When it comes to making use of the many advantages of SAP, we focus a lot here at SAP BW Consulting, Inc. on SAP Business Warehouse (SAP's Data Warehouse) and more broadly, analytics. Sometimes, a casual conversation reveals that we need to address some issue of how to implement or otherwise work through a SAP BW project. One that came up recently regarding the benefits of SAP implementation, and surprisingly from a SAP Consulting manager, was the question, “so what’s the benefit of SAP BW, afterall, it is just a reporting tool, and the system has many reporting tools built in besides SAP”?
Benefits of Data Warehousing
Data Quality and Data Governance Are Closely Related
The last benefit, identifying bad data, is actually something that human beings have an amazing ability to overlook. For instance, take a look at the following paragraph. You can, no doubt, read it perfectly. It is one of the incredible abilities of the human mind that we can see what we need to see, even when it is not really there.
“Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabridge Uinvrevtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in what oredr the litteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a ttoal mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is besauae ocne we laren how to raed we look for the eenssces of the jmulbed ltteers. The huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but preecsievs the wrdd as a wlohe. We do tihs ucnsoniuscoly wuithot tuhoght.”
Unfortunately, within the realm of SAP BW bad data identification and repair, you often run up against the problem of data being somewhat jumbled. For instance, when making a sales forecast, you need to take both the estimates of the sales account executive and combine it with the hard core data manipulation abilities of SAP BW and SAP CRM to come up with a weighted sales forecast that meets the sniff test.
A sales manager will often want to read the sales forecast in the most positive light possible, but experience, coupled with the relative data and experience, allows the skilled sales manager to interpret the data, no matter how jumbled it may appear to be on the surface. This ability to interpret, combined with the on-going feedback loop provided by the SAP BW system, means your forecast should become more accurate over time.
By the way, can you read the paragraph above? Why don’t you write how you read it in the comments below and let us check it to see if you read it correctly.
With all the benefits of SAP BW, you may want to start a project yourself. To help get you started, we have recently developed a completely FREE online SAP BW Project Estimation tool, which will tell you both how many SAP BW consultants it will take as well as how long it will take them to implement your datawarehouse.
10 Advanced SAP BWProject Estimation Techniques [Online Tool]
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