Executives are extremely busy people, always on the move from one meeting to another. Meetings where they need information to make decisions and drive the business forward.
At SAP that information used to be delivered as static reports in Office formats or pdf. The information was only as good as the time the report was produced. Easy to view on a desktop or laptop, the same files could just about be viewed on a tablet or smartphone, but it wasn’t easy.
Today it’s different, thanks to Carsten Schwarz, chief operations officer, Enterprise Analytics, and the rest of his team.
The team’s objective is to leverage the latest analytics tools to provide executives and managers with real-time business insights in a user-friendly way. And they’ve developed a number of innovations to do it.
The SAP Smart Business cockpit, executive edition, for example, allows executives to quickly configure their own dashboards on the fly to get the real-time information and KPIs they need. And the solution scales, depending on the device being used to view the data, making it much easier for executives to digest the information.
Another breakthrough is the Enterprise Analytics Store. This virtual one-stop shop is stocked with pre-defined reports. Users around the world can rapidly search for and compile reports that are tailored to their business needs. They can also look up how measures are constructed. And, most importantly, they can be confident in the accuracy of the underlying data as it comes directly from SAP’s operational systems.
However, perhaps the biggest breakthrough the Enterprise Analytics team has achieved is the project known as the Boardroom Redefined. At every meeting, SAP’s board now has access to all financial and operational data across the company in real time. When questions or queries come up, they can be answered in seconds. That in itself is a huge advantage.
But what’s more remarkable is that the board can perform real-time simulations on the data to predict the outcomes of various business scenarios. Now when situations come up the board can decide the best course of action immediately, enabling it to move quickly to take advantage of emerging opportunities.
Of course, as Carsten is quick to point out, all these innovations are underpinned by sound data governance to ensure the data can be relied upon as being accurate and up to date. Plus, everything is built on consistent information design standards that make it easy for users to understand them.
Learn more about these innovations and how other groups within SAP are running analytics solutions that accelerate insight, anticipate tomorrow, and shape the future.
