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reviewer1278519 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP BusinessObjects Consultant at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
Good for reporting, but has poor technical support and lacks many important features
Pros and Cons
  • "In terms of stability, comparatively, the solution is quite stable."
  • "We are very unhappy with technical support. First of all, they send their sales agents or pre-sales agents and most of them who don't know the solution as a properly trained tech would. We have an on-site SAP representative who is supposed to help us with our high priority and production issues, and they're not satisfactory to say the least."

What is our primary use case?

We have end-to-end SAP. Therefore, we have the operations system, which is ECC6, which is the ERP. This is used for day-to-day data consolidating of purchase orders, finances, etc. We have 16 business lines. 

When the data comes, we need the reports for the management and we need consolidated and aggregated data. For that, we use Business Warehouse. NetWeaver is a platform, however, on top of it, you use different products. Therefore, on top of NetWeaver, we have BW overlayed for aggregated data for its management. It can be displayed as necessary in data visualization tools, like Business Objects, Excel, Tableau, Power BI, etc. 

The main purpose of our BW is to consolidate data and show the trends for the last, I would estimate, ten years.

What is most valuable?

BW is our bread and butter. We use it every day for reporting, for analysis, data consolidation and aggregation, drag and drop queries, etc.

What needs improvement?

There are a lot of things that could be improved especially in terms of data cleansing, data management, data lineage, etc. The solution needs to offer more flexibility in terms of formulas and the query designer. 

The solution has very limited options, so we have to mix and match some functionality formulas we create in Business Warehouse. The rest of the formulas and functionality we try to deliver on the front end via direct objects. Therefore, there's a lot of improvement needed. 

My understanding is that they are going to discontinue Business Warehouse so that they can push HANA, including Native HANA, S4 HANA, and BW/4HANA.

This platform has reached its limitation. In order for SAP to improve it, they have to provide a new product, which they have: BW/4HANA. 

BW/HANA is much better than the native standard Business Warehouse. It has new options, new functionality, is faster, has pre-built processes, etc. It has all the data processes from a different company's best practices, and they give it to you by default, just out of the box. This is what Business Warehouse should have been, and it's good they are pushing HANA instead of BW.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for six years.

Buyer's Guide
SAP Business Warehouse
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about SAP Business Warehouse. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of stability, comparatively, the solution is quite stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution isn't that scalable. It depends on a lot of factors like what the budget of the company is. If it's scalable in terms of hardware, then we'll have to acquire new hardware and new costs start to pile up. We are not scaling it. If we go overboard with the size, then we just try to reduce the size. We haven't ever tried to scale it. We don't want to spend more to do so.

How are customer service and support?

We are very unhappy with technical support. First of all, they send their sales agents or pre-sales agents and most of them who don't know the solution as a properly trained tech would. We have an on-site SAP representative who is supposed to help us with our high priority and production issues, and they're not satisfactory to say the least.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I cannot recall if we previously used another solution or what it was. Before SAP, the company was using a third-party tool on Oracle or some other SQL database. We have been running SAP for the last 10 years, and I joined the company in the past six years. I wasn't here when SAP was originally implemented.

How was the initial setup?

Initial set up is pretty easy. You just install it and connect it to ECC. The tables are already there as well as the business content. If your company has a lot of customized processes, then you have to adjust a few things. 

Otherwise, if it's a fairly new company, then you just have to connect ECC and the data will start coming in. You can do batch jobs and create aggregation. The initial implementation is fairly easy in that scenario. 

What other advice do I have?

Our solution is strictly on-premises due to our company policy to not place anything on the cloud. 

Consultants with technical experience are helpful. They need to understand the processes, as well, however, because designing is the key. Designing right from the start is the very important if you want the product to work for you. 

There are multiple teams within our company. In my team, we are only concerned with BW and BO. With other teams, there are probably many other instances where someone that is using the solution is connected to other data sources and may be providing the data to the suppliers outside SAP using the portal. I don't know much about it because I'm not involved in this process.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2083704 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Professor at a university with 201-500 employees
Real User
It has a transformation feature and several reporting functions and is easy to scale, but it requires some coding and is not as user-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of SAP Business Warehouse is transformation, where I extract data from different sources, particularly the raw data. Then I do some transformations and store that in a format that allows me to do reporting easily."
  • "It takes more work to get the data, including reporting on that data, because some coding is required, and a significant level of transformation is needed when using SAP Business Warehouse."

What is our primary use case?

We have several reports that run on SAP Business Warehouse for various modules. We have some sales, finance, and supply chain reports. These are mainly the reports we work on, plus a couple of dashboards under layered development.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of SAP Business Warehouse is transformation, where I extract data from different sources, particularly the raw data. Then I do some transformations and store that in a format that allows me to do reporting easily. The transformation feature in SAP Business Warehouse is the most useful.

I also like that the solution has some reporting features.

What needs improvement?

SAP Business Warehouse has a few areas for improvement. One is that it takes more work to get the data, including reporting on that data, because some coding is required, and a significant level of transformation is needed.

I also find the performance reporting function of SAP Business Warehouse challenging, so that's another area for improvement.

What I want to see in SAP Business Warehouse in the future is for it to be more user-friendly than Microsoft Power BI. I also found Microsoft Power BI more flexible and quicker to learn than SAP Business Warehouse. Making some developments on Microsoft Power BI also requires less effort and no technical expertise. In contrast, SAP Business Warehouse requires some technical expertise, so I want that improved in the future.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with SAP Business Warehouse for almost seventeen years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

SAP Business Warehouse is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

SAP Business Warehouse is easy to scale. My company has several licenses, so the product is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

Regarding SAP Business Warehouse technical support, if your system is live and it's been running for a long time, the support team should have processes in place and good background knowledge on how to fix issues.

If it's a new implementation, then it's understandable that the support team needed more time to understand and fix the system. Still, if it's an old system, then the SAP Business Warehouse technical team should have much knowledge of it.

You can't hire support staff with insufficient experience or just two to three years of experience because that would be difficult for him. Still, it would be easy to fix issues for support staff with a good experience with SAP Business Warehouse.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I started my career with SAP Business Warehouse and didn't use any other product.

How was the initial setup?

In the earlier days of my career, I implemented SAP Business Warehouse. I did one in Australia, one in South Africa, and three in India. Whether the implementation was easy or complex depends. If you have complex requirements, then your implementation will be complicated. Otherwise, implementation would be simple.

One implementation was a bit complex, and the process took almost nine months, but that was for an implementation where you didn't use all features simultaneously. Instead, you implemented the features one by one. Going live completely took nine months.

My team went phase by phase with the SAP Business Warehouse deployment. The first step was going live with the sales module that contained different sales reports. Next was the material management, and the final stage was the core modules going live. However, for any module that needed complex modeling, that went last. Initially, my team gave the basic reports to users, but the customized reports would take some time.

What about the implementation team?

An in-house team implemented SAP Business Warehouse.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I was never involved in the pricing of SAP Business Warehouse because the sales team handles that. Still, as far as the information I have, SAP licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market.

What other advice do I have?

I work with SAP, so I have experience with SAP Business Warehouse.

I'm using version 7.5 of SAP Business Warehouse.

My company has approximately two hundred fifty users of SAP Business Warehouse. Three people maintain the solution.

I recommend SAP Business Warehouse to people and companies using SAP ERP systems. Still, if your company has more presence in other databases, such as SQL, Azure, and other ERP systems, I would not suggest SAP Business Warehouse because the solution is friendlier when connected to SAP systems. For non-SAP systems, you'll need to exert more effort to bring the data in when you use SAP Business Warehouse.

My rating for the solution is seven out of ten.

My company is a customer of SAP.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
SAP Business Warehouse
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about SAP Business Warehouse. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Chief of Systems Development at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Provides rapid responses but needs better reporting and pattern/exception detection
Pros and Cons
  • "The key element in this solution is its rapid response. If you have a question about prices, buyers, customers, providers, or services, you need the answer in a minute or two. That's the key benefit for us that a solution like BW gives us."
  • "We are currently in a basic stage of analytics and the first goal we have is to make sure the numbers are correct. BW has some features that help you to build factors and ETL in such a way that it's easy to get to correct responses. That's the number one condition that you have to have in an analytic solution."
  • "One of our requirements is the ability to easily get answers regarding trends and exceptions. In BW, it is not that easy to get such information. I expect better trend and exception detection, better pattern detection."
  • "You can start quickly but, when you have to get a little more detailed, when you have to change something, when you have to solve problems, it's not that easy. It's easy to start but evolving is not that easy."

What is our primary use case?

It's fast for building solutions, but once you have built them it's not that easy to get the answers you want. Many of our users are downloading files to Excel and tools like it and creating their reports there. I don't like it, so we're thinking about a reporting solution that works better than SAP BW.

How has it helped my organization?

The key element in this solution is its rapid response. If you have a question about prices, buyers, customers, providers, or services, you need the answer in a minute or two. That's the key benefit for us that a solution like BW gives us.

What is most valuable?

We are currently in a basic stage of analytics and the first goal we have is to make sure the numbers are correct. BW has some features that help you to build factors and ETL in such a way that it's easy to get to correct responses. That's the number one condition that you have to have in an analytic solution.

What needs improvement?

One of our requirements is the ability to easily get answers regarding trends and exceptions. In BW, it is not that easy to get such information. I expect better trend and exception detection, better pattern detection. When I think about the next generation of analytics solutions, I think of a powerful data mining solution with the data that we have now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It works well enough. We don't have a lot of stability problems. That is not the problem for us. Reporting is the problem for us.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is good for us. We don't have scalability problems because, with the line of servers that we are using now, we can scale in a factor of 100 and still have no problems with it.

How are customer service and technical support?

We haven't used technical support in about two years so I don't think I can give a fair answer to this question.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were using another world-class ERP solution. When we switched to the SAP solution, we were thinking we had to have rapid solution-building tools for SAP. It was very easy to think the SAP solutions, such as business content solutions, could be used to build analytic solutions for us. We were using Cognos at that time, but we stop using it because it was hard to build solutions with SAP as the data source.

We take into account the prestige and longterm relations with the vendor during our selection process.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was good enough. I wouldn't say straightforward, because we took about a month to set up the server, processes, tools, and the software. For me, one month does not signify a straightforward process. Maybe it's because we are using iSeries from IBM and it's not a very popular architecture. So in part, it was our fault too because we are using that line of servers.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We had Oracle and SAP on our short list, because we had a lot to build in a short time. We figured that with those vendors we would find enough human capital and knowledge to solve the problems that we might have. Of the two providers that we had on our shortlist, we got the best answers from SAP. Oracle wasn't good enough for us.

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution a seven out of 10. You can start quickly but, when you have to get a little more detailed, when you have to change something, when you have to solve problems, it's not that easy. It's easy to start but evolving is not that easy.

To make it a 10 out of 10, SAP would have to have better tools for reporting. There is a lot of focus on boards and graphics and those kinds of features, but they are tools for newcomers. You don't have machine-learning tools that you can easily connect to your data. You have to download the data to a CSV or a text file, and then you have to analyze it with something like R or SPSS.

My advice is that SAP will give you a fast start, but in two to four years you will have to go fishing for another solution for sophisticated users who will not get enough from the SAP tool.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Consultant at Astra Industrial Group
Real User
Top 10
A stable tool that is useful for reporting and decision-making purposes but needs to become more user-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "Predominantly, our company uses SAP Business Warehouse for reporting purposes across various departments, especially for managers to gain a quick understanding of their current standing and make informed decisions."
  • "So far, the initial setup process in our company has not been easy enough for us to understand."

What is our primary use case?

Predominantly, our company uses SAP Business Warehouse for reporting purposes across various departments, especially for managers to gain a quick understanding of their current standing and make informed decisions. Thus, decision-making mostly occurs through SAP BI or SAP Business Warehouse.

What is most valuable?

Feature-wise, there are some hiccups with SAP Business Warehouse, especially its integration with various systems, including SAP and others. Populating data onto one screen does not happen in real time, which is one of the areas that our business is concerned about.

What needs improvement?

Improving SAP Business Warehouse's user-friendliness and real-time capabilities would be beneficial. The improvement would enable users to make decisions and understand their current standing quickly. Also, if there are any issues or fallbacks, we can quickly correct them.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using SAP Business Warehouse for eight years. Our company is transitioning from the SAP Business Warehouse's older version to the latest version. It may take another couple of months for the process to be completed. Also, I am a customer of the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has been a stable solution all these years, and so we are going for the newer version of the product since we wanted to have a more user-friendly option in our company.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

More than 200 people are using the solution in my company.

How are customer service and support?

Our company has been in touch with the solution's technical support team seeking guidance whenever and wherever required.

It is difficult for me to honestly rate the technical support since it is still in progress. While we have had multiple discussions with them, we are optimistic about building the technical aspects.

How was the initial setup?

So far, the initial setup process in our company has not been easy enough for us to understand. As of now, I might be wrong or right since we have not completed and are still undergoing the transition phase in our company. Once it is completed, I can only give feedback on how easy or complex the setup process was for our company. As of now, still, we have some connectivity issues.

The solution is deployed on the private cloud.

What other advice do I have?

My suggestion for those considering the solution is to prioritize setting up the core engine, the ERP. Once that is established, they can evaluate various BI tools available in the market before deciding.

Considering factors such as data extraction, data pushing, and the solution's accuracy, I rate the overall solution a six or seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1372197 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer( IT) at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Features real-time data acquisition, but needs to be more developer-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "With the technical support, the response has been pretty good from the SAP side."
  • "In the next release, my suggestion would be to have user-friendly interfaces and performance issues be addressed."

What is our primary use case?

We already were having a lot of transaction data in the SAP R3 system. We were doing the extraction, transformation, and loading process every time, ETL from SAP R3 to SAP BW and leveraging it to develop and design certain static reports. They were static in nature; they were not really very beautiful or very impactful reports, but they were used by our senior management. They are still being used by our senior management.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has improved our organization because we used to have a finance department. Payroll is a routine affair there, so some reports were required by the finance department for expediting their reconciliation which could be used in the closing of bank, closing of the books in the organization. We have helped them use the tools in that manner. There were also things like our generation was real-time captured in the transaction system. We tried to fetch the data from the transaction system and tried to aggregate the data in this BW system and help the management with the data at the click of a mouse.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the new version of Business Explorer Analyzer. That is a very good version because there are a lot of analytical features of Excel also. Additionally, in the SAP BW cockpit, there are features for real-time data acquisition, so RDA. That is a good feature.

What needs improvement?

One area that could be improved is the Business Explorer still needs to be developer-friendly also.

Another improvement would be to develop certain connectors to get hold of the external data. That aspect also needs to be strengthened. It needs to be reinforced because there were issues when we were integrating the SAP BW system with a source system, which is other than the SAP R3 system. The dependency that is currently there between SAP R3 and SAP BW, needs to be enhanced, augmented.

In the next release, my suggestion would be to have user-friendly interfaces and performance issues be addressed.

For how long have I used the solution?

I been using the solution for eight to ten years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have 1,000 plus users in the organization.

How are customer service and support?

With the technical support, the response has been pretty good from the SAP side. They do respond and they're very courteous. Technical support doesn't make you go around things. They try to find a solution and they reach out to you in time. That is very important because quick service is also very important.

How was the initial setup?

The client tools of SAP BW are very straightforward. I don't have any issues with the installation part. Installation is quite friendly, quite speedy.

What about the implementation team?

In the initial phases of deployment, we had an integrator, then we switched over to the consultants. The integration partner was Siemens at that time when Business Warehouse was launched, and then gradually, we took third-party consultants only when there was a need.

What other advice do I have?

My advice when considering this solution is that a proper planning strategy is a must for going on a journey with a reporting and analytics solution. From my experience, I can tell you that organizations just venture in for a reporting, analytics solution without even framing a proper strategy as to what they would like to see as the end result and how they would like to approach it. That is the only thing that is important. Otherwise, the journey is smooth with SAP products. But you need to be clear in your head, and planning really takes the majority of the time. If you have twelve months, then I think you should plan for four months, so that the last eight months are a smooth journey for you.

I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
SAP technical consultant at N
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Has a straightforward maintenance process with essential support services
Pros and Cons
  • "The product is very stable."
  • "They should reduce the product’s installation package size for easier downloading."

What is most valuable?

The product is very stable. It has a straightforward maintenance process with essential support services.

What needs improvement?

They should reduce the product’s installation package size for easier downloading.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with SAP Business Warehouse for 20 years as a partner.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the product’s stability a nine out of ten. There is room for improvement.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have three customers and 1000 end users for SAP Business Warehouse. I rate its scalability an eight or nine.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support services are good.

How was the initial setup?

The product is straightforward to install and deploy. It takes two to three weeks to complete the process. I install it for the customers and forward it to application executives for data warehousing. The number of executives required for deployment depends on the organization’s size. It requires approximately one to ten people, depending on the project requirements.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend SAP Business Warehouse to others and rate it an eight out of ten. It has a well-documented and straightforward installation process.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
IT Manager at GIC Re
Real User
Data repository system that houses all transactional systems data in various formats
Pros and Cons
  • "The most useful feature has been he ability to feed data into multiple systems in various formats."
  • "The way the data is stored is kind of rigid in SAP BW as a product. It could be more flexible so that when we are designing a solution, we can design our own data structures and try to improve performance."

What is our primary use case?

AP BW is our main data storing platform that houses all transactional systems data. Every department has some or the other analytical service running on to our business warehouse.

What is most valuable?

The most useful feature has been he ability to feed data into multiple systems in various formats. SAP BW can open its data to any kind of system over the gateway services including to portals or applications that need to consume and complete data analysis. 

What needs improvement?

The way the data is stored is kind of rigid in SAP BW as a product. It could be more flexible so that when we are designing a solution, we can design our own data structures and try to improve performance. 

In a future release, we would like to have the capability of running big data solutions and integration with the other databases, like Hadoop.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution since 2006. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a stable solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is a scalable solution. 

How are customer service and support?

The customer support is wonderful. If your technical team is stuck somewhere, they are there to help.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

This is not a straight out of the box product. It is a product that needs a lot of brainstorming along with the business users to find out what they need so that the build is department specific.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

SAP's licensing structure is a little bit complicated and is linked to your revenue. This does not apply to smaller business. Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive. As your revenue grows, so does your operational licensing cost. This needs to be factored in when calculating cost. 

What other advice do I have?

I would not recommend it to organizations that are starting out because it demands a huge number of people to run and maintain it. I would recommend it for medium organizations with a lot of data. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Mechanical Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Good integration capabilities, great reporting, and provide useful real-time insights
Pros and Cons
  • "The real-time information is great."
  • "I'm not sure if our issue is related to BW or the Analysis Office. However, we're having performance issues in terms of time. It takes a long time to generate the report."

What is our primary use case?

It's a customized solution for the company's reporting needs.

What is most valuable?

The real-time information is great. Many reports take a long time, and we can save the data if we have a backlog of information to assess. The Real-time InfoCube is quite useful in terms of getting information fast when we need it. 

The preparation is basically useful. We are using it via integrated BI, BWIP, Business Warehouse, and Integrated Planning. Based on that, we are able to get good information on plans. 

We can integrate analysis into our planning. 

It has good integration with the Analysis Office.

We're able to create different queries and get reports based on what we specifically need. 

What needs improvement?

I'm not sure if our issue is related to BW or the Analysis Office. However, we're having performance issues in terms of time. It takes a long time to generate the report. Maybe it's the queries that have been developed in-house. I'm not sure. 

People are getting frustrated as they have to spend lots of time - 10 minutes to 15 minutes - generating the report. Maybe they are getting real-time data. However, it is time-consuming in the generation of the report.

They should allow for power users. If SAP really wants to have some insights related to their software's applicability, adaptability, and some areas of let's say, future expansion or future new development, then they should think of taking the opinion of the actual end users.

They should offer up smaller components for smaller companies to make it more affordable and accessible for more companies.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution since 2017.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable. 

I'd rate the stability eight out of ten. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have lots of users using the BW-based reports. That's around 500 people. However, we don't have many actual users on the solution itself. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support from SAP is being provided by our technical teams. There have been issues that our own team has dealt with directly.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We are using the SAP Business Warehouse as well as the Commercial Project Management model of SAP. 

We are also using Analysis Office Integration with SAP.

I have worked with two systems related to BW. One that is an elegant JBA, which is all right. They have products that are BW related. It was also a nice product, actually.

The upside to working with this solution is that it is basically integrated with directly SAP.

How was the initial setup?

I'm not involved in the initial setup.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is very costly. I can't speak to the exact costs, however. Only larger companies can afford SAP.

The maintenance costs are very high as well. 

What other advice do I have?

I am not the one who is using the different transaction codes of BW since rights are provided to a minimal amount of technical personnel. Those who are going to prepare the cubes or make some queries or something like that would use it. Based on that queries, we are getting reports.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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Download our free SAP Business Warehouse Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2025
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Download our free SAP Business Warehouse Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.