Efficient SAP Data Analysis for Informed Decision-Making

As the demand for processing and analyzing data continues to grow among many companies, so does the need for user-friendly self-service tools. Alteryx, a leading provider of data science and analytics tools, offers a solution in collaboration with its technology partner and SAP data integration expert, Theobald Software. This solution enables businesses to derive business value from existing SAP data without requiring deep technical knowledge or prior experience in data analysis. In an exclusive interview, Scott van Valkenburgh (SVP Global Alliances & Channels Leader at Alteryx) and Dieter Schmitt (General Manager and CRO at Theobald Software) discuss the synergies of their partnership and how it can help companies transform their SAP data into valuable insights without delay.

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Spotlight on SAP Data Integration: Insights into the Partnership

The challenges faced by companies in integrating SAP data are pervasive and varied. From complex data structures to the difficulty of linking SAP data with other sources, companies regularly encounter obstacles that hinder their ability to make informed decisions and respond quickly to operational requirements. For companies that have invested in SAP systems, these challenges are not only frustrating but also expensive. Time- and resource-intensive data integration and analysis processes can delay operations and impact competitiveness.

Scott Van Valkenburgh and Dieter Schmitt address these challenges in a joint interview, discussing the complexities of SAP data integration, the opportunities presented by the technological partnership between Alteryx and Theobald Software, and the impact on companies and customers. The experts provide valuable insights into the benefits of the joint solution and underscore the importance of seamless integration between SAP and Alteryx.

“We are incredibly excited about what we can achieve together to help customers solve these big migration issues and get better insights from their SAP data and connect it to other data.” – Scott Van Valkenburgh

Alteryx, the leading AI platform for enterprise analytics, and Theobald Software, the expert in SAP integration, have been collaborating for several years. This collaboration was recently strengthened in April 2023 through an official technology partnership The two IT companies have joined forces to provide an even broader range of businesses and departments with seamless, easy, and fast access to their SAP data within Alteryx with the Xtract for Alteryx solution.

The Challenge of SAP Data Integration

In many medium-sized and large companies, SAP systems play a central role in managing and analyzing business data. These companies invest significant time and money in their SAP investments to deploy the ERP system across various areas of the organization, including finance and controlling, sales, production, and more.

The finance department requires detailed insights into financial performance, sales needs an overview of customer data for conducting customer analyses and deriving appropriate measures and campaigns, and production and operations managers need insights into SAP data to monitor and optimize production processes. Additionally, many companies need to generate a monthly report for management providing insights into financial, production, and sales metrics to make informed decisions and act quickly as needed.

However, when companies attempt to access and analyze their SAP data, they often encounter obstacles: SAP data is often stored in complex table structures, and extracting and merging this data into a suitable format for analysis is a time-consuming and tedious task. Alternatively, companies may face difficulties linking SAP data with other data sources to obtain a comprehensive view of business performance. In other words, accessing SAP data is cumbersome.

Collaborating for Optimal Enterprise Data Integration

In this context – as Van Valkenburgh and Schmitt are confident – the partnership between Theobald Software and Alteryx becomes even more significant. By combining Alteryx’s powerful analytics tools with Theobald Software’s extensive expertise in SAP data integration, the partnership provides optimal conditions to assist companies in addressing challenges in SAP data integration and achieving their business goals.

The jointly distributed solution Xtract for Alteryx makes it possible. Customers essentially receive an “all-in-one solution.” SAP data sources can be seamlessly moved, transferred, and analyzed in Alteryx on a no-code basis using drag-and-drop, ultimately deriving valuable and well-founded insights. The extractions are triggered by the Alteryx Designer, eliminating the need for external solutions. Users can effortlessly enrich SAP system data with information from other Alteryx source systems and then integrate the combined data into a data flow.

“Our partnership takes the complexity out of how users get to their SAP data, how they move the data, and how they make sure they move the right SAP data. Our partnership makes it easy for users.”
– Scott Van Valkenburgh

Benefits for Companies from the Partnership between Alteryx and Theobald Software

Customer Satisfaction and Growth as Indicators of Success

In the interview, Van Valkenburgh particularly emphasizes two aspects regarding the success of the partnership: Firstly, Alteryx and Theobald Software can offer exactly the technology needed to address the aforementioned customer problems through technical collaboration. Secondly, the success of the partnership is reflected in high customer satisfaction. Companies using Xtract for Alteryx have a remarkably high satisfaction rate – evidence of the solution’s exceptional efficiency. Van Valkenburgh, with over 20 years of industry experience, emphasizes that such high customer satisfaction is rarely encountered.

This positive feedback is also reflected in the strong growth in customers. Since the beginning of the technological partnership, Alteryx and Theobald Software have seen a significant increase in their shared customer base. The high customer satisfaction, growth, and increasing demand confirm that Alteryx and Theobald Software have correctly identified customer needs and that the solution successfully supports customers in achieving their business goals.

“Think about the huge investments that all these major companies are making to modernize their SAP platforms. That shows how important seamless data integration is. Our partnership with Theobald Software and the Xtract for Alteryx solution offers our customers the ability to integrate SAP data seamlessly and quickly without disrupting business operations. A possibility that did not exist before.” – Scott Van Valkenburgh

Case Study: SAP Integration at Leading Food Manufacturer

One of the joint customers is a leading US-based food manufacturer with over 20 production sites, a pioneer in its industry. The company uses Alteryx to create Tableau reports displaying daily production data for various manufacturing areas. This allows the company to see exactly what and how much has been produced daily and directly align it with the needs of the Supply Chain Network (SCN). Originally, these reports were compiled manually by running multiple manual queries in the SAP system, saving the results in a text file, and then providing them to the Alteryx user. A laborious and time-consuming process.

Thanks to the seamless SAP integration of Alteryx using the Xtract for Alteryx interface, the company was able to completely automate this process, saving several hundred hours of tedious manual work per week.

Van Valkenburgh is convinced that the efforts of many companies to migrate and modernize their SAP systems will lead to similar successes in the future. The partnership between Alteryx and Theobald Software supports companies in this process and helps them achieve their goals faster than ever before.

Outlook and Future Perspectives: Key Initiatives

The continued collaboration between Alteryx and Theobald Software promises an exciting development towards artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud technologies in the future. Van Valkenburgh emphasizes, “We’re really betting on AI.” Alteryx has recently introduced impressive new tools such as Auto Insights, AI Studio, and App Builder. These innovations aim to expand the interoperability and reach of the Alteryx platform and enable users to complete their tasks more easily and intuitively, without having to be overly technically skilled.

These forward-thinking initiatives will strengthen the collaboration between Alteryx and Theobald Software and improve the performance of their solutions. The focus is on providing customers with seamless and user-friendly access to the most advanced analytics and integration tools.

Advanced Partnership for the Future

In conclusion, Van Valkenburgh emphasizes the importance of a strong partnership for customer success: “Our partnership is going into the future, what we are doing is helping customers get their job done.” The joint efforts of Alteryx and Theobald Software aim to assist customers in achieving their goals in an increasingly complex data landscape without having to deal with technical details. This shared vision aims to develop innovative solutions that can fundamentally change the way companies work with SAP data.

“Beyond the technology, the culture of our teams and the way we work together and support both our partners and our customers is pretty unique. It’s a special relationship and partnership that we have.”
– Scott Van Valkenburgh