SAP SE unveils the SAP® Cloud for Analytics solution, a planned software as a service (SaaS) offering that aims to bring all analytics capabilities into one solution for an unparalleled user experience (UX). Built natively on SAP HANA® Cloud Platform, this high-performing, real-time solution plans to be embedded with existing SAP solutions and intends to connect to cloud and on-premise data to deliver planning, predictive and business intelligence (BI) capabilities in one analytics experience. The intent is for organizations to use this one solution to enable their employees to track performance, analyze trends, predict and collaborate to make informed decisions and improve business outcomes.
“The challenge with analytics solutions on the market today, cloud or otherwise, is the silo approach to delivering capabilities such as visualization and forecasting,” said Steve Lucas, president, Platform Solutions, SAP. “SAP Cloud for Analytics will be a new end-to-end cloud analytics experience, giving customers the ability to access all data so business users can easily discover, visualize, plan and predict. That to me is more than visualization of data, that¹s realization of success.”
“We are in the business of simplifying access to all and any data, whether it resides on-premise or in the cloud,” said Paul Marriott, Senior Vice President, Database & Analytics, SAP Asia Pacific Japan. “SAP Cloud for Analytics is the latest step in our mission to empower our customers to have business analytics for any user, all consumed from the cloud. Whether it’s a customer-facing situation or a boardroom scenario, SAP Cloud for Analytics will consistently deliver data for decision making and collaboration.”
With planning capabilities available today, customers such as Live Oak are already experiencing the benefits of SAP Cloud for Analytics. With the growth that Live Oak Bank is experiencing, it needed a tool that would allow it to make real- time decisions on forecasts and strategic initiatives. “SAP Cloud for Analytics was transformational by allowing real-time updates to our plans, collaboration across the organization from within the app, advanced analytics and one-click visualization for our users,” said Stephen Hayes, analytics manager, Live Oak Bank. “The end-user experience was well-received from our leadership team to our analysts.”
SAP intends to deliver SAP Cloud for Analytics in a fully scalable, multi-tenant environment at a price point that enables any individual or company to sign up and get going quickly. Planned customer benefits include:
• Unification of BI, planning, budgeting and predictive capabilities in a one-product experience, delivered as a pure cloud service thereby giving business users more agility and empowerment to get their jobs done
• Delivery of business outcomes with workflows that go from real-time insight to taking action, all within the application
• Access to all data gives business users the ability to easily sample, wrangle, combine and blend any data — big and small, on premise and in the cloud
• Served from a trusted and scalable platform that ensures enterprise readiness as well as a flexible, intuitive user interface (UI) designed for business users
• Ability for finance professionals and lines of business analysts to quickly and easily build connected planning models, analyze data and collaborate in context for greater alignment and better business performance
• Ability to spot market trends based on social media data analysis so that users can correlate those trends to know how much inventory is required to meet anticipated demand, all in one place
Embedded in SAP or third-party apps, SAP Cloud for Analytics intends to provide seamless workflows for insight to action at the point of decision within applications. While launching new SaaS analytics capabilities, SAP remains committed to innovations to the existing analytics solutions delivered on premise and/or in private cloud deployments with customers taking advantage of hybrid scenarios for on premise and cloud data.
“SAP and Google are collaborating to extend powerful analytic capabilities to customers,” said Prabhakar Raghavan, VP Engineering, Google Apps. “These innovations are planned to allow Google Apps for Work users to embed, refresh and edit SAP Cloud for Analytics content directly in Google Docs and Google Sheets.”
Daimler Trucks North America uses cloud analytics solutions from SAP to identify and track potential sales for dealers, crunch large volumes of data and provide the power of agile visualization to their business users.
“SAP innovation with cloud analytics allows Daimler Trucks to securely extend powerful analytics to our network of dealers to provide new insights and deliver increased sales,” said Scott Daron, IT Business Manager, Daimler Trucks North America.
NFL uses Big Data and analytics from SAP for fantasy football to provide recommendations to fans with a player comparison tool.
“The NFL looks forward to collaborating with SAP on the future vision for cloud analytics,” said Cory Mummery, VP & GM NFL Now, NFL. “The ability to provide powerful analytics capabilities from around the game will further enhance the fan experience in our fantasy football products.”
Existing SaaS solution SAP Cloud for Planning is part of SAP Cloud for Analytics. Capabilities available in the cloud edition of SAP Lumira® will be folded into SAP Cloud for Analytics. To find out more, visit SAP Cloud for Analytics and join the SAP TechEd® conference keynote on October 20 at 9:00 am PT for the live unveiling.