Making smart business decisions requires the ability to access accurate, real-time data whenever you need it. To get this information, organizations typically turn to analysts and data scientists for assistance, but there is another way—SAP Analytics Cloud.

SAP Analytics Cloud gives people across the organization analytics capabilities, empowering teams in human resources (HR), sales, marketing, finance, and more to access all the data they need to make intelligent business decisions.

Read on to learn more about what SAP Analytics Cloud is, as well as some of its latest features and benefits, so that you can determine if it’s the right tool for your organization. 

Overview of SAP Analytics Cloud

The SAP Analytics Cloud solution combines business intelligence (BI), augmented and predictive analytics, as well as planning capabilities into a single cloud environment. Not only that, but the solution also allows you to take advantage of the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies. 

The primary function of SAP Analytics Cloud is the creation of data reports. The data that feeds those reports can come from various sources, including real-time data captured from your business activities, budget forecast data, or even thousands of lines of data formatted as a Microsoft Excel table. And because the solution is intuitive, it allows everyone in the organization to produce reports with complete autonomy—no data scientists required.

Features of SAP Analytics Cloud

There are three fundamental features of SAP Analytics Cloud. Let’s dive deeper into each one.

1) Business Intelligence

The BI features allow you to gain insights and take action in the scope of business processes. It can also help increase engagement and accountability with built-in collaboration capabilities. 

  • Data Access—Data can be accessed through two methods: 1) Data import, and 2) Directly from the database or enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool.
  • Data Modeling—Enhance data preparation with extra features like adding indicators, inserting formulas, and modifying values of recovered characteristics.
  • Data Visualization—Highlight your data with graphs, tables, or whatever other graphical components would help explain your findings.

2) Planning

Planning features allow you to combine financial and operational statements in the same tool for a more accurate view of your business. This helps your teams collaborate on plans for increased accountability. 

You can also take advantage of machine learning and predictive forecasting tools to predict future financials. There’s even a popular “what-if” mode for performing simulations.

3) Augmented Analytics

This feature allows you to predict outcomes, generate forecasts, and automate predictive planning.  With natural-language processing, users can ask questions conversationally and get real-time responses expressed visually. You can also detect what’s driving key performance indicators (KPIs) and use that information to take action using machine learning that discovers relationships in the data. 

Benefits of SAP Analytics Cloud 

Many organizations are still operating on disconnected analytics tools. But SAP Analytics Cloud gathers all of your data sources and analytics functions into one place so that users can work more efficiently and get more accurate results. Here are some of the other benefits of the solution: 

  • Accessibility and integration—Existing business apps can be integrated with Analytics Cloud to make more data available from a central location. Design tools enhance visualization, and sharing BI content through the platform is super easy.
  • Single source of data truth—Say goodbye to siloed and disparate data sources and establish a single, trusted source of data truth.
  • Customized dashboard—Data is delivered directly to the user’s launchpad and displayed intuitively and attractively.
  • Collaborative planning—Planning between finance, sales, marketing, and HR is seamless by integrating the organization’s budget, plan, forecast, and actuals in one place.
  • Data insights for all—Users across the company can use analytics tools on any size data to generate decision-making insights.
  • Data locking and access rights—Generally used for forecasting processes, responsibilities are enforced by data locking (open, locked, and restricted) and are defined by enhanced data access rights.

Partner with an SAP Expert

SAP Analytics Cloud allows you to make informed data-driven business decisions with confidence using AI technology and flexible information connections.

If SAP Analytics Cloud sounds like the tool that can take your business to the next level, Surety Systems can help you get there. Our US-based SAP consulting team has extensive deployment experience to help design and implement a solution that drives efficiency, growth, and your business forward. 

Contact us today to get started.