SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Reviews

We use SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse to store data from multiple source systems and derive analytics for customers.

Transformation is a valuable feature of SAP NetWeaver. I can transform the data as per my needs or my client's needs. For example, flat tables can be transformed with respect to our requirements to combine multiple modules into one single table, and we can derive analytics.

Connectors are complex, and it is difficult to understand or know which connector should be used. For instance, if I want to connect APIs, I will not be able to do it directly. I would have to go to the portal integration to get the data. Therefore, having simplified connectors will make things much easier.

I've been using this solution for the last 10 years.

It is stable 80% of the time. There are bugs that keep coming up 20% of the time, and we have to contact technical support.

SAP NetWeaver is scalable, and we have more 10,000 people using it worldwide in my organization.

Sometimes, the response from technical support is very slow, but at other times, the issue is resolved quickly. When a major patch is needed, at times it takes a long time because the issue may be passed from one team to another.

Overall, I would rate technical support at seven out of ten.

Neutral

The initial setup is not that difficult if you implement it one module at a time. For example, you could first implement the inventory model and then the purchase model or sales model.

The licensing cost is high for SAP NetWeaver compared to that for other products.

I would recommend looking at all of the solutions currently available and then decide. I would not immediately suggest going for SAP NetWeaver.

Being able to transform the data according to my requirements is a crucial feature; the phasing layers are helpful to distinguish data with respect to a specific project; analytics and reporting are very feasible; and the distribution of reports to the end users is also very easy. However, connectors need to be simplified, and technical support needs to be improved. Thus, on a scale from one to ten, I would rate SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse at eight.

I install the solution and give it to the developers. I do not deal with the business case.

The product performs well. It is a robust system.

The product could provide more features. The stability could be improved.

I have been using the solution since 2020.

The tool is stable. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten. We have three customers using the solution. In one of my organizations, 15 people use the product, and in another, 60.

The technical support team is very professional.

The installation takes one week.

Our company might be getting an ROI from the tool. Otherwise, they would have stopped working on it.

All SAP products are expensive.

We must have the knowledge to install or maintain the solution. From the technical point of view, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

We are an airline and use the system for data modeling and data warehousing, and we implement it for time performance and feedback analysis. I'm the business intelligence senior developer and we are customers of SAP. 

The data modeling is very valuable for us.

There are performance issues in terms of scalability and availability.

I've been using this solution for six years. 

The stability depends upon the infrastructure used for deployment.

There are some issues with scalability depending on the version. The latest version is much better. 

Customer support is generally good. 

Positive

The initial setup is moderately complicated but not too difficult. Deployment generally takes several months, depending on the size of the company. We are a large company and have a team of 10 that deal with maintenance.

There's an annual licensing fee for the package. 

I rate this solution seven out of 10. 

The primary use case of this solution is for reporting and data analysis for the business areas.

We're using it to have a consolidated and centralized data access point on which we build the data models and queries that are then distributed and consumed on the SAP BO solution (Webi reports and ad-hoc reports in Analysis for Office).

Data cleansed and harmonization. It provides us with proof of data, we can centralize all of the information, check it, and then provide the information to our users.

Technical support can improve by providing support in different languages. Sometimes, both customers and support are not English native-speaking people and the issue/resolution can be misunderstood.

We have been using SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse for three years.

This solution is much more stable now that it is powered by HANA and the performance has improved a lot.

Also, the critical issues that they had in the past are all gone.

This solution is scalable.

We have thirty to forty users.

The technical support is helpful, but at times it could be better. It is difficult when your native language is not English. It is difficult for us to explain our issue and also difficult for the technical team to explain a resolution to us.

Previously we did not use another solution, we have always worked with SAP.

It depends on the area we're building the data models. Some are easier than others. For some setups, we can use the straightforward BI content and take advantage of the templates provided.

Normally we do not use a vendor or integrator to implement this solution. We only use a third-party if it is requested.

No.

I was successful in connecting MS-PowerBI to the Business Warehouse.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We have around 30-35 distant BI applications related to value sources in our company, about a third come from SAP; different modules such as HR, accounting, and finance. The remainder are connected to a relational database application specific to airlines, and we lock the information from these external systems, the data stage and also LBW. I'm the business intelligence manager and in my previous company we were partners with SAP, but in this company we're customers. 

This is a very robust and efficient product. It's very powerful, in particular when it comes to data management in the SAP system. Time changing dimensions is one of the most interesting features that a business would use.

The solution could be improved by simplifying the modeling and the design. We're faced with too many options and too many object types. It could also be more user friendly as a programming language. The product could include more integration with the work bench and integration with Python would be very useful.

In the next release, I'd like to see more interaction with devices - tablets and mobile phones.  It could be a lot more efficient than it is now. At the same time, there could also be improvement in terms of reporting, particularly in terms of administration and monitoring.

I've been using this solution for 12 years.

The stability is really good and we also maintain the system. I would require probably a team of three as a minimum. Currently, we are a bit under-staffed but I think two or three would be enough to maintain a bare minimum of the business contents.

This is a scalable solution and it can be done quite easily. The product is suitable for medium to large size companies. Currently we have around 200 users connecting daily on this system. It would probably be a large investment for a small company.

Technical support has improved over the years. We get a good flow of regular information although it can be difficult keeping up with it all. Our support people are in India and they are pretty good. Sometimes we do need to make escalations. 

The main difference I've seen between products is the robustness and principle validation and the permission to production, which is very much under our control. It can add complexity and make things a little cumbersome like with SAP but it's also a guarantee of readability and strength. You have to weigh up complexity against more user friendly systems which are prone to mistakes. 

To have a very rapid proof of concept would take two or three weeks, it's pretty straightforward. For the deployment, I was assisted by a system administrator who was also trained and skillful with administrative set up. It was the two of us with an external consultant. 

My advice regarding SAP would be to build on top of the business content first and to push a maximum of availability there before looking to make adjustments for business needs. There is a lot of content and standard queries, many of which are unknown by the business before deployment. People think immediately about what they want instead of looking at what they are. It's worth exploring what's in the box because it covers a lot of business requirements. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.

We are an automotive dealer for Toyota, Lexus, Kia, Ford and several other reputed brands.. We use this solution for providing MIS reports and information to the Service department . 

It has helped our Service nanagement analyse information across various key performance indices quickly.

There are several features in the product that we use all the time and find very valuable. Data modelling and ETL (Extract, Transform and Load)  features are quite extensive in SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse. We use SAP Business Explorer (BEx) tools for creating reports.  The BEx Query and Web template are then published on the SAP Enterprise portal.

There are valuable tools in the product. The feature set is pretty robust. BEx Queries published on the SAP Enterprise Portal have excellent features for horizontal drill down, vertical drill down, creating bookmarks and filters.  It works with convenient drag-and-drop functionality. It is easy to add and remove key figures. It's an excellent over-all tool for managers to analyze their business.

 People using SAP BW have to undergo some training to be able to use the product. Complexity can be reduced and could be made a bit more user-friendly. Wizards could be introduced to assist in data modelling and creating data flows.

SAP are constantly  improving the product and adding new features. In next releases SAP have already made things simpler enabling data flows to be copied. 

We have been using the product for around nine years.

The product is very stable. Our Process chains which are scheduled execute as expected. Portal reports too have no stability issues. In case any assistance is required SAP have excellent global support. With BI 7, there's no issue we have with stability.

The product is quite scalable. They have a broad range of products for companies who want to upgrade or start smaller. There are multiple tools and other products. So, depending on the users' requirement, there's no shortage of products available to scale up. 

We currently have about 500 users and we have long-term plans to increase users. We get requirements for new employees and people who are transferred from one function or from one branch to another.

We scale up as per requirements.

The technical support from SAP is good. If we have any problems, we can use their ticketing system and they're able to call. They login to the system and they look into it, and they send whatever they determine that we need. We don't have any great problems.

Previously, we were using IBM tools for reporting. But these were not analytical tools. It was a programming language which we used it to develop reports. It did not have these analytical features that BW has like drilling down or across.

The deployment was a big project, so the initial deployment took a long time to roll out as per our first blueprint. It took almost a year and a half. There were several issues we faced in the first year and we continued to have some trouble for the first couple of years mainly due to a skill shortage.  We gradually gained some skills and experience on the product and things became better as time went on.

We had an implementation partner. BW was implemented  after SAP Dealer Business Management. The vendor had necessary level of expertise.

We also require time for maintenance. Currently, we have a monthly and weekly schedule.  Maintenance activities like Change log deletion, deletion of Persistent Staging area tables and compression of requests in cubes are automated. Periodically we get requests for enhancements or new report development . We also periodically do some  fine-tuning of aggregates  to improve report performance. 

We already have SAP Dealer  business management and whenever a new user comes on the system, we have to pay an additional licensing cost. But for the same user ID on the Enterprise Portal  there's no additional licensing fee.

We did evaluate other options before the company decided to choose SAP.

They looked at Oracle besides other dealer management  products.

We also considered development of a custom solution in .Net. Finally, we chose SAP Dealer Business Management and SAP BW for reporting.  It was an all-in-one solution and that's why we adopted it.

New users will go on to probably S/4 HANA (SAP high-performance analytic appliance). Because SAP has come out with a variety of products the business choice depends on the size of the company, the number of users, strategy, etcetra.Businesses intending to go to the cloud can now consider  SAP analytics cloud solution also. 

But whether it's a small, medium, or large company, SAP has solutions for everyone. It depends then on the business strategy of the company, what the IT strategy is, and then the company's plans for growth. For example, they have to account for how many users they plan to have over the next few years. They have to be clear on how much they are willing to invest in the solution. 

It also makes a difference if they want to analyze big data or not and what future plans are.

On a scale from one to 10, I would you rate this product about 8.5 to 9.  

SAP has already improved with S/4 HANA, SAP Leonardo, and they've got several features in all those products that are much better.They have got Business Objects suite. They have upgraded visual intelligence, and a lot of other features like the digital storyboard, and the geospatial features. The new versions have already got a lot of things.

SAP keeps innovating. Every few months, they come out with something new. Companies need to assess what they would like to go in for.

I'm an IT manager and my use case is implementing MSAP 4800 in my company. It's an FMCG company and we have 2,000 callers and sales representatives and we implement all the models. The product is being used by about 80% of our employees. Our plan is to increase usage and we're about to change the management procedures to convince our employees to use it as a primary tool for all work production. 

The security and audit procedures are the most valuable features.

I think more integration with other applications would be perfect.

The product is very stable and solid.

The product is scalable and very powerful. 

I have my core team in the company and second level support through SAP partners and then the SAP company is our third level of support. We do our own escalation but if we can't do it ourselves, it's done by the partner and if they can't do it, SAP gets involved. We have about six people in the team who deal with deployment and maintenance. 

Prior to implementing SAP, I used some local ERPs but finally, I found this to be the most powerful platform. So I switched from local ERPs to the SAP.

I recall that the initial setup had some complexity. We failed in one implementation and we succeeded in another one in 2015. We hired a professional consulting company to implement for us.

I think the product is a little bit expensive and there are additional costs above the standard licensing base which we pay extra for. 

My advice is to follow the best practices without making amendments or changing more than 20% in the SAP environment. Following procedures and best practices adds value to the company because the ERP comes to the company to change the procedures. The attitude would be anyone choosing the ERP must follow the best practice and stick to the SAP rules.

We had the product deployed on-premises but nowadays I'm doing assisted recovery work, so we have moved to AWS cloud. 

I would rate this product a 10 out of 10.

The primary use case is for the Vehicle Service function. Service users of the BW solution are able to view and analyse vehicle service information by slicing and dicing data across Time periods, Regions, Sub regions, Branches,  Plants, Vehicle types, vehicle models, customer groups, etc.

Queries based on the Data warehouse have enabled the Service department of the organization analyze data deeply and get insights into daily inflow and revenue as well as analyze data over time periods, various models, model years, by customer segment, etc. Reports generated from BW have helped immensely in providing inputs for the Annual Business Plan.

Data warehousing capabilities, ETL features, automation of data loads, cell calculation, Start and End routines. Cell calculation features have enabled  us to generate MIS reports with complex logic.

More standard extractors could be developed to avoid the need to develop custom extractors. Process to upgrade to latest versions of BW could be simplified. SAP has already taken steps in that direction.

We did not have any issues with stability.

We did have issues which were due to lack of in house expertise in performance optimization for increased volumes of data.

Customer Service:

Customer service was very good.

Technical Support:

Technical support was excellent.

Previously we were developing reports using RPG language on AS/400. It did not have data warehousing and analytic features.

The setup needs skilled resources in SAP BW. A lack of trained resources can create serious problems. We had an implementation partner which did the initial setup.

We implemented through a vendor team. The vendor's had the necessary expertise.

It was not specifically measured for BW only. For users who were licensed on SAP Dealer Business Management we did not have separate license costs for publishing BW reports on SAP Enterprise Portal.

You will need to get in touch with SAP regarding offers on its latest products. License costs will depend on number of users. It also depends on the product you procure. Users on Sap Enterprise Portal who already have a user license on SAP Dealer Business Management are not required to pay additionally.

Other options were analyzed including Oracle and developing reports in house as well as outsourcing options.

SAP has now come out with BW4HANA as well as the HANA Cloud Platform. Companies looking to implement SAP can benefit by going to HANA straight away. Companies which have implemented SAP BW can also get on to HANA if they are looking to modernize their setup and for a solution which can handle large data volumes.

SAP has also come out with SAP Leonardo for companies looking to go digital. It is a Cloud based offering on HANA which incorporates technologies like Machine Learning, Block chain, Big Data and Internet of things (IOT). SAP have also come out with Analytics on the Cloud.

Depending on the organisation strategy, vision and resources available, one will need to assess and decide on the way to go.

There are several features which are very valuable:

1. The predefined content which makes it easy to start BW as a data warehouse
2. The standard connector to SAP ERP which makes it easy to extract the data from the SAP system
3. Integrated business intelligence front end tools

With SAP BW, the organization can start to deploy a data warehouse and deliver data to business people. Data is not stored any longer in the ERP, but in a single point of truth (SPOT). With data, business people can make smarter decisions and improve the competitive advantage (improve performance, reducing costs).

The complexity of this data warehouse application is huge and makes it tough to manage and deploy it. In general, it requires a lot of know-how and time which makes it expensive to deliver fast answers. It is only possible with huge efforts to deliver really agile processes.

Yes sure, but not technical ones. As I wrote before, a lot of effort is necessary which makes a SAP BW project always expensive.

Yes sure, but not technical ones. As I wrote before, a lot of effort is necessary which makes a SAP BW project always expensive.

Yes, we did. I would say that scalability and performance are linked together. Sometimes SAP BW and the queries are not really fast. We encountered performance issues based on larger data sets via a multi-provider. SAP recommends the usage of the BWA or SAP HANA which means an investment in additional technology.

Difficult. There is a story that SAP received a list with 150 bugs in SAP BW in combination with SAP Business Objects. After a half a year SAP wrote that they could solve 50 of them. The did not write how they would fix it and what was happening with the 100 other bugs at least. But please note that some of these bugs were huge, but a lot were not.

The technical support is described together with customer service above. SAP has a lot of processes for customer service but customers need help and bugs fixing and not a nice hotline with brand new music or genteel call agents.

No previous solution was in place.

The initial technical setup was complex. There were a lot of requirements for installing and setup the system. SAP wanted to install it on their own and it failed several times. At the end they solved it and we could start.

First we used SAP, then moved to a SAP partner.

We did not calculate the ROI of this product because it does not make any sense. How can you evaluate the value of data for business departments? I do not believe in a ROI measure. I believe in decisions based on data. Without this, your ROI is even worse.

A lot, definitely a lot. There are a lot of tricks and fine approaches of how you can achieve a good pricing and licensing. I will not publish them in this review, but people who are interested can contact me directly.

Yes, we evaluated a lot of different options. First we defined the information architecture and confirmed that we need a data warehouse as a SPOT. We chose SAP BW but evaluated Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, SAS and open source technology.

Do not expect that it is cheap to implement a data warehouse based on SAP BW. You can start really fast if you left the first problems behind. The predefined content helps you very well in showing results after weeks. But at the end, when you are experienced with SAP BW and your business departments need more data and it is not in their data model(s), then you start with multi provider and the mess begins.