SAP Strategy Management Deliver on Corporate Strategy with Enterprise-Wide Alignment .pdf

SAP Solution in DetailSAP BusinessObjects Portfolio

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Performance Management Solutions

SAP ® BuSineSSOBjectS™ StrAtegy MAnAgeMentDElivEr On COrPOrAtE StrAtEgy with EntErPriSE-wiDE AlignMEnt

Business agility means that everyone – from C-level exe-cutives to front-line workers – needs to execute on the right strategies. Everyone needs to communicate plans clearly, translate them into priorities and tasks, and mon itor and report on pro-gress to any level of detail. At the same time, em ploy-ees need the tools to exe-cute properly on a day-to-day basis, as well as make well-informed decisions. the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management appli cation can help. it’s an intui tive, readily deployed appli ca tion that empowers busi ness users at all levels to align resources rapidly to execute on strategies, adjust to changing market condi-tions, and assess risk.

4 Executive Summary

5 Why Do Strategies Fail?

6 Drive Execution for Better Performance

7 SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

7 Closing the Gap Between Strategy and Execution

7 Communicating Strategies and KPIs with Powerful Visuals

7 Fostering Greater Collaboration with Access to Role-Appropriate Information

8 Simplifying Monitoring 8 Intelligently Measuring

Performance and Risk 8 Empowering Business Users

– and Freeing Up IT Resources

9 Key Functions of SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

10 Personalizing Information at Employees’ Fingertips

12 Increasing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Operational Reviews

14 Making Strategy Relevant to Employees at All Levels

16 Linking Initiatives and Prioritizing Daily Operations

18 Giving Departments Greater Con trol and Visibility with Scorecards

20 Fast Access to Supporting Data with Dashboards

22 Empowering Business Users with Self-Service Reports

24 Administrative Functions 25 Entry and Approval Functions 26 Configuration and Modeling

Functions 29 SAP BusinessObjects

Enterprise Performance Management Solutions

29 For More Information

Content

man aging organizational performance. Financial data can’t warn you about issues such as deteriorating employee morale, declining customer satisfaction, and diminishing product quality – all critical indicators of success or failure. Often the numbers have no meaning to your employees as they make day-to-day decisions, prioritize work, and allocate resources.

your executives need information to devise the right strategies and deter-mine where to deploy personnel and budgets. Once strategies are devel-oped, executives must communicate them to managers who cascade infor-mation to front-line workers across the enterprise – and do so in ways that are relevant within the context of their department and role. your employees need the tools to make well-informed decisions and execute on a day-to-day basis.

the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application can help com panies increase operational align-ment and agility. intui tive to deploy, it empowers business users to rapidly align resour ces to execute on strate-gies, adjust to changing market condi-tions, and assess risk. it enables it departments to get out of the dash-board, scoreboard, and reporting busi-ness and focus on other value-added initiatives.

to keep up with the pace of business, successful enterprises are refining strategies, introducing new offerings, launching new marketing campaigns, or even acquiring companies. Executives are focused on optimizing supply chains, increasing customer satisfac-tion, im prov ing workforce productivity, and outsourcing noncore processes.

Does this describe your organization? Are strategic initiatives being carried out swiftly and effectively? Are you achieving the results you need? if you answered “no” or “not sure,” you’re not alone. Most businesses face a significant gap between strategy and execution; closing that gap is para mount to staying ahead of the competition.

why is there a gap between strategy and execution? Common reasons include the following:• Employees don’t understand organi-

zational strategy and don’t recognize how their decisions impact the organization.

• Employee incentive plans are seldom linked to organizational strategy, so individuals’ personal goals are not aligned with those of the company.

• Employees are not sure if the data they have is up-to-date, accurate, or valid because of manual updates and limited version control, leading to dis cussions as to which spreadsheet or report contains the “right” data.

• Organizations lack a systematic ap proach for linking strategic objec-tives with budgeting, planning, risk management, and reporting pro-cesses or for managing priorities and exceptions.

• there is no mechanism for capturing or sharing best practices across the company, requiring processes to be constantly reinvented.

these issues cannot be addressed by providing easier access to financial data – or even basic scorecard and dash-board functionality showing key per-formance indicators and other metrics. Financial figures can show if your com-pany is meeting or exceeding target revenues, profitability, and cost-cutting goals, but they are not useful for

executive SuMMAryClOSE thE gAP BEtwEEn StrAtEgy AnD ExECUtiOn

4 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

trying to execute on high-level corpo-rate strategies without a strategy man-age ment solution is akin to managing com plex, long-term, and business-critical projects without collaborative project management software. without it, how can your project managers structure a project so that activities and tasks are clearly linked to the larger objective? how can anyone really know the true status of the project, its cost to date, and where the potential road-blocks are? And how can they allocate resources most effectively?

Similarly, when your organization relies exclusively on “siloed” information re sid-ing in dashboards, scorecards, and reports to manage execution of cor po-rate strategies, C-level executives, line-of-business managers, and employ ees are often at a loss, not sure about answers to some of the most funda-mental questions, such as:• what is our company’s long- and

short-term strategy?• what plans, budgets, and initiatives

do i need to undertake to feed that strategy?

• what strategies and initiatives may be at risk?

• which departments and individuals are responsible for making sure these strategies are executed?

• how do corporate strategies impact my day-to-day decisions and actions – and those of my co-workers?

• how are my decisions and actions impacting overall goals?

• how can i allocate resources and budget for maximum impact?

As these questions suggest, manage-ment and employees at all levels need a comprehensive, purpose-built strategy management solution that enables their organization to align from top to bottom. the solution should link strategic goals and objectives to initiatives and key performance indicators (KPis), enable collaboration on common goals, and provide the tools to monitor perfor-mance and make course corrections as necessary. it should also cascade any changes and interdependencies in the process. with the right solution in place, employ ees at all levels can answer these questions – and make day-to-day decisions that move your organization closer to its objectives.

Why DO StrAtegieS FAil?“SilOED” inFOrMAtiOn APPrOAChES ArE nOt EnOUgh

5SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Drive executiOn FOr Better PerFOrMAnceAligning gOAlS, initiAtivES, AnD KEy PErFOrMAnCE inDiCAtOrS

the SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management application integrates all three pillars of strategy management: goals, initiatives, and KPis. Only when these elements are aligned and linked can your orga ni zation hone decision making and achieve its objectives – both short- and long-term objectives. here’s why.

• Goals Most organizations have developed goals and objectives, and some have formalized them into a strategic plan. But too often, only a select few indi-viduals understand exactly what the goals mean and how the goals should affect what they do. to improve per-for mance, goal setting must involve more stake holders, be more inter-active, be updated more frequently, and tie explicitly to organizational operations and initiatives.

• Initiatives too often, managers and employees are assigned to a project – but they have no real understanding of why the project is important in the greater scheme of things. Consequently, they tend to prioritize projects with the most political capital or those that are furthest behind schedule. Project participants need better insight into the strategic relevance of projects so that they can make informed choices about which projects should take precedence over others.

• Key performance indicators with the recent proliferation of dash-boards and scorecards, organizations have gone from drowning in data to drowning in metrics, ending up with hundreds or thousands of static met-rics that are updated monthly, weekly, or daily. Besides being a resource drain, metrics are often viewed as “unreliable” because they are usually updated manually without version control. in addition, most employees believe that only “experts” under-stand what they mean and how to use them. Organizations need KPis that everyone trusts, complete with drill-down functions and the ability to create personalized, reconfigurable views that are relevant to each employee.

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Manage ment connects these pillars of strategy management to help drive execution efficiently.


SAP BuSineSSOBjectS StrAtegy MAnAgeMentDriving ExECUtiOn ACrOSS thE EntErPriSE

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man-agement is a com prehensive, purpose-built application that enables your orga-nization to link strategic plans visibly to initiatives, measures, performance goals, tasks, budgets, and people. it address-es the needs of both the orga nization and individual users. it provides execu-tives with the tools to communi cate and man age goals, initiatives, and KPis – from initial definition to completed exe cu -tion. And because the software enables

management to distill strate gies down to initiatives and tasks in a visual and highly intuitive way, it pro vides all employees with actionable plans that they can understand and work from. they are empowered to leverage their collective intelligence; make informed, day-to-day decisions that support strate gies; work collaboratively to meet goals; and under stand exactly how they are bring-ing value to the business. As a result,

C-level executives can be confi dent that the strategies defined in SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Manage-ment are translated into execution by their line-of-business heads and infor-mation workers.

Closing the Gap Between Strategy and Execution

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man age ment helps you solve the under-lying challenges of strategy manage ment by closing the gap between strategy and execution. the result is support for end-to-end strategy management that helps your organiza tion become more aligned via better communication, more collaboration, and prioritization of initia-tives and resources to achieve its goals swiftly and confidently.

Communicating Strategies and KPis with Powerful visualsSAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man age-ment provides a much-needed struc ture to visualize (and manage) plans and resources top down and bottom up. Equally important, it delivers the tools you need to communicate strategic goals effectively – either with purpose-built diagrams, such as “path ways,” or cus-tom diagrams already in use within your company. As a result, employees have a more com plete understanding of cor-porate goals and how their contribu tions can help the company achieve those goals. in addition, managers and analysts

– and even other departments – can take advantage of links to budgeting and reporting functions to monitor progress and roadblocks. For example, for a given initiative, all of the roles, under lying KPis, and factors feeding into the goals are captured.

Fostering greater Collaboration with Access to role-Appropriate informationSAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man-agement helps build an active com-munity of performance manage ment stakeholders not only by promoting bidirectional communica tion, but also by making data available in a contextu-ally appropriate way. with secure, role-based access to data from across the enterprise and by using inter dependency (“fishbone”) diagrams, employees can better understand how their work affects (and is affected by) other stakeholders and departments. they can quickly measure ongoing pro gress toward their objectives, assess risk, and determine where efforts are most needed. giving everyone easier access to performance-related infor ma tion increases transpar-ency regarding activities underway in other depart ments and promotes greater collaboration. For example, your vice president of sales can give the director of marketing direct access to pipeline data so they can work together on ini tia -tives to meet revenue goals. Users can choose to subscribe to notifica tions about initiatives within other depart ments to help them collab orate more effectively.


Simplifying MonitoringPerformance reports and operational reviews are part of every organization’s activities and involve different audiences ranging from staff and board members to shareholders and the public. Business users have self-service access to the data they need in contextually appropri-ate, personalized ways – without involv-ing your it department. Because the software offers transparency across all performance-related data throughout the enterprise, stakeholders can trust the data behind the reports, even drilling down for additional levels of detail.

with SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management every thing required to pre-pare for any type of operational review is central ized, consolidated, consistent, and instantly available for publication. this not only saves valuable – and costly – prepara tion time for information work-ers across the organization, but also enables man age ment to define a more structured, consistent preparation pro-cess for operational reviews. with data in one “system of record,” employees can consolidate and present relevant information and KPis for their target audience in minutes.

intelligently Measuring Performance and riskleveraging SAP technology, SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Manage ment can consolidate data from systems run-ning SAP and non-SAP software so you

can interact with performance-relevant information regardless of the source. For example, via integration with SAP BusinessObjects governance, risk, and compliance solutions, key risk indi ca-tors can be displayed alongside KPis, enabling proactive identification of strategies at risk. likewise, the appli ca-tion can automatically detect and com-municate “below horizon” objectives so that you can proactively manage exceptions and head off problems. this is especially helpful in situations where your company may appear to be per-form ing according to plan, but in reality there may be a danger of failure.

in addition, the software enables man-agement to prioritize and weight initia-tives based on their impact on strategic goals, which enables resources to be deployed effectively and informs employ ees how to focus their daily actions.

Empowering Business Users – and Freeing Up IT Resources

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management gets your it department out of the dashboard, score card, and reporting business, which frees staff to focus on value-added ini tia tives. At the same time, it provides your exe cutives, departments, and business units with a flexible, long-term solution for monitor-ing, tracking, managing, and reporting on operational performance. with direct

access to structured data via a one-time connec tion to core oper a tional systems running SAP and non-SAP software, business users can em ploy self-service functions to import or add unstructured data manually as needed.

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management is an “open” application. Once deployed, it enables you to lever age your organiza tion’s current invest ments in SAP and non-SAP solutions for even greater business value. it’s tightly integrated with core SAP busi ness applications such as SAP ErP, SAP Customer relationship Manage ment, and SAP Supply Chain Management. Equally im portant, it’s easier to admin ister via a single management console.


Key FunctiOnS OF SAP BuSineSSOBjectS StrAtegy MAnAgeMentKEEPing EMPlOyEES inFOrMED, COllABOrAting, AnD wOrKing MOrE EFFiCiEntly

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man-age ment delivers a set of functions that address the needs of all stakeholders (executives, line-of-business managers, and information workers) across your enterprise. Key functions are grouped into the following categories:• home screen • Strategy • initiatives • Scorecards• Dashboards• reports

Across all these areas, the software provides the following universal func-tions that help employees stay informed, collaborate more effectively, and work more efficiently:• threaded and searchable comments

facilitate effective discussions and collaboration, timely notifications and problem resolution, and efficient sharing of best practices throughout your organization.

• Archivable notifications and subscrip-tions inform employees of changes to goals, initiatives, and metrics or when specific action is required, ensuring that everyone is aware of the latest performance information.

• Distributed entry, approval, and publish ing streamline the process for getting performance management–related data – including objectives, targets, metrics, KPis, and initiatives – into SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management.

• Print-quality formatting takes the guesswork and manual labor out of creating documents that are consis-tently formatted and easy to read.


Personalizing Information at Employees’ Fingertips

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man age-ment provides a familiar web-based, user-friendly inter face that encourages adoption and minimizes ramp-up time (see Figure 1).

the home screen gives employees a personalized experience with access to their own view into SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management. From the home screen, users access their in-boxes to view alerts, which are triggered auto mat-i cally when predetermined thresholds are reached. they can instantly see

what performance information has changed recently or the latest status of risk priorities. Every thing they need to prepare for operational reviews is at their fingertips.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

Personalized performance summaries track objectives, initiatives, and metrics that are important to themPersonalized bookmarks highlight any page in the application for quick access from their home pageSubscription-based alerts Subscribe to wireless-enabled alerts to receive instant noti fi ca tions regarding changes to rele-

vant goals, initiatives, and metrics. For example, a call center manager can subscribe to alerts regarding any new marketing campaigns that could gen erate increased calls – information the manager needs to add staff appropriately. the software archives these alerts in a reposi tory, which eliminates concerns over lost or misfiled e-mails.

integrated operational reviews gain one-click access to published operational reviews – functionality that can transform opera tional reviews from an occasional event to an ongoing process

risk priorities for risk intelligent strategy Display risk priorities and score objectives on key risk and key performance indicators from their home page. industry-leading innovation and integration with the SAP® BusinessObjects™ governance, risk, and compliance solutions provide a “heat map” that shows the probability of risk occurring.


Figure 1: Personalized Performance and Risk Summaries


Increasing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Operational Reviews

Operational reviews are a vital part of the enterprise performance manage-ment process. ideally, your executives would like to have weekly, monthly, and quarterly reviews. the challenge is that employees often need months to organize the data, so the frequency is usually determined by feasibility rather than business need. without the right tools in place, employees typically rely on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Microsoft Access databases, and third-party intelligence queries to gather data from disparate systems and process it for reporting. Monthly reports can take several weeks to prepare and tie up dozens of people across different busi-ness areas. Complicating matters further is the fact that analysts typically need

to make arbitrary decisions about what data to include, resulting in conflict ing reports. And in the end, there is no single version of corporate truth.

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management simplifies and formalizes the process of process ing, gathering, and distributing informa tion for opera-tional reviews. Because users can link strategies to specific goals and initia-tives – and then link those to all of the metrics, activities, people, budget, and other data related to an initiative – all relevant data can be rolled up into high-level reports with drill-down func tion ality (see Figure 2). Everything is cap tured in one system of record, so pre paring for operational reviews is simply a matter of creating Adobe PDFs of the relevant screens from within SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Manage ment. there is no need to bother it with report

requests, as even custom reports can be handled by business users.

By simplifying and standardizing the operational review preparation pro-cess, SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man agement can save your company thousands of working hours each year in data gathering and reporting. Execu-tives can establish clear expectations for reporting during opera tional reviews. All operational review reporting comes from the same trusted source – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Manage ment – rather than someone’s spreadsheet, so concerns about data accuracy and validity are minimized. in addition, the reports are optionally “live.” this means you have access to the latest data and review status because the reports are linked directly to the actual data source. Updates to the data are reflected back to the operational reviews in real time.



User-driven publishing Capture context-specific information within the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application and instantly publish “briefing books” tailored for different audiences. For example, while executives may only want to see pages on initiatives, goals, resources, and team summa ries, project managers may require pages that provide additional layers of detail so that team members can discuss contingencies, dependencies, and more.

instant access to support operational reviews

go beyond the data published in a briefing book by instantly accessing the latest performance data during a live operational review

Annotations Add annotations throughout an operational review to highlight key points and ensure that those less familiar with results know the real story behind the performance data

Export to Adobe PDF Save operational review materials as an Adobe PDF and then distribute to constituents without access to SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management; readily print, e-mail, view as a slide show, or publish to a web site

12 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management12

Figure 2: Operational Review


An important aspect of motivation is presenting stakeholders with the big picture of your organization’s key long- and short-term goals. For example, the application’s “pathways” and strategy plans can go a long way toward helping stakeholders see the entire picture of how your organization seeks to achieve its vision. Pathways provide a high-level road map for the organization, illustrat-ing a systematic path to achieving it. Strat e gy plans show the relationship be tween various strategic objectives and tell the story of how they enable the

orga niza tion to achieve its overall mis sion – a step toward your company’s vision.

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management supports the strategy development process by transforming static, written plans developed by exe-cutives into “living” strategy docu ments that employees can use to discuss, share, and update goals. these docu-ments can include rich contextual visu-al izations that drive greater under stand-ing of strategic objectives across your organization (see Figures 3 and 4).

Making Strategy Relevant to Employees at All Levels

Managing goals requires more than simply displaying current objectives; it requires that you motivate people to execute on the objectives. if you fail to get stakeholders interested in their roles and mindful of the importance of their contribution, you have an army of employees operating with disparate agendas and doing little to advance organizational objectives.



“Pathways” Use pathways diagrams, the first of their kind in the software industry, to depict graphically the progressive stages and desired performance targets involved in realizing an organization’s short-, medium-, and long-term vision; understand the phases – which goals play primary roles and which goals must be prioritized

interactive goal diagrams with optional scoring Create interactive goal diagrams that provide one-click access to richer information such as detailed descriptions and supporting initiatives; gain a greater understanding of your organization’s goals; add scores to individual elements of a goal diagram so that it can be converted into a traditional performance scorecard

Purpose-built and custom diagrams visualize operational data using different approaches by selecting the format that is most intuitive to them or easily understood by their target audience, from strategy maps and process diagrams to goal summaries. As users switch from one format to another, these diagrams never lose interactivity (such as drill-down functionality) or supporting and related documentation. Users can import existing graphics and easily create new one-page visualizations, which can help in working with others to gain strategy adoption.

Cause and effect gain a better understanding of which objectives play primary, secondary, or tertiary roles in meeting other objectives


Figure 3: “Pathway” Diagram Showing Progress on Strategic Objectives and Vision

Figure 4: Rich, Contextual Visualization for Greater Understanding and Accountability


Linking Initiatives and Prioritizing Daily Operations

typically, senior executives define the larger strategic objectives for their organization; for example, increasing sales in latin America. Executives may define specific benchmarks to measure performance against that objective, such as doubling revenue by the end of the first quarter and tripling revenue by the third quarter. initiatives are the oper a tional programs organizations

undertake to achieve larger strategic objectives; for example, hiring more sales reps in latin America in the first quarter and launching an advertising campaign in subsequent quarters.

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man-agement provides a clear link between your operational processes and the objectives impacted by a given initia tive. the application pro vides simple sum-mary views of initiatives supporting over-all objectives, as well as functions for

viewing the milestones supporting each initiative, the interdependencies between them, and schedule and budget status. this visibility facilitates collaboration, helps identify bottle necks, and enables proactive action. the soft-ware goes beyond simply tracking proj-ect resources and activi ties by helping your stakeholders prioritize and focus resources appropriately – even in the face of conflicting tasks – so that resources always support the most critical milestones.



“Fishbone” visualizations identify and resolve bottlenecks within an initiative by seeing the links between each stra-tegy, goal, initiative, resource, and other elements of a plan using fishbone visualiza tions (see Figure 5), which highlight critical interdependencies among milestones

initiative summaries gain insight into how initiatives impact goals and objectives by viewing an at-a-glance summary of the status of multiple initiatives across your business

initiative prioritization Focus on the right work and make the right decisions to support strategic objectives by using an innovative prioritization matrix. it provides an at-a-glance view of initiatives’ relative im portance and urgency, as well as the dependencies among individual initiatives and milestones (see Figure 6). this insight helps ensure that both management and information workers always know what is expected of them and when, as well as how their choices and actions impact other aspects of initiatives.

initiative filtering Focus their attention on exactly what they need to get their work done, thanks to a display of initiatives by specific properties such as owner, budget or schedule status, and related objectives. this filtering, or narrowing of focus, prevents employees from feeling overwhelmed and ensures that they always know what to prioritize, from a task perspective.

initiative scoring gain insight into strategic projects linked back to business goals by tracking strategic ini tia-tives’ impact on key performance indicators (KPis) and by scoring initiatives based on KPi status

Distributed ownership Assign ownership of overall initiatives and individual milestones to different people, thereby promoting effective collaboration and ensuring employee accountability


Figure 5: Fishbone Diagram Showing Interdependencies Among Initiatives

Figure 6: Prioritization Matrix with Relative Importance, Urgency, and Dependencies


Giving Departments Greater Con trol and Visibility with Scorecards

Once your organization has defined its strategy and started to execute specific initiatives to achieve it, you need a way to monitor progress on a regular basis. this requires that mechanisms be in place to track progress systematically and alert stakeholders not only to issues, problems, and failures, but also to bright spots and successes. Stake-holders can then react quickly to prob-lems, identify where things are broken, and correct issues in a timely manner. they can also identify what’s working well and share this information with other groups.

implementing tracking functions such as scorecards has traditionally involved the creation of multiple departmentally focused, disconnected reporting initia-tives, each managed by the it depart-ment as a separate project. Often, the it department has no context as to why business units need access to opera-tional data or how that data will be used. Consequently, business units end up with inadequate levels of detail and in adequate functionality, and the it depart ment is frustrated and overtaxed by new requests for information. And because business units tend to base reports on different data sources and views, they generate reports with con-flicting figures – a real frustration for executives. while it departments can address some of these issues by forcing standardization on a set of scorecards

– as well as re ports and dashboards – it also means that it is perceived poorly because busi ness units can’t person al-ize their views.

these types of traditional, narrowly focused scorecard approaches can be a one-off answer to solving a larger busi ness problem around decision making and alignment. Scorecards can create organizational tension by high-lighting problems that one group denies (lacking full understanding of the data source, how it is scored, and so on) or because the scorecard considers only one view of the business. nor are score cards usually linked to goal setting, the planning process, or resource plan-ning. As a result, they are rarely trusted by anyone other than the few people who created them.



readiness scorecards get nearly unlimited views of performance. views include a readiness scorecard that helps employees determine when to move to the next phase of an implementation. the views also provide an objective scorecard to monitor performance toward goals and a key perfor mance indicator (KPi) scorecard to consolidate key financial and operational indicators. to ensure buy-in, key stakeholders are formally engaged in the process of setting up these scorecards.

Flexibility to combine and weight KPi types Use dashboards to track various types of measures, including qualitative and quantitative, leading and lagging, and financial and operational measures. Use dashboards to monitor subjective or intangible objectives, such as analyst reviews, customer affinity, brand effec-tiveness, employee satisfaction, and field feedback. weight multiple KPis to reflect relative importance to provide a more meaningful view of performance status and the initiatives that will have more impact on strategic goals.

Support for multiple targets Compare actual performance against different sets of expectations, both internal and external, with software support for multiple targets – including budget, forecasts, and benchmarks

Flexible scoring Score performance using multiple grading models, such as “traffic light” (red, green, or yellow), “grade” (A, B, or C), or “gladiator” (thumbs up or thumbs down) approaches. Using the most appropriate model for your business and communication objectives can increase employee understanding of results and improve adoption of the software.


with SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management, score cards are viewed as just one of several options for monitoring and tracking pro gress (see Figure 7). they provide users with a personalized view of progress toward specific outcomes and access to supporting detail via drill-down func-tionality. Since all of the underlying data comes directly from core operational applications and is used by SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management to populate KPis and enable planning and other activities, stakeholders know where the scorecard results are coming from and how the results were generated. they can also drill down into figures to access support ing data (see Figure 8).

Figure 7: Scorecards for Objectives, Initiatives, and Key Performance Indicators

Figure 8: Insight into Changes and Trends Provided by Drill-Down Scorecard Functions


Fast Access to Supporting Data with Dashboards

Most companies lack the mechanisms required to track implementation pro-gress systematically and alert stake-holders not only to issues, problems, and failures, but also to successes. SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Manage ment empowers departments to create dash-boards that suit their particular needs. Plus, the data displayed in dashboards comes from a central repository of

accurate, real-time operational data – one version of the corporate truth that all stakeholders can agree upon. these live, role-based dashboards enable users to monitor critical input and out put met-rics for a given function, orga ni zation, or role. For example, a marketing director’s dash board might include summary infor ma tion about advertising costs per lead, while a sales manager’s might include new opportunities created, deals stuck in the pipeline, and sales perfor-mance by region.

Unlike static dashboards that provide only summary information, dashboards in SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management can be linked to underly-ing analyses, enabling deeper investi-gation to isolate and understand the drivers of performance (see Figure 9). Dashboards can be expanded beyond functional groups and made public (for everyone to view) or kept private (to be viewed only by the individual who created it).



live dashboards with drill-down functions Use integrated drill-down functions to go directly from dashboards into related reports to isolate and understand performance drivers and roadblocks to progress and probe more deeply into areas of interest. Dashboards are automatically refreshed to ensure that the most up-to-date data is always available.

role-based dashboards Create an unlimited number of dashboards by departments or business units; tailor dash-boards for specific users, objectives, or groups; and share dashboards with all users, limit to a group, or keep private

Packaged dashboard templates Build a dashboard from scratch or personalize an existing one to better fit their needs, taking advantage of a wide variety of dashboards included with the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application, such as benchmarking, trending, ranking, and contribu-tions dashboards

Multiple-model dashboards get a broader view of performance with dashboards that can include up to four different panels, with each panel pulling data from different data sources

Scorecard filtering Focus their attention on issues that demand immediate attention by limiting the display of scorecards to specific properties such as organization, region, time period, or score

Automatic notifications receive automatically generated notifications – in the form of annotations – when objec tives look fine on the surface, but may actually be in danger of failing

Key performance indicator (KPi) summaries Monitor the health of KPis by providing viewing details such as KPi descriptions, gaps be-tween actual and target figures, trends, and comments. these summaries provide context for KPis so that everyone understands how changing numbers actually impact perfor mance. trending of KPis over time helps employees at all levels understand not only how they did last week, month, or quarter, but how they have been doing over an extended period of time.


Figure 9: Live, Actionable Dashboards Showing Results in Context


Empowering Business Users with Self-Service Reports

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management gets it out of the report generation business – and empowers executives, line-of-business managers, analysts, and information workers to run standard reports by themselves using the most up-to-date corporate data.

the software includes a user-friendly interface enabling busi ness users from different functional areas to measure ongoing progress toward objectives quickly. And unique features, such as “time intelligence” functionality, make it easier to modify attributes and create user-defined hier archies for customized analysis – with out placing additional demand on it.

For analysts seeking more in-depth analysis to aid decision making, ad hoc analysis functions provide virtually boundless options to measure and uncover the root of performance issues (see Figure 10). integrated forecasting functions help analysts project future performance and plan ahead based on current data.



Dynamic reports with ad hoc analysis Create dynamic reports rather than traditional static reports, drill deeper into areas of interest, and save reports as a bookmark for later review, thanks to integrated business intelligence

Packaged analysis templates Choose from a wide variety of analytic templates to analyze information, including ranking, trending, and forecasting templates

Flexible charting Chart data using multiple options, selecting the visualization option and colors most appropriate for displaying data in reports; save charts for future use

Performance comparison versus previous periods

Examine progress versus historical performance, viewing performance by comparing specific dates (as defined by the employee), relative dates (for example, latest day, previous day, last seven days, and previous month), and the latest date versus previous equivalent (for example, current month versus same month prior year)

report descriptions write report descriptions that provide context to other readers; for example, they may include a statement about the report topic and the source of the data


Figure 10: Ad Hoc Analysis with Drill-Down Functions Showing Source Data and Metrics


Administrative Functions

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man age-ment lightens the burden on infor ma tion workers and it staff by providing uni ver-sal functions that streamline data entry and approval processes and support self-service functions for ease of con-fig uration and modeling.


Feature What It Does

User management engine in the SAP netweaver® technology platform

integrates with active directory or lightweight directory access protocol (lDAP)

Authentication Enables secure network communication using SAP® logon tickets and client certificatesApplication authorization Provides role-based access to application components and supports management of

application roles in the SAP BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management applicationData access Control access to data at the table, row, and cell level


Entry and Approval FunctionsSAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man age-ment includes a distributed and dele-gated entry, approval, and publishing component, unique in the industry, that streamlines the process of populating metrics into a perfor mance manage ment application. An easy-to-follow workflow function provides struc ture around a

traditionally labor-intensive process, alleviating costly errors and significantly reducing the time spent on metrics collection and approval. Additionally, this approach allows your organization to collect metrics quickly without the need to inte grate transactional applica-tions or estab lish a data warehouse just for one or two metrics.



Distributed entry and approval Divide and assign work across different employees to lighten the workload of any one person, which may encourage employees to make more frequent updates of performance information, resulting in more up-to-date and accurate reporting

Automatic notifications receive automatic notifications through their home page when they need to enter, approve, or publish metrics, resulting in fewer bottlenecks in performance management processes

web forms and Microsoft Excel templates Enter values for metrics using forms built into the software or via Microsoft Excel. Employ-ees can import data from Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or enter data via a Microsoft Excel–based template. they can also enter data manually using the software’s web-based entry and approval method for entering data.

Flexible collection methods Manually enter some values, such as targets, forecasts, and survey data, or take advan-tage of predefined automated entry of values, such as actuals from source applications (the SAP® ErP application). this flexibility encourages more regular and accurate updates of performance data.

Audit trails verify compliance with company and legal requirements or gain insight into why actions were taken, using automatically generated audit trails that capture user interactions, includ ing time stamps for approvals, rejections, submissions, notes, and other related information

notes Add notes directly into the central database to capture information for future reference or to share best practices – rather than making calls and sending e-mails

Progress monitors Monitor the data entry approval and publishing process to get visibility into bottlenecks. A structured workflow for data entry, notifications, and approvals helps alleviate gaps, risks, and the time required to manage key performance indicators.


Configuration and Modeling FunctionsSAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man age-ment lightens the burden of already over-loaded it staff by support ing the distrib-ution of administrative tasks to multiple people throughout your organi za tion. Unlike software that relies on expert admin istrators, SAP BusinessObjects

Strategy Management promotes self-service, allowing every user to config-ure the application. Simi larly, unlike most business intelli gence tools, SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Manage ment allows business users to design and customize performance processes, models, and visualization methods

based on their requirements. And because it is built on open standards such as Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition, SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management easily fits into your exist-ing it environ ment and complements your organiza tion’s current applications.



Distributed administration Assign specific roles and permissions, such as user setup, key performance indicator (KPi) updates, and initiative creation, to the appropriate employees in other departments

Scheduling Use built-in scheduling to automate certain manual tasks such as hosting business reviews, gathering stakeholder feedback, and submitting reports, thereby ensuring consistency and repeatability

role-based security receive access to performance information appropriate for their rolehtMl model builder Create a standardized performance management data repository using the enhanced

modeling functionality of the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application. the modeling software builds on the functionality of the earlier version of SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management, replacing the Microsoft Excel–based cube builder with a web-based version. this new version provides for both model creation and mainte-nance and facilitates the addition, update, and deletion of metrics and dimension numbers, delivering consistency via shared metrics that help align operational execution with strategy.


the following software functions are now available through SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management:

Feature What It Does

Active directory or lightweight directory access protocol (lDAP) integration

Minimizes duplication of information and supports single sign-on access by importing user information from your organization’s own authentication systems

Audit trails and logging Enhances application integrity by keeping track of who did what and whenCentral repository (see Figure 11) for key performance indicators (KPis)

Provides simplified, centralized administration of KPis, enabling KPis to be shared across all contexts, ownership and accountability to be assigned, and KPi definitions and types to be documented

SAP netweaver® technology platform integration

Enables metrics modeling in the SAP netweaver Business warehouse (SAP netweaver Bw) component, reads data in real time from SAP netweaver Bw or caches data in the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application, and easily leverages metrics to build KPis in the application

Architectural improvements (see Figure 12) in addition to simplified application maintenance and configuration as well as improved performance, there are improvements through the following components:• SAP netweaver Portal: single sign-on and ability to launch from the SAP netweaver

Portal component• SAP netweaver Bw: pass-through approach leveraging time-intelligence functionality of

the Pilot application server (PAS), while directly accessing SAP netweaver Bw• SAP netweaver: can leverage for scalability and failover; user management engine can

be leveraged for user creation

Figure 11: Central Repository of Key Performance Indicators


Application tier

Data tier

Data sources tier

Planning and consolidation

risk m

anagement

Figure 12: The Architecture Supporting Strategy Management

Client tier Browser-based interfaces:administrator, data entry, and end user

SAP® BusinessObjects™ web intelligence®

Crystal reports®

xcelsius®

Databases that comply with Microsoft open

database connectivity

Manual xMlSAP netweaver Bw

Flat files SAP BusinessObjects risk Management

SAP BusinessObjects Process Control

web-service consumers

xcelsiusSAP BusinessObjects voyager

Analyzer(Microsoft Excel client)

Universes in SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise

SAP netweaver® Composition Environment: Java application server 7.1

UsersUser management engine

lightweight Directory Access ProtocolWeb server

Central management system (optional)

htMl images web Service

Application repository


SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Performance Management Solutions

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Manage-ment is part of the SAP BusinessObjects enterprise performance management solutions – a comprehensive set of solutions that help your company cap-ital ize on the value of your existing data assets. with these solutions, your orga-nization becomes more agile, gain ing organizational alignment, visibility, and confidence to give you opti mal control and competitive advantage. these solu-tions can integrate with SAP Business Suite applications; SAP BusinessObjects governance, risk, and compliance solu tions; SAP BusinessObjects busi-ness intelligence solutions; and SAP BusinessObjects information manage-ment solutions. As a result, you can maximize business profitability, manage risk and compliance, and optimize cor-porate systems, people, and processes.

For More informationthe comprehensive functionality of SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management addresses the underlying barriers holding your organization back from understanding operational effec tive ness and achieving its strategic objectives. For more information, please visit www.sap.com/sapbusinessobjects /strategy_management.


www.sap.com/sapbusinessobjects/strategy_management


www.sap.com/contactsapQuicK FActS

50 084 168 (09/07) ©2009 by SAP Ag. All rights reserved. SAP, r/3, SAP netweaver, Duet, PartnerEdge, ByDesign, SAP Business ByDesign, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP Ag in germany and other countries.

Business Objects and the Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Crystal reports, Crystal Decisions, web intelligence, xcelsius, and other Business Objects products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects S.A. in the United States and in other countries. Business Objects is an SAP company.

All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serves informational purposes only. national product specifications may vary.

these materials are subject to change without notice. these materials are provided by SAP Ag and its affiliated companies (“SAP group”) for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP group shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. the only warranties for SAP group products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services, if any. nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.

Summary Business agility means that everyone – from C-level executives to front-line workers – needs to execute on changing strategies. Everyone needs to communicate plans clearly, translate them into priorities and tasks, and instantly monitor and report on progress to any level of detail. the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application empowers business users at all levels to rapidly align resources to execute on strategies, understand risk, and drive efficiency and profitability.

Business Challenges• Close the gap between strategy and execution• Cascade strategy to all stakeholders in the organization• Align and execute on changing strategic goals and initiatives• Monitor and report on progress – communicating changes as necessary• Manage exceptions, interdependencies, and priorities

Key Features• Communication – transform written plans into living documents that can be used with

employees to define, discuss, share, and update goals• Collaboration – Motivate employees and encourage greater collaboration by making

performance-relevant data available in a contextually appropriate, personalized way• Strategy management – Deploy resources more efficiently by understanding

interdependencies, “below horizon” objectives, risks, and the importance of initiatives to strategic goals

Business Benefits • Optimized performance through greater organizational alignment and strategy adoption• greater agility through more effective collaboration, communication, and understanding

of interdependencies, priorities, and risk• Better visibility into and control over the factors that affect your organization• More confidence in decisions and information when everyone works off the same data

and can react quickly to changing business needs

For More InformationCall your SAP representative or visit us online at www.sap.com/sapbusinessobjects/strategy_management.


SAP Strategy Management Deliver on Corporate Strategy with Enterprise-Wide Alignment .pdf

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