Grupo DESC Optimizes Processes With AI and SAP Rollout

The industrial and real estate conglomerate Grupo DESC has launched an operational transformation by integrating AI and technologies from SAP. This strategic collaboration aims to optimize processes and enhance responsiveness across the company’s consumer, industrial, and real estate divisions.

“We face challenges from multiple factors — macroeconomic, inflationary, political, and post-pandemic — and our commitment is to remain efficient, productive, and agile,” says Adrian Ramirez, CIO and Director of the Service Center, Grupo DESC. “Technology is the vehicle that allows us to transform, accelerate change, and enable innovation with real business impact.”

With over 50 years of operations, Grupo DESC manages a diversified business model across sectors with distinct operational requirements, including pork, automotive, and real estate. The main challenge of modernization is implementing a cohesive technology strategy that fosters synergies and enhances competitiveness across units with varying needs.

The company is focusing on three key pillars: processes, culture, and technology. The goal is to standardize and optimize functions where possible without sacrificing the specialization each industry requires. The SAP collaboration provides a unified technology ecosystem to support the group’s innovation strategy.

A tangible result is the MAXIAPERTURA project, which uses AI to optimize the store-opening process for Maxicarne. Covering roughly 450 branches in central and southern Mexico, the project won Phase One of SAP’s Innovation Tournament AI Edition 2025 for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Grupo DESC’s innovation strategy extends beyond a single initiative, including traceability and logistics solutions in the consumer division and advanced cybersecurity tools for the automotive sector.

Human capital development is central to the transformation. Employees receive training in advanced analytics, process automation, and chatbot creation, extending digital capabilities beyond IT teams to the broader organization.

“Our work with Grupo DESC shows how technology and AI can adapt to diverse realities within a single conglomerate. The key is to turn digital transformation into business transformation that delivers tangible, sustainable results,” says Paola Becerra, President, SAP Mexico.