Kumul Consolidated Holdings adopts TechnologyOne Plus

Kumul Consolidated Holdings has gone live with TechnologyOne Plus, making the Papua New Guinea state investor one of the first users of the system in the Pacific.

The platform is now used across finance, procurement and administration at Kumul Consolidated Holdings, which manages state assets, investments and projects across large parts of the economy. Staff can use voice prompts to query enterprise data instead of relying on reports and dashboards.

Employees can use the system to identify debtors with outstanding balances, generate supplier and creditor summaries, and create purchase requisitions. The aim is to give staff faster access to financial and operational information linked to the assets under its management.

Kumul Consolidated Holdings oversees commercial interests in power, telecommunications, aviation, banking and financial services, logistics, water and sanitation, agriculture, and major infrastructure projects. This gives the group a central role in managing state-backed commercial activity and essential service-related investments in Papua New Guinea.

The move also brings artificial intelligence more directly into the company's core back-office systems. Instead of requiring staff to learn separate tools, it lets them ask direct questions about internal enterprise data as part of routine work.

The project has also focused on workforce preparation, with investment in staff education, hands-on learning and internal champions as AI is introduced into day-to-day operations.

Professor David Kavanamur outlined the rationale for the deployment.

"We manage assets and investments that play an important role in Papua New Guinea's economy and the delivery of essential services. Plus gives our employees a fast and simple way to access the information they need to manage those assets effectively," said Professor David Kavanamur, Managing Director, Kumul Consolidated Holdings.

Operational use

The implementation reflects a broader pattern among public sector and regulated organisations that are applying AI to administrative and financial processes rather than limiting it to pilot projects. Here, the functions described cover debtor analysis, supplier information and procurement tasks at the centre of routine corporate operations.

For a state-owned investment and asset management company, faster access to this information can affect asset oversight, internal controls and spending processes. Voice interaction is also intended to reduce the amount of manual report-building required.

TechnologyOne said the product used by Kumul Consolidated Holdings sits within its AI governance framework, which is certified to ISO 42001. It presented this as an important factor for government and regulated organisations that need controls around security, compliance and risk management.

Cale Bennett, Executive Vice President, Regulated Industries at TechnologyOne, said the deployment showed how organisations were moving from trials to day-to-day use.

"KCH is demonstrating how organisations can move beyond AI experimentation and deliver measurable business outcomes. Through Plus, KCH employees can become ERP specialists with a zero-learning curve, using AI to accelerate analytical discovery, generate supplier insights, and streamline procurement processes," Bennett said.

He also linked the rollout to governance and operational controls.

"Built on TechnologyOne's ISO 42001-certified AI governance framework, Plus provides the security, compliance and risk management required by government and regulated organisations. By embedding AI directly into ERP workflows, KCH is accelerating decision-making, improving operational efficiency, and realising value from AI sooner," Bennett said.

Broader context

Kumul Consolidated Holdings is responsible for assets and investments across several sectors important to Papua New Guinea's economy. That makes changes to its internal systems relevant not only to administrative staff but also to the oversight of public commercial holdings and infrastructure-linked projects.

The adoption of AI is part of a wider transformation effort across the business. While the current deployment covers finance, procurement and administration, the internal programme has also focused on building employee confidence so the technology becomes part of everyday work rather than remaining confined to specialist teams.

That emphasis on internal adoption reflects a common hurdle in AI projects, where tools are implemented technically but fail to become embedded in established processes. Kumul Consolidated Holdings said its use of internal champions and practical training was designed to address that issue and help employees understand how the technology supports their existing responsibilities.

The deployment is intended to shorten the path between a question and an action inside the organisation's financial and procurement systems. Employees can query debtor balances, review supplier information and initiate requisitions through the same environment used to manage core enterprise records.