Data: a threat or an opportunity?
The future is data driven. At McCoy, we see an increase of 70% of data at our customers. Is this also the case in your organization? And do you see this increase in data as a thread of as an opportunity? At McCoy we like to simplify IT and that is why we hosted an event on the 8thof November on The Future of Analytics where we talked about our dashboards for Procurement, Warehouse Management and Finance. From raw data to Insights-as-a-Service. Interested how we do this? Read more.
"This seminar gave me insight in how we have to cope with increasing data volumes”
On Thursday the 8thof November, McCoy & Partners and SAP organized the ‘SAP Future of Analytics’-event to talk about the added value of SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) for your organization. Keynote speaker Richard Meijer kicked off the event by showcasing the future of analytics within the SAP portfolio. The latest innovations entail a lot of buzz words you probably heard of like predictive analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence. It shows that the world of analytics is moving fast. But, how do you make the next step from SAP BEx, Business Objects or other tools towards the next generation of analytics?
After the keynote, three functional use case session were given on the challenges your organization might experience:
Jan-Gert Bouma and Philip Kamsteeg identified the warehouse management challenges organizations currently face and how the ‘McCoy EWM in 1 week’-proposition can jumpstart your warehouse implementation. Starting by implementing a preconfigured system with both ‘basic EWM solutions’ like Inventory Management and Replenishment, and more ‘advanced components’ that might be specific to your organization, like VAS & Kitting. A modular warehousing solution can be created. On top of this modular solution an operational -and performance cockpit are created, using the latest cloud-based analytics innovation; SAP Analytics Cloud. These dashboards helps you to analyze the current state of your warehouse via advanced analytics;
Secondly, Harm-Jan Bech guided the audience through the future of Sourcing and Procurement and how analytics can help with automating operational processes, thereby freeing up time to spend on making decisions. Compared to the traditional Sourcing and Procurement (e.g. with a focus on price negotiations), the availability of data becomes more fundamental for the Strategic Sourcing, Vendor Management and generic Procurement Operations. However, as the collecting data is generally not a buyer’s core business within the Sourcing and Procurement department, dashboarding can support the important daily decision-making processes. This was shown by two examples via the McCoy Spend dashboard: how a global event (e.g. initiated trade wars) might have an expected impact your material prices (e.g. Aluminum prices are rising), and the monitoring of real-time processes via the availability of the Ariba data connection with SAC (e.g. Leadtime optimization, use of eProcurement, and the amount of rejected incoming goods per supplier);
Lastly, Jeroen van de Polder and Frank de Vleeschauwer discussed the main challenges faced by CFO’s and several principles in making related finance functions more efficient: (1) Uniform reporting with IBCS (International Business Communication Standards), (2) Financial Planning and (3) the Charging and Allocation process via a customer case:
The unified standards of the IBCS-framework within SAC enable reporting and dashboarding to be easier to understand and share for collaboration, as all users consistently have the same point of reference. By doing this, the focus can be on the actual message which leads to faster insight to action;
Financial Planning within SAC supports the centralization process by having planning logic, available Master Data, and stored results within a single platform. Besides a single point of entry -and truth-, collaboration and monitoring can be improved via calendars, input tasks and commenting. Lastly, being a cloud application, there is no need for installation and maintenance of local clients, even though integration through Analysis for Office is still possible;
The Charging and Allocation process for is usually characterized by being ‘Heavily Localized’, ‘Non-standardized’ and being a manually executed activity. Via a customer use-case, the reasons for implementing SAC (vs. a leading player in the market) for the Charging and Allocation process to cope with these issues where discussed with the most important reasons being ‘(business) user control’, ‘(easier) native SAP component integration’ and ‘full reporting traceability’. Additionally, the transformation with SAC to state-of-the-art reporting capabilities (e.g. accessible anywhere, easier, higher quality) via IBCS standardization was discussed.
After the different presentations all members of the audience where given access to the McCoy SAC system and the exercises of the three available hands-on sessions, each focusing on one of the thee functional-focused tracks. Additionally, McCoy Consultants are more than willing to help you on the road SAC general! Please feel free to contact us for more information.
Think Analytics, Think McCoy.