Enterprise Information Systems
Enterprise Information Systems enlightens my stint with SAP Hana and SAP S/4 Hana. It starts by focusing on the definitions and differences between both SAP Hana and SAP S/4 Hana., explaining the data analysis feature used in SAP S/4 Hana. and finally, a deep explanation of its various application in Business is illustrated post. The detailed picture of the Data Analysis performed on the given Case study of a WholesaleCorp* responds to the business queries initiated by their management itself, in order to know its popular product, most-influential salesperson, and loyal customers, or even the biggest market in the USA. The results provide the calculative and informational data in the form of graphs and charts, which makes it easy to understand and efficient in delivering its purpose.
Information System
What is SAP Hana?
SAP HANA is an in-memory database that computes a large amount of real-time data in a short span of time. It works on the principles of relational databases and operations. It uses structure query language (SQL) and helps in analyzing the data and generating queried results. It is a ‘high-performance analytics appliance’ that enlightens the business with data intelligence, removes the shortcomings of legacy systems, helps businesses to make better decisions, detects frauds, and helps in reporting, monitoring, and optimizing networks and operations. (Techopedia, 2021)
What is SAP S/4 Hana?
SAP S/4 Hana is the application running on the SAP Hana. It stands for SAP Business Suite 4 SAP Hana. It is the in-memory ERP platform, which is available on hybrid deployment frameworks, clouds, and on-premises paradigms. It is more agile and simple to use and understand. It uses real-time data analysis embedded in the system itself and helps is making business processes simpler.
What is data analysis SAP S/4 Hana?
As mentioned above, the SAP ERP system works on the SAP Hana database with its analytics application, called SAP Fiori (framework and tools), embedded together in SAP S/4 Hana using the SAP Hana Architecture (Analysis Path and Smart Business). The embedded analytics application can be diversified as the collection of all features like real-time data analysis through Operational report generation, Data warehousing, and Big Data predictive analysis for data and texts.
1. Operational Reporting. It helps in attaining an understanding of any transactional real-time data present in the system. It can be for customer transaction data, sales reporting, financial reporting, or simply data through already existing SAP ERP.
2. Data Warehousing. SAP allows Business Warehouse (BW) protocol as its Datawarehouse feature. It uses ‘SAP NetWeaver BW on Hana’ as a tool for this, which allows customers to run their application entirely on SAP’s platform. This, in turn, makes it centralized, easy to use, fast and efficient in operations and making decisions for the businesses.
3. Big Data Text and Predictive Analysis. To provide a better strategy to the business community, SAP utilizes it predictive analysis to provide a clear understanding of the market trends, needs, supply, and demand foresight to the business for their growth and sustenance in the market. This could be sales trends or employee retainment, or supplier service-related.
Case Study
WholesaleCorp* is a chain of membership-only big-box retail stores. They hold the retail market of choice, organic foods, rotisserie chicken, as well as wine. The company opened its first warehouse (retail outlet) in the late 1900s. Today, they have more than 800 warehouses worldwide.
I did a meticulous analysis for WholesaleCorp* on SAP to answer their questions regarding their customer insights, purchases, employee sales records, and their market insights across.
WholesaleCorp* wants to understand the customer location, who’s order from where?
From the analysis, it is observed that WholesaleCorp* receives maximum orders from 123 4th Street, New York (NY) via Company D, followed by 7 orders from both Company F and Company H based in Milwaukee (WI) and Portland (OR) respectively. The lowest number of orders are seen to be coming from Company G from the areas of Boise (ID) and Company Y from the areas of Chicago (IL).
Understand the salesperson's performance, need to know the number of items sold by the salesperson?
To understand the performance of a salesperson, we must consider 2 things:
a. the Total number of Quantity Sales made by him.
b. Total amount of Revenue generated by him for WholesaleCorp*.
Total number of Quantity Sales made by the Salesperson
The above analysis determines which salesperson has influenced how many product sales in total. It is observed that Laura Giussani has been the high seller for WholesaleCorp* with 659 sales, followed by Anne Larsen (614), Nancy Freehafer (604), and least being 74sales by Jan Kotas.
Total amount of Revenue generated by him for WholesaleCorp*
From the above analysis, it is observed that Nancy Freehafer is our high-performing salesperson with total sales of more than $15k (even though her quantities sold are comparatively less than Laura Giussani's). Jan Kotas still displays the lowest sales and holds the last position in the salesperson’s performance list.
Need to understand how many items did company sell in each category?
From the analysis, we observe the total quantity of sales per product category. Higher the quantity sales denote more popular the product is.
It is observed that WholesaleCorp’s Beverages are highly popular. With a mere difference of 140 units, Sales of Dried Fruits & Nuts holds second place in the product popularity race. However, it can be discerned that Dairy Products, Fruit & Veg, and Oil are all struggling with public likeability with the quantity sold for each category is less than 50 units.
Top ten customer based on their total number of orders ?
It is observed that Company D, Company H, Company F, and Company J are the prime customers of WholesaleCorp*, as they order more than 5 orders in the entire year. Company D tops the list with 8 orders while Company G and Company Y lay at the bottom of the list with 2 orders each.
Top ten customer based on their total spending?
The above query displays the list of top 10 customers sorted with their respective Total Spending at WholesaleCorp* in the given year 2014.
From the above analysis, it is observed that Company D stands firm at its first position with total Spending of approximately $15k. Followed by Companies (F, A, H, BB, J, L, Z, K, G) with total Spending marked between ($8k to $2944) respectively. The rest of the 5 Companies (AA, C, CC, I, Y) could not make the list with their total Spending of less than $2700 individually.
Need to understand how many customers company getting customer from each state?
From the above analysis, it is observed that WholesaleCorp* meets its maximum customers (=8) from the state of New York (NY) and Illinois (IL). The States of Florida, Oregon (OR), and Wisconsin (WI) follow the suit with 7 orders each. A Fair number of Orders ranging from 4 to 6 is seen from the rest of other states except the State of Utah (UT) with 3 orders and the State of Idaho (ID) with merely 2 orders only.
From the above analysis, we can learn about the companies that contribute to the better performance of the state in terms of receiving orders for WholesaleCorp*.
Need to understand which day, company got highest number of orders?
From the analysis, it is observed that WholesaleCorp* received the highest number of Orders (=8) on 4th December 2014, i.e., 12/04/14
Rendering from the SAP ERP System, its database, and Fiori Application, the transactional Order management business process of the WholesaleCorp* was thoroughly analyzed. It highlighted the 'How', 'Who', 'When', and 'How much ' of the system, its orders, process timeline, and product popularity by answering all the business-related queries asked by WholesaleCorp* and analyzed its market and relative performance accordingly. The graphs produced can not only help the business environment but also the business management in making better calls for action.
*Name of the organization and data has been altered to ensure the anonymity of the wholesale corporation