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How does SAP Analytics Cloud work?

29.04.2024

SAP Analytics Cloud - Key facts

SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is an integrated platform for data analysis, business planning, and reporting that enables users to make better decisions based on real-time analysis and simulation results.

SAP Analytics Cloud software supports three main management processes in organizations:

Planning and budgeting: Allows companies to build budgets in individual business areas and manage business plans.

Business Analytics and AI: This set of SAC tools is used to forecast financial results. In addition to data visualization tools, SAP Analytics Cloud uses advanced machine learning algorithms to predict trends and behaviors based on historical data.

Business Intelligence: This means creating interactive reports and dashboards that allow users to quickly understand key performance indicators (KPIs) or trends in the organization.

Thanks to its built-in functionality, SAC helps organizations gain comprehensive insight into their operations, which allows them to make better decisions. In addition to the features mentioned here, it is also worth mentioning the most important characteristics of SAP Analytics Cloud, which are important for the comfort of users' work and their readiness to develop together with the company. These include:

Intuitive interface: Easy to learn even for people without experience in working with this type of software.

Scalability: SAC adapts to the needs of organizations, regardless of their size, and can grow with them.

Mobility: Access to data and analysis from anywhere and on any device.

Security: SAC is installed in a secure cloud environment, and there is no need to build additional data warehouses or databases to work with them - all analyzes, simulations and reports can be performed based on data retrieved directly from source systems. So if a company does not use solutions such as SAP Datasphere or other platforms for data integration, organization and processing, and wants to streamline the processes mentioned above, then SAC is perfect.

Rich library of predefined scenarios: SAP provides its customers with hundreds of pre-created reports and templates for different industries and management areas. This means that the implementation of SAC and user training can be reduced to an absolute minimum. This, in turn, has an impact on operating costs.

SAP Analytics Cloud in financial management. Examples of applications:

In the previous paragraphs, we have presented a brief description of the tool, now let's look at two of the most common management areas in which this class of software is becoming a standard: financial management and sales:

  • Finance and Controlling: SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) can support controlling specialists in the following tasks, for example:
  • Activity-based costing (ABC): SAC offers functions that enable the collection and analysis of activity cost data, which facilitates the calculation of product and service costs.
  • Variable costing: SAC offers functions that enable the calculation of variable costs and the analysis of the impact of changes in production volume on costs.
  • Budgeting: SAC offers functions that enable the creation of budgets regardless of the model adopted in the company, monitoring expenses and comparing actual results with the budget.
  • Forecasting: SAC offers functions that enable forecasting future financial results based on historical data and trends.
  • Cost and margin analysis: SAC offers functions that enable the analysis of costs and margins in order to identify areas where costs can be reduced or margins increased.
  • Liquidity management: SAC offers functions that enable the monitoring of cash flows and the management of financial liquidity.

In addition to the methods mentioned above, SAC also offers many other functions that can be helpful in financial management, such as:

  • Integration with other SAP software classes and third-party tools: SAC integrates with other ERP, BI, BPM/WorkFlow solutions, etc., which facilitates access to financial data from different systems and sources.
  • Dashboards and data visualizations: SAC offers dashboards and data visualizations that make it easy to monitor financial results and identify trends.
  • Predictive modeling: SAC offers predictive modeling capabilities that enable forecasting future financial results and identifying potential problems.
... and what about sales management? What can be important for the Sales Director:
  • Data access: SAC provides sales directors with access to sales data from various sources, such as CRM, ERP and e-commerce platforms.
  • Data analysis. SAC offers a wide range of data analysis functions that enable sales directors to:identify sales trends, analyze sales team performance, compare sales results with goals or discover gaps in sales strategy.
  • Data visualization. SAC offers dashboards and data visualizations that make it easy for sales directors to monitor sales results in real time or identify problem areas.
  • Forecasting. SAC offers predictive modeling capabilities that enable fecasting future sales, identifying potential problems and developing sales growth strategies.
  • Group work. SAC enables sales directors to share data and analysis with sales teams, which facilitates: collaboration between team members or making joint planning & data analysis.

In conclusion, SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is a powerful tool that can help controllers, finance, or sales managers improve their efficiency and make better decisions in the areas they are responsible for. It does not require specialized programming or database management knowledge, nor does it require special technical infrastructure.

However, it is impossible to list all the possibilities of this software in such a short article, even if we limit ourselves to one or two management areas. Therefore, we strongly encourage you to contact us and check the possibilities of this solution during individual conversations.

Based on many years of project experience, the Business Intelligence team at KBJ has developed a special starter package that will allow you to quickly implement and confirm the quality of this software based on the information provided to support the decision-making process. Minimized implementation time guarantees quick success and a positive assessment of the project at the CEO, CFO, CSO level.

The package includes several analytical reports from such management areas as: accounting, sales and distribution, financial controlling, materials management - to choose from several hundred predefined reports made available by SAP, which after a short modification will be powered by data from your systems / sources.

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