End-to-end Decision making: 5 reasons to choose SAP Analytics Cloud

1. A lot in one solution

Organizations often use different solutions to meet their information, analysis and planning needs. Here we see that in practice Excel is the tool to tie and connect the various data together. With SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP offers the solution that brings the various facets together in one tool. This allows organizations to simplify their analytics, planning and reporting landscape. Users have one front-end application with thus one "look and feel." So you don't have to keep switching between different systems, but can perform the entire planning process in one tool.

2. With SAP Analytics Cloud true integrated planning

We often see companies still preparing budgets in complex separate spreadsheets. This often results in a laborious and error-prone process when these plans subsequently have to be merged into a single plan. It also often means that optimal use is not made of existing data. With SAC, these problems are a thing of the past; everyone works in the same system at the aggregation level they wish, but because it happens in one model, merging the plans is a lot easier.

You can also use analytics directly on your data. SAC, as mentioned earlier, is a solution that merges Planning and Business Intelligence into one solution. This also allows you to do instant analytics on the numbers you enter while creating your budget. This ensures that you can use SAC as an End-to-End decision-making solution.

The 'Predictive Forecast' functionality that SAP Analytics Cloud includes allows you to have upcoming months predicted based on history (Actuals). You can use this to calculate your Sales and it can even calculate your entire Balance Sheet. This leaves you with just checking the numbers with your expectations and making adjustments on Accounts that you know things are going to change in the coming period. Consider the opening or closing of a store at a retailer. By only having to make these adjustments in sales and expenses, much more time can be spent analyzing the budget itself. Below you can see an example from SAC, a forecast was created here based on the past. What you see is that a range is given for the future between which the values are likely to end up.

3. Lightning-fast answers to your questions

You see the "Smart Insights" functionality in more and more BI solutions these days. This is basically typing in a question and the tool comes up with an answer. This feature is simply nice to use. Normally, you would have to reopen old documents or spreadsheets to do your own analysis to get an answer to your question. Now you type in your question and SAC comes up with the answer or a chart on which you can do your analysis. In addition, SAC also remembers your history of questions asked, so you can quickly revisit previously asked questions and easily share them with colleagues.

In SAC, this feature goes one step further. You can click on different data points in a graph and activate the Smart Insights. SAC then comes up with a number of questions and answers that the system thinks are relevant to you at this particular data point. This gives you new insights into your data at lightning speed without having to build other charts.

In addition, SAP Analytics Cloud can build standard dashboards on key metrics or dimensions. This gives you a complete analysis of your selected key metrics. Machine learning algorithms give you insight into the influencing factors or unexpected values in the data. SAC also gives you a nice simulation sheet, in which you can directly turn knobs and immediately see the new expected result. This allows you to easily and quickly go an extra step deeper to examine your numbers and take immediate action based on the scenarios.

4. Interactive and data-driven steering

All data come together in SAC, which allows you to dive deeper into your data. Various analytics functionalities allow you to run simulations that help you make the right, data-driven, decisions. An example of the functionalities SAC offers is the "Value drive tree." This allows you to visualize the impact of your decisions and calculate what-if scenarios. The power of this functionality is that you can connect different parts of your organization. Based on that, you can run simulations to see what effect changes in one part will have on another. This interaction with your data allows you to quickly analyze what the best options are. This is then the basis for making decisions and planning the next step for your organization.

5. Analyze all data with SAC

Whether your data is stored in on-premises databases, cloud databases, Excel spreadsheets or a combination of all three, you can analyze and use it with SAP Analytics Cloud. There are two ways to connect your data to SAC: the live data connection and the import data connection. There are both advantages and disadvantages to both connections. For example, with the live import you don't have to make a copy of the data to the cloud, but you can't use all the features in SAC that you can with the import connection. In addition, SAC itself can also be the source for your scheduling data linked to existing data sources. See below for an overview of the possibilities.

Conclusion

Due in part to many features that have been added to the product recently, SAC has become a full-fledged product to use as an End-to-End decision-making solution. The three components, which come together in the product also ensure that this can be done in an efficient process. And because it also has a wide range of connection possibilities, SAC has become even more of an enterprise-wide planning solution.

Finext and SAP Analytics Cloud

Are you curious about the possibilities of SAP Analytics Cloud for your organization or just want to see what it looks like? We regularly organize webinars, workshops or knowledge sessions about SAP solutions.