Part 1 of 3

Part 1 doesn’t really share anything new, but just affirms what many suspected. Your best BusinessObjects resources have left the building.

Part 2 provides guidance on how to keep your SAP BusinessObjects platform running smoothly. It addresses what deliverables your current BI administration team should be maintaining on behalf of the organization. If your organization outsources SAP BI platform management, should you shop around for better options if your current team hasn’t provided enough value?

Part 3 provides some solutions for BI Managers who need capable staff to keep SAP BusinessObjects running and running well.

Something has happened to analytics teams around the world. For years, organizations that used the SAP BusinessObjects platform relied on its maturity, the availability of knowledgeable resources and partners, and SAP’s desire to innovate with the platform. After several years of vendor marketing that was murky at best and downright negative at its worst, the ecosystem took note. The best and brightest BusinessObjects practitioners headed for the Next Big Thing. Some reinvented themselves as experts in Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, or even more adventurous tools like ThoughtSpot. Some headed for the cloud as AWS, Azure, or GCP practitioners. Some followed their data into the cloud using Databricks or Snowflake. And still others moved into sales or management. But one thing is for sure – the best and brightest are gone.

To Infinity (OK, to 2025) and Beyond

In June 2022, the winds of change blew into the sails of the SAP BusinessObjects platform and BI 2025 was announced. In fact, it’s supposed to be delivered to us in a few short weeks, in December 2024 March 2025. And this year, SAP committed to BI 2027, a successor that extends the lifespan of your SAP BusinessObjects platform through 2030 and possibly even beyond.

Is BusinessObjects Still Relevant?

In a world full of alternatives, is the SAP BusinessObjects platform still relevant to the enterprise? The answer is definitely “yes”, if for no other reason that SAP has put its belated investment into two more releases for the platform. Let’s quickly review what the platform has going for it.

Robust Server Architecture

Windows or Linux? Yes.

Cloud or On-premise? Yes.

Modern database connectivity options? Yes

Powerful scheduling and bursting? Yes

Modernized User Experience

Desktop UI like Desktop Intelligence? Nope.

Java and Flash browser plug-ins retired in favor of HTML5? Yes.

New features and functionality? Yes (see Data Mode in SAP BI 4.3 SP4)

Enterprise reporting? Yes. Your choice of Crystal Reports or Web Intelligence

Dashboards and mobility? Yes.

Powerful Semantic Layer

The almighty BusinessObjects universe. Yes!

Many of these features and use cases have been ignored by the current poster children of the analytics jungle. There are compelling reasons to retain SAP BusinessObjects as a core component of your organization’s analytics strategy, even as you keep an eye on the ever-changing future.

What Next?

For organizations that have determined to keep using the SAP BusinessObjects platform, there are certainly questions about the best way to support it. And who should support it? In-house resources? An outsourcing partner? A different outsourcing partner, if you’re dissatisfied with the status quo? And how to keep your existing staff retained and motivated? We’ll look at these topics in the next installments of The BusinessObjects Brain Drain.