Introduction: Generative AI in Financial Transformation
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, companies are turning to generative AI in finance to drive efficiency, accuracy, and strategic value. Natura &Co, a leading Brazilian personal care and cosmetics group with renowned brands like Natura and Avon, is at the forefront of this shift. Following major strategic changes, including the divestiture of Aesop and The Body Shop, Natura &Co has intensified its focus on profitability and operational excellence across Latin America and beyond. At the heart of this transformation is the need for real-time clarity into revenue and cost factors impacting gross margins—a challenge that has historically required manual, time-consuming reporting.
From Manual Reporting to AI-Driven Insights
For years, Natura &Co’s finance teams were bogged down with manual processes and delayed insights, limiting their ability to make informed decisions quickly. To overcome these limitations, Natura &Co partnered with SAP and Numen, a global SAP specialist, to co-develop an advanced generative AI solution. This initiative was aimed at automating gross margin analysis, empowering finance professionals to focus on strategic analysis rather than data gathering.
The new generative AI application, built on the SAP Business AI Platform and fully integrated with SAP S/4HANA, connects directly to real-time financial data. It provides automated insights and narrative recommendations, eliminating the need for offline reporting or manual data pulls. With this solution, users can interactively explore revenue, cost, and margin drivers across different markets and product lines, immediately identifying which elements are supporting or eroding performance.
Human Oversight Remains Key
Despite the power of generative AI in finance, Natura &Co’s approach emphasizes the importance of human expertise. The AI application serves as a tool, generating powerful insights, while finance professionals maintain full control over interpretation and decision-making. Rogério Dias Garcia, Tech Manager for ERP Latam at Natura &Co, highlighted the significance of this transformation: “The implementation of gross margin analysis using AI in SAP S/4HANA marked an inflection point in the analytical capability of our finance area. By integrating margin analysis with large language models through SAP AI Core, we achieved agile, secure, and precise views of gross margin offenders and protectors—pinpointing exactly which revenue or cost elements are driving market performance.”
Collaborative Innovation and Scalable Architecture
This breakthrough was made possible through a close partnership between Natura &Co, Numen, and SAP. The generative AI solution took shape from a prototype first developed by Numen at SAP’s global Hack2Build on business AI in early 2024. The project’s vision was to align AI adoption with pressing business needs, ensuring that the application was both scalable and ready for production use.
Numen’s expertise in SAP implementation proved invaluable, blending deep knowledge of SAP S/4HANA with hands-on skills in building solutions on the SAP Business AI Platform. The technology stack—including SAP S/4HANA, SAP AI Core, SAP Fiori, and SAP Business Technology Platform—offered a secure, integrated base for merging financial data with generative AI capabilities.
Carlos Aravechia, Head of Data Design & Intelligence at Numen, noted, “SAP enabled the transformation by providing the technological foundation and expert support.” This collaborative approach not only improved analytical depth but also set a new standard for how generative AI in finance can reposition the finance function from transactional to strategic.
A Blueprint for Enterprise AI Adoption
The success of Natura &Co’s generative AI project offers valuable lessons for other organizations, especially those running SAP S/4HANA. By combining structured ERP data with the contextual reasoning power of large language models, companies can build decision intelligence that surpasses traditional business intelligence tools. Implemented within a six-month co-innovation sprint, the solution went live in August 2025 and is now operational across Natura &Co’s Ecuador operations.
Looking forward, the company is already planning the next phase—integrating Joule Agents to automate the extraction of standard analytical content and further optimize financial processes using AI. “The success of this initiative validates the transformative potential of embedded AI within our ERP,” said Dias Garcia. “We are eager to deepen these insights and integrate Joule Agents to maximize content extraction and optimize business decisions.”
Conclusion: The Future of Generative AI in Finance
For SAP customers and other enterprises considering a move from AI experimentation to production, Natura &Co’s journey with generative AI in finance provides a replicable model. The key: start with a high-value, well-defined business process, embed AI directly into existing workflows, and ensure human oversight from the outset. As generative AI continues to reshape financial management, organizations embracing this technology stand to gain significant competitive advantages.
This article is inspired by content from Original Source. It has been rephrased for originality. Images are credited to the original source.