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Terry_Penner
Advisor
Advisor
This post was last updated in August 2020, please go to the latest version here.




 

How do you get total control of each category of spending, plus a more comprehensive way to manage spending across categories?  This is the key problem that our leadership teams are asking us to solve.

Organizations have made vast improvements in collecting and managing data, including spend data. However, much of this data is in silos, making it almost impossible to provide a holistic view of spend data for your management team.

Introduction


SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is a cloud solution connecting your people, data, and ideas from multiple sources to enable fast and confident decision making. It allows users to discover, visualize, plan, and predict, all in one place.

There are two key scenarios to consider for spend management:

Embedded use case - Managers focused on single category analysis

  • SAP Concur travel and expenses

  • SAP Ariba procurement spend

  • SAP Fieldglass contingent labor spend


Enterprise use case - executives requiring total spend analytics from multiple data sources

  • Comprehensive supplier and policy management

  • Best-in-class control of each spend category

  • A unified view of spending



SAP Analytics Cloud Embedded edition for SAP Concur, Ariba and Fieldglass


Juergen Muller, SAP CTO, announced the Business Technology Platform that unites HANA, Analytics, SCP and business services to enhance the Intelligent Enterprise. One of the key pillars of that strategy is to embed SAP Analytics Cloud into the Line-of-Business solutions, and SAP Analytics Cloud will be embedded in applications like SAP Concur, Ariba and Fieldglass.

Planned for availability in H2 2021 (subject to change), the embedded version of SAC will allow organizations to view spend data from directly within their application.

Using live connectivity that eliminates the need for data replication while allowing role-based access, Concur, Ariba and Fieldglass users will be able to analyze spend related information without leaving their spend application or replicating data.

With the embedded solutions, managers will be able to focus on single category analysis for SAP Concur, Ariba or Fieldglass spend data.

 

SAP Analytics Cloud Enterprise to enhance SAP Concur, Ariba and Fieldglass


In H2 2021 (subject to change), SAP Concur, Ariba and Fieldglass are planning live data connections that will allow SAP Analytics Cloud users to view spend data from across an entire organization.

Once delivered, SAP Analytics Cloud Enterprise together with this consolidated spend data will allow you to:

  • View dashboards with simple, yet robust, metrics that matter.

  • Leverage budget triggers to receive data and insights delivered to your inbox.

  • Compare company-wide spending levels and trends so you can see how each line of business stacks up.

  • Have more power to negotiate discounts because you’ll have the data that shows exactly what you’re spending with each supplier.




SAP Analytics Cloud Enterprise is required to combine data from multiple sources including HR, finance, employee experience and other data.  The embedded editions of SAP Analytics Cloud contained in SAP Concur, SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass will be limited to data from a single source.

Today, users need to replicate data from their spend source system into a data harmonization layer, and then use SAP Analytics Cloud to view the data.  This approach limits spend analytic scenarios to the data available via CSV exports or API access from the individual spend application.  Data harmonization is typically best accomplished using SAP HANA, SAP BW or SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

The SAP Intelligent Spend Management Group is planning in 2021 (subject to change) to bring together spend data from Concur, Ariba and Fieldglass into a unified database with a single application to view spend data across the three lines of businesses.

Once this live HANA connection and consolidated spend data view is available, customers will be able to complete much more comprehensive spend analysis scenarios, using data and context enriched directly by the spend application.  SAP HANA, SAP BW or SAP Data Warehouse Cloud can continue to be used as the data harmonization layer.* Subject to change

More Information on SAP Analytics Cloud embedded in other SAP Applications


The embedded edition of SAP Analytics Cloud is now available in SuccessFactors, S/4HANA and C/4HANA. You can learn more about these planned solutions in the blog posts.


HANA Cloud Services


HANA Cloud Services is designed to solve the needs of the Intelligent Enterprise. SAP is evolving the Digital Platform into a Business Technology Platform, ensuring out-of-the-box integration, modularity, ease of extension, and consistent experience across business processes in an Intelligent Enterprise. SAP Analytics Cloud completes the Analytics piece of this Business Technology Platform, and is also an integral part of SAP HANA Cloud Services.

SAP HANA Cloud Services provides Enterprise Capabilities that increase business value, by being a single gateway to all your trusted data and analytics. It includes:

  • SAP Analytics Cloud as the Analytics technology where it provides BI, Planning, and Predictive Analytics in a single solution,

  • SAP Data Warehouse Cloud as the end-to-end data platform in the cloud that blends, enriches, governs, and provides a semantic layer for your data, and

  • SAP HANA Cloud that  manages your data storage, federation, and runs powerful applications with the power of SAP HANA in the cloud with General Availability at the end of this year


SAP's HANA Cloud Services strategy is to connect all elements of data processing into one seamless experience, and providing the value of data-driven Intelligent Enterprise.

To learn more about the material benefits that HANA Cloud Services can provide your organization,  visit the SAP HANA Cloud Services web site. You can also try out both SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Data Warehouse Cloud today for 30-days. To begin the journey of realizing those benefits, please contact your SAP or partner representative.