SAP : From Data to Intelligence with SAP

As organizations shift from simply extracting and storing data to gaining valuable insights, SAP customers continue to benefit from end-to-end data and analytics capabilities that work together.

SAP offers complete data and analytics solutions that provide everything you need to help your organization make faster, more intelligent decisions. We're excited to share more product innovation details that will help bring data and analytics even closer together for our customers in 2019.

Gartner recently recognized SAP as a leader in the January 2019 Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics for the seventh consecutive year. We see this position as supported by a strong multi-cloud strategy, multi-model data processing engines, and machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. The ability to process transactions and analytics on a single platform has given many organizations, including Asian Paints, information at their fingertips to better serve their customers.

SAP is also positioned as a visionary in this year's Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms. This is the first time a cloud-based analytics product from SAP has been included as the only SAP product in this Magic Quadrant. We're enthusiastic for the cloud analytics momentum and wanted to provide a look ahead to some of our development priorities in 2019.

Now in its fourth year of development, we are excited to support 2,200 customers using SAP Analytics Cloud - as of the end of 2018 - including customers like Philips Lighting and the San Francisco 49ers. Product use and adoption continue to rise as more customers take advantage of new capabilities and SAP business applications embed analytics functionality within their offerings to provide customers with automated insights, supporting our customers' strategy to deliver an intelligent enterprise. The vision of SAP Analytics Cloud is clearly resonating, with SAP's viability rated higher than any other customer group in the survey.

SAP's strategy to bring all analytics together in one cloud-based platform for business intelligence (BI), enterprise planning, and augmented analytics is a clear market differentiator. SAP is investing heavily in its smart analytics capabilities and is positioned for where we believe Gartner anticipates the market is heading with augmented analytics. Enhancements in smart search help users find the right content, and algorithms guide data discovery and pattern detection with no data scientist required.

SAP's business domain expertise for lines of business and industries is unmatched. This includes data models, stories, visualization, templates, agendas, and guidance on using data sources - all packaged with SAP Analytics Cloud. This pre-built content helps customers develop use cases and quickly realize value.

SAP's strategy to support hybrid customer scenarios for cloud and on-premise analytics with SAP Analytics Hub, part of SAP Analytics Cloud, is an advantage for customers. SAP Analytics Hub offers a single point of access to all analytics content - be it SAP or non-SAP content - no matter where it resides.

Quality, performance, and customer support are all continued areas of focus for the SAP Analytics Cloud team. SAP has recently added a quarterly product release cycle for SAP Analytics Cloud in addition to the two-week release cycles. This gives customers the choice of receiving new innovations with SAP Analytics Cloud at a pace that works best for their organization. You can find out about all the latest features and enhancements with the product updates for SAP Analytics Cloud.

Our Customer Success team supports customers in their adoption and use of the product. The team continues to expand its operations, helping companies around the world with dedicated support. Customers can meet the team and get started with the Welcome Guide.

Our customers' feedback is a top priority for us and plays a decisive role in our planning. In 2019, we are also focusing on further modelling improvements, with enhancements coming in the Q1 2019 time frame, and other developments to continue improving the overall user experience of data modelling.

On the topic of data connections, we have recently added 100 data sources via the SAP Analytics Cloud agent, providing the same level of data connectivity SAP BusinessObjects customers have had for years. These enhancements complement recent investment made in significantly increasing data source connectivity for SAP Analytics Cloud customers. In addition to this, the team has enhanced connectivity to the trusted business data sources of SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business Warehouse, and SAP BusinessObjects. Learn more about data connections in SAP Analytics Cloud.

We listened when our customers and partners asked us to provide more capabilities to embed and extend analytics. SAP Analytics Cloud is in the early stages of extending application programming interfaces (APIs) and also recently added APIs for SAP Analytics Cloud on the SAP API Business Hub, offering easier access to stories. Furthermore, SAP Analytics Cloud plans to include application design capabilities to further enhance this in the Q2 time frame. This functionality will allow developers and partners to build, embed, and extend their intelligent analytics applications, further supporting SAP's customer strategy for the Intelligent Enterprise.

What's your take? We'd like to hear from you. When assessing the market, it's always good to have an informed opinion and look at what other analyst firms are saying about SAP's position for analytics. SAP is ranked as a leader for Data Preparation Solution in the Q4 2018 Forrester Wave, a strong performer in the Forrester Wave for Natural Language Generation for Analytics, and 96 percent of surveyed users would recommend SAP Analytics Cloud in a October 2018 BARC BI survey.

If you are planning to attend the upcoming Gartner Data & Analytics Summits, please take the opportunity to meet with the SAP Analytics Cloud team, grab a product tour, and learn how you can take advantage of modern analytics in your current business environment. At the Summit in London, attendees will learn how Philips Lighting is using SAP Analytics Cloud to deliver an innovative, new business model and reduce operational costs. In Orlando, attendees can join our session to hear how the San Francisco 49ers use SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Digital Boardroom to change the game for their fans.

Join the #askSAP Community Call on the SAP Analytics 2019 Strategy and Roadmap on February 28. Bring your questions and learn more about SAP's strategic areas of focus for 2019.

Gerrit Kazmaier is senior vice president for Database and Data Management & Analytics at SAP. Follow Gerrit and the SAP Analytics team on Twitter at @gerritkazmaier and @SAPAnalytics

Gartner, Inc., Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms, February 11, 2019
Gartner, Inc., Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics, January 21, 2019
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