Business Intelligence is the collection and presentation of data related to a company’s strategic planning and decision-making processes. The information gathered in this way allows an objective and understandable basis for the company’s future strategic plans and operations. SAP offers different business intelligence tools for using BI on the SAP Business Intelligence Platform. SAP’s corresponding business intelligence platform is SAP BusinessObjects.
In it, all SAP users must use self-service tools to collect, evaluate and visualize data to use the information to drive their success. Each tool is tailored to different purposes and needs.
What Are The Benefits Of Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence supports the company’s decision-making process by providing an overview of all relevant data and presenting it in an understandable form. In this way, decisions can be made faster and justified on a sound basis.
In general, SAP offers a range of BI tools for the intelligent evaluation of business processes. It is recommended that you apply these tools according to your company’s needs and use them in your decision-making process.
This will make more rational and faster decision-making and lead to a better understanding of all business processes. This overview can lead to optimization of existing strategies and processes and ultimately to the success of new ventures.
How Does BI Works?
The collection of business performance information includes past and current business data. The data is extracted and transmitted to the company’s so-called “action points” from this database. The knowledge gained here can be directly applied to maximize the business’s success.
Data can be collected through OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) aggregation or mathematical analysis using data mining techniques. This has many business benefits for management and business units. All necessary information is available in real-time. Data must be presented in a way that all relevant employees can understand and use independently. It is also structured to be scalable and flexible. It is therefore accessible from any location, platform, and device.
BI is neither a predictive tool nor a simple reporting tool. In many cases, generating data has many benefits. For example, if a company is experiencing delivery problems, BI can show which products are most affected by delivery delays. It can also indicate which parts of the customer journey have been particularly successful and which factors have involved staff turnover.
However, BI can also be useful for organizations that are not financial. Schools, for example, can use BI to optimize their school systems by linking student attendance to results.
Top SAP Business Intelligence Tools
Many essential business intelligence tools are available from SAP BI platform, which popularly known as SAP BusinessObjects. Here, all SAP users should be able to use self-service tools to collect, evaluate and visualize data to use the information according to their different purpose and needs.
Below are the top SAP business intelligence tools you would love to try this year:
SAP Cloud
SAP Cloud is an analytic tool that connects BI products to the cloud and enables predictive analytics and planning. It also facilitates the processing and management of complex data through centralized use.
SAP Lumira
Lumira is a self-service BI tool that combines multiple sources for analysis. Visualization is done by drag and drop. In the free version, you can open CSV and Excel files. If you need to import SAP HANA or SAP BW, you need the paid version of Lumira.
SAP Crystal Reports
SAP Crystal Reports allows users to create reports from data sources or text files and format them according to their preferences. This includes filtering, sorting, and categorizing to get a clear picture.
SAP Design Studio
Like SAP Crystal Reports, Design Studio is a tool for creating interactive dashboards and data analysis and visualization applications. The following data sources are available: SAP BW, SAP HANA, BO Universes, and CSV files.
SAP Web Intelligence
This tool is described as easy to use and fully functional. Data and ad hoc reports are available online. It is a flexible tool that can be used anywhere and everywhere.
SAP Digital Boardroom
SAP Digital Boardroom is a tool specifically designed for top executives. Real-time information, best practices, and intelligent meetings are ideal for making crucial business decisions.
SAP Roambi
SAP Roambi is SAP’s next step towards mobile analytics. By extending the functionality to mobile devices, you can use business information more flexibly, no matter where you are.
The Difference Between Business Analytics And Business Intelligence
Since business intelligence and business analytics are concerned with the generation and presentation of data, the two terms are often used synonymously.
The reason for this distinction is that business intelligence is descriptive and analytics is prescriptive. In other words, BI deals with describing current data and situations, while analytics deals with predicting the future.
For BI, this means that only the actual condition on the dashboard is described. All conclusions about future behavior must be drawn independently.
Conclusion
Business intelligence is the smart improvement of business performance. It is unlikely that this important goal can be achieved through manual processes because the business itself is a huge concept.
Advanced business intelligence reporting tools make this task achievable and straightforward. Business intelligence platforms change with the dynamics of business needs and technology, but they are by far the best way to achieve business goals.
