25.03.2003 / SAP:
Global Leader in Business Intelligence Solutions

SAP AG announced that SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW), a component of mySAP Business Intelligence (mySAP BI), received top scores in three of ten categories in Forrester's Business Intelligence TechRankings. SAP BW captured top scores in the Information Delivery, Consistency, and Business Specialization categories, including a five out of five score for Business Specialization and Consistency.

Companies around the world have completed more than 6,200 installations of mySAP Business Intelligence to achieve competitive advantage through integrated business insights. mySAP Business Intelligence provides companies the ability to integrate and analyze business data that is divided across heterogeneous applications and other data sources, allowing for comprehensive business insight and analysis beyond the traditional barriers of corporate structures. mySAP Business Intelligence is powered by SAP NetWeaver, the leading integration and application platform, allowing mySAP BI to aggregate data from what Forrester's Nate Root states as the massive data structures that underlie enterprise software platforms and thereby support collaborative decision making and produce actionable information.

Forrester's TechRankings is the result of independent analysis and evaluation of leading business intelligence (BI) vendor solutions based on more than 500 criteria related to data management, information delivery, integration, architecture, globalization, and cost. In his report, Forrester's Nate Root stated that SAP has built strong data management features into SAP BW, including data validation, verification, and robust data model development and management features. Also, SAP BW includes packaged adapters for deep integration with SAP R/3. However, the product doesn't require other SAP software – a few firms have successfully deployed SAP BW in the absence of other SAP products. Customers globally are choosing mySAP Business Intelligence because of its open and comprehensive design that enables the integration of all corporate data in a way that turns raw data into actionable business insights.

Transform Data and Make Effective Decisions

For example, The Scotts Company, the world's leading supplier of consumer products for lawn and garden care, is using mySAP BI as an end-to-end business intelligence solution. Scotts integrates business information pertaining to inventory, internal manufacturing, and distribution data and leverages it beyond the enterprise to enhance communication and collaboration with its customers, vendors, and investors. "We are leveraging mySAP Business Intelligence across the entire Scotts value chain to enhance our customer relationships and ultimately allow for improved forecasting, ad planning, and targeted marketing," said Deb Masdea, director, Business Knowledge Services for Scotts. "With mySAP Business Intelligence, we are able to provide a standard view of daily consolidated information from SAP R/3 and non-SAP R/3 systems, making it possible for our management team to have timely, actionable knowledge at their fingertips, which was not possible before."

"Customers are streamlining their technology on a corporate wide basis, and mySAP Business Intelligence is the foundation for information integration across their heterogeneous environments," said Shai Agassi, executive board member, SAP. "By leveraging the embedded business intelligence capabilities that are provided by mySAP Business Intelligence and integrated into the SAP NetWeaver platform, customers can easily transform their data into information for effective decision making." The business intelligence component along with SAP Enterprise Portal, SAP Exchange Infrastructure, and SAP Web Application Server (SAP Web AS) comprise the SAP NetWeaver platform. SAP NetWeaver is a comprehensive integration and application platform that helps reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) by facilitating the integration and alignment of people, information, and business processes across organizational and technological boundaries. SAP NetWeaver is the technical foundation for mySAP Business Suite solutions and SAP xApps cross applications, ensuring maximum reliability, security, and scalability to enable mission-critical business processes to run smoothly.

SAP BW Surpasses Performance Expectations

SAP Business Information Warehouse also shattered the previous performance levels for scalability and data volume support in a test audited by independent consultancy Winter Corporation (www.wintercorp.com). Proven scalability and high-volume business intelligence support, now documented by this independent audit, is also a feature sought by SAP's users as more of their customers, employees, and partners seek access to enterprise BI systems. Richard Winter, president of Winter Corporation and a leading expert in database scalability, said that in the benchmark test, mySAP Business Intelligence handled an unprecedented volume of data with ease. "CIOs can take comfort in the knowledge that today's leading business intelligence technology vendor SAP has ramped up the support of fast-growing user communities and terabyte databases," said Winter.

mySAP Business Intelligence supports the large processing of data through SAP BW, which also helps to control, monitor, and maintain all processes pertaining to data staging and processing. Other capabilities of mySAP Business Intelligence enable organizations to access, analyze, and disseminate this data across SAP and non-SAP solutions and help organizations to improve business efficiency, enhance the quality of business relationships, and achieve maximum business value through powerful business insight.

Source: SAP AG