Bringing analytics to data in the decision economy
In today’s digital economy, the way organisations make decisions is changing dramatically. You may have heard predictions such as, “By 2020 the growth in cloud data traffic will increase by 3.7x.” Couple that with “We’ll be living with 21 billion connected things by 2020,” and the direction of the digital playing field is clear: With data and things moving to the cloud, the time to start thinking about investing in cloud analytics has passed; it’s now time to take action. And we’re hearing that many businesses are doing just that.
In this digital future, leading organisations are not only using analytics, they are also consuming analytics as the fuel for growth. Research suggests that 78% of decisions made by leading organisations are based on data-driven analysis.
But connecting to data and things is only one piece of a bigger picture. People and processes must also enter the equation, since 75% of decisions by leading digital organisations can be mapped directly to company strategy, and 62% of decisions are distributed across the organisation.
This decision cloud landscape continues to intensify as decisions themselves are moved to the cloud, in autonomous models in which machine-learning algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) apply analytics and take on increased levels of decision-making. Of course, the AI takeover is a tectonic shift that offers exponential value and inherent risks (Skynet, anyone?).
Bring your analytics to your data with a hybrid approach
Before we skate too far ahead, organisations must face the business reality of today. Bringing together people, processes, data, and things requires a balanced approach, especially when it comes to data and analytics. The real work begins when organisations can take advantage of existing on-premise data and analytics technology investments while creating a path to the future as more data and things shift to, and are born in, the cloud. This includes the marriage of data from onpremise and cloud sources.
As the cloud transition occurs, organisations must strike the right balance of cloud and on-premise technology. They face critical technology decisions, including:
Which applications should go cloud-first
Which lines of business can take advantage of cloud analytics
Which business processes can most benefit from cloud solutions
Ultimately, what is the value and impact to the bottom line
To temper risk and increase acceleration, organisations are adopting a hybrid data and analytics approach to bridge the gap during the transition. This provides a framework for the organisation to move forward at a pace they are comfortable with. It’s a strategy that brings your analytics to your data, rather than the other way around.
Where does your cloud journey begin?
The momentum of customers moving to SAP’s analytics cloud solution, SAP BusinessObjects Cloud, is rapidly accelerating—and so are the innovations being introduced by SAP. New features and functionality for SAP customers with existing investments in onpremise analytics technology (SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise) offer hybrid use cases to deal with the reality of cloud and on-premise data environments.
SAP’s product strategy also aims to address the most important analytical needs across the organisation to plan, discover, analyse, and predict all from one built-forcloud solution. This approach intends to minimise cost and complexity for organisations as they begin their cloud journey, removing the need to worry about assembly of different cloud analytic solutions.
Build a clear path
We know that our businesses are at various stages of the cloud journey. Whether you’re thinking of taking the first step or you’re already down the path, taking a look at SAP solutions may give you the insights necessary to build your path to the cloud. For more information, please visit www.deloitte.com/mt/sap