BI/BO Skills Tips:1.
Custom Report Generation - There will be a shift in reporting emphasis from SAP's BEx tool to the Business Objects reporting environment, centered around Crystal Reports. BEx will continue to be supported in the interim period, but we will see more and more SAP customers looking into BO's reporting capabilities sooner rather than later.
Opportunities for BO Reporting Experts: There are pending opportunities for Crystal and BO reporting experts to break into SAP from the Business Objects side. The long-term SAP-BO roadmap de-emphasizes BEx in favor of BO's best-in-class reporting tools in areas such as Enterprise Reporting (Crystal Reports), Ad-hoc Query and Analysis (Webi, Voyager), and Dashboards (Xcelsius). However, it should be noted that this will more like be a gradual transition than a huge push, given that SAP has guaranteed support for BEx, as well as Web Application Designer and Report Designer, through 2016. SAP is actually combining the best aspects of BEx with BO Voyager for a product to be rolled out in the next couple years, current code named "Pioneer." We should expect the rate of reporting innovation on the BO side to be a major incentive to move SAP users off BEx, while expanding reporting across the enterprise and user base. Another nifty tool to be on the lookout for is Polestar, Business Objects' new open query tool, which Business Objects CEO John Schwarz showed off during his Sapphire '08 keynote. I have already run into some SAP customers who are interested in this tool's capabilities.
Opportunities for SAP Reporting Specialists: There will be opportunities for those SAP folks who are skilled in generating custom SAP reports via BW to bridge the gap to BO, especially if they have a mix of Java and ABAP skills and are familiar with SAP's web-based reporting options as well as customizing SAP Portals.
Opportunities for Functional SAP Specialists: In many companies, the BEx reporting options were embraced by financial users but not as much by users in other departments. Expect the usage of SAP reports to increase significantly as more SAP customers turn to BO reporting tools that are much more flexible for different functional users. This should create opportunities for SAP functional experts to help define and prioritize these expanding reporting needs, ensuring that BO is tapping into the right data sources from the right business processes.
Skills Danger Zone: This BO reporting trend is a bit of a danger zone for the ABAP-based reporting specialist and the ABAP-BW reporting person. SAP has made it clear that its long term reporting commitment will be with the Business Objects suite, meaning that this is another area of SAP where the ABAP/Java hybrid skill set will be more effective than ABAP-only. Panic is not the right response, however. This will be a gradual transition.
2. Business Objects-SAP Integration Opportunities - One of the strengths of Business Objects is that it can pull data from just about any system you can think of, legacy or otherwise. It can pull data from BW and BI as well. Therefore, companies will not be forced into integrating SAP and BO in one particular way. Going forward, however, we can count on SAP pushing the NetWeaver platform as the basis for BI/BO integration, using PI (formerly XI) as the integration hub.
Opportunities for BO Integration Specialists - In the short term, we may see some SAP customers go with a BO-specific integration strategy, especially if they don't have NetWeaver PI running yet. In other words, these projects won't worry about tying in seamlessly with SAP yet; they will just pull the data from many systems, including SAP, and handle the integration and reporting on the BO server. Therefore, there should be some opportunities for BO integration experts to get some SAP exposure here, as more data is pulled into the BO mix.
Whether it's worthwhile for SAP experts to dive into BO integration tools right away is hard to say, but what I can say is that the roadmap calls for the combined BI/BO product to utilize much of Business Object's Enterprise Information Management (EIM) toolkit. If I were an SAP person, in the short term, I'd be more inclined to chase XI/PI exposure, but if the opportunity presented itself to get skills on the BO EIM side, I wouldn't turn it down either, given that it will eventually be a part of SAP. If you want to get a head start on learning about BO's best-in-class EIM data integration toolkit, check this link out. Tools like the Business Objects Data Integrator and Business Objects Rapid Marts may be worth getting experience in.
Opportunities for XI/PI Integration Experts - As noted, we should see more Business Objects-SAP data integration through SAP's XI/PI integration hub. So, those of you who are already gaining PI experience should be in the right place at the right time, and those who are looking for another reason to get skills in PI just found one. In the short term, we may also see some work for BW-BO integration (skipping any data flow through XI/PI).
3.
SAP Portals and Role-Based Reporting - It looks like SAP Portals will remain a point of emphasis in terms of delivering role-based reporting, though SAP-BO users will certainly not be tied to delivering reports through SAP's Portal. Other custom GUI options will include the BlackBerry and other handheld devices.
Opportunities for SAP Portals Experts - There will be project needs for SAP Portals experts who are well-versed in designing role-based, user-friendly SAP Portals that pull reporting data from BO or features dashboards with role-specific data and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
Opportunities for Visual Composer Skills - Custom GUI design will also call for folks who can work with Visual Composer. For some reason, I have not seen Web Dynpro mentioned as frequently when it comes to Business Objects displays on the SAP side, but we may well see more of that also. Visual Composer has been mentioned frequently in this context.
3. Other BO-driven Opportunities on the SAP Side - There are other BO-related needs that should create some consulting demand on the SAP side. Just how strong that demand will be remains to be seen. Here are some more areas of SAP to target, in relative order of priority:
a.
SAP BI Accelerator - One reason that the BO executives were so excited about being acquired, or so they tell us, is the power of BI Accelerator to help ensure super-fast performance, in particular with some of BO's open query and ad-hoc reporting options. So, add one more reason to have BI Accelerator on your resume.
b.
SAP Master Data Management (MDM) - SAP MDM figures prominently on the SAP + Business Objects combined roadmap, and we can expect tight integration between SAP MDM and BO's metadata features.
c.
SAP Data Warehousing - I don't expect BO to replace the need for SAP data warehousing, which in recent years has centered around BW, and now BI. BO may even increase the need for SAP data warehouse experts who understand how to map out a business intelligence architecture that is the best fit with a particular industry. Another way of looking at it: SAP is shifting its reporting emphasis to BO, but its data warehouse and storage capabilities will remain focused on BW/BI.
d.
SAP GRC - (
Governance, Risk and Compliance) - the SAP-BO roadmap calls for the use of SAP's own GRC product, so folks who have (or can get) exposure to SAP GRC should be in good shape in this area.
e.
SAP EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) - the EPM suite may create casualties on both sides. This is an area where the functionality from both vendors will be combined, and smaller acquisitions galore come into play, such as SAP's OutlookSoft acquisition. SEM (Strategic Enterprise Management), which now resides within BW/BI, may shift into new tools in new locations. However, the fundamentals that drive the need for these tools (better executive-level decision-making and strategic planning) will remain the same, so the tool knowledge should be transferable. For those who want the nitty gritty, here's the EPM suite breakdown: