Have you ever been asked to analyze your company's performance, and deadlines are
tight? You need to interpret and then present your data. To do this, I'm going
to step into the well-heeled shoes of a Financial Controller at a top company. To
help me do it right, a product expert from SAP Analytics Cloud is going to
give me some exclusive 'smart insights'.
One of my main problems is that I have to present my analysis in a single
dashboard in an engaging way. Priti, can SAP Analytics Cloud really help me pull
all my data together and present it effectively? Can I avoid having to pull
together 50 PowerPoint slides? Yes, with SAP Analytics Cloud, you can bring
all your data together in one single dashboard and you can prepare this on
your laptop and you can also perform deep analysis of your data. To present in
an engaging way to your audience, I would recommend using Digital Boardroom. Can you show
me an example? Yeah.
Here is an example of a financial dashboard that I have prepared on my laptop. As you can see here, the data is
brought from financial analysis point of view but, if you need to, you can bring
all the data from different lines of businesses such as HR, Sales and
Marketing, R&D, and so on. And with this, you are presenting the information live,
your audience is with you for every click... and not a single PowerPoint slide in sight!
Say I want to focus in on one area in particular, like Travel and Entertainment
expenses. They're usually huge for my region and
I really need to be able to explain how our current expenses compare with the
planned budget. Can you show me how I'd quickly home in on that? A lot of our
customers have experienced a similar demand regarding expense forecasting,
especially T&E cost. So, here in this dashboard, you can
get a quick overview of your company's key performance indicators with actual
budget and planning. And, if you want to, you can also drill down into
a specific expense category, such as T&E cost.
Now, showing the top level numbers is fine but, naturally enough, the executive team, they want to know what's
driving those numbers. Another major issue I have is how can I find this out
quickly without having to do the data slice and dice myself? Well... with just a click
of the light bulb, you get a Smart Insights panel here. So, the top
contributor analysis in Smart Insight is telling you for instance that Sales and
Marketing is a top contributor and it is two hundred and sixteen percent above
average. Also interesting is that Smart Insight would automatically detect all
the key changes over time. So, for instance, in this case, the year 2018 has a
significant cost over all other years as far as T&E costs are concerned. So,
we've seen how things stand right now, and how they've changed over time, can I
also look forward to see what's coming down the track? Well, yes, the forecasting
capability in SAP Analytics Cloud will also help you look into the future. So, for
instance, you can get the forecast for the next quarter or the next six months. Excellent. So I
can do all this without the help of a data scientist or spreadsheets. Can I
also compare the forecast with historical data and my budgets?
Financial Controllers just love variances, don't they?! So, here in the product,
the variance will show you the comparison between actual budget and
forecast. In this case, what you find for example, is that you have allocated more
budget for the Consulting group, although you should have done more for the Sales
and Marketing group. As it turns out, the forecast is more for the Sales and Marketing
group in the month of December. So, with an eye on forecasts and variances, a
Financial Controller should be able to plan better for the future. That should
just about do it, Priti - thanks!
Exploring your data in real time, and being able to share your findings with
your colleagues as you do it, is empowering stuff. To find out more about
Smart Insights, and Digital Boardroom, go to SAP Analytics dot Cloud. Thanks for
watching and please feel free to Like, Share, and Subscribe.