When business benefits are hard to put a number on, IT simplification can carry the case on its own: retiring redundant ERP instances, peripheral applications, interfaces and data can repay the investment in three to four years. Ramesh adds that this simplification is also what makes real-time decisions, and the business gains behind them, possible.
Article
Simple ERP: Customize Your Cloud for Rain?
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Years of customization leave every ERP complex and hard to upgrade, whatever the program rules say. Ramesh predicts cloud ERP will enforce the discipline: a fully standard core that upgrades itself, with every custom need built as an extension on the periphery, behind a fire-lane. The core stays core, and customization becomes context.
Article
Simple ERP: Clients Are Willing to Go for Green Field
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Green field ERP used to mean years of work and hundreds of millions of dollars, so companies upgraded instead. Ramesh sees that changing: cloud and mobile strategies, much shorter implementation timelines, lower technical complexity and the chance to start with clean data and clean code are making a fresh start the better option.
Article
Simple ERP: Change Temperature Has Come Down
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Duplicate data, costly integrations and digital pressure have pushed resistance to change down the list. Many users joined after the old ERP was built and feel no attachment to it, especially if the new one is as slick as a phone app. Ramesh notes that cautious companies often start by bringing finance data into one place, which becomes the proof of concept for wider change.
Article
Simple ERP: Are You Watson Ready?
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Written as IBM announced its “cognitive era”, this piece argues that AI can only create value from operational data that is clean, accurate and accessible, and much of that data lives in ERP and CRM. Ramesh concludes that simplifying ERP is a precondition for AI, and predicts the board debate will move from “why Simple ERP” to “how soon”.
Article
Are ERP Applications Evaporating? Industry 4.0 and IoT Will Add Complexity to Simplification
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Just as ERP vendors simplify applications and integration, connected devices bring a new layer of complexity: machines, trucks, workers and ERP systems talking across companies. Ramesh predicts a second wave of ERP simplification once Industry 4.0 standards and IoT middleware mature.
Article
Are ERP Applications Evaporating? A Digitally Transformed Enterprise Will Need Simple ERP
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
When a single celebrity appearance can move demand overnight, can the supply chain and ERP sense it, plan for it and get goods to the shelf in time? Ramesh argues every digital transformation needs an equally responsive operating model, and that real-time needs like complex promotional pricing make a simpler ERP with built-in analytics the enabler.
Article
Google Launched a Life Sciences Company: The Contrast of the “Land of Innovation” and the “Cost of Care”
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
The US leads the world in medical breakthroughs, from big-tech life sciences ventures to a teenager’s early cancer test, yet it has the highest cost of care. Ramesh traces the gap to over-emphasis on everything, from tests and prescriptions to insurance complexity, and argues the whole system needs simplifying, with technology helping patients make informed choices.
Article
Are ERP Applications Evaporating? The Business Case Dilemma
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Clients see what next-generation ERP offers but struggle to build the case, and quietly ask whether they ever got the return on their last ERP. Ramesh finds only four business cases: real-time decisions, strategic moves such as consolidation or acquisitions, a move to the cloud, and portfolio rationalization. If none applies, the honest answer is to wait.
Article
Are ERP Applications Evaporating? The Problem of Plenty
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Companies doing the same planning job end up on completely different, overlapping applications, because software works the way it is configured and sold. Ramesh argues a rewrite on a fast database should offer one seamless set of planning functions, and predicts cloud will make the business process, not the module, the unit customers buy.
Article
Are ERP Applications Evaporating? The Myth of “Tight Integration”
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Every ERP promises tight integration, yet over 40% of support incidents come from data integration failures. Ramesh argues the new architecture changes this: with the database acting as the warehouse and a single database for all applications, the data supply chain gets lean, much of the middleware glue disappears and the incidents go with it.
Article
Are ERP Applications Evaporating? A Tale of Two ERPs
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Why would a pharma company run a second ERP for its clinical trial supply chain when it already has one for commercial products? Because users want simple. Ramesh shows why “give me simple” became a survival issue for ERP vendors, and predicts business logic will move into an intelligent database, leaving just two tiers: a mobile front end and the database.
Article
Are ERP Applications Evaporating? The Third Story
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Simplification used to stop at the limits of layered applications. With simplified finance, transactions, consolidation and planning run in one layer, so a controller can drill from company payables down to a single invoice in real time, a CFO’s dream. Ramesh notes the next challenge is people: unlearning 10 to 15 years of complex processes and choosing how fast to simplify.
Article
Are ERP Applications Evaporating? The Second Story
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
When promotions multiply, a layered ERP pricing engine can’t price a basket fast enough at the counter. Ramesh proposes one simple layer of pricing logic directly on an in-memory database, alongside the ERP, and asks whether forcing every custom need into a standard framework is always wise, against a “black box” mindset that resists the idea.
Article
The Affordable Care Act and Another Case for HANA Adoption
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
What would actually lower the cost of US healthcare? Ramesh describes a connected platform where data from implanted devices is shared between physicians and the device maker, enabling proactive care, standard treatment paths and better device design. Echoing Deming, he argues the surest way to cut cost is to improve the quality of the outcome.
Conference talk
Pricing on SAP HANA: The End of Pricing-Engine Issues
SAP Sapphire 2015 · Session PS20812, Platform and Technology Demo Theater
How moving pricing onto SAP HANA removes the bottlenecks that plague high-volume businesses such as consumer goods, retail and pharma distribution.
Presented on stage
Article
Are ERP Applications Evaporating? The First Story
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
The series opener. Ramesh traces ERP’s 25-year cycle of automate, expand, optimize and now simplify, as in-memory databases make whole layers of summaries and planning applications redundant. He predicts the next step: for transaction-heavy, calculation-light processes, the application layer itself evaporates, leaving a mobile front end working directly on the database.
Article
Pricing Process Complexity or Application Performance: Which Comes First?
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Sales, pricing strategy and IT each see a different pricing problem: slow engines, wrong prices, weekly new procedures, overloaded integrations. Ramesh argues pricing needs a balance of a robust engine, flexible processes and firm governance, or the result is lost sales and eroded margin.
Article
The Complex World of Rebates in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Address It with HANA
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Rebates drive a large share of pharma profit, yet penalties and missed-rebate claims keep surfacing. Ramesh shows why: a large wholesaler must recalculate rebates across millions of daily invoices, 25-plus rebate categories and 60 to 90 days of retroactive changes. An in-memory platform can do the calculation and keep every version for audit. This piece led into his Sapphire 2015 session.
Article
Are You Implementing Offline Capability in an Online World?
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Mobile ERP is simple online and costly offline, yet surgery theatres, mines and oil fields still need offline transactions. Ramesh lays out six facts to weigh before paying a premium for offline platforms: growing device storage, minimal field data, retiring apps as networks spread, and ERP’s own simplification.
Article
Is the Pricing Solution in Your Organization Good Enough?
LinkedIn · By Ramesh J. Chougule
Slow price calculation leads to inaccurate prices, missed sales and no room to simulate scenarios. A faster database alone won’t fix layer upon layer of pricing configuration. Ramesh argues for building the calculation logic directly on the database, a “fire-lane” that in his experience runs 10 to 15 times faster and stops errors moving downstream.
Interview
Clinical Trial Supply and Logistics: World Market Outlook 2015–2025
Visiongain · Research interview · paid report
Ramesh’s view on challenges in emerging markets for life sciences, how the market would change in five years, and Infosys’ contribution to the sector.
Published in a paid report
Interview
Life Sciences: An Important Industry for Information Technology Companies
Pharmabiz · Interview
Why life sciences matters to IT companies, with a focus on clinical trials and how contract research organizations can strengthen their technology adoption.
Article
Big Data: The Key to Big Profits in Pharmaceuticals Manufacture
The Manufacturer
With the blockbuster era over and major patents expiring, Ramesh argues pharma’s best asset is its data estate, and shows how analytics can speed up development and lower costs.
Article
Bigger Data
European Pharmaceutical Contractor
Serialisation mandates against counterfeiting are about to multiply pharma’s data. Ramesh urges companies to see the business case beyond compliance and use that data for efficiency.
Published in print
Webinar
Lessons from Optimizing Clinical Trial Supply Chain Processes
Infosys & SAP · Joint webinar · 60 min
With Kevin Brophy of SAP, Ramesh shows how cloud and on-premise clinical trial supply management can cut implementation costs by up to 50% and inventory overages by up to 40%.
Conference talk
Clinical Trial Supply Management on HANA, Cloud and Mobile
SAP Sapphire · Solution launch
The launch of Infosys’ clinical trial supply management solution on HANA, cloud and mobile: its biggest launch at Sapphire in ten years.
2009 – 2013Pharma operations and ERP
Article
Serialization Data: Help or Hindrance?
Innovations in Pharmaceutical Technology
Serialization is spreading around the globe to fight counterfeiting, but implementing it well is harder than it sounds. What it takes to make the data work for you.
Published in print
Article
Emerging Markets: Challenges in the Pharma Supply Chain
Pharmaceutical Executive
The opportunity in emerging markets is huge, and so are the obstacles. Ramesh maps six areas of challenge pharma companies must solve to grow there.
Published in print
Article
Advancing Drug R&D through Next-Generation ERP
Innovations in Pharmaceutical Technology
How next-generation ERP can automate product lifecycle management and bring a more holistic approach to drug discovery and development.
Published in print
Article
A Step-by-Step Path to Effective Product Complaint Management
Pharmaceutical Technology
Product failure can be fatal for a patient and severe for a manufacturer. Why complaint management belongs in the overall customer relationship, and how to build it step by step.
Article
Enterprise Resource Planning for Pharma: How to Have a Robust Application
Innovations in Pharmaceutical Technology
Pairing a robust methodology with a global delivery model gives pharma companies a cost-effective ERP application that is fully validated.
Published in print
1999Where it started
Article
Manufacturing Finance
ERP Journal, India
A data-driven framework for controlling manufacturing cost by modelling a plant as a profit center within its own boundaries.
Published in print
Article
ERP in Multimode Manufacturing
ERP Journal, India
How to implement ERP in a plant that runs both process and line manufacturing.
Published in print
Host a show for technology or finance leaders?
Ramesh joins virtually to talk about Purpose Debt and AI readiness. Please allow a week’s notice.
White papers
Research & points of view
White paper
Deliver Competitive Advantage via Cloud-Based SAP Workloads
SAPinsider · With Chris Ceska (Microsoft) and Damien Johnson (SAP)
Moving a business-critical function, SAP, from on-premise to Microsoft Azure. Ramesh and his co-authors explain why business and technical leaders must align, and how data governance, clear KPIs and the cloud provider’s services turn the move into lasting innovation and efficiency.