How to Strengthen your Data Analytics When Moving SAP to the Cloud

IT leaders know that they will need to migrate their SAP installations to the Cloud, and many have already done so. While SAP extended their deadline for ending ECC support to 2027, they aren’t likely to announce another extension. If your SAP installation isn’t moved to the Cloud in time, you will lose support from SAP. That’s not something you can afford with the mission-critical applications that SAP operates.

In the flurry of activity that is required to move your SAP installation to RISE or upgrade to S/4HANA and moving the Cloud, many companies haven’t addressed the fact their analytics are running on legacy systems. Moving to the Cloud offers the opportunity to significantly improve your business analytics capabilities. Leaving your analytics on legacy systems prevents you from taking advantage of advanced analytics that can provide actionable insights and competitive advantages.

So, while SAP users are planning to or are making the move to the Cloud, it’s critical for them to also determine how to structure their analytics landscape to maintain a competitive edge. Today’s competitive businesses are using analytics systems that gather internal and external data, and then help business leaders to make data-driven decisions that can improve decision making in every part of the organization.

Why Legacy Data Analytics Platforms Aren’t Working

A legacy data analytics environment typically has several limitations. For example,

• Legacy systems are often limited to analyzing structured data coming from an SAP installation. Further, legacy systems often require long lead times to produce a set of predefined business reports. In today’s fast-paced business environment, that approach isn’t acceptable. Business leaders need to incorporate both structured and unstructured data from internal and external sources. And, they need the information now, not in two weeks.
• Many legacy analytics systems can’t analyze unstructured data. While it’s true that businesses need to analyze a large amount of structured data, they also need to analyze unstructured data such as customer reviews, pictures, social media posts, and hashtags to keep up with their customers’ digital activity.
• Legacy systems are often difficult to scale. It’s necessary to acquire new systems when demand increases, and that is a costly undertaking in terms of capital expenditure and growing licensing costs.

Benefits of Using the Cloud’s Data Analytics Capability

Today the most competitive businesses are updating their data analytics systems. Taking advantage of Cloud offerings is an excellent way to do that. It provides capabilities such as the following:

• Drawing and consolidating data from many data sources, including structured, unstructured, streaming, and batch data is a key feature of Cloud analytics.
• Scalability is a big advantage of the Cloud. You can access computing power as you need it to process, store, and analyze large data sets as needed.
• Most Cloud analytics offer self-service and easy access to data, allowing business users to get the insights they need without being technically astute.
• The quick access offered by Cloud analytics means that business leaders can get the information they need without waiting for reports to be published.

The beauty of data analytics in the Cloud is that it allows you to do various types of analyses in a streamlined and more cost-effective manner.

Planning is Key

If you’re going to put your data analytics platform in the Cloud, appropriate planning is key to ensuring that you make the right choice. Here are just some of the questions you’ll need to answer.

• How much structured and unstructured data do you need to analyze?
• How can your systems access external data sources
• What technology investments have you already made?
• What strategic decisions have you already made concerning Cloud or multi-Cloud utilization?

Next, identify how you’ll use your analytics capability. Examples of use cases include:

• Developing in-depth customer segmentation using cross-channel data to facilitate more targeted promotions and streamlined marketing campaigns.
• Managing inventory by analyzing purchasing patterns and forecasting future trends.
• Optimizing prices by analyzing competitor’s pricing data, sales data, sentiment data from social media, and more.
• Optimizing your supply chain by analyzing shipping times, supplier availability, and inventory levels to help cut down on delivery times.
• Identify new audiences and new potential customers using existing customers’ data.
• Analyzing Cloud utilization to improve performance and optimize costs.

Every business needs to find more ways to innovate. Innovation is crucial for businesses to grow and stay ahead of their competitors. With advanced techniques such as Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), data-driven insight into business issues gives business leaders new perspectives and lets them see their operations and industry in a new light.

Business leaders will be better able to predict future trends based on historical data and get a head start on developing the next new product or process. They’ll be able to improve operations, make decisions based on real-time data analysis, and enhance the customer experience.

If you’re currently running in the Cloud, or planning to run SAP in the Cloud, you have decisions to make about your data analytics platform. You can give your business a competitive advantage by ensuring that you’re leveraging the scalable and flexible data analytics that are available in the Cloud. If you have questions about next steps, contact the experts at Lemongrass to discover the answers.