INTERACTIVE WORKSHOPS

WEDNESDAY 21ST OCTOBER

Optional and separately bookable (places are limited), both workshops will run from 8.30am to 3.30pm. Registration opens at 8am and morning tea and lunch are included. The two workshops will run concurrently and you may attend only one.

Workshop 1: Understanding the Reporting & Analytics Capabilities of SAP BusinessObjects

Develop a much clearer understanding of the vast number of tools that are currently on offer within the SAP BusinessObjects suite, how these tools could help you meet your business requirements and the practical implications of implementing and using them.

This forum is aimed at helping organisations to understand how they can enhance their BI strategy and execution through the SAP BusinessObjects solutions. It is a comprehensive programme intended at providing a full view of the SAP BusinessObjects tools and how they fit with the current environment. It is designed to help understand the expanded range of BI products and options available and why/when/where to use one over the other.

The forum will discuss:

• The most popular tools currently used by SAP BusinessObjects customers
• The introduction of some foreign concepts (to SAP customers), such as Universes and InfoViews
• How does the Business Objects ETL tool (Data Integrator) stack up?

Topics Covered:

SAP BusinessObjects Reporting Tools

• Navigate the marketing hype and come away with reporting tool decision trees for your BI needs
  • What tools do I use?
  • How do I get to where I want to be from where I am?
  • How do I design my roadmap?
  • What will it cost me?

SAP Integration Kit

A practical overview of the SAP Integration Kit and how this enables SAP Customers to take advantage of BusinessObjects. The discussion also briefly covers the steps required to install BusinessObjects and the SAP Integration Kit and indicative hardware sizing.

SAP BI/BObj Roadmap

• Understand the SAP BI/BObj Roadmap - what will be supported? What will be replaced? How will this effect your current reporting environment?

SAP BusinessObjects Planning & Consolidations Tools

• Planning, consolidations and profit and cost management

Visualisation and Reporting

• Information design, delivery and deployment

Case Studies

• Best practice SAP BObj implementations - customer case studies

The forum will take and in depth look in to the expanded range of tools and their integration with SAP including demonstrations of:

• Pioneer
• Explorer
• SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidations)
• VC - Visual Composer
• Crystal Reports
• Xcelsius

The practical aim of the forum is to provide clarity and help organisations make more informed decisions around the direction of their BI solution.

Workshop 2: Developing a BI Strategy - It?s Not All About the Technology

Many organisations are struggling with the development of a BI Strategy that is useful in the pursuit of delivering business value through better decision making. And it is often forgotten that Business Intelligence is about much more than the technology that’s behind it. While some may propose a singular or rigid approach, there should not be a one-size-fi ts-all recipe approach as each organisation has its own set of drivers that should be addressed by the BI Strategy. If strategy is chiefl y a set of decisions and choices that are taken now including setting guiding principles about what we intend to do later, the strategy must answer the burning questions for an organisation.

Business engagement

• When the business expresses desires for better information for decision making but is not properly engaged to successfully execute
• IT sees the value of BI and needs to convince the business of this value

Governance

• Governance models are required to guide decision making on:
  • What are the business problems to be solved?
  • The evolving programme of work to be executed
  • How the live solution will be sustained, managed and enhanced
  • How will information and the technical solution be governed?
  • How does BI governance align with the broader enterprise architecture governance model?

Business value and costs

• What business value is targeted, how will it be realised and who is accountable for delivering this?
• How much will it cost?

Capability

• When the organisation is at the lower end of the maturity curve and needs a more structured framework and guidance to execute within
• What organisation size, structure and skill based do we need not only to deliver but also sustain the solution?

Technology choices

• What technology?
• How will we address the technology risks?

Sourcing

• What elements should be insourced and outsourced?

Support

• How will the live solution be supported?

People issues

• How to address the people issues including equipping people with the right skills
• How to communicate with the business and across other parts of IT ERP differences
• Delivering value with BI is substantially different to that of an ERP solution alone. How does the BI organisation “sell” these differences to the broader IT organisation and the business

The forum will be a mixture of a facilitated discussion along with a number of presentations on elements of good practice approaches. Including facilitated discussions on:

• What does BI strategy mean to you and your organisation?
• What are the burning issues that must be addressed in your organisation?

And interactive workshop presentations on the following topics:

• Business engagement
• Governance
• Business & IT strategy alignment
• Organisation change
• Technology strategy
• The path to develop and maintain the "live" BI strategy

This forum will be a workshop style discussion group that will look to cover the outlined topics and also offer the opportunity for participants to apply these principles and concepts to their own environment.