What challenges did Hilti Group face before AI implementation?

Legacy SAP systems are inflexible and difficult to scale or modernize. Manual business processes create inefficiencies in finance, HR, and supply chain. On-premises SAP hosting limits cloud-enabled automation, resilience, and analytics. Customers require tailored AI assistants and secure, collaborative enterprise environments.

Source

MicrosoftProductionEvidence: Low40/100

Hilti, JFE Steel, and South32 transform core business operations with SAP on Azure

Use case typeOnboarding automationUpdated Jun 13, 2026

Microsoft and SAP have enhanced their long-standing partnership by jointly enabling AI innovation and process transformation for enterprises worldwide. Through integration of SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), SAP Joule, and Microsoft 365 Copilot—combined with Power Platform and Azure OpenAI Service—customers accelerate SAP workload migrations, deploy AI assistants, and automate business workflows across finance, supply chain, and HR. Major global industrial and mining companies, including Hilti Group (construction), JFE Steel (manufacturing), and South32 (mining/resources), migrated complex SAP landscapes to Azure, achieving rapid business transformation with integrated AI and automation. The collaboration enables organizations to unify data from SAP and Microsoft 365, build custom Copilots using Copilot Studio, and leverage SAP data in Microsoft Teams and Power BI. Security Copilot helps detect and remediate SAP-related cyberthreats. Expanded SAP BTP regional availability boosts data sovereignty and compliance. The article provides real project results, case studies, and tested enterprise benefits enabled through Microsoft-powered SAP migrations.

Organization: Hilti Group
Industry: Manufacturing
Location: Global
Published: June 2024

Why do we believe this deployment?Customer identity, provider attribution, maturity, and source checks

Customer: Hilti Group, JFE Steel Corporation, South32
Provider: Microsoft
Maturity: Production
Linked source: Azure Blog

South32 achieved consolidation of a 100TB SAP landscape on Azure, improved operational insights and cost transparency

Customer identity supportedSource describes one deploymentMaturity supported

Primary read

Use case focus

Showing 3 of 3

1AI-Enabled SAP ERP Migration and Automation
2Unified SAP-Microsoft Data Collaboration via Copilot
3SAP Security Automation with Security Copilot

Migrated SAP workloads (S/4HANA, SuccessFactors, Concur) to Microsoft Azure globally.
Integrated SAP BTP with Azure AI for custom automation and analytics.
Leveraged Microsoft 365 Copilot, Azure OpenAI Service, and Power Platform for AI assistants, automated workflows, and business insights.
Enabled integration with Microsoft Teams, enhanced SAP’s attack resilience with Security Copilot, and expanded compliance with BTP regional options.

Technologies

Microsoft 365 Copilot Azure OpenAI Service Power Platform Azure AI Copilot Security

Architecture

Customers migrate SAP workloads (S/4HANA, SuccessFactors, Concur) to Azure, with SAP BTP hosted in the same region for integrated data, AI, and automation. Microsoft 365 Copilot accesses SAP data via Joule and custom connectors in Copilot Studio. Azure OpenAI Service augments processes for finance and supply chain (e.g., predictive analytics, document processing). Power Platform automates workflows; Security Copilot manages SAP-related security events. Teams provides SAP contextual integrations for end-users. Deployments leverage Azure M-Series VMs for HANA workloads and compliance across multiple Azure regions.

Implementation partners1

SAP

Sources & evidence1

Evidence: Low40/100Evidence strength