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...not so pretty. SAP formally launched SAP Cloud for Analyics, its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) analytics offering last week. There are a number of Good things about it. Truthfully, I can't think of much that's Bad. But, the packaging and pricing - I definitely didn't find that elegant at all....
SAP is the latest in a long line of companies taking a crack at a combined planning and business intelligence (BI) solution. It's a combination that makes complete sense - it's a closed loop way to run a business: Plan, execute, use integrated BI and analytics to track performance to plan, revise the plan as necessary. Rinse and repeat. Despite the obvious appeal it's never been widely adopted. Typically, vendors came at it by acquisition. Sometimes from the planning camp - Hyperion's acquisition of Brio, or Adaptive Planning acquiring myDials - and sometimes from the BI camp, such as Cognos'acquisition of Adaytum. That, by definition, doesn't give you a seamlessly integrated planning and BI solution. So that's a potential barrier to adoption. But, more than that, I suspect many corporate planners were too deep in Excel's bottomless pit by that point to even notice.
SAP's key message for this solution is: All analytics, all users, one product. It is - SAP states - built from the ground-up as a single code base, with a single UI, and seamless user experience. As such, it should offer a superior, integrated solution that allows people to easily move from planning to BI and vice versa. It doesn't directly address the legacy spreadsheet problem, however.
Also in the "Good" category is the SAP Hana foundation on which the solution sits. As a high-performance database, this should enable updated forecasts, plans, and what-if scenarios to be created and evaluated in real-time. Perhaps planning and budgeting can finally move on from the batch era...? Also in the plus column is the SAP Digital Boardroom (or check out the video, about 2 minutes in). As the name suggests, this option is designed to let an executive team analyze data in real-time, using a number of large wall-mounted touchscreens. Looks compelling - even potentially game changing - for some organizations. But for many, it will require a culture of management openness and responsiveness that doesn't already exist. That culture may be a worthy goal, but it is both obstacle and opportunity.
Finally, I have to give credit to SAP for the pricing of the basic BI offering. It's $25 per user per month. That is just 10% of the list price for Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud (as discussed here). I think that is much more in-line with people's expectations for a SaaS BI solution.
Having said that, packaging and pricing is a bit of a mixed bag for me. SAP has taken a modular approach to the solution so that people can pay for as much or as little as they need. Just want BI..? There's a price for that. Only want planning...there's a price for that too. In a sense, I think SAP is trying to map the customer's cost to the value that they get from the solution, and that's always worthy.
But honestly, I can't remember the last time when I was on a briefing and it took 7 and a half minutes to go through the packaging options. It felt like I'd been instantly transported back to the late 20th century, back to a time when enterprise software was sold by the module. True, it gives some flexibility on costs, but I'm not sure buyers ever liked that approach overall. Too much like nickel and diming, a little too murky on overall costs, and more effort to manage for the customer. This is only going to get worse over time, as the solution is rounded out with additional functionality, such as predictive analytics.
My second beef here is that apart from the $25 per user per month for BI, SAP is not publicly disclosing the pricing for anything. Put these two points together and it just seems so last millennium to me. Cloud-based solutions have brought users much greater transparency and predictability in pricing. Ultimately, that makes managing their IT costs so much easier. Yes, that may partly have given rise to shadow IT. But, transparency and predictability are still good things and I think customers would quite like it back please. I don't recall many software buyers enjoying the experience of the late 1990's - it was too much like a bad car buying experience. Don't go back there, your customers will thank you for it, and you'll be rewarded with greater market share.
(Full disclosure: SAP is a client of ARC Advisory)
SAP is the latest in a long line of companies taking a crack at a combined planning and business intelligence (BI) solution. It's a combination that makes complete sense - it's a closed loop way to run a business: Plan, execute, use integrated BI and analytics to track performance to plan, revise the plan as necessary. Rinse and repeat. Despite the obvious appeal it's never been widely adopted. Typically, vendors came at it by acquisition. Sometimes from the planning camp - Hyperion's acquisition of Brio, or Adaptive Planning acquiring myDials - and sometimes from the BI camp, such as Cognos'acquisition of Adaytum. That, by definition, doesn't give you a seamlessly integrated planning and BI solution. So that's a potential barrier to adoption. But, more than that, I suspect many corporate planners were too deep in Excel's bottomless pit by that point to even notice.
The Good
SAP's key message for this solution is: All analytics, all users, one product. It is - SAP states - built from the ground-up as a single code base, with a single UI, and seamless user experience. As such, it should offer a superior, integrated solution that allows people to easily move from planning to BI and vice versa. It doesn't directly address the legacy spreadsheet problem, however.
Also in the "Good" category is the SAP Hana foundation on which the solution sits. As a high-performance database, this should enable updated forecasts, plans, and what-if scenarios to be created and evaluated in real-time. Perhaps planning and budgeting can finally move on from the batch era...? Also in the plus column is the SAP Digital Boardroom (or check out the video, about 2 minutes in). As the name suggests, this option is designed to let an executive team analyze data in real-time, using a number of large wall-mounted touchscreens. Looks compelling - even potentially game changing - for some organizations. But for many, it will require a culture of management openness and responsiveness that doesn't already exist. That culture may be a worthy goal, but it is both obstacle and opportunity.
Finally, I have to give credit to SAP for the pricing of the basic BI offering. It's $25 per user per month. That is just 10% of the list price for Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud (as discussed here). I think that is much more in-line with people's expectations for a SaaS BI solution.
The Not so Pretty...
Having said that, packaging and pricing is a bit of a mixed bag for me. SAP has taken a modular approach to the solution so that people can pay for as much or as little as they need. Just want BI..? There's a price for that. Only want planning...there's a price for that too. In a sense, I think SAP is trying to map the customer's cost to the value that they get from the solution, and that's always worthy.
But honestly, I can't remember the last time when I was on a briefing and it took 7 and a half minutes to go through the packaging options. It felt like I'd been instantly transported back to the late 20th century, back to a time when enterprise software was sold by the module. True, it gives some flexibility on costs, but I'm not sure buyers ever liked that approach overall. Too much like nickel and diming, a little too murky on overall costs, and more effort to manage for the customer. This is only going to get worse over time, as the solution is rounded out with additional functionality, such as predictive analytics.
My second beef here is that apart from the $25 per user per month for BI, SAP is not publicly disclosing the pricing for anything. Put these two points together and it just seems so last millennium to me. Cloud-based solutions have brought users much greater transparency and predictability in pricing. Ultimately, that makes managing their IT costs so much easier. Yes, that may partly have given rise to shadow IT. But, transparency and predictability are still good things and I think customers would quite like it back please. I don't recall many software buyers enjoying the experience of the late 1990's - it was too much like a bad car buying experience. Don't go back there, your customers will thank you for it, and you'll be rewarded with greater market share.
(Full disclosure: SAP is a client of ARC Advisory)