Achieving digital transformation through analytics and big data

Early in July, we held our Analytics Symposium for User Group members – covering everything from big data to the Internet of Things (IoT). Interest in analytics remains high amongst User Group members. No longer is analytics only about better insights – it’s now the foundation for digital transformation and innovation.

The Symposium featured a keynote presentation from two SAP speakers; Waldamer Adams, SVP Analytics & Insight, and Timo Elliott, VP, Global Innovation Evangelist. Waldamer and Timo’s presentation was called ‘Analytics 2.016’ – they covered why analytics is still the CIOs number one priority and how SAP is helping customers build a platform for digital transformation with its analytics solutions.

Timo further spoke about new big data architectures that businesses are beginning to embrace; including the need for organisations to take a ‘data-driven approach’ as part of this. Timo also covered how SAP’s tools can work alongside other analytics solutions, such as the popular Hadoop, which businesses often find challenging to integrate with their SAP infrastructures. You can view Timo’s presentation again, here.

One of the aims of the Symposium was to introduce delegates to the possibilities of ‘digital BI’. In another keynote session by Matt Potts from AgilityWorks, attendees were shown the benefits of moving from analogue BI (manual, printed reports and packs) to digital BI. Matt talked about how digital BI can contribute to greater agility and transparency; as well as how SAP technology such as HANA, Predictive Analytics and BusinessObjects Cloud can be used to enable digital transformation.

Following the opening sessions, delegates split off into several focused seminars held across four streams: BI, Data Visualisation & Reporting,Big Data, and Enterprise Performance Management. These seminars were chaired by SAP users from organisations including Bombardier Transport, the National Grid and the London School of Economics. The sessions covered topics such as SAP’s predictive analytics tools, real-time planning in S/4 HANA, data visualisation, and governance, risk and compliance in SAP BusinessObjects.

Overall the day was a great success and was of huge value to attendees. User Group members can access and download all the presentations from the event here. The User Group also has many similar events, webinars and Special Interest Groups planned for the rest of the year. For more information, visit our events calendar.