Category: Analytics

This ASUG webcast described how to build a Business Objects universe on SAP Hana and covered the benefits and best practices of connecting to SAP HANA with BI/BusinessObjects.

Business Intelligence Is Going Mobile: Are You Ready? As business intelligence goes mobile, organizations in all industries will gain critical new opportunities—as well as encounter daunting new challenges. Mobile business intelligence (BI) gives people access to the data they need—anytime, anywhere—to make smart business decisions. Result? Game-changing efficiencies and unprecedented productivity. But mobile BI brings challenges too, including questions about data security and vendor selection.

Is SAP delivering the same level of BI functionality on mobile devices that their users are accustomed to on their desktops?And perhaps more importantly, just how easy is it for a BI professional to deliver that mobile experience with those clients, particularly Xcelsius?

Steve Lucas (General Manager Business Analytics and Technology at SAP) published a blog post with the title “Putting Mobile First and the New Business Intelligence Priorities”. His blog post contains a numerous of topics on mobile SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions including an overview slide of the strategy for 2012 which is displayed below. Though, there is one specific message that stands out.

As long as I've been in BI I heard two things: 1. Spreadsheets are the scum of the earth 2. The holy grail of reporting is self-service BI So why is it that these two topics always come up in discussions and how are they related? This blog tries to give some insights in the matter.

It’s that time of year again. Enterprise social media has had an impressive ramp-up in 2011 as well as being well-poised for a banner year in 2012. However, along the way, social business has become a very broad topic indeed, covering a wide range of topics that ranges from social marketing and Social CRM to [...]

Such data is also available on public sites such as Amplicate.com, which pulls in relevant Facebook and Twitter messages and also allows users to post their thoughts on the site directly. It assigns comments for a given topic into either a "love" or "hate" category, then scores the overall result. There's also an "action" feature that allows users to "start a movement, engage similar minded people and make a change." While most of Amplicate's topics concern matters such as consumer products, cel

SAP is pleased to announce it will resell the NetBase social media analytics solution. SAP Social Media Analytics by NetBase is sold and supported by SAP as a solution extension.

Australian CIOs are generally optimistic despite challenging times, according to the first Insights Quarterly report, commissioned by Fujitsu and Microsoft Australia. Surveying 200 Australian CIOs, the report showed that alignment of ICT with business aims remains their primary objective. Many of the CIOs noted that business issues are often stronger drivers than technology issues in the Australian landscape, with business requirements taking precedence over technology. Almost half (46.2 per cent) saw these changing requirements as the most difficult challenge, ahead of protecting and securing the network, optimising and controlling costs, and improving service responsiveness. Virtualisation is shaping up to be the most relevant future technology, nominated by two-thirds of CIOs, followed by integrated enterprise-wide access, with 42.5 per cent saying it was of high interest, highlighting the importance placed on improved access to information. Business intelligence remains an area of significant investment, and while cloud computing was named as one of the most important technologies, it was also regarded as “overhyped”. However cloud remains attractive from the CIOs’ perspective due to its ability to move ICT from capital expenditure to operational expenditure, coupled with flexibility. Other current challenges for CIOs include the trend towards ‘Bring Your Own Device ...

On November 7th, SAP will release the new version of its in-memory database - the much heralded Project Orange, or SAP HANA 1.0 SP03. They'll probably change the name before I publish this article, but hey. Project Orange is huge - because it's not just the kind of theoretical analytics appliance that we have available with the current SAP HANA 1.0 SP02. It's a complete replacement for the Microsoft, Oracle or IBM database that SAP requires to underpin its Business Information Warehouse, SAP NetWeaver BW.

SAP offers two incentives / commission modules - Vistex's Incentives Administrations (IA) and Incentives and Commission Administration (ICM). These two products are both used for the calculation and disbursement of commission in SAP, but are fundamentally different - this document highlights which questions to ask to discover which product is correct for you, if you are considering a commission solution for your SAP R/3 system.

Yesterday SAP provided an ASUG webcast previewing the BusinessObjects Analysis Edition for Application Design, the premium alternative to BEx Web Application Designer. The 2012 BusinessObjects Analysis Roadmap was also reviewed.

While SAP's HANA-based architecture will force competitors to show their hands on their application infrastructure strategies, selling its most conservative customers on the potentially disruptive impact of its HANA-led architecture will be a key challenge ahead, according to a new Gartner report. The report, titled 'SAP Throws Down the Next Generation Architecture Gauntlet with HANA', discusses SAP's long-term application infrastructure strategy, based on in-memory computing, mobility and cloud. "This initiative is a bold attempt to effect a generational change for the company, and to allow it to compete with industry and thought-leading architectures. The vision is very ambitious, and, at the same time, consistent with users' aspirations," the report said. "SAP's vision will force megavendor competitors to respond by clearly and openly articulating their cloud and in-memory computing strategies."   However, Gartner also highlighted the hurdles ahead for SAP in making its new strategy a success. "In addition to addressing formidable technology and go-to-market challenges, SAP will have to introduce its highly innovative vision in a way that will be acceptable to the most conservative part of its customer base." Despite these challenges, the report indicated that the HANA architecture "likely will have a significant industry impact", and ...

SAP announced on Tuesday that they’re moving away from periodic major enhancement packages and upgrades to their SAP Business Suite in favor of smaller, quarterly improvements. The company is also extending standard support for ECC 6.0 applications to 2020.

In today’s ever more technology-centric world, the stodgy IT department isn’t considered the home of innovation and business leadership. Yet that might have to change as some of the biggest advances in the history of technology make their way into the front lines of service delivery. Here’s an exploration of the top five IT trends in the next half decade, including some of the latest industry data, and what the major opportunities and challenges are.