1. Eliminate work
Remove avoidable reports, duplicate handoffs, supplier resubmission loops, and unnecessary exception reviews.
bp Transformation Storyline
Local enterprise fabric · Hypercare intelligence · Governance visibility · Production swap readiness
Guided Workshop Storyline
This is the workshop packaging layer for BP. It turns the local enterprise fabric, runtime trust surface, executive question console, and production swap guidance into one coherent transformation story instead of a loose collection of APIs and mission pages.
Transformation Levers
Savings come from five levers, not only AI. This makes the transformation story credible because policy, process, controls, and behavior changes carry part of the value.
2. Simplify process
Collapse fragmented paths into standard case states, owner rules, evidence requirements, and exception taxonomies.
3. Enforce policy
No-PO/no-pay, self-service reporting, mandatory invoice formats, and response SLAs reduce avoidable work at source.
4. Embed controls
SOX, authority, segregation, materiality, source lineage, and audit replay become runtime checks.
5. Automate and autonomize remaining work
After work is eliminated, simplified, policy-bound, and controlled, agents can safely execute repeatable work and escalate only judgment decisions.
External vs Internal Work Model
| Work type | Examples | Automation difficulty | Autonomy implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| External-document work | Non-PO invoices, supplier documents, customer disputes, remittances, contracts, emails. | Higher because format, evidence quality, language, and counterparties vary. | Needs stronger extraction, confidence routing, and human gates before write-back. |
| Internal-system work | Journals, reconciliations, close tasks, FP&A explanations, treasury checks, controls testing. | Lower because structures, owners, policies, and source systems are more controlled. | R2R and Continuous Close can mature faster into supervised autonomy. |
Autonomy Maturity Roadmap
| Horizon | Mode | What changes | Authority posture |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-3 months | Observe and learn | Agents watch queues, classify cases, gather evidence, and measure work. | Read-only. Humans execute. |
| 3-6 months | Decision support | Agents recommend actions with context, evidence, policy, and confidence. | Recommend-only. Human decides. |
| 6-12 months | Assisted execution | Agents draft SAP, Ariba, BlackLine, and ServiceNow actions and route approvals. | Draft/write-prep. Human approves. |
| 12-18 months | Supervised autonomy | Agents execute low-risk bounded actions and escalate exceptions. | Guarded write-back under thresholds. |
| 18-24 months | Autonomous operations | Repeatable work runs continuously with controller, supervisor, and audit oversight. | Policy-bound autonomous execution for proven patterns. |
Policy and Behavior Change Tracks
Policy change
No PO, No Pay; self-service reporting; mandatory invoice formats; approval thresholds; mandatory evidence; write-back authority boundaries.
Behavior change
Goods receipt discipline; stakeholder self-service; requester response SLAs; supplier pre-submission correction; retained-owner decisions.
Reverse SLA Model
Transformation requires commitments from the retained organization and technology teams. This protects delivery risk and makes dependencies explicit.
| Owner | Reverse SLA | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Business | Approve policy changes and remove avoidable exception branches. | Savings cannot depend only on automation if the process remains broken. |
| Process owners | Respond to escalations and approve standard exception handling patterns. | Agents need stable judgment rules and clear human ownership. |
| Technology | Provide data/API access, SOR read patterns, write gateways, and observability. | Live agent work needs reliable source-system wiring. |
| Retained organization | Resolve governance decisions, authority boundaries, and control ownership. | Autonomy cannot scale without named accountability. |
Value Attribution Runtime
Every case should calculate value at source and roll it from analyst to team, tower, FB&T, and CFO.
Effort removed
Manual research, reporting, follow-up, and evidence assembly eliminated.
Exception eliminated
Root cause removed through policy, format, data, or process simplification.
Cycle time reduced
Cases move faster through evidence, approval, posting, and closure.
Financial impact
Leakage avoided, working capital improved, controls automated, manual reports retired.
Write-back Governance
Sphere can recommend, prepare, trigger, or execute actions. Every action follows enterprise policy, approval workflow, control rules, and audit trail. The platform does not randomly post into SAP or other systems of record.
Recommend
Prepare
Policy check
Human gate
Controlled write
Replay
Measure value
Anchor Demo Scenarios
| Demo | Before state | Sphere decision support | Outcome shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| P2P: Non-PO invoice exception | Tax, bank, commodity, coding, approval, and posting loops. | Agents assemble context, recommend coding/tax/bank resolution, and route DofA. | Human approval, governed FB60 trigger, learning, effort and cycle-time value. |
| O2C: Collections dispute / credit note | Collector researches dispute manually and waits for evidence. | Agents identify root cause, evidence, policy threshold, credit-note recommendation. | Approval, workflow trigger, cash acceleration, dispute pattern learning. |
| R2R: Journal anomaly and correction | Reviewer finds support gaps late in close. | Agents detect anomaly, gather evidence, apply materiality and SOX controls. | Controller approval, journal staging, replay, close-readiness impact. |
| FP&A: Self-service forecast explanation | Finance partner manually explains variance and rebuilds bridges. | Agents connect actuals, drivers, assumptions, scenarios, and narrative. | Approved explanation, management pack update, learning on driver accuracy. |
Retained Organization Interface
Policy owner
Approves policy changes, thresholds, and write-back conditions.
Control owner
Owns SOX/control checks, evidence rules, exceptions, and sign-off.
Data owner
Owns source quality, lineage, access, definitions, and remediation.
Exception owner
Owns unresolved judgment cases and escalation decisions.
Technology owner
Owns APIs, events, environments, identity, and operations.
Business process owner
Owns operating model, roles, SLAs, and adoption.
Executive line
Sphere is not just an AI automation tool. It is a governed finance decision and action platform that eliminates avoidable work, automates repeatable work, supports human judgment, and continuously learns how finance operates.