It is the core of all of our reporting. We have been using BW for around 15 years and our business couldn't run with out the product. We connect BW to all of our SAP systems including CRM, ECC, MDG in order to get a full picture of our company and how we can inovate.
Pros
Integrates data
Solid Security
Mature product where users are comfortable
Cons
More native connectivity to other sets of data
push more things down to the DB
Likelihood to Recommend
While it does have some limitations, it is an extremely solid product.
SAP Business Warehouse is absolutely essential in the SAP ecosystem as it provides seamless integration of data from ERP (enterprise resource planning) modules in a standardized manner. Additionally, it offers the flexibility to customize as per specific business requirements, making it an indispensable tool for any organization.
Pros
SAP ERP modules can be integrated with SAP data using standard extractors, reducing time for new deliverables.
Transform the raw data into in insights.
Mature knowledge base.
Cons
Cloud integration is limited or restricted in some business scenarios.
Seems close the end of the software lifecycle, maintenance.
Sometimes, ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) expertise is required.
No IA capabilities.
Likelihood to Recommend
Using SAP ERP as the primary data source can speed up Business Intelligence deployments with pre-built objects, extractors, data flows, cubes, and queries. It also provides a way to consume data with both SAP and non-SAP Business Intelligence tools. Additionally, it allows for the addition of new features and applications on top of the SAP Business Warehouse backend, such as SAP Business Planning and Consolidation. providing not only a strong data warehouse repository but also a financial application in a single box.
For Regular Operation & Analytical Purpose We use SAP BW. It has capability to provide Formatted Reports for business uses using Bex Analysis which is Front end Designing tool. Business Modelling takes time but once done properly it provides very robust integration in terms master data & hierarchy access for reporting flexibility. Accessing attributes & grand attributes also comes handy with proper handling and with minimal effort at reporting levels. With the Onset of Composite Provider implementing Joins has become very easy. We can always create Calculated & restricted Measures & Dimension at Composite provider level with out consuming any permanent memory along with a great performance when HANA is backend
Pros
Integrations with SAP Source Systems
Complex Hierarchies can be handled easily in BW with help of BW
Master data attributes/ text once configured properly can be looked up in easiest way with least effort in any report.
Efficient Delta Loading mechanism and easy reconciliation of data
Connections to other Third Part Systems & File Systems
Taking data out from BW is also easy.
Cons
Advance Analytics like Regression & Classification Problems Use Cases not possible as of now in BW
Dashboarding Capabilities are not that great in BW Front End Tool
Self Ad-hoc reporting is not very flexible as its complex tool in design
Likelihood to Recommend
Now with Advent of B4HANA we should prefer B4HANA over BW. If budget is constraint BW is still superb tool with great capabilities. It is one of the tool with all capabilities of ETL, Modelling & Reporting. We can say that its a Super which alone is sufficient to cater need of any large/mid cap company.
Our company provides smart solutions to our clients, this is one such solution for our customers, we use this solution primarily for data warehousing and reporting. They particularly appreciate its speed and ability to use a HANA database. It would be helpful to hear more about the vendor's strategy for the cloud solution.
Pros
Maintaining SAP BW is much easier than similar products
Powerful and extensive functionality
Cons
The system doesn't integrate well with other systems and is difficult to use
It would be beneficial to have reports that could be modified and saved more easily
You may find it difficult to build your type of report, many of the sections can be streamlined and easier to use
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP Business Warehouse allows us to run reports fast and accurately, allowing us to gain an understanding of our business, besides its built-in semantic data management models, it offers ease of use with a variety of data management systems, as well as data input by XML and other data sources.
SAP Business Warehouse ("SAP BW") is used to aggregate data from disparate systems to create <b><i>a single version of the truth </i></b>or run reports / analyses across the entire organization. It is only used by the corporate team as each of the business divisions are extremely loyal to their specific software packages that are pulled into SAP BW (CRM, sales data, etc.).
The most important business problems that are solved is (1) the ability to produce more sophisticated analysis to drive executive decision making and (2) compile certain regulatory reports that are extremely time-consuming if produced outside of a data warehouse.
Pros
Integrates, stores, and manages company data from all sources
Pre-configured information models are better than average
Security authorization protocols and flexibility
Integration capabilities
Cons
Certain pruning can only take place on metadata rather than posted data
High runtimes for query execution
Results still requires fairly significant data verification time and effort
2. Enterprises with 3+ legacy systems with entrenched users (politically difficult to merge)
3. Enterprises with employees who can understand both the technical capabilities of SAP BW and the needs of the business users - ability to speak both languages, otherwise the program could be unwieldy and potentially underutilized (it's not particularly inexpensive)
SAP BW is less appropriate for:
1. Small enterprises
2. Enterprises who have well established, same location, CRM and UFS - the integration of data analysis will be easier and less expensive with other solutions
For our clients, we use SAP Business Warehouse systems for generating reports. It has always been easier for our company to gather data from several systems. The primary purpose being reporting, we also use it for analytics at the corporate level to analyze business performance in various sectors of our company.
Pros
Generating reports
Ease of interaction with various data sources like XML
Tables comparison is pretty easy
Data warehousing
Cons
It is not very user-friendly for the beginners
Slow speed in generating reports
Not the best for larger datasets
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP BW, being an enterprise data warehousing tool, is good for storing most of the data generated by systems. It is a tool to run reports and review trends. It is a good tool to compare and organize data as well. If you are new to the software, it can be very tedious to learn.
SAP BW is used across the whole organization. SAP BW helps to provide company-wide enterprise reports mainly coming from SAP ECC data. Reports cover several areas including Finance, Supply Chain, Purchasing etc.
Pros
SAP BW is very good to process a large amount of data.
SAP BW can help perform complex transformation of data.
SAP BW has out of the box data sources to connect to ECC.
Cons
Front-end reporting can be made more user-friendly.
Some of the areas are still missing BI Content (COPA etc)
Metadata repository can be improved and made more user-friendly.
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP BW is well suited where source systems are SAP such as ECC, CRM, SRM, SCM etc. For non-SAP data sources, it may be less appropriate.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (10,001+ employees)
SAP Business Warehouse (BW) is being used across the whole organization in my current employer. SAP BW was also used across the whole organization in my previous employers which were top 3 of their respective industries: telecommunications, oil & gas, mining, manufacturing and fast moving consumer goods. SAP BW was used as the primary reporting and analytics tools at the corporate level. SAP BW give the business an ability to analyze business performance mainly in finance and logistics.
Pros
Data replication from SAP ERP or other SAP systems (like SAP CRM, SAP APO).
Data transformation from SAP ERP.
Data warehousing capabilities.
Cons
Long cycle time from data preparation to reporting.
Below par standard reporting user interface when using Business Explorer (BEx) reporting tool.
Additional SAP products required for self-service capability and dashboarding.
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP Business Warehouse is well suited for large size corporations (more than 5,000 employees) with SAP ERP deployment and with multiple SAP modules (Finance, Materials Management, and Human Resources) deployment. SAP Business Warehouse needs to be supported by highly trained staff to take advantage its full functionalities. SAP Business Warehouse is less appropriate for small and medium-size corporations (less than 5,000 employees) as full SAP Business Warehouse support might become too expensive. SAP Business Warehouse is also less appropriate for an organization where SAP ERP is not used.
SAP Business Warehouse is used to keep track of what parts are in-house currently as well as what parts are coming in and are on back order. It also tracks possible demand when sales representatives are putting out bids and orders for their customers. I personally like when the sales team puts in bids that are in process so we can start working on lead times and vendors for products. It saves a lot of time down the road.
Pros
It tracks bin locations for parts which can be really helpful.
SAP Business Warehouse tells you who has a part checked out so you can find it.
It shows current parts shortages so buyers are flagged to get parts on order based on current demand.
Cons
I wish it could hold a part where even though it is not in use yet, but you know you will need it, it won't allow it to be checked it rather than put on backorder.
Some of the menu paths can be a little difficult to remember or follow.
It is not easy for a novice user to go in and create a report quickly.
Likelihood to Recommend
We use it to track parts in the warehouse. This includes leaving and coming. If you have parts that come in and have to leave multiple times to have other work performed, it does get a little tricky. A lot of the times, part numbers have to be changed for coming and going and after they are worked on. I don't feel like it is the best in this scenario, but I don't know if any other software is either.
