Visitor Record: BI Brunch Established as Industry Meeting

For all those interested in various analytics topics, the SRB BI Brunch has become a must-attend event. Those who could not participate must be content with a brief written summary here, which is just as 'crisp' as the contributions at the BI Brunch itself.

Customer Project with Datasphere in Focus

The first presentation kicked off practically and tangibly with a concrete customer project: the analytics introduction at MAM Baby AG. Zoltán Lakatos, Team Lead Controlling Development of the international baby product expert, travelled from Hungary and cheerfully explained how the project was set up and how far MAM currently is with the implementation. I am personally supporting this project but had little to add during the presentation.

The analytics area is part of MAM's introduction of S/4 HANA private cloud and will in the future provide all evaluations on pacifiers, baby bottles, and much more with SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC). Zoltán and his team are building the data foundation in Datasphere and the stories in the SAC themselves and are, as noted in the presentation, very satisfied with the new solution.

"Data preparation with SAP Datasphere is very similar to our legacy systems, which makes it easy,"

he explained. Occasionally, there are follow-up questions regarding implementation, but so far everything has been resolved. The project is still ongoing. However, it already looks very promising!

The BI Brunch in SAP as an Example

From the cloud, it continued – into the cloud. Arnold Knor, Team Lead Embedded Analytics & Planning at SRB, connected planning in the SAC down to S/4 and back – via automatic load. Starting from the extensive SAC Business Content for planning, he demonstrated a specially prepared example for cost centre planning for the BI Brunch.

Norbert Leimgruber, Head of Finance and Analytics at SRB, took over the SAP S/4HANA part with the data handed over by Arnold for the BI Brunch planning in the SAC.

"The new controlling functions for planning are only available in Fiori!"

was his important message to the finance and controlling people in the room. I am sure this prompted some attendees to think. Moreover, after the two presentations, appetites were whetted, and we had earned a break. Although 'break' was relative, as many participants took the opportunity to discuss BW/4 HANA migration with Lorenz Juen, a member of the management at SRB, and SAC for mobile devices with me.

SAP BW Bridge: Practical Tool

Rejuvenated, we continued to the SAP BW Bridge, whose function Rudolf Ehn, Solution Architect BW at SRB, explained with a good dose of humour. The BW Bridge is a component built into SAP Datasphere to reuse and migrate objects from an existing SAP BW system or SAP S/4. A very technical topic with various conversion options, where important SAP notes must also be considered.

Rudolf presented the 'power' of this practical tool using the example of migrating queries and underlying objects in a BW/4 into the Bridge. Although some listeners may have briefly disengaged due to the complexity of the topic, the message got through: The bridge helps to transition from an on-premises BW system to the cloud.

Smart and Forward-Looking: SAP Predictive Analytics

The conclusion of the dense information programme at the 7th BI Brunch was Marko Cencic from SAP Austria. He provided an outlook on SAP Predictive Analytics and the development focus at the SAC. The already existing capabilities for predictive planning will be further expanded and made easier. 'Smart Prediction' and 'Citizen Data Scientists' are the buzzwords here. Users with business understanding and basic statistical know-how should be able to utilise the SAC even better.

"Just Ask" is the ChatGPT in the SAC. From the planned release in Q4/2023, questions like 'What is the quantity of wheat produced in China this year?' can be answered by the system. If you are wondering what to do with wheat and China in your SAC: That was of course just an example of how a question turns into a query, with explanation, graphics, and more. The opportunities to save a lot of work here are enormous.

Marko also explained where the development priorities lie. The further expansion of the Data Analyzer, advanced planning features, and even better integration of Datasphere and the SAC are the focus.

With these positive prospects, the 7th SRB BI Brunch came to an end. Many guests had also brought extra time to stay after the presentations, enjoy the last bites at the buffet, and comfortably digest both the culinary and informative delights of the brunch.