London – November 22nd, 2012: Combining Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems such as SAP with business intelligence tools boosts timely management decision-making, research conducted on behalf of Tableau Software has revealed.

The study, by analyst firm Aberdeen Group, revealed that when BI and ERP co-exist, managers are able to find the information they need – when they need it – 73 per cent of the time. This is in comparison to ERP-only users, who said that this is only possible 59 per cent of the time.

The research also found that two out of every five business decisions taken by companies using ERP solutions alone are made without any supporting data, raising concerns that they could be ill informed.

Specifically, it found that 34 per cent of SAP users felt that their business decisions were based on inaccurate or incomplete data, while 28 per cent identified the overwhelming volume and complexity of business data as one of their biggest management information challenges.

Combining BI and ERP was also found to improve management processes and help to identify inefficiencies. The study found that companies using BI and ERP together are more likely than their peers to regularly monitor operational performance and take corrective action (72 per cent for BI and ERP versus 52 per cent for ERP only).

“To make effective, well-informed business decisions, employees need the relevant business information at their fingertips,” said Elissa Fink, chief marketing officer at Tableau Software.

”Managers shouldn’t have to switch from application to application, or stitch together a patchwork quilt of intelligence to find out what information is relevant to their management decisions. Instead, data should be shared across all departments seamlessly and transparently. 

“What this study demonstrates is that for ERP users, integrating business intelligence allows them to identify the business critical information they need, at the exact moment they need it. Being able to visualise this data can help them to quickly spot inefficiencies and anomalies, cut costs and run more efficiently in these challenging economic times.

The latest version of Tableau Desktop includes a connector to SAP’s data warehouse system SAP BW.

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Tableau Software
Tableau Software helps people see and understand data. Ranked by Gartner and IDC in 2011 as the world’s fastest growing business intelligence company, Tableau helps anyone quickly analyze, visualize and share information. More than 9,000 companies get rapid results with Tableau in the office and on-the-go. And tens of thousands of people use Tableau Public to share data in their blogs and websites. See how Tableau can help you by downloading the free trial at www.tableausoftware.com/trial. Register now for the 2012 Tableau Customer Conference at http://conference.tableausoftware.com/2012/.   

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