Item: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Rating: 9
Author: Len Bartlett, MBA

Overall Satisfaction with SAP Business Objects

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The Jackson Group uses SAP Business Objects to analyze trends in healthcare survey data. We have both internal and external users who are able to take advantage of it's portal for online data access, dashboards and reports. SAP BO, along with Crystal Reports, enables us to combine data from many different sources into one standardized reporting platform.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Easily allows end-users to build their own customized data queries and reports.
Reports can be exported to excel or pdf with one click in order to be shared with other stakeholders.
Once built, reports can also be scheduled to run at specific intervals (daily, weekly, etc) and automatically e-mailed to stakeholders, saving time.

Cons

I know that most of my wish list items have been addressed in BO 4.1, items such as mobile functionality, easier connections to Xcelsius dashboards, and a better analytic workbench. We have not reached a point where we can update, but hope to do so within the next six months. Because of this, I do not think it is fair to list weakness on a product that is two versions behind.

Likelihood to Renew

After the initial investment, the renewal for support and new releases is extremely reasonable. Our entire reporting platform is built around SAP BO, all of our data leads to those servers, our clients are happy and we are looking to upgrade in the next six months to take advantage of its mobile reporting platform, so of course we are going to renew!

Likelihood to Recommend

SAP Business Objects is a top-shelf Business Intelligence Platform. There are a lot more competitors in the BI field today than there were in 2008 when we first started evaluating SAP BO. If you are a medium to large enterprise with the need to analyze data from multiple and diverse sources, this is the way to go. If you are a small to medium-sized company, I would look strongly at your needs requirements, getting as detailed as possible, and evaluate this product against some of the smaller and more nimble competitors out there. Specifically looking at their product development road maps if you are in an industry or competitive environment that needs to have immediate access to the latest and greatest technological advancements. SAP, as a whole, is large and still in an acquisition mode and therefore not as quick to adapt to emerging technologies as Tableau or Microstrategy are. (SAP eventually gets there and does it well, however it will not be the first one in that space.)

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SAP Business Objects XI 3.1: Super-Sized Business Intelligence

Software Version