What advice do you have for others considering SAP BW4HANA?

I advise others to design requirements carefully before importing data and do incremental refreshes instead of full uploads to save resources. We can integrate non-SAP data sources using XML data exchange. It's important to plan work well and design solutions properly. I'd rate the product nine out of ten. The real-time analytics capabilities are good, but we often move data to a different platform for analysis. Overall, SAP BW4HANA provides a stable, robust, and scalable solution that integrates well with various systems, allowing us to consolidate data from different places.

Given the current technology space, I would rate it eight out of ten. I would recommend to use it with SAP ERP system. If you have another ERP system or non-SAP system, I wouldn't recommend using it.

We have integrated SAP with Azure. We have migrated all standard tables and the output of standard reports on Azure. A different team in our organization coordinates with the solution’s support team to resolve the issues we face. I will recommend the solution to others. If a huge amount of data needs to be moved around for analytics purposes, we should choose SAP BW4HANA. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Overall, I would rate it a seven out of ten. It's a robust product. But there are downsides, like the cost being one. It's resource-intensive. Also, integration with non-SAP enterprise components could be improved.

In terms of data warehousing and real-time analytics, the tool has been doing pretty well for our company, and as a matter of fact, it has also been working out well for some of the customers for whom we had helped with the implementation part of the solution. The customers who use SAP BW4HANA are happy with the tool. The in-memory compute feature impacted the data processing speed since my company presently sees a thirty to forty percent improvement. In terms of structuring the data that is going to come in, and especially in terms of the overall setup of the tool, the APIs to be set up, and other such areas, are some of the key roles of the people who use the product. If customers are looking at SAP BW4HANA, I would say that it is definitely a stable solution, but it all depends on your landscape. If your landscape consists of seventy percent non-SAP, then SAP BW4HANA is not meant for you. If you have your core ERP and everything else on SAP, then SAP BW4HANA is a good solution. The real-time analytics capabilities benefit our organization by allowing employees to make the process of decision-making faster because we have seen reports getting pushed with the in-memory computing capabilities of the tool in a very fast manner. The product has definitely helped the customers make decisions faster. I rate the overall satisfaction with the product in terms of scalability and future readiness as seven out of ten. Overall, the product is stable. I feel that the support could be better. From the perspective of the people in the market, if you look at the resources offered by SAP BW4HANA, you can find many people who are trained in the product. Getting qualified resources for SAP BW4HANA is very easy. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

SAP BW4HANA improved data reporting processes significantly. Performance on HANA database is good. Well-built data models ensure consistent and fast reporting. Reusable models enhance efficiency, even for SaaS services. In-memory computing, especially since HANA, has greatly improved performance in data analysis tasks. It eliminates the need for complex optimizations like creating indexes or aggregates. Queries that once took minutes now run in seconds, enabling real-time reporting, especially for SAP ECC on HANA. SAP BW4HANA's integration capabilities are streamlined with a simplified architecture and more virtual layers. You can directly load data into optimized layers, reducing the need for extra storage. The introduction of Open ODS Views allows for additional logic and master data inclusion, making integration faster and simpler. The learning curve for SAP BW4HANA is much faster now compared to ten years ago, thanks to abundant free resources like documentation, videos, blogs, and learning journeys provided by SAP. It is simpler to learn with these resources available compared to the past when you had to attend courses and rely on books. I would recommend SAP BW4HANA to users looking to implement it, especially if they want to keep their systems on-premise and already have SAP systems. Those with BW on HANA have two choices: BW4HANA or DataSphere, depending on their cloud strategy. If they are advanced in their cloud strategy and want to migrate off-premise, DataSphere is a good choice. However, for a robust solution on-premise or in a private cloud, BW4HANA is an excellent option. Overall, I would rate BW4HANA as a nine out of ten. It performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities. We use it traditionally, with complex transformations and models but with less emphasis on real-time processing and third-party sources.

The product has improved data analysis and reporting processes because it helps with the analysis and forecasting of reports. The product keeps the company's tool and landscape in place as it does not mix the organization's transaction data with analytical data. In our company, SAP BW4HANA caters to our requirements if we want to do anything with our reports by adding any key characteristics or figures to our data sources. The product can drill down to a deep level, ranging from company code-wise angle to G/L account number and cost element. With SAP BW4HANA, it is possible to get everything by drilling down at a deep level, and it helps my company come up with real-time business analysis and forecasting for the required decision-making area in our organization. The product also provides BO reports for dashboard development for some of the product's customers who want to see the dashboard area included in the reports. With the help of SAP and SAP SAC, some standard templates can be easily made available, as per the system requirements, which are good features for data visualization and reports since it makes it easy for the customer to identify what exactly is their business. The product provides details about sales, production, and what should be the focus of the business in the upcoming quarters of a year. In general, the tool makes it easy for customers to do planning and indulge in forecasting for the future of businesses. The solution supports our organization's big data and real-time analytics in the area of decision-making. My company operates as a service provider, and we have seen that for each and every organization where we provide services, the tool has made available leverages for planning and forecasting, which helps in the area of quick decision-making. In the initial system, businesses have to extract data, after which they need to be involved in the planning and forecasting stages using a database view, SAP data with Qlik or Qlik Sense to make reports and then upload the reports by using flat files through the required databases consisting of Excel-based maintenance of such reports so that businesses can get help to decide on the outcomes on the basis of which reports were getting generated. The amount of reports generated by the product on a weekly or monthly basis has reduced a lot since it allows generating reports with a click, ensuring that the decision-making process is made faster for businesses. If you develop a report today, the decision-making process can be carried out tomorrow, after a week, or maybe after a few days. To run any kind of analytical report, SAP BW4HANA with SAP SAC serves as a good product in terms of scalability and stability. The product also helps with the areas of planning and forecasting. The tool will offer its customers a good ROI if the product's costs are reduced. With SAP Data Services and SAP Datasphere, you can have intelligent integrations and establish some connections that SAP BW4HANA provides to users. SAP has added various integration layers. The tool helps with real-time integrations. I rate the tool a nine to nine and a half out of ten.

It's been 10-12 years since SAP BW4HANA evolved from its older versions, but the product hasn't improved much. Unlike competitors such as Microsoft and Snowflake, who continuously evolve their products, SAP BW4HANA lacks seamless integration with third-party connectors. This absence of support for good integration tools suggests a monopolistic approach. Simple integrations take excessive time, leading to low business efficiency. SAP's core applications are highly customizable and purpose-built, with continuous release cycles that align with market trends. The maintenance of the solution is challenging due to its complex architecture. However, its dynamic design and comprehensive features make it unique. Even a minor with database knowledge can significantly improve the schema creation process. I don't recommend the solution. It's not fair to compare bananas to oranges. There's no comparison. SAP doesn't fall anywhere close to other vendors. If you are a static organization with basic SAP applications in the underlying architecture, SAP BW4HANA will be a better choice. However, with the evolution of data and the increasing amount of data being collected, along with emerging applications, it's not advisable to use it. It will complicate your life, leading to disappointment for your business and SAP's overall strategy for the organization. Overall, I rate the solution a five out of ten.

I rate the product an eight out of ten.

The product is not relevant anymore. Other modern tools are better than SAP BW/4HANA. I will not recommend the solution to others. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

I may consider contacting a consultant next month. It's not a friendly solution. So, it is a complex tool. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I would rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I give SAP BW4HANA a nine out of ten. We have plans to increase the usage of SAP BW4HANA in the future. I recommend SAP BW4HANA for organizations with an IP platform. Similar products, such as Qlik Replicate, are more expensive.

Its integration capabilities are good. I would suggest those planning to use it evaluate the features and decide for your specific use cases to deduce whether this is something you really need. Some applications offer the same features, which can meet similar requirements. So compare and evaluate to see if this is exactly the solution that you need. If it integrates easily with your existing landscape and workloads, then choose it for yourself. I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.

I'm a customer and end-user. We have the SAP S/4HANA on-prem version, however, we are using the Azure servers to host them. We are using SAP S/4HANA, BW/4HANA, and SAP Analytics Cloud products. We have invested heavily in our training and end-user environment. We have got some tools and a team dedicated to that. After learning from the earlier initiatives of SAP implementation, it was rather easy this time around as we knew what needed to be done and implemented those standards early. I'd recommend the solution to others and also recommend that new users go towards a cloud version. Being on the cloud cuts out a lot of middleware and integration issues. Overall, it's a really good product. Right now, I'd rate it eight out of ten.

It's important that SAP does not destroy the core value of what makes BW a great solution. They shouldn't abandon the star schema modeling so that anybody who wants to do 16 dimensions can keep their own shell, and can enhance user information on top of that. I rate this product eight out of 10.

I would rate this solution as seven out of ten. Overall, it's hard to compare with other products on the market, but I think it has improved quite significantly. For those who are interested in using this solution, my advice is to do a trial of the solution because it's a good way to get started and will make implementation faster.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten. If someone wants to implement BW4HANA, it's important to do a training course first and think about the strategy they would like to use to leverage the data for their business.

I would advise, that if you have SA, as in ERP systems, the BW is fine. If you do not have SAP ERP, for example, if you have a non-SAP system from where you want to load the data, then SAP BW is not a good solution. It will increase the turnaround time. I'd rate the solution three out of ten.

I would rate this solution nine out of ten. There are a few missing features, which are very much required now because of digital transformation. There are disparate systems, multi-stack systems, and multi-cloud hyperscaler involved. SAP can improve in that area and make this product a full-fledged data warehousing solution. My advice is that you need to have a well-informed and experienced team to roll out this kind of application. For instance, if it's a Greenfield implementation, you definitely need good business analysts, a good architect, and functional solution specialists who can translate the functional requirement to a detailed design. You also need a technical specialist who can design the solution and roll it out. If it's any other migration, there are a lot of other things you need to do, like convert all the third party legacy artifacts, connectors, and data. Apart from the technical challenges, aspects like change management, data migration, governance, security etc.

I rate SAP BW/4HANA seven out of 10. It's user-friendly, so it's easy to get started on it.

SAP BW/4HANA did not require us to start from scratch as it utilizes predefined content inside. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this product in conjunction with the new solution, SAP Analytics Cloud. My advice for anybody who is considering SAP BW4HANA is that it's a very stable product, and if you are looking at a huge volume of data that you want to process daily or any similar kind of task, then this is definitely a good solution. At this point, I can't think of any additional features that I would like to see in the next release. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

I would recommend this solution in certain circumstances, but for others, probably not. It all depends on what the use case was. I would rate SAP BW4HANA a seven out of ten.

I would not recommend the solution because they have not upgraded their technology. I rate SAP BW4HANA a seven out of ten.

It makes sense for all enterprise companies that currently have BW in place to move over because BW4HANA has more reasonable performance, and it helps you in getting reporting. An enterprise can manage the reporting on this one product. In my previous company, I had to do and review reporting for end-users at the aggregated management level, not only at the transactional level. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. It is definitely an eight for reporting low and high at the management level as compared to others, but it is also dependent on the design. I had to provide and I still need to provide a lot of things knowing how my former colleagues have approached those things. From my point of view, it is never always the product, it is the experience we have in the design and context. BW4HANA is definitely much better than BW. It is also much better than HANA Native. It is definitely the right tool in terms of reporting and security on top of the SAP companies. Most of the companies are SAP companies. If you need an additional reporting tool on top, this is a solution.

This is a good product and one that I recommend implementing. As we look at the information we have for the cloud solution, it would be helpful to have something more clear from the vendor in terms of strategy. More information on the direction of the data warehouse solutions, going forward, would be helpful. Today, there is a market for HANA both on-premises and in the cloud, but the data warehouse cloud solution that is coming up is quite different. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. It costs a lot for a company to invest in SAP. It could be hard for a company to invest in it. It should be a little cheaper, it would raise the score to a nine. If a customer wants to save costs, they should move their infrastructure from on-premise to public cloud.

I would recommend SAP BW/4HANA. I would rate it an eight out of ten. Not a ten because it's expensive and its ecosystem is not very open.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this solution is to first follow the basics. It is possible that you will want some enhancements but you have to start at the beginning and start with the basic practice for modeling. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We are SAP partners. The solution is deployed on a scale-out environment, which involves five nodes of 1TB each. We have four worker nodes and one standby node. I'm not the consumer of this product. I'm an administrator of it. I'm basically supporting this project but I'm not the actual customer. I would definitely recommend the solution. It is the way forward if an organization is already in the SAP ecosystem. It's good to adapt to it sooner rather than later. I would definitely advise companies to implement it. I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

I would look at the Cloud option. Although the Cloud is not mature enough at this time, people who are planning to deploy this solution perhaps a year down the road may benefit from it. The Cloud may be something they would want to consider. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

SAP is introducing a lot of new features and making this product even more flexible. The suitability of this solution depends on how big the business is and how much they want to invest in data warehousing. The effectiveness will vary from customer to customer. For example, I don't think that it is a good solution for small or medium-sized businesses because it is very costly. It involves a lot of maintenance costs and a lot of expertise. For a big customer, who is SAP-centric, with lots of SAP data or SAP business processes, this is one of the best data warehousing solutions. Rating a product involves taking many things into consideration, such as scalability, performance, and security features. It also depends on what industry it is being used in. Overall, I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Thinking of the business people, independent of the tool, it could be state-of-the-art, it depends on the business people. Business people think that in order to run a business as usual, then they don't care about what you need to do in order to get them right. You could have a very fancy application but if the data is wrong, it doesn't have the right data quality, the right quality shape then no matter what, it won't work. Take the business people onboard and second, run data quality workshops just to be sure that everything that is put into the tool is clean. I would rate it an eight and a half out of ten because nothing is perfect, everything can be improved.

It's a good solution if you're integrating data from SAP software like ERP and looking out for the day-to-day reporting from the operational users at the lower level. If someone is looking for the quick, graphical reports and mobile availability then this is not the right solution for that. From an analytical perspective, I would rate it a two out of ten but from the business warehouse perspective, I would rate it a five. From an analytical perspective, I would rate it two because it's not competent in the current scenario of the market. The reports take a huge amount of time because it just uses its basic features called Microsoft Analysis Office which is like Excel reporting and no one wants to see data in Excel reports. Businesses want to see the data in terms of the graphs, which can be easily readable compared to the numbers. If I'm giving the data in numbers or charts, the charts should be easily understood. Whereas BW provides data in Excel, so someone has to sit and create their own reports on top of it, which takes a lot of time. The second thing is the execution time for the reports generation. Even due to the limitation of the analysis of the office I cannot process more than around 10 million records. It takes a lot of time to forget about 100K records. It takes a lot of time to load the data, whereas if I compare this with Tableau, it loads in milliseconds or seconds. If I'm going to meet some of my customers and then if I decide that I want to check something about what the customer is talking about, for example, I cannot do that. I need to login, I need to connect to my SAP systems, then I need to execute the report and then see what the data is. Mobile availability is not there. While having a discussion with the customers I can include the report on my tab with Tableau. This is lacking in BW. I had to tell a customer that I had to check the information and get back to him. I had to spend half an hour trying to call someone either from IT or someone in my back office to get the data and provide it to the customer. That was rubbish.