Unlocking the Power of SAP Data
“The myth that SAP data is too complex often prevents organizations from starting their integration journey,” Matt Florian noted, emphasizing that numerous organizations possess a wealth of data and analytic assets within SAP but are afraid to break outside of its proprietary ecosystem, even when doing so may have considerable advantages.
Despite knowing that they have this treasure trove waiting to be unlocked and enriched with other analytics across the corporate ecosystem, misconceptions of complexity and misgivings about the associated risk prevent these organizations from extracting the full value of their SAP data.
What Causes an SAP Integration to Fail?
Early into the session, the two speakers took a moment to highlight the significance and ubiquity of SAP data across industries and geographies—with 98% of the world’s top most valuable brands running SAP and 77% of the world’s transactional revenue touches an SAP system.
At the same time, Deaver noted that a considerable percentage of SAP data integration projects end in failure. These failures, however preventable, turn into a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that further entrenches false beliefs about what can and can’t be done.
Florian and Deaver, meanwhile, attribute the vast majority of those failures to organizations’ misguided attempts to “de-SAPify” their data instead of embracing its structure and consistency during integration.
SAP and Snowflake: Building the Right Technology Stack for ERP Analytics Workloads
With cautionary tales out of the way, the conversation shifted to just how enterprises can break free of the complexity myth and how, free of those inhibitions, they might successfully integrate SAP data with Snowflake for enriched and expanded analytics.
This integration process highlighted the unique capabilities of SNP Glue in helping to simplify SAP data extraction and the task of blending it with a host of other sources in Snowflake.
“SNP Glue’s flexibility in managing various data cadences and scaling to large SAP footprints showcases its effectiveness in data integration,” explained Deaver.
The duo’s conversation, centered on a five step approach to accelerating SAP analytics investments, also dispelled some additional myths surrounding what is and isn’t possible with SAP data—specifically, the notion that SAP data models are only intended for consumption within SAP’s proprietary ecosystem.
To illustrate the very real possibilities surrounding SAP data, Deaver presented a real-world case study featuring Siemens, Europe’s largest industrial manufacturer. This success story demonstrated how SNP Glue successfully ingested real-time data into a central data platform, forging a path toward achieving superior performance, security, and data volume management.
Evolution of Technology and Consolidation Challenges
Deaver pointed out the growing trend of companies adopting best-of-breed products and multiple cloud solutions. However, achieving operational reporting consolidation when data is dispersed across multiple ecosystems poses a significant challenge.
As Deaver underscores, “SAP brings consistency to structured data, enabling it to be integrated and shifted to Snowflake for business intelligence and predictive analytics.”
He reiterated that Snowflake, in combination with SAP data, becomes a key tool in amplifying a company’s analytics potential, building on the value of ERP insights to power more reliable, context-enriched, and sophisticated capabilities spanning the whole enterprise.
The two speakers stressed the value of integrating SAP analytics workloads with Snowflake, including the boost such integration can give to multichannel sales, logistics forecasting, and data management in merged or acquired companies.
Such integration, in effect, paints a more complete picture of customers and market forces, enabling customization of experiences based on data from multiple sources. It also allows for a consolidated inventory view, integrated demand forecast, and optimized supply chain and financial models.
The Conversation Continues
While the myth of SAP complexity will not be an easy one to eradicate, this session at the very least poked considerable holes in this persistent narrative: providing crucial counterexamples in the form of client success stories and laying a step-by-step framework by which such successes can be replicated.
Ultimately, the two speakers issued an important reminder that SAP data does not have to be a barrier for enterprises looking to enrich and accelerate their analytics, but can instead be leveraged as a strategic asset to drive enhanced and insightful operational analytics.
Interested in exploring how your organization can accelerate time to value on its SAP investments? Talk to one of our SAP experts or register to view the entire webinar on demand today.
