SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP’s strategic cloud offering and web-based analytics platform, brings together capabilities such as BI and data visualization, planning and augmented analytics for different user roles into one integrated product and user experience. In addition to using it with its own data models, SAP Analytics Cloud can also be used as a front end for other SAP data sources in hybrid cloud scenarios (e.g., with SAP HANA, SAP BW/4HANA, etc.) without moving, caching or persisting the data into the cloud.
SAP was founded in 1972 as a business applications company. Today, the vendor has a turnover of €27.34 billion, employs 102,400 people, and is one of the largest business software vendors in the world.
SAP’s analytics portfolio encompasses cloud and on-premises solutions for BI, analytics and enterprise planning. From a strategy perspective, SAP is investing heavily in innovation in the cloud while still supporting and developing its on-premises solutions. SAP’s analytics and EPM solutions are spread across different product lines. For planning and budgeting, SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) and the on-premises solution SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) are the core offerings. Both are supplemented by SAP S/4HANA Finance for Group Reporting for financial consolidation and close. Together with SAP BusinessObjects BI (on-premises), SAP Analytics Cloud also plays a central role in the company’s BI and analytics portfolio. Advanced analytics functionality is also available in SAP Analytics Cloud.
SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP’s strategic cloud offering and web-based analytics platform, brings together capabilities such as BI and data visualization, planning and augmented analytics for different user roles into one integrated product and user experience. With a large and growing development team, SAP Analytics Cloud is becoming richer in features such as application design, planning and predictive functionality as well as more than 80 prebuilt business content packages (e.g., solutions for finance, sales and marketing, HR and various industries).
The product offers functionality for all individual planning activities including strategic, operational, functional and financial planning and integrates with all major SAP enterprise applications (e.g., SAP S/4HANA, SAP HANA Cloud Services and SAP Data Warehouse Cloud). In addition to using it with its own data models, SAP Analytics Cloud can also be used as a front end for other SAP data sources in hybrid cloud scenarios (e.g., with SAP HANA, SAP BW/4HANA, etc.) without moving, caching or persisting the data into the cloud.
User & Use Cases
Customers mainly use SAP Analytics Cloud today for dashboards/scorecards (81 percent), standard/enterprise reporting (64 percent), ad hoc query (57 percent) and basic data analysis (49 percent). 70 percent of respondents plan to use it for advanced analytics and 57 percent for budgeting/planning in the future. SAP Analytics Cloud targets large corporations and mid-sized companies across all industries, mainly those that have an existing SAP system landscape. 77 percent of our sample of SAP Analytics Cloud customers come from large corporations (more than 2,500 employees) with a median of 500 users, but the impressive mean of 1292 users indicates there are also several significantly larger implementations. SAP Analytics Cloud is geared to business power users with functionality for various BI, analytics and planning tasks.
Typical tasks carried out with SAP Analytics Cloud by business users include viewing reports/navigating dashboards (96 percent), analyzing/exploring data (94 percent) and creating reports/dashboards (87 percent), which demonstrates the feature-richness of the product. Customers achieve an average of 11 percent usage penetration among all employees, which is below the survey average of 18 percent. This indicates that the product is focused more on trained business power users than the majority of employees.
Current vs. planned use
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5 products most often evaluated in competition with SAP Analytics Cloud
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Percentage of employees using SAP Analytics Cloud
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Number of users using SAP Analytics Cloud
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Tasks carried out with SAP Analytics Cloud by business users
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Company size (number of employees)
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Summary of SAP Analytics Cloud highlights
With 25 top ranks and 25 leading positions across six different peer groups, SAP Analytics Cloud once again achieves an outstanding set of results in this year’s BI & Analytics Survey. Convincing ratings in numerous important KPIs help to consolidate its position as a market-leading BI, analytics and planning product that delivers considerable benefits to its customers. Companies can benefit from using SAP Analytics Cloud in terms of faster and more accurate reporting, analysis or planning and improved customer satisfaction. Overall, these benefits lead to better business decisions for many customers. The BI & Analytics Survey results underline that many customers are satisfied with SAP Analytics Cloud.
Cloud BI – Top-ranked
Peer group: International BI Giants
Innovation – Top-ranked
Peer group: International BI Giants
Self-Service – Top-ranked
Peer group: International BI Giants
Visual Design Standards – Top-ranked
Peer group: International BI Giants
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