Mastering Enterprise SOA with SAP NetWeaver® and mySAP™ ERP

Chapter 15. Embedded Analytics

Decision-making is a key part of any business activity. When making a decision, you need relevant information presented to you in such a way that it is usable, and you need the ability to take action based on the decision you make. Thus, supporting decision-making means providing both information and the ability to take action based on that information.

This chapter explains how embedded analytics create very tangible business benefits by supporting people in making decisions. For the sake of argument, imagine that all business tasks that can be automated have been automated. What remains are those tasks that actually require human beings to make decisions. Humans have tremendous brain power, and they want to apply that to logical reasoning and decision-making, not to search for information, guess at things they do not know, or run around trying to find a way to implement their decisions. Embedded analytics, done right, allow you to put your powers to work where they create the most benefits.

This is, of course, not just a technical problem. On the one hand, you must understand a lot about the business to be able to choose the right data and actions for any particular task that involves decision making. On the other hand, you must also know a lot about your IT landscape to know where to find this data, and where to execute these actions. Designing embedded analytics brings these two skills together.

From this, it should be quite obvious how ESA and SAP ...