AI Innovation Awards: 6 Global Giants Transform Business with 2,500% ROI

Bosch, BT International, Johnson & Johnson, McCormick & Company, Inc., Roche Turkiye, and Schneider Electric Recognized for Their Innovative Use of AI

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT), a leading generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) consultancy and executive advisory firm, today announced the winners of its inaugural Hackett Innovation Awards, which recognize companies that are using artificial intelligence (AI) to transform their end-to-end business process performance. These companies have successfully infused AI into a wide range of end-to-end business processes.

The 2025 Hackett Innovation Award winners and their win categories are: Bosch (Purchase-to-Pay), BT International (Order-to-Cash), Johnson & Johnson (AI/Automation Center of Excellence), McCormick & Company, Inc. (Source-to-Purchase), Roche Turkiye (Business Operations), and Schneider Electric (Plan-to-Source-to-Make-to-Deliver).

“These companies aren’t just adopting AI – they’re building intelligent systems that solve real business problems at scale,” said Vin Kumar, principal at The Hackett Group^®and a judge of the competition. “There has been a significant shift from last year’s submissions that were more experimentation to much broader scale execution, and the results speak for themselves.”

Key trends highlighted by Kumar and other judges include:

Hyper-automation at scale: Leading companies are using Gen AI and agentic automation to transform entire end-to-end processes – cutting cycle times, eliminating manual tasks and generating return on investment (ROI) in record time.
Domain-specific innovation: From clinical oncology to agricultural procurement, organizations are embedding AI into the core of industry-specific workflows to drive breakthrough performance.
Rapid ROI realization: All winners achieved measurable returns within 3-12 months, with some exceeding 2,500% ROI – proving that well-targeted AI investments deliver immediate business value.

This year’s winners are:

Bosch: Winner, Purchase-to-Pay: Agentic AI-Based Processing of Dunning Inquiries in Invoice-to-Pay (I2P)

The Bosch Group, a leading global supplier of technology and services, boosts efficiency in its Invoice-to-Pay Customer Service Center by using agentic AI-based processes. Like many large companies, Bosch receives approximately 500,000 I2P inquiries annually – mostly by email. With its AI expertise in order to develop and manufacture user-friendly, sustainable products, Bosch was able to create an AI agent that searches and retrieves relevant invoice information in any of Bosch’s 40 SAP instances. As a result, in up to 80% of the addressed cases, the response time is reduced to just a few minutes. Since the launch in November 2024, the system fielded 20% of inquiries by mid-March and will cover 80% of inquiries within the next few months.

BT International, Powered by Wipro: Winner, Order-to-Cash: Performance Improvement Using Digital Transformation-Led Innovative Pilot Smart Operations

Concerned about delays in revenue realization due to high end-to-end order fulfillment cycle times and a large volume of backlogged orders, the UK-based multinational telecommunications company leveraged AI and machine learning to predict order backlog and potential order fulfillment failures with over 85% accuracy. A first in the telecommunications industry, this system significantly improved the order management and fulfillment process. Managed by Wipro – the information technology services firm – BT International was able to reduce order backlog by 29%. Order fulfillment quality improved with 96% right first-time delivery. Total annual benefit amounts to $83.9 million (early revenue realization) – with ROI to date topping 26,000%.

Johnson & Johnson: Winner, AI/Automation Center of Excellence: JAIDA-GenAI

Since its launch in 2020, JAIDA (J&J Artificial Intelligence Digital Assistant) had matured from a limitedly featured chatbot to a much broader Gen AI product. As the sophistication and reach of the program grew, J&J Global Services began to develop a five-stage methodology for delivering automations within J&J. Now engaged with 11 different internal functions focused on improving the employee digital experience and creating measurable value for J&J over the next three years, use case level investment payback is expected within 12 to 18 months. More importantly, company leaders see the investment as laying the groundwork for future growth and innovation.

McCormick & Company, Inc.: Winner, Source-to-Purchase: Project IRMA (Iconic Raw Materials Analysis)

McCormick & Company, Inc., a global leader in flavor and a prominent purchaser of agricultural products, sought to identify the optimal purchasing windows to maintain supply flexibility and strengthen its competitive advantage. In response, McCormick’s procurement team partnered with their data and analytics colleagues to develop a sophisticated predictive system named Iconic Raw Materials Analytics (IRMA). By harnessing the power of machine learning and AI-driven insights from agricultural, economic, weather and futures datasets, IRMA has evolved into a key strategic tool, seamlessly integrated into the company’s sourcing strategies. Since its implementation, this cloud-based solution has consistently demonstrated its value by enhancing efficiency and impact across the business.

Roche Turkiye: Winner, Business Operations: Clinical Data Platform for Oncology

Most Hackett Innovation Award winners save money and time. Roche Turkiye’s Clinical Data Platform for Oncology is also on track to save the lives of thousands of Turkish women. The AI-powered clinical data platform is designed to standardize and optimize breast cancer treatment processes across provincial healthcare systems. In the four-month pilot phase, 25% of patients achieved better treatment, as their healthcare providers followed the AI agent’s treatment recommendations. One positive side effect was that over the following four months – as the number of healthcare professionals enrolled in the program grew by 50% – ROI topped 2,500% because early treatment is not only more effective, it’s also cheaper.

Schneider Electric: Winner, Plan-to-Source-to-Make-to-Deliver: Cost Analytics Power (CAP) Tool for Procurement Negotiation

Seeing an opportunity to augment data from traditional enterprise resource planning systems with information from business intelligence systems like adding material waste, part composition and very granular market information – all factors essential for accurate cost forecasting – Schneider Electric GSC Data & Analytics and its Global Procurement Services Center of Excellence developed their own solution cost analysis tool. Schneider’s Cost Analytics Power (CAP) tool is built on a Quickbase low-code platform to fill those missing gaps in their knowledge. The Quickbase-based solution consolidated and improved data accuracy across regions. Thanks to the CAP tool, they can now analyze about 30 million transactions per year, which can identify significant savings opportunities. Payback took no more than three months.

“The award-winning organizations have found operational areas where they have designed, developed and implemented AI solutions in their production environments,” said John K. Thompson, senior vice president and principal at The Hackett Group^®. “We were impressed with the ability of these organizations to drive change and transformation with AI and to begin to see and plan for scaling of those solutions across their global operations. We are excited to see where the market is next year. We expect broader and deeper adoption of AI technologies across the enterprise.”

About The Hackett Group^®

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