SAP Solution in Detail
SAP BusinessObjects Portfolio
SAP­® BusinessObjects™ Strategy
Management
Deliver on Corporate Strategy
with Enterprise-Wide Alignment
SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise
Performance Management Solutions
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
mon­­itor and report on pro­
gress to any level of detail.
At the same time, em­ploy­
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
appli­cation can help. It’s an
intui­tive, readily deployed
appli­ca­tion that empowers
busi­ness users at all levels
to align resources rapidly to
execute on strategies, adjust
to changing market condi­
tions, and assess risk.
Content
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
Con­trol 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
Executive Summary
Close the Gap Between Strategy
and Execution
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, im­prov­ing 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 para­mount
to staying ahead of the competition.
4 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management
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
dis­cussions as to which spreadsheet
or report contains the “right” data.
• Organizations lack a systematic
ap­proach 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
man­­aging 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
com­panies increase operational align­
ment and agility. Intui­tive to deploy, it
empowers business users to rapidly
align resour­ces 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.
Why Do Strategies Fail?
“Siloed” Information Approaches
Are Not Enough

Trying to execute on high-level corpo­ • How are my decisions and actions

rate strategies without a strategy man­ impacting overall goals?
age­ment solution is akin to managing • How can I allocate resources and
com­plex, long-term, and business- budget for maximum impact?
critical projects without collaborative
project management software. Without As these questions suggest, manage­
it, how can your project managers ment and employees at all levels need
structure a project so that activities and a comprehensive, purpose-built strategy
tasks are clearly linked to the larger management solution that enables their
objective? How can anyone really know organization to align from top to bottom.
the true status of the project, its cost The solution should link strategic goals
to date, and where the potential road­ and objectives to initiatives and key
blocks are? And how can they allocate performance indicators (KPIs), enable
resources most effectively? collaboration on common goals, and
provide the tools to monitor perfor­
Similarly, when your organization relies mance and make course corrections as
exclusively on “siloed” information re­sid­ necessary. It should also cascade any
ing in dashboards, scorecards, and changes and interdependencies in the
reports to manage execution of cor­po­ process. With the right solution in place,
rate strategies, C-level executives, line- employ­ees at all levels can answer
of-business managers, and employ­ees these questions – and make day-to-day
are often at a loss, not sure about decisions that move your organization
answers to some of the most funda­ closer to its objectives.
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?

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 5

Drive Execution for Better Performance
Aligning Goals, Initiatives, and Key
Performance Indicators

The SAP BusinessObjects Strategy • Key performance indicators

Management application integrates all
three pillars of strategy management:
goals, initiatives, and KPIs. Only when
these elements are aligned and linked
can your orga­ni­zation 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
for­­mance, goal setting must involve
more stake­holders, 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.
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
Manage­ment connects these pillars of
strategy management to help drive
execution efficiently.

6 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
Management
Driving Execution Across the Enterprise
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­
agement is a com­prehensive, 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 orga­nization
and individual users. It provides execu­
tives with the tools to communi­cate and
man­age goals, initiatives, and KPIs –
from initial definition to completed exe­cu­­
tion. And because the software enables
management to distill strate­gies down to
initiatives and tasks in a visual and highly
intuitive way, it pro­vides 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 strate­­­gies; work
collaboratively to meet goals; and
under­stand exactly how they are bring­
ing value to the business. As a result,
C-level executives can be confi­dent
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
Man­age­ment helps you solve the under­
lying challenges of strategy manage­ment
by closing the gap between strategy
and execution. The result is support for
end-to-end strategy management that
helps your organiza­tion 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 Visuals
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­age­
ment provides a much-needed struc­ture
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 “path­ways,” or cus­
tom diagrams already in use within your
company. As a result, employees have
a more com­plete understanding of cor­
porate goals and how their contribu­tions
can help the company achieve those
goals. In addition, managers and analysts
SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management
– 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,
under­lying KPIs, and factors feeding
into the goals are captured.
Fostering Greater Collaboration with
Access to Role-Appropriate Information
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­
agement helps build an active com­
munity of performance manage­ment
stakeholders not only by promoting
bidirectional communica­tion, 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 inter­dependency
(“fishbone”) diagrams, employees can
better understand how their work affects
(and is affected by) other stakeholders
and departments. They can quickly
measure ongoing pro­gress toward their
objectives, assess risk, and determine
where efforts are most needed. Giving
everyone easier access to performance-
related infor­ma­tion increases transpar­
ency regarding activities underway in
other depart­ments 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 ini­tia­­
tives to meet revenue goals. Users can
choose to subscribe to notifica­tions
about initiatives within other depart­ments
to help them collab­orate more effectively.
7
Simplifying Monitoring
Performance 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 every­thing required to pre­
pare for any type of operational review
is central­ized, consolidated, consistent,
and instantly available for publication.
This not only saves valuable – and costly
– prepara­tion time for information work­
ers across the organization, but also
enables man­age­ment 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 Risk
Leveraging SAP technology, SAP
BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ment
can consolidate data from systems run­
ning SAP and non-SAP software so you
8 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management
can interact with performance-relevant access to structured data via a one-time
information regardless of the source. connec­tion to core oper­a­tional systems
For example, via integration with SAP running SAP and non-SAP software,
BusinessObjects governance, risk, and business users can em­ploy self-service
compliance solutions, key risk indi­ca­ functions to import or add unstructured
tors can be displayed alongside KPIs, data manually as needed.
enabling proactive identification of
strategies at risk. Likewise, the appli­ca­ SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
tion can automatically detect and com­ Management is an “open” application.
municate “below horizon” objectives Once deployed, it enables you to
so that you can proactively manage lever­age your organiza­tion’s current
exceptions and head off problems. This invest­ments in SAP and non-SAP
is especially helpful in situations where solutions for even greater business
your company may appear to be per­ value. It’s tightly integrated with core
form­ing according to plan, but in reality SAP busi­ness applications such as
there may be a danger of failure. SAP ERP, SAP Customer Relationship
Manage­ment, and SAP Supply Chain
In addition, the software enables man­ Management. Equally im­portant, it’s
agement to prioritize and weight initia­ easier to admin­ister via a single
tives based on their impact on strategic management console.
goals, which enables resources to be
deployed effectively and informs
employ­­ees 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, score­­card, and
reporting business, which frees staff to
focus on value-added ini­tia­tives. At the
same time, it provides your exe­cutives,
departments, and business units with a
flexible, long-term solution for monitor­
ing, tracking, managing, and reporting
on operational performance. With direct
Key Functions of SAP BusinessObjects
Strategy Management
Keeping Employees Informed, Collaborating,
and Working More Efficiently

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­ • Distributed entry, approval, and

age­ment delivers a set of functions that publish­ing streamline the process for
address the needs of all stakeholders getting performance management–
(executives, line-of-business managers, related data – including objectives,
and information workers) across your targets, metrics, KPIs, and initiatives
enterprise. Key functions are grouped – into SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
into the following categories: Management.
• Home screen • Print-quality formatting takes the
• Strategy guesswork and manual labor out of
• Initiatives creating documents that are consis­
• Scorecards tently formatted and easy to read.
• 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.

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 9

Personalizing Information at
Employees’ Fingertips
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­age­
ment provides a familiar Web-based,
user-friendly inter­face 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 auto­mat­
i­cally when predetermined thresholds
are reached. They can instantly see
what performance information has
changed recently or the latest status
of risk priorities. Every­thing 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
Personalized bookmarks
Subscription-based alerts
Integrated operational reviews
Risk priorities for risk intelligent strategy
Track objectives, initiatives, and metrics that are important to them
Highlight any page in the application for quick access from their home page
Subscribe to wireless-enabled alerts to receive instant noti­fi­ca­tions 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 gen­erate increased calls – information
the manager needs to add staff appropriately. The software archives these alerts in a
reposi­tory, which eliminates concerns over lost or misfiled e-mails.
Gain one-click access to published operational reviews – functionality that can transform
opera­tional reviews from an occasional event to an ongoing process
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.

10 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Figure 1: Personalized Performance and Risk Summaries

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 11

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 conflict­ing
reports. And in the end, there is no
single version of corporate truth.
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
Management simplifies and formalizes
the process of process­ing, gathering,
and distributing informa­tion 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 func­tion­ality
(see Figure 2). Everything is cap­tured
in one system of record, so pre­paring
for operational reviews is simply a
matter of creating Adobe PDFs of the
relevant screens from within SAP
BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ment.
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
Man­agement can save your company
thousands of working hours each year
in data gathering and reporting. Execu­
tives can establish clear expectations
for reporting during opera­tional reviews.
All operational review reporting comes
from the same trusted source – SAP
BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ment
– 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.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

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 summa­ries, 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 Go beyond the data published in a briefing book by instantly accessing the latest
reviews 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 Management

Figure 2: Operational Review

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 13

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.
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.
Strat­eg­ y plans show the relationship
be­tween various strategic objectives
and tell the story of how they enable the
orga­­niza­tion to achieve its overall mis­sion
– 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 docu­ments
that employees can use to discuss,
share, and update goals. These docu­
ments can include rich contextual visu­
al­izations that drive greater under­stand­
ing of strategic objectives across your
organization (see Figures 3 and 4).

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

“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

14 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

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

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

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 15

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
oper­at­ ional 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 initia­tive.
The application pro­vides 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 bottle­necks,
and enables proactive action. The soft­
ware goes beyond simply tracking proj­
ect resources and activi­ties 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.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

“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 visualiza­tions
(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
im­portance 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 ini­tia­
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

16 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

 Figure 5:
Fishbone Diagram Showing
Interdependencies Among Initiatives

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

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 17

Giving Departments Greater
Con­trol 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
in­adequate functionality, and the IT
depart­ment 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 re­ports and dashboards –
it also means that IT is perceived poorly
because busi­ness units can’t person­al­
ize their views.
These types of traditional, narrowly
focused scorecard approaches can
be a one-off answer to solving a larger
busi­ness 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
score­­cards 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.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

Readiness scorecards
Flexibility to combine and weight KPI types
Support for multiple targets
Flexible scoring
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 perfor­mance
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.
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.
Compare actual performance against different sets of expectations, both internal and external,
with software support for multiple targets – including budget, forecasts, and benchmarks
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.

18 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

With SAP BusinessObjects Strategy
Management, score­cards are viewed
as just one of several options for
monitoring and tracking pro­gress (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 support­ing 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

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 19

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 Manage­ment
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 out­put met­
rics for a given function, orga­ni­zation, or
role. For example, a marketing director’s
dash­board might include summary
infor­ma­tion 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).

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

Live dashboards with drill-down functions
Role-based dashboards
Packaged dashboard templates
Multiple-model dashboards
Scorecard filtering
Automatic notifications
Key performance indicator (KPI) summaries
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.
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
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
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
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
Receive automatically generated notifications – in the form of annotations – when objec­tives
look fine on the surface, but may actually be in danger of failing
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 perfor­mance.
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.

20 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Figure 9: Live, Actionable Dashboards Showing Results in Context

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 21

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 busi­ness 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 hier­archies for customized
analysis – with­out 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.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

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 Examine progress versus historical performance, viewing performance by comparing
periods 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

22 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

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

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 23

Administrative Functions

SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­age­

ment lightens the burden on infor­ma­tion
workers and IT staff by providing uni­ver­
sal functions that streamline data entry
and approval processes and support
self-service functions for ease of con­
fig­uration and modeling.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What It Does

User management engine Integrates with active directory or lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP)
in the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform
Authentication Enables secure network communication using SAP® logon tickets and client certificates
Application authorization Provides role-based access to application components and supports management of
application roles in the SAP BusinessObjects™ Strategy Management application
Data access Control access to data at the table, row, and cell level

24 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

Entry and Approval Functions
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­age­
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 perfor­mance manage­ment
application. An easy-to-follow workflow
function provides struc­­ture around a
Key features that enable this functionality include the following:
Feature
Distributed entry and approval
Automatic notifications
Web forms and Microsoft Excel templates
Flexible collection methods
Audit trails
Notes
Progress monitors
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 inte­grate transactional applica­
tions or estab­lish a data warehouse
just for one or two metrics.
What Employees Can Do
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
Receive automatic notifications through their home page when they need to enter, approve,
or publish metrics, resulting in fewer bottlenecks in performance management processes
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.
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.
Verify compliance with company and legal requirements or gain insight into why actions were
taken, using automatically generated audit trails that capture user interactions, includ­ing
time stamps for approvals, rejections, submissions, notes, and other related information
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
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.
SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 25
Configuration and Modeling Functions
SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Man­age­
ment lightens the burden of already over­
loaded IT staff by support­ing the distrib­
ution of administrative tasks to multiple
people throughout your organi­za­tion.
Unlike software that relies on expert
admin­istrators, SAP BusinessObjects
Strategy Management promotes self-
service, allowing every user to config­
ure the application. Simi­larly, unlike
most business intelli­gence tools, SAP
BusinessObjects Strategy Manage­ment
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 environ­ment and complements
your organiza­tion’s current applications.

Key features that enable this functionality include the following:

Feature What Employees Can Do

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 role
HTML 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.

26 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

The following software functions are now available through SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management:
Feature
Active directory or lightweight directory
access protocol (LDAP) integration
Audit trails and logging
Central repository (see Figure 11) for
key performance indicators (KPIs)
SAP NetWeaver® technology platform
integration
Architectural improvements (see Figure 12)
What It Does
Minimizes duplication of information and supports single sign-on access by importing user
information from your organization’s own authentication systems
Enhances application integrity by keeping track of who did what and when
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
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
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
SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 27
 Client tier

Planning and consolidation

Risk management
Browser-based interfaces: SAP® BusinessObjects™ Crystal Xcelsius®
administrator, data entry, Web Intelligence® Reports®
and end user

SAP BusinessObjects Analyzer Universes in SAP

Web-service Xcelsius Voyager (Microsoft BusinessObjects
consumers Excel client) Enterprise

Application tier SAP NetWeaver®

Composition Environment:
Java application server 7.1
Lightweight
Directory Access
Web server Protocol
User management Central
HTML Images Web Users engine management
Service system (optional)

Data tier

Application
repository

Data sources tier

SAP NetWeaver Databases that comply Flat files Manual SAP BusinessObjects SAP BusinessObjects XML
BW with Microsoft open Risk Management Process Control
database connectivity

Figure 12: The Architecture Supporting Strategy Management

28 SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management

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
ital­ize on the value of your existing data
assets. With these solutions, your orga­
nization becomes more agile, gain­ing
organizational alignment, visibility, and
confidence to give you opti­mal control
and competitive advantage. These solu­
tions can integrate with SAP Business
Suite applications; SAP BusinessObjects
governance, risk, and compliance
solu­tions; 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 Information

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

SAP Solution in Detail – SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management 29

Quick facts www.sap.com /contactsap

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 Information 50 084 168 (09/07)

Call your SAP representative or visit us online at
www.sap.com/sapbusinessobjects/strategy_management.
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