BI by and for SAP - what was, what is and what is to come

I have isolated the following three tendencies for myself:

First:

SAP BW will become increasingly less important: Maybe it's ignorance or selective perception, but I've always seen SAP BW as a scary, monstrous application.

Don't misunderstand: I believe that for many there were simply no alternatives on the market at the given (past) time - what there were were similar application monsters at best.

But that had little to do with agile solutions, self-service applications, data discovery and the other buzzwords. My prediction is that anyone who still does not use SAP BW will not introduce it again to any significant extent.

Companies with existing architectures face the challenge of how to deal with the issue of extensions based on this technology.

My advice is to start examining new options now and to critically scrutinize the expansion.

Second:

SAP DB integration becomes easier: SAP has implemented two crucial topics here.

On the one hand, as of NetWeaver 7.4, SAP data can be accessed via OData. This requires one or the other setting by the knowledgeable administrator, possibly also the setup of an own suitable OData endpoint, but these are (also financially seen) trifles compared to the required driver software (Theobald, Cubeware ...) in the classic data integration.

The second option is to migrate the existing database (SQL, Oracle, MaxDB) to Hana. I do not mean the migration to S/4, but the operation of the existing ERP on Hana.

I realize this is a more substantial undertaking that no one is doing because of BI alone. The improved access to Hana would be a great takeaway from the DB migration.

Third:

Having your own BI database doesn't always have to be mandatory: Admittedly, this sounds strange when I write this as an advocate of data warehouse solutions. Nevertheless, the trend is moving in the direction of using in-memory information.

Both of the above variants of data integration (OData and using Hana) lend themselves to the use of ephemeral query results.

A good idea of usage is near-real-time information that does not affect too large a table range in SAP, has a manageable complexity in the query, and provides a manageable amount of result values.

These are some limitations, but still the number of reasonable applications remains relatively large.

What follows

BI solutions for SAP are becoming simpler, faster and more agile: The speed refers to the proximity to real-time, but also to the speed in the implementation of possible applications.

The simplicity lies in the possibility of access. In the simplest case, I need an OData URL from my SAP system and Excel or Power BI.

Agility refers primarily to the design options for the analytical views of my SAP environment - a real advance that is already on its way.

SAP becomes more open: The possibility via OData is already a first relevant step, which is implemented even more consistently in openness of the solution with Hana. SAP will actually become easy to read and analyze.

BI solutions from SAP and non-SAP vendors are effectively put on an equal footing: There is no distinction in interface protocols for SAP and non-SAP BI products with the new access options via OData and Hana.

Conclusion:

Much of what was still has its justification - especially the classic data warehouse approach.

Nevertheless, those who in the future walk exclusively on the old paths will increasingly have to forego the efficiency of their solution options and will no longer be able to use some newer approaches and enhancements such as machine learning or real-time analytics.