FPT and SAP partner with Vietnam’s wood industry to build Next-Generation management capabilities with SAP GROW Fast and Business AI

Vietnam’s wood industry has recorded many positive growth signals, while enterprises in the sector are simultaneously facing increasing operational pressures, including cost control, raw material management, traceability, and compliance with international standards. At the event “Transforming Wood Manufacturing with SAP GROW Fast & Business AI,” FPT and SAP introduced an approach combining ERP Cloud and Business AI, aiming to help enterprises standardize management, connect data, and enhance decision-making speed.

Ms. Hoang Thu Quynh – representative of SAP Vietnam, shares the reasons why SAP and FPT organized the event to accompany wood industry enterprises in digitalizing and standardizing management

The event attracted a large number of wood industry enterprises from leading wood associations in Vietnam. The seminar focused on addressing the specific challenges faced by wood manufacturing and export enterprises, leveraging data to support rapid operations management, and integrating Business AI to optimize operations and accelerate business decision-making.

Addressing the growth and complex management challenges of the wood industry

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, in the first five months of 2026, Vietnam’s export value of wood and wood products reached approximately USD 7.12 billion, up 4.4% compared with the same period in 2025. The United States remained the largest consumer market, showing that demand from key export markets continued to remain high.

Alongside new development opportunities, enterprises are facing increasingly stringent requirements for traceability, supply chain data transparency, sustainable development, and compliance with ESG and EUDR standards. At the same time, the specific characteristics of the wood industry, including made-to-order production, fluctuating raw material norms, waste rates depending on wood types, and fragmented data between offices and factories, make management standardization a major challenge for many enterprises.

In practice, ERP system implementation today often faces difficulties due to a lack of standardized input data, an overly broad implementation scope from the outset, prolonged implementation timelines, and challenges in generating value early enough to maintain investment commitment.

According to a representative of SAP Vietnam, with more than 20 years of presence in Vietnam and more than 800 enterprises currently operating on the SAP platform, SAP is expanding solution packages that are better suited to small and medium-sized enterprises, helping businesses access modern management platforms with flexible implementation roadmaps. “For the wood industry, the challenge is how to achieve rapid growth while still controlling operating costs and maintaining competitive advantages. SAP aims toward the ‘autonomous enterprise’ model – enterprises operating based on data, automation, and AI, thereby helping people reduce manual operations and improve management efficiency,” shared Ms. Hoang Thu Quynh – Sales Director at SAP Vietnam.

Mr. Chu Manh Huong, representative of FPT, highlighted the specific characteristics and needs of the wood industry in particular and the manufacturing sector in general when implementing ERP

Accordingly, Mr. Chu Manh Huong - Director of Business Consulting & Integrated Solutions Center FPT IS, FPT Corporation introduced the SAP GROW Fast solution package – a digital “brain” for management that helps enterprises connect data and manage operations seamlessly from business to production. The solution package enables enterprises to deploy applications quickly in approximately three months, with the scope, implementation timeline, and costs planned in advance.

For the wood industry, SAP GROW Fast connects the entire process from quotations, orders, raw material norms, production, warehousing and logistics to finance and accounting. As a result, enterprises can control costs by individual order, monitor consumption levels and production efficiency, while gaining timely data to accelerate business decision-making. Centralized management of raw material data and production processes also provides a foundation for enterprises to ensure supply chain transparency, trace legal wood origins, and meet international requirements such as EUDR.

In addition, SAP’s cloud platform enables enterprises to access AI capabilities and new innovations in phases, laying the foundation for enhancing analytical capabilities, automation, and operations management in the future.

Business AI in Business Operations

One of the key topics of the seminar was the application of Business AI and the Joule AI assistant in an ERP Cloud environment. Whereas ERP previously primarily played the role of recording and consolidating data, Business AI expands the role of management systems to support data analysis, automate business tasks, and provide real-time information to operational users.

SAP experts provided an in-depth overview of Business AI and the breakthrough advantages of integrating AI into operational processes

Ms. Huong Dao – AI & Data Solution Consulting Expert, SAP Vietnam, said that the key difference of Business AI lies in the integration of AI directly into core operational processes rather than operating as a separate tool. This helps enterprises reduce manual operations and improve access to management data, thereby shortening processing times and enhancing coordination among departments within the enterprise, supporting faster decision-making in a highly dynamic manufacturing environment such as the wood industry.

FPT experts analyzed and proposed an optimized ERP implementation roadmap for businesses in specialized industries

Accompanying wood industry enterprises on their transformation journey, FPT experts also introduced the Made by FPT ecosystem, comprising solutions for process automation, digital document management, human resource management, operational data analytics, and ESG management, helping enterprises gradually strengthen comprehensive management capabilities within a unified digital transformation architecture. Process digitization and centralized approval solutions integrated with SAP can digitize approval workflows, enabling enterprises to create accurate, complete, clean, and real-time data, thereby enhancing operational control and shortening processing times, helping enterprises gradually strengthen comprehensive management capabilities within a unified digital transformation architecture.

As a strategic SAP partner in the Asia-Pacific region, FPT has successfully implemented ERP and digital transformation projects across various key sectors, from agriculture to manufacturing… Accordingly, FPT and SAP have jointly distilled their experience to develop The Next AI ERP – effectively combining industry-specific know-how, the SAP GROW Fast core solution package, and the Made by FPT ecosystem, helping enterprises build a modern management foundation, accelerate business decision-making, and meet increasingly stringent requirements from international markets.