In a joint innovation project, Natura &Co, SAP partner Numen and SAP have automated the time-consuming process of gross margin analysis. This means the company can now use real-time insights to drive financial decisions.

For a company embarking on one of the most important transformations in its history, financial clarity is essential. The Brazilian cosmetics group Natura &Co is behind world-famous brands such as Natura and Avon. For many years, it has been important to the company to harmonize its financial performance with social and ecological objectives. After a strategic realignment of the portfolio, which included the sale of the brands Aesop and The Body Shop, the company's main focus is now on profitability and the optimization of business processes in Latin America and the global markets.

Natura &Co is confronted with a challenge that doesn't seem that complex at first: real-time insight into the sales and cost factors that have a positive or negative impact on the gross margin in a highly diversified business. For many years, research into these factors has required manual reporting and delays in providing information. Finance teams had to spend their valuable time collecting data instead of performing analysis.

However, thanks to a joint innovation project with SAP and SAP partner Numen, which specializes in digital transformation and the implementation of business software, new times are now dawning for Natura &Co.

From manual reports to proactive, intelligent decisions

The aim of the project was to replace the complex gross margin analysis process with an application based on generative AI that is directly integrated into Natura &Co's financial workflows. The application is based on the SAP Business AI Platform, SAP's unified foundation for integrating enterprise technologies, data and AI functions, and can directly access data in SAP S/4HANA. This gives finance teams automated insights and descriptive recommendations in real time without having to manually pull data or create offline reports.

The application allows users to interactively analyze revenue, cost and margin drivers and see at a glance which factors have a positive or negative impact on margin results in different markets and individual product lines. Human control plays a crucial role: the AI ​​application generates insights, while finance managers continue to have complete control over how the data is evaluated and what decisions are made based on it.

“The implementation of gross margin analysis based on AI in SAP S/4HANA was a turning point for us in terms of the analysis capabilities of our finance department,” reports Rogério Dias Garcia, technical manager for ERP Latam at Natura &Co. “By integrating margin analysis from SAP S/4HANA into a large language model connected via SAP AI Core, there are now no more delays and we have been able to set new standards in terms of analysis. With this architecture we can offer a differentiated and precise view of the negative and positive influencing factors in relation to the gross margin – agile, secure and completely anonymous. This allows us to determine exactly which types of revenue or costs we use to achieve high performance in a market.”

Scalable AI adoption with a collaborative architecture

The Natura application emerged from a prototype that SAP partner Numen presented to the global in early 2024 Hack2Build developed by SAP for AI solutions for companies and which is based on the functions of the SAP Business AI Platform. Natura &Co, Numen and SAP worked closely together to design and develop the solution. From the outset, the goal was to align the introduction of AI with specific business priorities. This should ensure that the application does not remain an isolated prototype, but is scalable and can be used in the production environment.

Numen brought extensive know-how about implementing SAP solutions to the project. On the one hand, the SAP partner is very familiar with the SAP S/4HANA architecture and, on the other hand, has practical experience in developing solutions based on the SAP Business AI Platform. The technology stack consisting of SAP S/4HANA, SAP AI Core, SAP Fiori and SAP BTP created a secure, integrated basis for linking financial data in a corporate context with functions for generative AI.

“SAP has created the conditions for transformation with the technological foundation and expert support,” explains Carlos Aravechia, Head of Data Design & Intelligence at Numen.

The success of the project confirms that Natura &Co believes that the direct integration of generative AI into ERP workflows can strengthen the position of the finance department and promote its development from a purely transaction-oriented function to a strategic business partner.

A blueprint for other companies

Natura &Co's project can be used as a template by other companies, especially if they already use SAP S/4HANA. By combining structured ERP data with the ability of large language models to make contextual inferences, a foundation for intelligent decisions is created that goes far beyond the capabilities of traditional business intelligence tools.

The co-innovation sprint for the project lasted six months and went live in August 2025. Natura &Co is currently using the application for its offices in Ecuador.

Natura &Co already has concrete plans for the future: By integrating Joule agents, the company wants to further automate the extraction of standard content for analyzes and advance the AI-controlled optimization of financial processes.

“The success of this initiative demonstrates the transformative potential of integrated AI in our ERP system,” explains Rogério Dias Garcia. “We are now ready for the next step. We want to provide even more detailed insights and, by integrating the capabilities of Joule agents, enable optimal extraction of standard content so that we can make even better business decisions.”

For SAP customers who are considering how to move from initial experiments with AI to productive use of AI, Natura & Co's project offers a concrete, replicable model: It shows how they can start with a clearly defined business process with high value creation potential, integrate AI directly into existing workflows and ensure human control from the start.