In the SAP community there is a significant volume of ‘chatter’ about lost IT jobs, ERP and BI outsourcing, Software-as-a-Service and cloud computing. In this blog, we will look at some real numbers and see how facts may provide a clearer picture on how our field is changing. By Dr. Berg

Some Background

Over the last decade there has been a substantial amount of outsourcing of ERP and BI in organizations. For instance, the London School of Economics estimate that 58% of all application development and 52% of infrastructure is either already outsourced or planned to be outsourced in 2011. There are however many models for how this is done.

Software as s Service (SaaS)

First we had the offshore model where the system support was moved to India or typically another Asian country. Now we see a growth in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). For example, in October 2010, InformationWeek surveyed 275 professionals and found that at least 60% of companies already use this method to outsource functions such as email, storage, backup etc., a increase from 47% in 2009.

SAP has also a SaaS offering called “Business ByDesign”. In February, 2011 SAP released this in its 2.6 version with a published base price of only $149 per month per user (this price varies based on volume discounts and the functionality included).  This is a significant step towards allowing companies to “drink milk – without having to buy a cow”…

Cloud Computing

Others have started to use cloud computing. The definition of this overlaps somewhat with SaaS, but it also entails using storage and applications that companies actually own, on rented networks, hardware with ‘virtualized’ scalability. According to a report from IDC, IT cloud spending will expand from $21.5 billion in 2010 to $72.9 billion by 2015 and one of every $7 spent on packaged software, service and storage offerings in 2015 will be related to the public cloud model.

Since the worldwide IT spending is increasing by 5.7% since 2010, this means that IT cloud services is growing at more than four times the rate of other IT spending..

The Impact of Outsourcing on IT workers has been Minimal.

The US Department of Labor found that in 2010, the number of IT workers employed in the US remained steady at 3,175,520 (in 2009 the number was 3,196,930).

When we factor out programmers (who declined by 9.31% to 333,620), the number of IT workers actually grew by 10,850. So, bad news for ABAP programmers, but a great development for ERP and BI application developers.

Also, the average salaries actually increased by $1,026 from $79,443 to $80,469. Since the national average salary is only $44,410, it is hard to argue that the recession and outsourcing has hurt the overall compensation of the IT workforce either.

Summary

Our field of IT development is morphing from programming to application configuration. How we do ERP and BI will change dramatically over the next 3-5 years.

We will shed magnetic disks. We will go to in-memory computing, SaaS will become the norm, and hardware will be in-the-cloud. But like always, this is a great time to be part of the change and learn new skills. The demand for overall ERP and BI workers will not decline, but the jobs will simply become more specialized…

To hear more on this topic, and perhaps share a glass of wine, meet me at the SAP Outsourcing Conference in Las Vegas in November 2-4...

Dr. Berg

In this blog we will take a look at a few examples of interactive dashboard features for Xcelsius. By using these capabilities, you can avoid searching for the ‘ultimate’ requirements and meet multiple requests. Following these ideas, you can increase your adaptation rate and make Xcelsius an integrated part of your analytics (note: all dashboard examples in this blog are from Comerit Labs and the data in the examples are not ‘real’)

By Dr. Berg

Going beyond the Norm – Use External Sources

Unfortunately, developers seem to believe that Google maps, news feed and other cool features are only for books and classroom learning. As a result, most dashboards developed today do not contain external interfaces and data. This is a mistake.

Users are holistic people, who love graphical interfaces. Therefore, don’t be afraid to add news feeds as banners, include maps for interactive analysis. Also, add simple graphs that users can toggle between (notice the lowest graph in the dashboard below can be displayed in four different ways).

By calling web services there are few limitations on how cool your dashboards can be. So have fun, build demos, proof-of-concepts and prototypes that show your users real options. Don’t wait for functional specs… 

More than one way to Show Data

Don’t force all users into a single view when creating dashboards. You can allow users to tab between columns graphs, bar graphs and tables when displaying data. By implementing this, you will get faster sign-off from representatives of your User Acceptance Team (UAT).

(note: all data in the examples are not ‘real’) 

Build Supporting ‘Detailed’ Dashboards

Avoid cramming too much detail into your summary dashboards. You can create more detailed dashboards by looking at top-n analysis (i.e. top-10 customers, vendors, materials etc). In these dashboards you can show more details without having significant performance issues. 

(note: all data in the examples are not ‘real’)

Data Table Dashboards

Sometimes, presenting data in tables in the ‘detailed’ dashboards can add significant value. Do not feel that every dashboard need at least five colors and as many graphs as possible. Sometimes, the users simply want more detailed information without having to jump to WebI, Crystal or BEx reports.

(note: all data in the examples are not ‘real’)

Naturally these table dashboards do not have lot of functionality, so other tools may be warranted for ad-hoc analysis.

Change Analysis Dashboards and HEAT maps

When looking at changes period over period, you can use a color coding scheme to create a heat map. This allows users to focus on trends and see information hidden in all the data. Notice how the ‘dining expenses’ has declined by more than 3% for all months. By color coding this green, we quickly see that we can ignore this expense category.

Variance and Negative Number Analysis

Not all numbers are easy to graph. For example, you cannot graph a negative number in a pie chart and make is useful. Also, if you present it in a table, users have to hunt for the information.

The solution is to create complex graphs where the axis is changed so that negative numbers can be displayed around zero. This is particularly useful for variance analysis (i.e. actual vs. budget, year over year etc).

You should also consider adding buttons so that variance analysis by amounts and percent can be done from a single dashboard.

Use of Colors

Sometimes colors can help users read boring data tables. This makes dashboards more visually pleasing than the use of borders. The trick is to use complimentary header and graph colors, so that the dashboard is more visually pleasing

More to Come…

In this blog we took a look at just a few ideas that you can leverage in your organization. In the next blog, we will take a look at more advanced Xcelsius features for desktop budgeting and what-if analysis by power users and show how users can change data inside tables, totals and by categories and save their analysis without impacting others…

See you at the Xelsisus Bootcamps this fall....

Dr. Berg