The Ledger

How CFOs Are Using Predictive Analytics to Improve Business Decisions

 “CFOs can play a prominent role in building and managing their organization’s analytics capabilities, especially given new tools that allow organizations to use analytics for predictive or prescriptive purposes and improve decisions around planning, capital allocation, investments, M&A and other areas.”

It is important for businesses to look beyond typical reporting and descriptive analytics for decision making. These outdated practices merely summarize what has already occurred. Business leaders are rapidly adopting predictive analytics, which can guide decision makers toward a profitable course of action through optimization and scenario analysis. Predictive analytics’ basic principle is that once an organization establishes an efficient statistical model based on past data, it can begin to extrapolate that data to look at the future. There are four areas where CFOs should be focusing their predictive analytics efforts to keep up with the competition.

Read More at The Wall Street Journal >

How Much Are Your Supply Chain Practices REALLY Costing You?

For complex manufacturers, last minute issues can be very common and often time consuming. Complex manufacturing means complex processes and machinery, and without a way to track progress or the ability to pinpoint an inefficiency, there is no way to predict what could happen in the future. In many instances when an issue arises, every department becomes focused on expediting the most pressing task or process to ensure things get done on time, resulting in additional costs. Instead of constantly putting out fires, these businesses need a fully-integrated business platform that enables full end-to-end visibility of the company’s entire value chain.

Read More at Industry Week >

First Steps in SAP S/4HANA Finance – Convert Batch Input Programs for Transaction AB01 into BAPIs

“If you are planning to create new assets via batch input, please note that batch input programs for AB01 are no longer supported in new Asset Accounting. If you are using customer-defined programs with batch input, you must convert these to BAPIs before you can generate new assets.”

Learn more SAP S/4HANA tips and tricks in Espresso Tutorial’s book, First Steps in SAP S/4HANA Finance >

Creating a Strong Foundation for an Intelligent Enterprise

To fully realize the promise of the intelligent enterprise, businesses need to move from their current architecture to a new, digital-ready environment. For partners, this often means confronting substantial customization and viewing every implementation end-to-end as a one-of-a-kind puzzle. Finding the right technology partner that fits the specific needs of the business is difficult, but at the end of the day it is the partners that are the driving force behind a high-performing organization. When committed to driving a successful transition to an intelligent enterprise, businesses should consider a variety of purpose-built tools and content to accelerate the journey and ROI.

Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >