SAP Solution in Detail

SAP BusinessObjects Portfolio

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise
Performance Management Solutions

SAP­® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Business agility means that

everyone – from C-level exe­
Management
cutives to front-line workers
Deliver on Corporate Strategy – needs to execute on the
with Enterprise-Wide Alignment right strategies. Everyone
needs to communicate plans
clearly, translate them into
priorities and tasks, and
mon­­itor and report on pro­
gress to any level of detail.
At the same time, em­ploy­
ees need the tools to exe­
cute properly on a day-to-
day basis, as well as make
well-informed decisions.
The SAP® BusinessObjects™
Strategy Management
appli­cation can help. It’s an
intui­tive, readily deployed
appli­ca­tion that empowers
busi­ness users at all levels
to align resources rapidly to
execute on strategies, adjust
to changing market condi­
tions, and assess risk.
Content

4 Executive Summary 9 Key Functions of SAP

BusinessObjects Strategy
5 Why Do Strategies Fail? Management
10 Personalizing Information at
6 Drive Execution for Better Employees’ Fingertips
Performance 12 Increasing the Efficiency and
Effectiveness of Operational
7 SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Reviews
Management 14 Making Strategy Relevant to
7 Closing the Gap Between Employees at All Levels
Strategy and Execution 16 Linking Initiatives and Prioritizing
7 Communicating Strategies and Daily Operations
KPIs with Powerful Visuals 18 Giving Departments Greater
7 Fostering Greater Collaboration Con­trol and Visibility with
with Access to Role-Appropriate Scorecards
Information 20 Fast Access to Supporting Data
8 Simplifying Monitoring with Dashboards
8 Intelligently Measuring 22 Empowering Business Users
Performance and Risk with Self-Service Reports
8 Empowering Business Users 24 Administrative Functions
– and Freeing Up IT Resources 25 Entry and Approval Functions
26 Configuration and Modeling
Functions
29 SAP BusinessObjects
Enterprise Performance
Management Solutions
29 For More Information
Executive Summary
Close the Gap Between Strategy
and Execution

Why is there a gap between strategy man­­aging organizational performance.

and execution? Common reasons Financial data can’t warn you about
include the following: issues such as deteriorating employee
• Employees don’t understand organi­ morale, declining customer satisfaction,
zational strategy and don’t recognize and diminishing product quality – all
how their decisions impact the critical indicators of success or failure.
organization. Often the numbers have no meaning
• Employee incentive plans are seldom to your employees as they make day-
linked to organizational strategy, so to-day decisions, prioritize work, and
individuals’ personal goals are not allocate resources.
aligned with those of the company.
• Employees are not sure if the data Your executives need information to
they have is up-to-date, accurate, or devise the right strategies and deter­
valid because of manual updates and mine where to deploy personnel and
limited version control, leading to budgets. Once strategies are devel­
dis­cussions as to which spreadsheet oped, executives must communicate
or report contains the “right” data. them to managers who cascade infor­
• Organizations lack a systematic mation to front-line workers across the
To keep up with the pace of business, ap­proach for linking strategic objec­ enterprise – and do so in ways that
successful enterprises are refining tives with budgeting, planning, risk are relevant within the context of their
strategies, introducing new offerings, management, and reporting pro­ department and role. Your employees
launching new marketing campaigns, or cesses or for managing priorities need the tools to make well-informed
even acquiring companies. Executives and exceptions. decisions and execute on a day-to-day
are focused on optimizing supply • There is no mechanism for capturing basis.
chains, increasing customer satisfac­ or sharing best practices across the
tion, im­prov­ing workforce productivity, company, requiring processes to be The SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy
and outsourcing noncore processes. constantly reinvented. Management application can help
com­panies increase operational align­
Does this describe your organization? These issues cannot be addressed by ment and agility. Intui­tive to deploy, it
Are strategic initiatives being carried providing easier access to financial data empowers business users to rapidly
out swiftly and effectively? Are you – or even basic scorecard and dash­ align resour­ces to execute on strate­
achieving the results you need? If you board functionality showing key per­ gies, adjust to changing market condi­
answered “No” or “Not sure,” you’re formance indicators and other metrics. tions, and assess risk. It enables IT
not alone. Most businesses face a Financial figures can show if your com­ departments to get out of the dash­
significant gap between strategy and pany is meeting or exceeding target board, scoreboard, and reporting busi­
execution; closing that gap is para­mount revenues, profitability, and cost-cutting ness and focus on other value-added
to staying ahead of the competition. goals, but they are not useful for initiatives.

4 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Why Do Strategies Fail?
“Siloed” Information Approaches
Are Not Enough

Trying to execute on high-level corpo­ • How are my decisions and actions

rate strategies without a strategy man­ impacting overall goals?
age­ment solution is akin to managing • How can I allocate resources and
com­plex, long-term, and business- budget for maximum impact?
critical projects without collaborative
project management software. Without As these questions suggest, manage­
it, how can your project managers ment and employees at all levels need
structure a project so that activities and a comprehensive, purpose-built strategy
tasks are clearly linked to the larger management solution that enables their
objective? How can anyone really know organization to align from top to bottom.
the true status of the project, its cost The solution should link strategic goals
to date, and where the potential road­ and objectives to initiatives and key
blocks are? And how can they allocate performance indicators (KPIs), enable
resources most effectively? collaboration on common goals, and
provide the tools to monitor perfor­
Similarly, when your organization relies mance and make course corrections as
exclusively on “siloed” information re­sid­ necessary. It should also cascade any
ing in dashboards, scorecards, and changes and interdependencies in the
reports to manage execution of cor­po­ process. With the right solution in place,
rate strategies, C-level executives, line- employ­ees at all levels can answer
of-business managers, and employ­ees these questions – and make day-to-day
are often at a loss, not sure about decisions that move your organization
answers to some of the most funda­ closer to its objectives.
mental questions, such as:
• What is our company’s long- and
short-term strategy?
• What plans, budgets, and initiatives
do I need to undertake to feed that
strategy?
• What strategies and initiatives may
be at risk?
• Which departments and individuals
are responsible for making sure
these strategies are executed?
• How do corporate strategies impact
my day-to-day decisions and actions
– and those of my co-workers?

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 5

Drive Execution for Better Performance
Aligning Goals, Initiatives, and Key
Performance Indicators

The SAP BusinessObjects Strategy • Key performance indicators

Management application integrates all With the recent proliferation of dash­
three pillars of strategy management: boards and scorecards, organizations
goals, initiatives, and KPIs. Only when have gone from drowning in data to
these elements are aligned and linked drowning in metrics, ending up with
can your orga­ni­zation hone decision hundreds or thousands of static met­
making and achieve its objectives – rics that are updated monthly, weekly,
both short- and long-term objectives. or daily. Besides being a resource
Here’s why. drain, metrics are often viewed as
“unreliable” because they are usually
• Goals updated manually without version
Most organizations have developed control. In addition, most employees
goals and objectives, and some have believe that only “experts” under­
formalized them into a strategic plan. stand what they mean and how to
But too often, only a select few indi­ use them. Organizations need KPIs
viduals understand exactly what the that everyone trusts, complete with
goals mean and how the goals should drill-down functions and the ability to
affect what they do. To improve per­ create personalized, reconfigurable
for­­mance, goal setting must involve views that are relevant to each
more stake­holders, be more inter­ employee.
active, be updated more frequently,
and tie explicitly to organizational SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
operations and initiatives. Manage­ment connects these pillars of
• Initiatives strategy management to help drive
Too often, managers and employees execution efficiently.
are assigned to a project – but they
have no real understanding of why
the project is important in the greater
scheme of things. Consequently,
they tend to prioritize projects with
the most political capital or those that
are furthest behind schedule. Project
participants need better insight into
the strategic relevance of projects so
that they can make informed choices
about which projects should take
precedence over others.

6 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
Management
Driving Execution Across the Enterprise

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­ C-level executives can be confi­dent – and even other departments – can
agement is a com­prehensive, purpose- that the strategies defined in SAP take advantage of links to budgeting
built application that enables your orga­ BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ and reporting functions to monitor
nization to link strategic plans visibly to ment are translated into execution by progress and roadblocks. For example,
initiatives, measures, performance goals, their line-of-business heads and infor­ for a given initiative, all of the roles,
tasks, budgets, and people. It address­ mation workers. under­lying KPIs, and factors feeding
es the needs of both the orga­nization into the goals are captured.
and individual users. It provides execu­ Closing the Gap Between
tives with the tools to communi­cate and Strategy and Execution Fostering Greater Collaboration with
man­age goals, initiatives, and KPIs – Access to Role-Appropriate Information
from initial definition to completed exe­cu­­ SAP BusinessObjects Strategy SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­
tion. And because the software enables Man­age­ment helps you solve the under­ agement helps build an active com­
lying challenges of strategy manage­ment munity of performance manage­ment
by closing the gap between strategy stakeholders not only by promoting
and execution. The result is support for bidirectional communica­tion, but also
end-to-end strategy management that by making data available in a contextu­
helps your organiza­tion become more ally appropriate way. With secure, role-
aligned via better communication, more based access to data from across the
collaboration, and prioritization of initia­ enterprise and by using inter­dependency
tives and resources to achieve its goals (“fishbone”) diagrams, employees can
swiftly and confidently. better understand how their work affects
(and is affected by) other stakeholders
Communicating Strategies and and departments. They can quickly
KPIs with Powerful Visuals measure ongoing pro­gress toward their
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­age­ objectives, assess risk, and determine
ment provides a much-needed struc­ture where efforts are most needed. Giving
to visualize (and manage) plans and everyone easier access to performance-
management to distill strate­gies down to resources top down and bottom up. related infor­ma­tion increases transpar­
initiatives and tasks in a visual and highly Equally important, it delivers the tools ency regarding activities underway in
intuitive way, it pro­vides all employees you need to communicate strategic goals other depart­ments and promotes greater
with actionable plans that they can effectively – either with purpose-built collaboration. For example, your vice
understand and work from. They are diagrams, such as “path­ways,” or cus­ president of sales can give the director
empowered to leverage their collective tom diagrams already in use within your of marketing direct access to pipeline
intelligence; make informed, day-to-day company. As a result, employees have data so they can work together on ini­tia­­
decisions that support strate­­­gies; work a more com­plete understanding of cor­ tives to meet revenue goals. Users can
collaboratively to meet goals; and porate goals and how their contribu­tions choose to subscribe to notifica­tions
under­stand exactly how they are bring­ can help the company achieve those about initiatives within other depart­ments
ing value to the business. As a result, goals. In addition, managers and analysts to help them collab­orate more effectively.

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 7

Simplifying Monitoring can interact with performance-relevant access to structured data via a one-time
Performance reports and operational information regardless of the source. connec­tion to core oper­a­tional systems
reviews are part of every organization’s For example, via integration with SAP running SAP and non-SAP software,
activities and involve different audiences BusinessObjects governance, risk, and business users can em­ploy self-service
ranging from staff and board members compliance solutions, key risk indi­ca­ functions to import or add unstructured
to shareholders and the public. Business tors can be displayed alongside KPIs, data manually as needed.
users have self-service access to the enabling proactive identification of
data they need in contextually appropri­ strategies at risk. Likewise, the appli­ca­ SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
ate, personalized ways – without involv­ tion can automatically detect and com­ Management is an “open” application.
ing your IT department. Because the municate “below horizon” objectives Once deployed, it enables you to
software offers transparency across all so that you can proactively manage lever­age your organiza­tion’s current
performance-related data throughout exceptions and head off problems. This invest­ments in SAP and non-SAP
the enterprise, stakeholders can trust is especially helpful in situations where solutions for even greater business
the data behind the reports, even drilling your company may appear to be per­ value. It’s tightly integrated with core
down for additional levels of detail. form­ing according to plan, but in reality SAP busi­ness applications such as
there may be a danger of failure. SAP ERP, SAP Customer Relationship
With SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ment, and SAP Supply Chain
Management every­thing required to pre­ In addition, the software enables man­ Management. Equally im­portant, it’s
pare for any type of operational review agement to prioritize and weight initia­ easier to admin­ister via a single
is central­ized, consolidated, consistent, tives based on their impact on strategic management console.
and instantly available for publication. goals, which enables resources to be
This not only saves valuable – and costly deployed effectively and informs
– prepara­tion time for information work­ employ­­ees how to focus their daily
ers across the organization, but also actions.
enables man­age­ment to define a more
structured, consistent preparation pro­ Empowering Business Users –
cess for operational reviews. With data and Freeing Up IT Resources
in one “system of record,” employees
can consolidate and present relevant SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
information and KPIs for their target Management gets your IT department
audience in minutes. out of the dashboard, score­­card, and
reporting business, which frees staff to
Intelligently Measuring Performance focus on value-added ini­tia­tives. At the
and Risk same time, it provides your exe­cutives,
Leveraging SAP technology, SAP departments, and business units with a
BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ment flexible, long-term solution for monitor­
can consolidate data from systems run­ ing, tracking, managing, and reporting
ning SAP and non-SAP software so you on operational performance. With direct

8 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Key Functions of SAP BusinessObjects
Strategy Management
Keeping Employees Informed, Collaborating,
and Working More Efficiently

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­ • Distributed entry, approval, and

age­ment delivers a set of functions that publish­ing streamline the process for
address the needs of all stakeholders getting performance management–
(executives, line-of-business managers, related data – including objectives,
and information workers) across your targets, metrics, KPIs, and initiatives
enterprise. Key functions are grouped – into SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
into the following categories: Management.
• Home screen • Print-quality formatting takes the
• Strategy guesswork and manual labor out of
• Initiatives creating documents that are consis­
• Scorecards tently formatted and easy to read.
• Dashboards
• Reports

Across all these areas, the software

provides the following universal func­
tions that help employees stay informed,
collaborate more effectively, and work
more efficiently:
• Threaded and searchable comments
facilitate effective discussions and
collaboration, timely notifications and
problem resolution, and efficient
sharing of best practices throughout
your organization.
• Archivable notifications and subscrip­
tions inform employees of changes to
goals, initiatives, and metrics or when
specific action is required, ensuring
that everyone is aware of the latest
performance information.

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 9

Personalizing Information at The Home screen gives employees a what performance information has
Employees’ Fingertips personalized experience with access to changed recently or the latest status
their own view into SAP BusinessObjects of risk priorities. Every­thing they need
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­age­ Strategy Management. From the Home to prepare for operational reviews is at
ment provides a familiar Web-based, screen, users access their in-boxes to their fingertips.
user-friendly inter­face that encourages view alerts, which are triggered auto­mat­
adoption and minimizes ramp-up time i­cally when predetermined thresholds
(see Figure 1). are reached. They can instantly see

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

Personalized performance summaries Track objectives, initiatives, and metrics that are important to them
Personalized bookmarks Highlight any page in the application for quick access from their home page
Subscription-based alerts Subscribe to wireless-enabled alerts to receive instant noti­fi­ca­tions regarding changes to rele­
vant goals, initiatives, and metrics. For example, a call center manager can subscribe to alerts
regarding any new marketing campaigns that could gen­erate increased calls – information
the manager needs to add staff appropriately. The software archives these alerts in a
reposi­tory, which eliminates concerns over lost or misfiled e-mails.
Integrated operational reviews Gain one-click access to published operational reviews – functionality that can transform
opera­tional reviews from an occasional event to an ongoing process
Risk priorities for risk intelligent strategy Display risk priorities and score objectives on key risk and key performance indicators from
their home page. Industry-leading innovation and integration with the SAP® BusinessObjects™
governance, risk, and compliance solutions provide a “heat map” that shows the probability
of risk occurring.

10 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Figure 1: Personalized Performance and Risk Summaries

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 11

Increasing the Efficiency and to make arbitrary decisions about what requests, as even custom reports can
Effectiveness of Operational data to include, resulting in conflict­ing be handled by business users.
Reviews reports. And in the end, there is no
single version of corporate truth. By simplifying and standardizing the
Operational reviews are a vital part of operational review preparation pro-
the enterprise performance manage­ SAP BusinessObjects Strategy cess, SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
ment process. Ideally, your executives Management simplifies and formalizes Man­agement can save your company
would like to have weekly, monthly, the process of process­ing, gathering, thousands of working hours each year
and quarterly reviews. The challenge is and distributing informa­tion for opera­ in data gathering and reporting. Execu­
that employees often need months to tional reviews. Because users can link tives can establish clear expectations
organize the data, so the frequency is strategies to specific goals and initia­ for reporting during opera­tional reviews.
usually determined by feasibility rather tives – and then link those to all of the All operational review reporting comes
than business need. Without the right metrics, activities, people, budget, and from the same trusted source – SAP
tools in place, employees typically rely other data related to an initiative – all BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ment
on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, relevant data can be rolled up into high- – rather than someone’s spreadsheet,
Microsoft Access databases, and third- level reports with drill-down func­tion­ality so concerns about data accuracy and
party intelligence queries to gather data (see Figure 2). Everything is cap­tured validity are minimized. In addition, the
from disparate systems and process it in one system of record, so pre­paring reports are optionally “live.” This means
for reporting. Monthly reports can take for operational reviews is simply a you have access to the latest data and
several weeks to prepare and tie up matter of creating Adobe PDFs of the review status because the reports are
dozens of people across different busi­ relevant screens from within SAP linked directly to the actual data source.
ness areas. Complicating matters further BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ment. Updates to the data are reflected back
is the fact that analysts typically need There is no need to bother IT with report to the operational reviews in real time.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

User-driven publishing Capture context-specific information within the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy
Management application and instantly publish “briefing books” tailored for different
audiences. For example, while executives may only want to see pages on initiatives, goals,
resources, and team summa­ries, project managers may require pages that provide
additional layers of detail so that team members can discuss contingencies, dependencies,
and more.
Instant access to support operational Go beyond the data published in a briefing book by instantly accessing the latest
reviews performance data during a live operational review
Annotations Add annotations throughout an operational review to highlight key points and ensure that those
less familiar with results know the real story behind the performance data
Export to Adobe PDF Save operational review materials as an Adobe PDF and then distribute to constituents
without access to SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management; readily print, e-mail, view
as a slide show, or publish to a Web site

12 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Figure 2: Operational Review

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 13

Making Strategy Relevant to An important aspect of motivation is orga­­niza­tion to achieve its overall mis­sion
Employees at All Levels presenting stakeholders with the big – a step toward your company’s vision.
picture of your organization’s key long-
Managing goals requires more than and short-term goals. For example, the SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
simply displaying current objectives; application’s “pathways” and strategy Management supports the strategy
it requires that you motivate people plans can go a long way toward helping development process by transforming
to execute on the objectives. If you fail stakeholders see the entire picture of static, written plans developed by exe­
to get stakeholders interested in their how your organization seeks to achieve cutives into “living” strategy docu­ments
roles and mindful of the importance its vision. Pathways provide a high-level that employees can use to discuss,
of their contribution, you have an army road map for the organization, illustrat­ share, and update goals. These docu­
of employees operating with disparate ing a systematic path to achieving it. ments can include rich contextual visu­
agendas and doing little to advance Strat­eg­ y plans show the relationship al­izations that drive greater under­stand­
organizational objectives. be­tween various strategic objectives ing of strategic objectives across your
and tell the story of how they enable the organization (see Figures 3 and 4).

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

“Pathways” Use pathways diagrams, the first of their kind in the software industry, to depict graphically
the progressive stages and desired performance targets involved in realizing an
organization’s short-, medium-, and long-term vision; understand the phases – which goals
play primary roles and which goals must be prioritized
Interactive goal diagrams with optional scoring Create interactive goal diagrams that provide one-click access to richer information such as
detailed descriptions and supporting initiatives; gain a greater understanding of your
organization’s goals; add scores to individual elements of a goal diagram so that it can be
converted into a traditional performance scorecard
Purpose-built and custom diagrams Visualize operational data using different approaches by selecting the format that is most
intuitive to them or easily understood by their target audience, from strategy maps and process
diagrams to goal summaries. As users switch from one format to another, these diagrams
never lose interactivity (such as drill-down functionality) or supporting and related
documentation. Users can import existing graphics and easily create new one-page
visualizations, which can help in working with others to gain strategy adoption.
Cause and effect Gain a better understanding of which objectives play primary, secondary, or tertiary roles in
meeting other objectives

14 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

 Figure 3:
“Pathway” Diagram Showing
Progress on Strategic Objectives
and Vision

Figure 4:
Rich, Contextual Visualization
for Greater Understanding and
Accountability

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 15

Linking Initiatives and Prioritizing undertake to achieve larger strategic viewing the milestones supporting
Daily Operations objectives; for example, hiring more each initiative, the interdependencies
sales reps in Latin America in the first between them, and schedule and
Typically, senior executives define the quarter and launching an advertising budget status. This visibility facilitates
larger strategic objectives for their campaign in subsequent quarters. collaboration, helps identify bottle­necks,
organization; for example, increasing and enables proactive action. The soft­
sales in Latin America. Executives may SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­ ware goes beyond simply tracking proj­
define specific benchmarks to measure agement provides a clear link between ect resources and activi­ties by helping
performance against that objective, your operational processes and the your stakeholders prioritize and focus
such as doubling revenue by the end objectives impacted by a given initia­tive. resources appropriately – even in
of the first quarter and tripling revenue The application pro­vides simple sum­ the face of conflicting tasks – so that
by the third quarter. Initiatives are the mary views of initiatives supporting over­ resources always support the most
oper­at­ ional programs organizations all objectives, as well as functions for critical milestones.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

“Fishbone” visualizations Identify and resolve bottlenecks within an initiative by seeing the links between each stra­
tegy, goal, initiative, resource, and other elements of a plan using fishbone visualiza­tions
(see Figure 5), which highlight critical interdependencies among milestones
Initiative summaries Gain insight into how initiatives impact goals and objectives by viewing an at-a-glance
summary of the status of multiple initiatives across your business
Initiative prioritization Focus on the right work and make the right decisions to support strategic objectives by
using an innovative prioritization matrix. It provides an at-a-glance view of initiatives’ relative
im­portance and urgency, as well as the dependencies among individual initiatives and
milestones (see Figure 6). This insight helps ensure that both management and information
workers always know what is expected of them and when, as well as how their choices and
actions impact other aspects of initiatives.
Initiative filtering Focus their attention on exactly what they need to get their work done, thanks to a display
of initiatives by specific properties such as owner, budget or schedule status, and related
objectives. This filtering, or narrowing of focus, prevents employees from feeling overwhelmed
and ensures that they always know what to prioritize, from a task perspective.
Initiative scoring Gain insight into strategic projects linked back to business goals by tracking strategic ini­tia­
tives’ impact on key performance indicators (KPIs) and by scoring initiatives based on KPI
status
Distributed ownership Assign ownership of overall initiatives and individual milestones to different people, thereby
promoting effective collaboration and ensuring employee accountability

16 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

 Figure 5:
Fishbone Diagram Showing
Interdependencies Among Initiatives

Figure 6:
Prioritization Matrix with
Relative Importance, Urgency,
and Dependencies

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 17

Giving Departments Greater Implementing tracking functions such – as well as re­ports and dashboards –
Con­trol and Visibility with as scorecards has traditionally involved it also means that IT is perceived poorly
Scorecards the creation of multiple departmentally because busi­ness units can’t person­al­
focused, disconnected reporting initia­ ize their views.
Once your organization has defined its tives, each managed by the IT depart­
strategy and started to execute specific ment as a separate project. Often, the These types of traditional, narrowly
initiatives to achieve it, you need a way IT department has no context as to why focused scorecard approaches can
to monitor progress on a regular basis. business units need access to opera­ be a one-off answer to solving a larger
This requires that mechanisms be in tional data or how that data will be used. busi­ness problem around decision
place to track progress systematically Consequently, business units end up making and alignment. Scorecards can
and alert stakeholders not only to with inadequate levels of detail and create organizational tension by high­
issues, problems, and failures, but also in­adequate functionality, and the IT lighting problems that one group denies
to bright spots and successes. Stake­ depart­ment is frustrated and overtaxed (lacking full understanding of the data
holders can then react quickly to prob­ by new requests for information. And source, how it is scored, and so on)
lems, identify where things are broken, because business units tend to base or because the scorecard considers
and correct issues in a timely manner. reports on different data sources and only one view of the business. Nor are
They can also identify what’s working views, they generate reports with con­ score­­cards usually linked to goal setting,
well and share this information with flicting figures – a real frustration for the planning process, or resource plan­
other groups. executives. While IT departments can ning. As a result, they are rarely trusted
address some of these issues by forcing by anyone other than the few people
standardization on a set of scorecards who created them.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

Readiness scorecards Get nearly unlimited views of performance. Views include a readiness scorecard that helps
employees determine when to move to the next phase of an implementation. The views also
provide an objective scorecard to monitor performance toward goals and a key perfor­mance
indicator (KPI) scorecard to consolidate key financial and operational indicators. To ensure
buy-in, key stakeholders are formally engaged in the process of setting up these scorecards.
Flexibility to combine and weight KPI types Use dashboards to track various types of measures, including qualitative and quantitative,
leading and lagging, and financial and operational measures. Use dashboards to monitor
subjective or intangible objectives, such as analyst reviews, customer affinity, brand effec­
tiveness, employee satisfaction, and field feedback. Weight multiple KPIs to reflect relative
importance to provide a more meaningful view of performance status and the initiatives
that will have more impact on strategic goals.
Support for multiple targets Compare actual performance against different sets of expectations, both internal and external,
with software support for multiple targets – including budget, forecasts, and benchmarks
Flexible scoring Score performance using multiple grading models, such as “traffic light” (red, green, or
yellow), “grade” (A, B, or C), or “gladiator” (thumbs up or thumbs down) approaches.
Using the most appropriate model for your business and communication objectives can
increase employee understanding of results and improve adoption of the software.

18 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

With SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
Management, score­cards are viewed
as just one of several options for
monitoring and tracking pro­gress (see
Figure 7). They provide users with a
personalized view of progress toward
specific outcomes and access to
supporting detail via drill-down func­
tionality. Since all of the underlying data
comes directly from core operational
applications and is used by SAP
BusinessObjects Strategy
Management to populate KPIs and
enable planning and other activities,
stakeholders know where the
scorecard results are coming from and
how the results were generated. They
can also drill down into figures to
access support­ing data (see Figure 8).

Figure 7: Scorecards for Objectives, Initiatives, and Key Performance Indicators

Figure 8: Insight into Changes and Trends Provided by Drill-Down Scorecard Functions

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 19

Fast Access to Supporting Data accurate, real-time operational data – Unlike static dashboards that provide
with Dashboards one version of the corporate truth that only summary information, dashboards
all stakeholders can agree upon. These in SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
Most companies lack the mechanisms live, role-based dashboards enable users Management can be linked to underly­
required to track implementation pro­ to monitor critical input and out­put met­ ing analyses, enabling deeper investi­
gress systematically and alert stake­ rics for a given function, orga­ni­zation, or gation to isolate and understand the
holders not only to issues, problems, role. For example, a marketing director’s drivers of performance (see Figure 9).
and failures, but also to successes. SAP dash­board might include summary Dashboards can be expanded beyond
BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ment infor­ma­tion about advertising costs per functional groups and made public
empowers departments to create dash­ lead, while a sales manager’s might (for everyone to view) or kept private
boards that suit their particular needs. include new opportunities created, deals (to be viewed only by the individual
Plus, the data displayed in dashboards stuck in the pipeline, and sales perfor­ who created it).
comes from a central repository of mance by region.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

Live dashboards with drill-down functions Use integrated drill-down functions to go directly from dashboards into related reports to
isolate and understand performance drivers and roadblocks to progress and probe more
deeply into areas of interest. Dashboards are automatically refreshed to ensure that the
most up-to-date data is always available.
Role-based dashboards Create an unlimited number of dashboards by departments or business units; tailor dash­
boards for specific users, objectives, or groups; and share dashboards with all users, limit
to a group, or keep private
Packaged dashboard templates Build a dashboard from scratch or personalize an existing one to better fit their needs,
taking advantage of a wide variety of dashboards included with the SAP® BusinessObjects™
Strategy Management application, such as benchmarking, trending, ranking, and contribu­
tions dashboards
Multiple-model dashboards Get a broader view of performance with dashboards that can include up to four different
panels, with each panel pulling data from different data sources
Scorecard filtering Focus their attention on issues that demand immediate attention by limiting the display of
scorecards to specific properties such as organization, region, time period, or score
Automatic notifications Receive automatically generated notifications – in the form of annotations – when objec­tives
look fine on the surface, but may actually be in danger of failing
Key performance indicator (KPI) summaries Monitor the health of KPIs by providing viewing details such as KPI descriptions, gaps be­
tween actual and target figures, trends, and comments. These summaries provide context
for KPIs so that everyone understands how changing numbers actually impact perfor­mance.
Trending of KPIs over time helps employees at all levels understand not only how they did
last week, month, or quarter, but how they have been doing over an extended period of time.

20 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Figure 9: Live, Actionable Dashboards Showing Results in Context

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 21

Empowering Business Users with The software includes a user-friendly For analysts seeking more in-depth
Self-Service Reports interface enabling busi­ness users from analysis to aid decision making, ad hoc
different functional areas to measure analysis functions provide virtually
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy ongoing progress toward objectives boundless options to measure and
Management gets IT out of the report quickly. And unique features, such as uncover the root of performance issues
generation business – and empowers “time intelligence” functionality, make (see Figure 10). Integrated forecasting
executives, line-of-business managers, it easier to modify attributes and create functions help analysts project future
analysts, and information workers to run user-defined hier­archies for customized performance and plan ahead based on
standard reports by themselves using analysis – with­out placing additional current data.
the most up-to-date corporate data. demand on IT.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

Dynamic reports with ad hoc analysis Create dynamic reports rather than traditional static reports, drill deeper into areas of
interest, and save reports as a bookmark for later review, thanks to integrated business
intelligence
Packaged analysis templates Choose from a wide variety of analytic templates to analyze information, including ranking,
trending, and forecasting templates
Flexible charting Chart data using multiple options, selecting the visualization option and colors most
appropriate for displaying data in reports; save charts for future use
Performance comparison versus previous Examine progress versus historical performance, viewing performance by comparing
periods specific dates (as defined by the employee), relative dates (for example, latest day, previous
day, last seven days, and previous month), and the latest date versus previous equivalent
(for example, current month versus same month prior year)
Report descriptions Write report descriptions that provide context to other readers; for example, they may
include a statement about the report topic and the source of the data

22 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Figure 10: Ad Hoc Analysis with Drill-Down Functions Showing Source Data and Metrics

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 23

Administrative Functions

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­age­

ment lightens the burden on infor­ma­tion
workers and IT staff by providing uni­ver­
sal functions that streamline data entry
and approval processes and support
self-service functions for ease of con­
fig­uration and modeling.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What It Does

User management engine Integrates with active directory or lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP)
in the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform
Authentication Enables secure network communication using SAP® logon tickets and client certificates
Application authorization Provides role-based access to application components and supports management of
application roles in the SAP BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application
Data access Control access to data at the table, row, and cell level

24 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Entry and Approval Functions traditionally labor-intensive process,
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­age­ alleviating costly errors and significantly
ment includes a distributed and dele­ reducing the time spent on metrics
gated entry, approval, and publishing collection and approval. Additionally,
component, unique in the industry, that this approach allows your organization
streamlines the process of populating to collect metrics quickly without the
metrics into a perfor­mance manage­ment need to inte­grate transactional applica­
application. An easy-to-follow workflow tions or estab­lish a data warehouse
function provides struc­­ture around a just for one or two metrics.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

Distributed entry and approval Divide and assign work across different employees to lighten the workload of any one
person, which may encourage employees to make more frequent updates of performance
information, resulting in more up-to-date and accurate reporting
Automatic notifications Receive automatic notifications through their home page when they need to enter, approve,
or publish metrics, resulting in fewer bottlenecks in performance management processes
Web forms and Microsoft Excel templates Enter values for metrics using forms built into the software or via Microsoft Excel. Employ­
ees can import data from Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or enter data via a Microsoft
Excel–based template. They can also enter data manually using the software’s Web-based
entry and approval method for entering data.
Flexible collection methods Manually enter some values, such as targets, forecasts, and survey data, or take advan­
tage of predefined automated entry of values, such as actuals from source applications
(the SAP® ERP application). This flexibility encourages more regular and accurate updates
of performance data.
Audit trails Verify compliance with company and legal requirements or gain insight into why actions were
taken, using automatically generated audit trails that capture user interactions, includ­ing
time stamps for approvals, rejections, submissions, notes, and other related information
Notes Add notes directly into the central database to capture information for future reference
or to share best practices – rather than making calls and sending e-mails
Progress monitors Monitor the data entry approval and publishing process to get visibility into bottlenecks.
A structured workflow for data entry, notifications, and approvals helps alleviate gaps,
risks, and the time required to manage key performance indicators.

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 25

Configuration and Modeling Functions Strategy Management promotes self- based on their requirements. And
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­age­ service, allowing every user to config­ because it is built on open standards
ment lightens the burden of already over­ ure the application. Simi­larly, unlike such as Java 2 Platform, Enterprise
loaded IT staff by support­ing the distrib­ most business intelli­gence tools, SAP Edition, SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
ution of administrative tasks to multiple BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ment Management easily fits into your exist­
people throughout your organi­za­tion. allows business users to design and ing IT environ­ment and complements
Unlike software that relies on expert customize performance processes, your organiza­tion’s current applications.
admin­istrators, SAP BusinessObjects models, and visualization methods

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

Distributed administration Assign specific roles and permissions, such as user setup, key performance indicator (KPI)
updates, and initiative creation, to the appropriate employees in other departments
Scheduling Use built-in scheduling to automate certain manual tasks such as hosting business reviews,
gathering stakeholder feedback, and submitting reports, thereby ensuring consistency and
repeatability
Role-based security Receive access to performance information appropriate for their role
HTML model builder Create a standardized performance management data repository using the enhanced
modeling functionality of the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application.
The modeling software builds on the functionality of the earlier version of SAP
BusinessObjects Strategy Management, replacing the Microsoft Excel–based cube builder
with a Web-based version. This new version provides for both model creation and mainte­
nance and facilitates the addition, update, and deletion of metrics and dimension numbers,
delivering consistency via shared metrics that help align operational execution with strategy.

26 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

The following software functions are now available through SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management:

Feature What It Does

Active directory or lightweight directory Minimizes duplication of information and supports single sign-on access by importing user
access protocol (LDAP) integration information from your organization’s own authentication systems
Audit trails and logging Enhances application integrity by keeping track of who did what and when
Central repository (see Figure 11) for Provides simplified, centralized administration of KPIs, enabling KPIs to be shared across
key performance indicators (KPIs) all contexts, ownership and accountability to be assigned, and KPI definitions and types to
be documented
SAP NetWeaver® technology platform Enables metrics modeling in the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW)
integration component, reads data in real time from SAP NetWeaver BW or caches data in the SAP®
BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application, and easily leverages metrics to build
KPIs in the application
Architectural improvements (see Figure 12) In addition to simplified application maintenance and configuration as well as improved
performance, there are improvements through the following components:
• SAP NetWeaver Portal: single sign-on and ability to launch from the SAP NetWeaver
Portal component
• SAP NetWeaver BW: pass-through approach leveraging time-intelligence functionality of
the Pilot application server (PAS), while directly accessing SAP NetWeaver BW
• SAP NetWeaver: can leverage for scalability and failover; user management engine can
be leveraged for user creation

Figure 11:
Central Repository of Key
Performance Indicators

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 27

 Client tier

Planning and consolidation

Risk management
Browser-based interfaces: SAP® BusinessObjects™ Crystal Xcelsius®
administrator, data entry, Web Intelligence® Reports®
and end user

SAP BusinessObjects Analyzer Universes in SAP

Web-service Xcelsius Voyager (Microsoft BusinessObjects
consumers Excel client) Enterprise

Application tier SAP NetWeaver®

Composition Environment:
Java application server 7.1
Lightweight
Directory Access
Web server Protocol
User management Central
HTML Images Web Users engine management
Service system (optional)

Data tier

Application
repository

Data sources tier

SAP NetWeaver Databases that comply Flat files Manual SAP BusinessObjects SAP BusinessObjects XML
BW with Microsoft open Risk Management Process Control
database connectivity

Figure 12: The Architecture Supporting Strategy Management

28 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise
Performance Management
Solutions

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­

ment is part of the SAP BusinessObjects
enterprise performance management
solutions – a comprehensive set of
solutions that help your company cap­
ital­ize on the value of your existing data
assets. With these solutions, your orga­
nization becomes more agile, gain­ing
organizational alignment, visibility, and
confidence to give you opti­mal control
and competitive advantage. These solu­
tions can integrate with SAP Business
Suite applications; SAP BusinessObjects
governance, risk, and compliance
solu­tions; SAP BusinessObjects busi­
ness intelligence solutions; and SAP
BusinessObjects information manage­
ment solutions. As a result, you can
maximize business profitability, manage
risk and compliance, and optimize cor­
porate systems, people, and processes.

For More Information

The comprehensive functionality of SAP
BusinessObjects Strategy Management
addresses the underlying barriers
holding your organization back from
understanding operational effec­tive­ness
and achieving its strategic objectives.
For more information, please visit
www.sap.com/sapbusinessobjects
/strategy_management.

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 29

Quick facts www.sap.com /contactsap

Summary
Business agility means that everyone – from C-level executives to front-line workers –
needs to execute on changing strategies. Everyone needs to communicate plans clearly,
translate them into priorities and tasks, and instantly monitor and report on progress to any
level of detail. The SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application empowers
business users at all levels to rapidly align resources to execute on strategies, understand
risk, and drive efficiency and profitability.

Business Challenges
• Close the gap between strategy and execution
• Cascade strategy to all stakeholders in the organization
• Align and execute on changing strategic goals and initiatives
• Monitor and report on progress – communicating changes as necessary
• Manage exceptions, interdependencies, and priorities

Key Features
• Communication – Transform written plans into living documents that can be used with
employees to define, discuss, share, and update goals
• Collaboration – Motivate employees and encourage greater collaboration by making
performance-relevant data available in a contextually appropriate, personalized way
• Strategy management – Deploy resources more efficiently by understanding
interdependencies, “below horizon” objectives, risks, and the importance of initiatives
to strategic goals

Business Benefits
• Optimized performance through greater organizational alignment and strategy adoption
• Greater agility through more effective collaboration, communication, and understanding
of interdependencies, priorities, and risk
• Better visibility into and control over the factors that affect your organization
• More confidence in decisions and information when everyone works off the same data
and can react quickly to changing business needs

For More Information 50 084 168 (09/07)

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