Apr 4, 2017
•41 minute read
SAP Business Intelligence
SAP Business Intelligence focuses on how SAP customers turn enterprise data into trusted reporting, dashboards, visualizations, and decision-ready insights. The topic spans SAP BusinessObjects, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP BW/SAP BW/4HANA, SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Datasphere, and SAP Business Data Cloud.
It is relevant to CIOs, analytics leaders, finance teams, line-of-business managers, data architects, and SAP administrators who need governed access to operational and historical data. In the SAP context, BI supports faster decisions, better performance management, improved transparency, and a stronger foundation for AI-enabled analytics.
What is SAP Business Intelligence?
SAP Business Intelligence is the use of SAP data, analytics tools, and reporting processes to analyze business performance and convert enterprise information into actionable insight. In practice, SAP BI helps organizations report on finance, supply chain, HR, sales, procurement, and operations using platforms such as SAP BusinessObjects, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP BW/4HANA, SAP Datasphere, and SAP Business Data Cloud.
SAP Business Intelligence focuses on how SAP customers turn enterprise data into trusted reporting, dashboards, visualizations, and decision-ready insights. The topic spans SAP BusinessObjects, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP BW/SAP BW/4HANA, SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Datasphere, and SAP Business Data Cloud.
It is relevant to CIOs, analytics leaders, finance teams, line-of-business managers, data architects, and SAP administrators who need governed access to operational and historical data. In the SAP context, BI supports faster decisions, better performance management, improved transparency, and a stronger foundation for AI-enabled analytics.
What is SAP Business Intelligence?
SAP Business Intelligence is the use of SAP data, analytics tools, and reporting processes to analyze business performance and convert enterprise information into actionable insight. In practice, SAP BI helps organizations report on finance, supply chain, HR, sales, procurement, and operations using platforms such as SAP BusinessObjects, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP BW/4HANA, SAP Datasphere, and SAP Business Data Cloud.
It connects data from SAP and non-SAP systems, applies governance and business logic, and delivers dashboards, reports, visualizations, and self-service analytics so business users can make informed decisions.
What are some SAP Business Intelligence use cases?
Executive performance dashboards
Leadership teams use SAP BI to track revenue, margin, working capital, supply chain performance, and operational KPIs across SAP S/4HANA and other enterprise systems.
Finance reporting and planning
Finance teams use SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP data models to support management reporting, forecasting, variance analysis, consolidation, and board-level performance reviews.
Supply chain visibility
Operations teams use BI dashboards to monitor inventory, demand, logistics performance, supplier risk, and fulfillment trends across SAP ERP and supply chain applications.
Self-service analytics for business users
Line-of-business teams use governed BI tools to create reports, explore data, and answer operational questions without relying on IT for every data request.
Migration and modernization reporting
SAP teams use BI to compare legacy ERP data with SAP S/4HANA outputs, validate transformation progress, and identify process or data quality gaps.
AI-ready data foundations
Data and analytics teams use SAP Datasphere or SAP Business Data Cloud to prepare governed datasets that support predictive analytics, Joule-enabled workflows, and AI use cases.
What does SAPinsider research say about SAP Business Intelligence?
The Evolving Business Intelligence and Analytics surveyed 144 business and IT leaders overseeing BI and data analytics. The report found that 45% cited agility in response to global change as a key driver of BI strategy, while 35% pointed to improving ROI from technology investments.
The SAP Business Data Cloud Use Cases and Adoption report shows why BI modernization depends on data foundations. Only 3% of organizations have a unified governed data layer, while 38% remain siloed.
The Enterprise Data and Analytics in the Era of AI report connects BI maturity to AI readiness. SAPinsider found that organizations modernizing data and analytics strategies are focused on improved forecasting accuracy, faster decision-making, enhanced user experiences, and stronger AI foundations.
RESTful Services Eases the Documentation of Web Intelligence Reports in SAP BusinessObjects 4.XDocumenting Web Intelligence reports can require a great deal of effort, but if this task is combined with exploring internals of Web Intelligence, and learning the basics of Powershell and SAP Raylight Representational State Transfer (RESTful) Web Services API, it can be a fun and very useful experience. Key Concept Powershell is a free tool […]
SAP BI Product Convergence Update: What’s Happening Today, What is Coming Next, and What Does It Mean for You?SAP’s BI suite continues its course of ongoing product advancements, and there are significant new product releases on the very near horizon. With the pending SP4 release of SAP BI 4.2 due to impact the full BI suite, and the major new release of SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 2.0 (where SAP BusinessObjects Lumira and SAP BusinessObjects Design […]
Apr 1, 2017
•65 minute read
BI 2017 and HANA 2017: Insights from Deloitte’s Penny SilviaAs a longtime speaker of 15 years, Penny Silvia is no stranger to SAPinsider events. And her expertise is a familiar feature to frequent attendees. On Wednesday morning, I sat down with her to learn a little more about her areas of expertise and what kind of content she brings to the SAPinsider events. Silvia, […]
Mar 24, 2017
•3 minute read
BI 2017, HANA 2017, and Basis & SAP Administration 2017: Keynote RecapTo kick off BI 2017, HANA 2017, and Basis & SAP Administration 2017, SAP’s Mike Flannagan delivered an insightful keynote talk, followed by a deep dive into some emerging technologies with Chris Dinkel and Jag Bandla of Deloitte Consulting LLP. In his keynote, Mike Flannagan, Senior Vice President of Analytics, spoke on why he chose […]
Mar 22, 2017
•5 minute read
BI 2017: One-on-One with Mark Cooper of British American TobaccoMark Cooper, Global Analytics Solution Architect at British American Tobacco (BAT), has been presenting case studies at SAPinsider events since 2011. His experience both as an SAPinsider speaker and as an analytics expert made for an in-depth and engaging conversation on site. Mark recently completed a five-year project that placed the entire company on one […]
Mar 7, 2017
•3 minute read
The Role of Analytics for the Digital Enterprise
Data is the currency of the digital economy, and figuring out how to best mine your enterprise data — including the increasing amount of unstructured data that is now flowing into businesses — is key to gaining a competitive advantage. Digitization creates the environment that enables the enterprise analytics needed for this purpose — but how, exactly, do you go about doing this? This article explores strategies for becoming a real-time, digital enterprise that leverages data as an economic asset.
Oct 10, 2016
•5 minute read
Drive Business Insight with Shared Asset Intelligence
Smart products have become important components of manufacturing networks. The information that smart devices can deliver about an organization’s assets has the power to transform business processes, business models, and manufacturing — particularly when that information can be shared across the entire ecosystem of suppliers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), service providers, and asset operators involved in an asset’s life cycle. Learn how to use shared asset intelligence to empower better efficiency and flexibility in your manufacturing processes.
Aug 4, 2016
•7 minute read
Optimizing BI Administration in SAP Environments: Q&A on How to Properly Maintain and Secure Complex, Shared LandscapesBusiness intelligence (BI) is the lifeblood of data-driven organizations, enabling you to turn the data in your SAP systems into actionable information that drives better decision making, uncovers opportunity, and improves efficiency. The modern BI landscape is an increasingly complex one, however, with trends such as big data, the cloud, and the Internet of Things […]
May 1, 2016
•42 minute read
Q&A on SAP BI 4.2: What’s Happening with SAP’s BI Products, and What Does It Mean for You?During this live Q&A session, Jayne, Ty Miller, Olivier Duvelleroy, and several other key product leaders from the BI product groups at SAP, including SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, SAP Lumira, SAP Design Studio, SAP Analysis for Office, and SAP BusinessObjects Crystal Reports, gathered to answer readers’ questions on the road ahead for SAP’s BI products, […]
May 1, 2016
•75 minute read
Glazer’s Distributors Celebrates Enterprise Business Intelligence
Wholesale alcohol distributor Glazer’s Distributors makes roughly 250,000 monthly deliveries of malt beverages, wines, and spirits to customers in 15 US States, the US Virgin Islands, and Canada. Entering its second century of doing business, Glazer’s mapped out a vision for a future-state IT infrastructure with a focus on supporting an influx of data, advanced reporting capabilities, and transitioning to a real-time enterprise. Discover how Glazer’s took this step by implementing SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) 4.0 solutions with SAP HANA as a sidecar appliance to achieve real-time operational reporting, real-time month-end sales analytics, and a single source of BI truth.
Apr 5, 2016
•7 minute read
Featured Insiders
Events
SAPinsider Summit New Orleans 2026New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
SAPinsider Summit Chicago 2026Chicago, IL
SAPinsider Copenhagen 2026Copenhagen, Denmark
Mastering SAP Collaborate, an SAP TechEd on Tour eventSydney, New South Wales, Australia
