cOSMOS SAP SPECTRUM 4 /201064

oBJeCts of InnovatIonAt the 2010 Americas’ SAP Users’ Group Fall Focus conference, SAP BusinessObjects customers showcased

how they run better with the help of the software. Asics, Harley-Davidson, and Under Armour each had a compelling story to tell that underscored the critical role SAP BusinessObjects plays within their overall

business strategies. From planning and consolidation to master data management and analytics, SAP innovation was on full display.

Author: Tim Clark

The iconic brand and business that make up Harley-Davidson span beyond high-ticket motorcycles. The company retains a credit and banking business to lend to consumers, retail shops, licensed products, and a parts and accessories arm. According to Jim Keene, global systems manager, global in-formation services for Harley-Davidson, “This is why analyt-ics and business intelligence is so important. All of these lines of business require relationships with customers.”

In the past two years, Harley-Davidson has seen an in-crease in a “pull” for information across its enterprise, espe-cially around repossessions, given the challenging economic environment. “Even though business was bad, the need for information was great,” says Keene. As a long-time SAP Business Objects software user, Harley-Davidson upgraded to

a new release of the business intelligence solution in October to meet information demands. The company also plans to im-plement SAP dashboard software for company executives so they can obtain a consolidated view of how business is doing.

“As demand increases, we’ll look to exploit and optimize our IT infrastructure,” says Keene. “We have to maintain an ‘always on’ environment due to mobile demands and the need for em-ployees to always have the freshest queries.”

As for best practices when dealing with analytics and busi-ness intelligence, Keene says it’s important to establish exper-tise in how the business interfaces with business intelligence.

“It’s an incredibly important skill set to build up in the orga-nization. It’s not always easy to translate what the business wants to do into a final product.”

Harley-Davidson: More than Motorcycles

cOSMOSSAP SPECTRUM 4 /2010 65

As a leading designer and manufacturer of running shoes, athletic footwear, apparel, and accessories, Asics struggled with its stock keeping unit (SKU) count, which was growing rapidly each season. Without active style filtering or real-time ad-hoc reporting, Asics’ planning cycle was cumbersome at best. In an effort to reduce its planning cycle, provide exten-sive reporting functionality, and create a collaborative envi-ronment for users, Asics turned to the SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation application. The results speak for themselves, as Asics was able to reduce its planning cycle by 50%, from three weeks down to one and a half. But that was just the beginning according to Brian Hsu, the special-ist at Asics on the SAP planning and consolidation software.

“We developed a streamlined process and increased synergies

across departments,” says Hsu. “The user-friendly UI looks like an Excel interface but it’s more robust for users. Now they can easily calculate additional values in micro and macro envi-ronments.” Hsu also says that SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation enables extensive reporting functionality. Asics accounting, for instance, is able to distribute reports quickly and easily to the Web, which reduces the large amount of memory that e-mail attachments consume. Asics can also produce complex financial statement packages on the fly; what used to take accountants a few days to produce now re-quires five minutes. Following the successful deployment and adoption of the SAP software, Hsu says Asics will be upgrad-ing to the next version of the application in the near future.

Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, Under Armour (UA) has integrated its planning systems to include the SAP Ad-vanced Planning & Optimization (SAP APO) software, the SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation application, and SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards software to expedite period closing and enhance analytics around profitability. According to UA project manager Dave Roberts, the company drafted too much inventory, which put a squeeze on the company’s profit margins. To address this challenge, UA needed to ensure that demand for its myriad products was prevalent. As a result, a statistical forecast was built into SAP APO that housed a sales plan by customer instead of SKU, style, or color. “Once the

asics Runs with a consolidated plan

Under armour Has a plan for Demandplan is in place, the planning and consolidation application is like a vegimatic,” says Roberts. “It can slice and dice data any way you want it.”

Roberts says that before it deployed the SAP application, generating revenue targets and budget was a painful and ardu-ous task. Today, UA is able to generate these reports in under two weeks, a significant improvement over its prior process. UA sales executives can now get the details they need to tell a compelling story to customers about sales trends. “Now, the sales executives track how well they execute against the plan via the data extracted from the software,” says Roberts. “This same data is used for our quarterly earnings calls.”

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