Likelihood to Recommend I think CPQ had worked so well for our company because of the widespread nature of our associates and tracking orders that were being placed in multiple time zones. My team specifically needed a way of analyzing these orders to track our progress in real time and sort out any supply orders before they became an issue. If you are in a centralized location with a smaller team then this may not yield much use to you.
Read full review Some scenarios where SAP BW/4HANA is well suited are retail industry, supply chain, finance, warehouse, stocking processes, BI, [and] some finance analytics reporting. Some scenarios where SAP BW/4HANA is less appropriate [is when] relational queries are needed [and] in some small business with infrastructure limitations. Another scenario that is less appropriate is for ABAP processes requirements.
Read full review Pros Leveraged automation to minimize headcount costs despite 10% year-over-year business growth, and enabled staff to focus on more strategic tasks. Established a flexible CPQ system that scales on demand to easily accommodate the company’s multiple global locations. Improved customer relations by reducing configuration time and allowing sales more time to meet with customers and close orders. Read full review High speed data warehouse regardless of data volumes. Excellent integration with SAP systems and Data sets. Simplified data modelling due to columnar data base. Read full review Cons Significant setup time, cost, and maintenance. We have to use an implementation partner Does not always play well with other software, even Oracle software. While this is improved and being further improved, that it was a third party acquisition means things sometimes require a little extra care Additional setup documentation and first walkthroughs would be helpful, especially if it was all in one place Read full review Enterprise license pricing is very expensive and run-time license limits the usefulness of the tool. Integration with SAP Analytics cloud for write-back to BW/4HANA. Live connection is only read from SAC. Make run-time licenses more useful. Read full review Likelihood to Renew So far it is all good with BigMachines, looking for new features since Oracle acquisition has created a lot of expectations. We have outlined our limitations (out of box functionality) in our periodic customer successor advice meetings for a while, hope we get a resolution soon. Also, the BigMachines user license fee has increased a lot in the last three years.
Read full review Usability The software UI can be as complex or as simple as you need it to be (depending on the business). It does require training others on quote configuration and the order in which to build out order positions prior to configuring a quote. Once users are trained;however, it is fairly straight-forward. The UI is still more static than other new wizard/drag-and-drop models, but it get's the job done
Read full review SAP BW/4HANA requires specialized skillsets around data warehouse modeling and the access to data, however the modeling capabilities are intuitive and have now become accessible to both SAP and non-SAP data warehouse specialists. This new model allows for Interchangeable skillsets and access to a broader pool of experts throughout the industry, as well as easier access to data.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Other than one day two years ago and an hour or two a few times since then due to data center outages, it has been very reliable
Read full review Performance It depends upon the day however there are so many failure points with online services, including our internet service, that this is probably closer to 9 with the latest version
Read full review Support Rating Some specific support personal was good and fixed some problems fast using proper solutions. But when one of them went to sleep when we had critical issues and they do unreported commits to our production environment which caused issues and they were hiding it?? you can not give more than a two (maybe even that is too much). They also failed to add a feature for us which also bring the grade down.
Read full review SAP Max Attention and general support for SAP BW/4HANA is broadly available. Truth to be told, MaxAttention has a premium cost but brings great engineers. So this being an enterprise capability and extremely critical, we did not consider cost as the main factor since support works well. Just keep that in mind when making your selection.
Read full review In-Person Training They have pretty good training. Our business analysts have been able to go to entry and advanced level training. They have a train the trainer model. Our business analyst attended training, then trained the rest of our staff.
Read full review Implementation Rating It was a much more technical implementation than we thought. It involved much more code. Future releases have made and will make administering the tool easier. EDL consulting had one good developer, but when he was moved off, they were horrible to work with. The BMI sales team does a “BOA” or a “Business Operation Assessment” which is extremely valuable, not only for them to scope an implementation and get more reach within the organization, but it is also a documentation of business process that most organizations don’t have. It highlights inefficiencies and allows for correction during implementation. Having a dedicated team (in-house) for implementation is key
Read full review Alternatives Considered Oracle engagement is ahead. They are active in the development of the tool and provide great support after implementation. They also listen to their customers and offer opportunities to feedback and provide input through activities like the customer advisory board forum.
Read full review SAP Analytics Cloud is complemented by SAP BW/4 HANA through connectors that work in real-time and allow the display of indicator information in interactive and user-friendly visualizations.
SAP Data Services integrates with BW/4 HANA allowing to automate the loading of information in the system taking as a data source a wide variety of platforms.
Read full review Return on Investment Increased Sales Rep efficiency. Being able to create multiple quotes ACCURATELY and quickly was a game changer. Large implementation time. It's a little difficult to fit BMI into a SCRUM style build, with multiple working models and prototypes of all 3 simultaneously. A larger fee for licensing and implementation cost. ROI wouldn't be realized in the first year. Read full review Faster turn-around to enhancements End users can query structures that are not limited to multi-dimensional models. Performance improvements means that business user can do more in the same time compared to traditional BW Read full review ScreenShots