{"id":12265,"date":"2012-09-10T17:29:02","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T16:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/?p=4166"},"modified":"2012-09-10T17:29:02","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T16:29:02","slug":"sap-announces-new-epm-ondemand-at-the-sap-businessobjects-user-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/sap-announces-new-epm-ondemand-at-the-sap-businessobjects-user-conference.html","title":{"rendered":"SAP Announces New EPM OnDemand at the SAP BusinessObjects User Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s time for one of my favorite conferences of the year, the SAP BusinessObjects User Conference<\/a> in Orlando, Florida.<\/p>\n

I’ve been attending BusinessObjects user conferences ever since they have existed, and it’s a wonderful opportunity for me to catch up with old friends and meet new customers that are using analytics to make a difference in the business.<\/p>\n

The day kicked off with Bridgette Chambers<\/a>, CEO of Americas\u2019 SAP User Group (ASUG), who talked about the ongoing importance of the BusinessObjects community and encouraged people to continue reaching out to work with ASUG<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Bridgette<\/p>\n

Analytic Trends<\/h3>\n

In the main keynote, Sanjay Poonen<\/a>, President of Global Solutions at SAP, kicked off with the importance of technology and innovation in today’s business.<\/p>\n

\"Sanjay<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the problems of companies today is that 70-80% of their investment is in keeping the lights on, and the remainder is in innovation — we would like to flip those percentages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanjay talked about the coming changes to the global environment, including changes to the workforce, attitudes to risk, increasing data volume\/velocity\/variety, the increasingly connected world, and the rising importance of mobile devices (22% of people would give up brushing their teeth for a week in order to keep their mobile phone… and 33% would give up sex!)<\/p>\n

\"What<\/p>\n

Sanjay emphasized the importance of the user conference for SAP: “You are a proxy for the forty or fifty thousand analytics customers — we want your feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n

He compared the “traditional stack” of different solutions from different vendors with SAP\u2019s real-time analytics in a simplified, cheaper stack that makes more efficient use of data. For example, companies can do predictive analytics directly within the HANA in-memory database, rather than extracting it to a separate tool.<\/p>\n

\"Traditional<\/a><\/p>\n

Analytic Innovation<\/h3>\n

He outlined the 8 key innovations that would be covered at the conference:<\/p>\n

\"8<\/p>\n

To talk about the impact of data on the business, he invited customer Gabriel Orthous<\/a>, Senior Business Intelligence Manager of McKesson, the largest US health care IT company, to share his experiences.<\/p>\n

Gabriel is one of the authors of the book SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence: The Comprehensive Guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Gabriel<\/p>\n

Gabriel outlined the advantages of data to the business:<\/p>\n