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Angie
Halderman
Senior Director,
SAP Business Development and Strategic Alliances,
SAP Labs, LLC |
Converting corporate strategy into action is
one of the most daunting challenges for any company,
one that, according to the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative,
nine out of ten companies fail to execute.1
I see two primary reasons for this. One is that most
organizations lack the technologies to properly align
strategy with execution. That's where SAP xApp
Analytics becomes so vital. SAP xApp Analytics delivers
data (historical and real-time), insights, and the
means to act on these findings in a timely manner,
within the context of a business process. For example:
- The CEO is chartered to increase return
on capital by 5% and improve the profitability
of the company. To achieve this goal, the
CEO can use SAP xApp Analytics to infuse strategy
into day-to-day operations throughout the
organization. For every role in the company,
SAP xApp Analytics delivers the analytic solutions
to measure results that roll up into the CEO's
mandate. The COO and CFO are focused on driving
down days sales outstanding, the finance director
is chartered to decrease cash cycle times,
and the manufacturing director must decrease
inventory turns. This strategic alignment results
in compressed decision cycles and improved performance.
- Within the order-to-cash process, a credit
manager makes decisions based on a customer's
credit standing. If a customer places a large
order that exceeds his credit limit, this
manager can pull up the blocked order list analytic
application (see Figure 1),
review the customer's
history and strategic value to the company,
make a decision, and instantly take action. What's
more, the credit manager's
decision immediately propagates into the underlying
systems and can be captured and correlated against
desired outcomes.
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Figure
1 |
The Blocked Order
List Enables Decision Makers to Take Action
the Moment a Customer's Credit Information
Is Presented |
The second reason it is so difficult for companies
to execute against their strategic goals is that
the goals are known only to a select few. This
need not be the case. With SAP's newest
generation of analytics for the business user,
strategic goals and the ability to act upon them
can be consistent and widespread. These state-of-the-art,
interactive, graphical interfaces are service-enabled
and very easy to develop and customize with SAP
NetWeaver Visual Composer technology.
SAP xApp Analytics applications are easily
generated, attractively presented, and
animated using Adobe Flex. For SAP customers
and partners, the product will be generally
available in Q3 2006 for download via the
SAP Service Marketplace (http://service.sap.com). |
Because new SAP xApp Analytics applications
couple insights with the ability to take action,
you'll hear them referred to as composite
analytic applications. Some general highlights
of composite applications include their ability
to:
- Reuse, integrate, and orchestrate functionality
from existing application assets in the
context of an enterprise service-oriented
architecture (enterprise SOA), with the selective
development of new functionality only where
needed to fill gaps
- Provide new functionality
beyond mere integration
- Implement
start-to-finish business processes to solve
concrete business problems
- Be configurable
without code change
- Enable a view of critical
business performance metrics to allow analysis
followed by action — these
are "actionable insights," not
just read-only views
- Be delivered from an
enterprise view for C-level executives and
from a business-process view for the entire
organization to leverage
- Take advantage of
existing applications and infrastructure
to deliver actionable insights
SAP xApp Analytics is a robust portfolio that includes
over 100 function- and industry-specific analytics
applications (see Figure 2). Customers
can view demos by visiting www.sap.com/community/analytics or
contacting an SAP sales representative.
As the new
breed of SAP's analytic applications,
SAP xApp Analytics:
- Enables users
to make decisions and take action
on information from within the
analytic application itself.
- Allows "write
backs," meaning they interact
with the transactional system and
are not read-only.
- Is in the
context of a process. A user can
embed analytics as a part of a
guided process, bringing in context
from a previous process step and
sending this context into the next
process step.
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Generic composites (Over
50 and growing) |
Industry-specific composites (Over
60 and growing) |
CRM
Channel Manager, E-Commerce Manager, Manage Sales
Pipeline, Marketing Planning, Partner Manager,
Service Manager, Win-Loss Analysis |
Consumer Products
Brand Analytics, Category Cockpit, Category Price
Analysis, Channel Performance, Promotion Effectiveness |
Financials
Blocked Order List, Consolidation Analytics,
Corporate Governance, Credit Monitor, Early
Warning List, Payment Behavior Monitor, Profit
Center Analytics |
High Tech
NPDI Projects Analytics, SCM Forecast Analytics,
Service Performance Analytics, Service Profit
Analytics |
HCM
Headcount Cockpit, Overtime/Illness Times and
Costs, Recruiting Analytics, Strategic Workforce
Planning, Travel Management Planning |
Oil and Gas
Bulk Shipment, Exchange Partner/Contract Performance
Analysis, Project Staffing Detail, Project
Summary |
PLM
Projects Dashboard, Quality Dashboard, Take from
Stock or Buy Dashboard |
Public Service
Grantee Management, Tax and Revenue Management |
SCM
Delivery Performance, Demand/Supply Match, Global
Capacity Utilization, Global Inventory View,
Material Availability Analytics, Order Analytics,
Responsive Replenishment, Warehouse Stock Analysis |
Retail
Category Manager, Replenishment Manager, Store
Manager |
Figure
2 |
Some of the More than 100
SAP xApp Analytics Applications Available |
At SAP, we're keenly aware of the thought leadership
and expertise our service partners can bring to customer
engagements for SAP xApp Analytics. We began early
enablement and awareness activities with our strategic
partners in March 2005. Currently, SAP has trained
over 150 service partner consultants around the globe
and has embarked on a unique model to develop SAP
xApp Analytics with our partnership community.2
Together with SAP, our partners provide a comprehensive
set of strategy, implementation, and technology solutions.
Our knowledgeable partners are essential to helping
us address our customers' business pain points,
especially in specific industries and business processes,
and providing value in these areas:
- Visioning — Partners can help
assess your organization's readiness for
implementing analytics and developing a framework
for alignment, accountability, and visibility
- Planning — Many
service partners specialize in identifying
and assessing gaps, and helping you develop a
business case for the project
- Implementation — Our
partners use proven delivery methods for successful
go-live and change management
- Integration — Service
partners can help connect your company's
business processes with SAP NetWeaver Business
Intelligence and improve corporate performance
through SAP xApp Analytics
- Upgrades — Partners
can help facilitate system upgrades if, for
example, you're moving from SAP BW
to SAP NetWeaver 2004s, or from SAP R/3 to mySAP
ERP
- Industry-specific expertise — Our partners
are closely aligned with the know-how SAP provides
across 28 industries, and can offer strategic,
industry-specific solutions to customers
The journey to implementing SAP xApp Analytics can
begin with finding a service partner, a trusted advisor
to your organization's technical and business
needs. As you evaluate service partners, know that
you do not have to pick just one, since many system
integrators harness different areas of expertise.
When choosing service partners, you can use the questions
below as a guide to help determine which partners
will work best with your business and become your
trusted advisors:
- Does the partner have proven customer
references? Make sure the partner has a track record of successful
customer implementations. SAP can provide feedback
regarding customer successes and partner involvement
if needed.
- Does the partner's industry expertise complement
your line of business? The partner must understand
your company's business processes and
have proven traction in your industry.
- Is the
partner strong in business process improvement? Many partners have a practice dedicated to
business process improvement (typically in
their SAP NetWeaver BI Practice).
- Does the
partner have trained, SAP-certified consultants
and high-quality resources? Review the resumes
of the consultants that will be placed on your
project. Interview them if needed. SAP can also
provide guidance regarding which partners have
been properly trained through SAP on SAP xApp
Analytics, the SAP Composite Application Framework,
and enterprise SOA.
- Is the partner's strategy aligned with SAP's
long-term vision? Are they developing and certifying
innovative solutions on SAP NetWeaver? Are
they a member of the Enterprise Services Community,
utilizing enterprise services and Best Practices?
Most importantly, you must always analyze your options
and engage the SAP field organization when needed.
SAP xApp Analytics provides a tremendous opportunity
to accelerate ERP upgrades and deliver additional
functionality to existing users while extending the
reach beyond the traditional power user or business
analyst.
Our partners are essential in embracing SAP xApp
Analytics; they can develop and provide customized
composite applications that address multiple customers
within an industry or solution segment. Together
with our partners, we provide what it takes to deliver
strategic solutions to the business user community:
intuitive, quickly deployable, and easily customizable
analytic applications that integrate with your current
SAP solution, along with the industry and functional
expertise to support the strategic needs of your
business users.
For information including online demos, Webcasts,
discussion forums, blogs, white papers, and the latest
news regarding SAP xApp Analytics, please visit
www.sap.com/community/analytics. Interested partners
can learn more about SAP's
partnership model and Ramp-Up opportunity for SAP
Analytics at http://service.sap.com/partnerportal/rampup.
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