In the previous postings, I had discussed the basic tenets behind the design of Spend Performance Management application. We saw how the three basic tenets - Extending the value of investments in SAP Spend Performance Management (Part 1 - User Experience), Extending the value of investments in SAP Spend Performance Management (Part 2 - Leveraging Existing... and Extending the value of investments in SAP Spend Performance Management (Part 3 - Rapid value realiza... brings value to IT and Business. Consumption of Enterprise information on mobile device has become a necessity today. What does this mean for business users who are looking to reduce procurement costs with a focus on the supplier risks? How can they benefit from SAP Spend Performance Management while they are mobile and not connected to their corporate network? In this post you will see how we can extend the value of SAP Spend Performance Management to deliver business value very quickly to mobile users.
Analyzing Enterprise data on Mobile device
When decision makers have the consolidated, precise and current information residing in traditional SAP Business Warehouse (BW) systems - on a mobile device, it brings a new level of efficiency in decision making process and enhances the value of investments made in SAP applications. With the SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, SAP changed the way how information can be analyzed with a very intuitive UI and simple representation of complex business data. By providing integrations with SAP BW, SAP customers can now analyze the complex enterprise data currently residing in BW much more effectively with the help of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. With this integration, all the products under the BusinessObjects portfolio can now consume the data that is residing in BW. Customers can now find a valuable extension for the vast investments that they have made over a decade in ERP and BW. SAP also released a beta version of an iPhone app on the Apple App Store that any user can download on their iPhone. This application allows users to effectively analyze data on the iPhone. This app can also be configured to connect to customer's corporate Business Explorer server that is connected to the BW.
Spend Performance Management on Mobile
SAP Spend Performance Management content is built on top of SAP BW. Since the BW content is already available as part of the application, using products like SAP BusinessObjects Explorer and BusinessObjects XI Integration kit for SAP, it is now possible to expose the data available in the Business Warehouse to a mobile device. With the help of the BusinessObjects Explorer iPhone app, business users specializing in procurement decisions can now have access to the consolidated procurement related information from various transactional systems on their mobile device. So there it is - now users getting into contract negotiations with their suppliers can have immediate access to critical information that can put them at advance during critical contract negotiations. During contract negotiations, accurate information gives the power to get the desired outcomes. Understanding the collective spend that the company has with a supplier or understanding the risks that a particular supplier might pose to your business is very critical to negotiate the best terms and conditions.
Connecting the pieces of this puzzle
In order to get Spend Performance Management on an iPhone, the following pieces are needed:
1. SAP Spend Performance Management application deployed with data
3. BusinessObjects Integration Kit for SAP
4. SAP BusinessObjects Explorer
5. iPhone Application for SAP BusinessObjects Explorer
When these software components have been deployed in your IT landscape, the process of bringing the power of SAP Spend Performance Management data to mobile users has started. The BI Content for SAP Spend Performance Management comes with several queries. In order to simplify this exercise, it will be good to start with a custom query that has a limited dimensions (Key Characteristics) and measures (Key Figures). Using the BusinessObjects Integration kit for SAP , one can generate the OLAP Universe that is automatically generated based on the query. Now, Business Explorer can point to this OLAP Universe and deliver the required data analysis that is relevant for the end user.
Conclusion
We now have solutions that can provide complex information available in BW on an iPhone. One can just imagine that this is just the beginning. The current solutions may not address all possible scenarios and use cases, but this is expected during the initial stages of any breakthrough. One can expect that with more mobile devices that come to the market practically every day, more applications are being built by SAP and its ecosystem to ensure that complex enterprise information is available to mobile devices where the ease of consumption is critical. Such applications will dramatically simplify the information so that effective decisions can now happen with information available on any device.
If you are interested in viewing a demo, please send me an email so that I can include you in any upcoming events that showcases SAP Spend Performance Management on the iPhone using the SAP BusinessObjects Explorer.
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