The Value Of Your SAP BW Datawarehouse
People are always asking me what is the value of SAP BW? We see and hear this question constantly.
Really what the value is, the business value that SAP BW helps you uncover what is, in reality, Free Money laying around your system in the form of data from your company that is usable in one form or another.
Don't Let Bad Data Burn Up Free Money
Data Usability includes the following dimensions:
- Conciseness
- Ability to manipulate the data as required
- Cross platform data consistency
How Does Data Usability Affect BW Benefits?
How can fixing data usability result in ‘free money’. One of the easiest ways for a firm to uncover ‘free money’ is to focus on certain aspects of business’s data. We believe that focusing on these aspects of data is part of answering the never ending stream of request we get regarding the question of the value of SAP BW or more broadly, of a data warehouse.
In a recent study of 150 Fortune 1000 firms, conducted by Dr. Anitesh Barua , Dr. Deepa Mani and Rajiv Mukherjee , of McCombs School of Business, the University of Texas at Austin, Indian School of Business, and McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, respectively, three areas of data usability were studied and definitive answers were found.
The areas of focus in the study included the following:
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The quality of data,
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The ability for that data to be accessed wherever and whenever it’s needed,
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The relevance of that data in addressing a specific problem.
The conclusion of the study focused on the following attributes of data:
- Quality
- Usability
- Intelligence
- Remote accessibility
- Sales mobility
In terms of value achieved by moving the needle on any of the above data attributes, even if only by 10%, the results are dramatic.
The following KPIs were evaluated and conclusions drawn:
Productivity of Employees
If the median Fortune 1000 business in the study sample (36,000 employees and $388,000 in sales per employee) increased the usability of its data by just 10%, it would translate to an increase of $2.01 billion in total revenue every year, or $55,900 in additional sales per employee annually.
Return on Equity (ROE)
Increasing both the quality of data and the ability of sales people to access it by just 10% more than existing levels in the business, the average Fortune 1000 company can increase ROE by 16%.
Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)
If the average Fortune 1000 business were to increase the mobility of its sales organization’s data by just 10%, ROIC would increase by 1.4% as a result of net income increasing by $5.4 million.
Return on Assets (ROA)
If the average Fortune 1000 company were to increase both the intelligence and accessibility of data by 10%, ROA increases by 0.7%. That is the equivalent of squeezing $2.87 million additional income from the typical Fortune 1000 business’s assets, assuming assets remain fixed.
As can be seen, there is a lot of what is essentially free money available to an enterprise by fixing the data.
The question becomes what data attributes do you need to work on and how are they defined? As it turns out, there are five data attributes to consider, as previously mentioned:
- Quality
- Usability
- Intelligence
- Remote Accessibility
- Sales Mobility.
These data attributes, by the way, all come pre-packaged with SAP BW.
The Quality attribute incorporates the following dimensions:
- Accuracy: Provisioning of error free data
- Scope: Having the right data available at the right time
- Timeliness: Having data available right when needed
- Recency: Knowing if the data is the most current accurate data
Usability includes the following dimensions:
- Conciseness.
- Ability to manipulate the data as required
- Cross platform data consistency
Intelligence includes:
- Trends on data items of interest (e.g., sales price)
- Demand patterns (e.g., variation by the day of the week)
- Recommendations for better decisions or actions
- Profile matching or being able to classify the data
Remote Accessibility includes:
- Ability to access data remotely by authorized users
- Remotely operable applications
Sales Mobility includes the ability of salespersons to:
- Provide pricing visibility to customers in the field
- Place an order in the field using a mobile device
- Keep customers informed about all aspects of delivery via mobile, in-the-field devices, such as smartphones.
Unlock This Free Money By Focusing First On BW Naming Conventions
There are many approaches to improving each aspect of the above data attributes. One of the easiest places we have found to start with is, surprisingly, by engineering a naming convention. To that end, we offer a Free 2-hour naming convention review (delivered remotely) to get you started, well actually it's more of a psychoanalysis than a review but in either case it’s something easy to do with high-value impact.
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