TLDR: Hygiene and health company Essity has announced a multi-year collaboration with Accenture and Microsoft to accelerate the adoption of AI agents. This initiative aims to enhance business agility, drive efficiencies, and unlock new value by integrating advanced AI capabilities, starting with procurement and finance operations, and eventually scaling across all core business processes.
Essity, a leading global hygiene and health company, has embarked on a significant multi-year strategic collaboration with technology giants Accenture and Microsoft. The partnership is designed to accelerate Essity’s adoption and integration of AI agents across its operations, aiming to unlock substantial value, drive efficiencies, and foster improved business agility.
The initiative will see the three companies working together at Essity’s dedicated AI Centre of Excellence. Accenture’s expertise in cloud, data, and artificial intelligence will be leveraged, utilizing Microsoft’s cutting-edge technologies, including Azure, Copilot Studio, and Power Platform. Microsoft employees will also provide crucial technical guidance and support throughout the collaboration.
The primary objective is to establish a robust and flexible cloud-based technology platform capable of delivering next-generation AI capabilities. This platform will serve as a foundation for Essity to test, observe, and scale AI solutions across its diverse core business processes and functions, ultimately aiming for transformational impact.
Carl-Magnus Månsson, Essity’s Chief Digital and Information Officer, emphasized the strategic importance of this collaboration. “To accelerate value generation for our consumers, customers and our employees, we are collaborating with Accenture and Microsoft to access strong industry, functional, technical and product expertise, crucial for ensuring we have the agility to move as the market does,” Månsson stated. He added, “We are creating a robust and flexible foundation and approach for developing and embedding data and AI in our core business processes to create value and deliver growth. The platform will be developed with leading design principles within a responsible AI framework designed to ensure ethical and legally compliant use and aligned to our company core values: We are committed, we care, we collaborate, and we have courage.”
The initial phase of this ambitious tie-up will concentrate on enhancing procurement and finance operations. Cross-functional teams will be deployed to test, observe, and continuously refine these areas over a period of time. Looking ahead, Essity plans to scale AI across the entire company, reinventing other end-to-end business processes to create new pathways to value and growth.
Sophia Wikander, CEO of Microsoft Sweden, highlighted the transformative nature of AI in today’s landscape. “We’re operating in a transformative era of AI, where the ability to test, observe, shape, and scale solutions rapidly is evolving. Through this collaboration with Essity and Accenture, we’re bringing Microsoft’s agentic AI technologies and technical expertise to empower Essity to reimagine its core operations and unlock new levels of agility and value,” Wikander commented.
Patrik Malm, managing director at Accenture and lead of this initiative with Essity, also remarked on the significance of the partnership. “Essity has taken a bold step forward in realizing its ambition to be a pioneering company in the hygiene and health sector by reinventing key business processes with AI so it can move forward, faster,” said Malm. “We’re bringing together multi-disciplinary expertise across function, industry, and technology to create a cloud-based platform for collaboration and co-creation.”
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This multi-year push underscores Essity’s commitment to leveraging advanced artificial intelligence to drive innovation, improve operational efficiencies, and maintain a competitive edge in the hygiene and health sector.
