The Russian division of Bauer Media after SAP ERP began to use BusinessObject

In 2010 in the Russian division of Bauer Media the SAP ERP system was implemented. The standardized automation of all operational transactions was the main objective of this project. The implementation project of a BI system using which managers of different levels can get data access from an ERP system and also to analytical data from other sources became logical development of the ERP project.

Specialists of Bauer Media at first compared the BI systems of the largest vendors and stopped the choice on the SAP solution BusinessObjects. The ERP command which just finished the project on implementation in publishing house from the Russian division of Software AG & IDS Scheer became the contractor – consultants already knew features of business of Bauer Media and a configuration of the SAP ERP system implemented there.

The project was divided into 2 stages, everyone consisted of design phases, implementation and testing. At the first stage the data warehouse of SAP BW was unrolled and configured. On the second - integration with third-party data sources is carried out, the system of the analytical reporting SAP BusinessObjects is implemented and the structure of the corporate reporting is developed. The project is executed in 5 months, its cost was 3.4 million rubles.

The main users of a BI system are top managers of media holding who had an access to business information both from internal sources (SAP ERP), and from external. As the data in a BI system arriving from ERP are updated daily, managers have an opportunity all the time to operate with the most up-to-date information. Now they can obtain independently data next day after passing of transactions in an ERP system, and earlier behind any report it was necessary to address to the special service supporting SAP and to wait when it is created. The flexible report structure in the implemented BI system allows heads, without the assistance of narrow-purpose specialists, to detail and filter data for the analysis.

"SAP implementation of BI considerably broadened horizons of our command, - the project manager of SAP in Bauer Media Popov Alexey notes. - But the most important - the top management of the company which in the majority was far from ERP project parts saw real effect of product introduction of such class. Now any employee of the company within the competence can get access to the general source of the authentic and verified information. Expansion of a data structure for accumulation of different business information will be further development of the BI project. We will also pay much attention to system implementation of dashboards of the head (dashboard) which, we hope, it will be possible to replace present daily reports for top managers on the current key indicators of business".

"At the beginning of the project we did not set to ourselves a task to estimate investment profitability at it and not so a lot more time passed to make it, – the chief executive of ID of "Bauer Media" Muza Monams says. – The main argument was the fact that a new analytical system will promote creation of new competitive advantages of the company, increment of new values in a chain of business processes. And we see that our estimates came true: the company received the powerful tool of the analysis and decision support".