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Former Member

At their annual SAPPHIRE conference this past June, SAP announced the Intelligent Enterprise framework - an integrated suite of solutions that helps a business attain better results through the more effective use of data and connectivity. Businesses that harness data to automate operations and act on insights are able to respond with agility to rapidly changing environments, and have more productive and rewarding engagements with partners, customers, and employees.


Becoming an Intelligent Enterprise requires investments across three areas within the Intelligent Enterprise framework:




  • Intelligent Suite which includes SAP S/4HANA, SAP C/4HANA and SAP SuccessFactors - that help manage customers, supply chains, networks, employees, and core processes.

  • Intelligent Technologies that accelerate innovation with SAP Cloud Platform and SAP Leonardo, by building applications on top of The Intelligent Enterprise Suite.

  • Digital Platform that manages any type of data from any source, providing the Intelligent Suite and Intelligent Technologies access to the data that fuels its intelligence.




Image from SAP available at https://www.sap.com/products/intelligent-enterprise.html

 

Well governed data is fundamental to the Intelligent Enterprise.  It is infused within it, drives its effectiveness, and ultimately determines the value obtained from it.  Therefore, getting data right, and keeping it right, is critical when evolving to an Intelligent Enterprise .


Think of it this way.  Many 2-stroke engines specify a specific gasoline-to-oil mixture (i.e. 32:1) that is required in order for them to run properly and efficiently.  Too much oil creates a lot of smoke, poor performance and an oily spark plug. Too little oil seizes and damages the engine. So, a high quality or ‘clean’ fuel mix is required – the right amount of oil and the right amount of gasoline.


The same analogy applies to data to the Intelligent Enterprise.  Consider the following scenarios: orders shipped to the wrong addresses, excessive inventories of raw material on hand, low ROI from personalized marketing campaigns, restated earnings, customers invoiced for products and services that they didn’t purchase, and low employee morale due to payroll, benefits, and performance management errors. These, and many other scenarios can be attributed to poor quality data. High quality or ‘clean’ data makes the Intelligent Enterprise run properly and efficiently.  And while every data source can’t necessarily be cleaned, for example when they are procured from third parties, they must be governed so that their quality is understood and are thus used appropriately.  And given the speed at which an Intelligent Enterprise operates, automated approaches to getting data clean and keeping it clean must be utilized over slower, manual approaches.


The capabilities of the Intelligent Enterprise are delivered by SAP and its partner community.  Recognizing our extensive experience in complex data engagements over the past 20 years, SAP includes data management applications built by BackOffice Associates within its SAP Solution Extensions portfolio.  SAP Solution Extensions are developed by SAP partners, rigorously tested by SAP, and include simple delivery and consistent support through SAP.


 

Data Migration: Get Your Data Clean


To help you make your move to the Intelligent Suite, the SAP Advanced Data Migration (ADM) application by BackOffice Associates orchestrates all of the activities involved in the migration and transformation of legacy data from any source to the Intelligent Suite (e.g. SAP S/4HANA, SAP C/4HANA and SAP SuccessFactors etc.).  It helps avoid the typical pitfalls that cause data migration projects to fail including ad-hoc planning, limited project oversight, inability to manage high complexity, siloed decision making, time-consuming coding of custom integrations, and poor communication. It works with SAP Data Services and SAP HANA to cleanse and harmonize your legacy data before moving it to your new SAP environment.  It’s built around the SAP data models and automatically generates code that moves data into SAP Migration Cockpit - eliminating the need for staffing to write time-consuming, custom code and target data models. This dramatically reduces your project schedule, risks, and costs - in fact, ADM pays for itself very quickly as a part of your data migration strategy. And it curates complete, accurate, and consistent data that is delivered on-time and on-budget so that disruptions to your business are minimized.


 

Data Quality: Keep Your Data Clean


When a data migration is performed correctly, data quality is highest.  However, without active and strategic management, quality levels will quickly degrade to “business as usual” - negating the benefits expected from your SAP investment.  The SAP Information Steward Accelerator (ISA) application by BackOffice Associates extends the SAP Information Steward application to quickly find and fix data within your SAP and non-SAP environment that doesn’t meet your quality rules and standards.  ISA makes it simple for business users to fix bad data themselves, rather than having to wait for IT intervention. This significantly reduces the time required to correct errors in data, and consequently the business interruptions that can result.  If you are an SAP Information Steward user, you should look to extend it with ISA for complete end-to-end data quality monitoring and closed loop remediation.


SAP Solution Extensions from BackOffice Associates combine with SAP data management offerings to perform simple but very critical functions: clean your data and keep it clean.  They help you migrate to the Intelligent Suite (SAP S/4HANA, SAP C/4HANA and SAP SuccessFactors etc.) in less time, with data that is standardized for the SAP Intelligent Suite and of high quality, and at a significant cost savings and reduced risk profile over self-orchestrated projects.  They can reduce the time to correct data errors in the SAP HANA Data Management Suite. And they improve the results you obtain from AI/ML and Analytics (Intelligent Technologies). In short, they help ensure that your business gets the most value out of your investments in the Intelligent Suite.  You can learn more about these offerings through our recent webinar hosted jointly with SAP (Requires BrightTalk login).


SAP Solution Extensions from BackOffice Associates ensure clean fuel for your Intelligent Enterprise.


 
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