Plant equipment manufacturer
A global manufacturer based in the UK already had an established analytics team. I was bought in to see how we could push their use of data and analytics further, a directive from the Group Chief Information Officer.
The first solution was a touch-based interactive dashboard that would allow management to interrogate the main service KPIs while VIPs were visiting.
Presented on an 80-inch 4K screen, the success led to each director having their own dashboards based on the same principal (faceted filtering instead of hierarchical drilling).
Another success was to help integrate a digital voice assistant (Alexa) with a SAP dashboard that was displayed on an 80 sqm. 4K screen.
Multinational aerospace and defence company
I worked on a team that created a new global dashboard with eight indicators for each of the 54 KPIs for the board. Careful data modelling was necessary for such a design to achieve satisfactory performance for an interactive solution.
I was heavily involved in the performance testing, using scripting and human input scenarios. Being able to monitor the application and client at the same time proved paramount to finding efficiencies.
I also developed and deployed their application security model in line with strict guidelines, covering export control licenses, user access points, etc.
As part of the rollout, I created and delivered user training for both maintenance and users of the solution.
In order to guarantee a coordinated effort from all departments, the project was completed in collaboration with their current suppliers.
SAP/Business Objects - Global Migration Team
In my understanding of the upcoming release while on secondment with Business Objects product management, I mentioned that the upgrade tool they were hoping for would be easier than the complexity of moving from the old platform to the newer one.
As a result, I created protocols, resources, best practices, and instructional materials to help guarantee that clients could migrate successfully. I was one of two technical leads on a multinational team that was established.
I travelled throughout North America, Europe, and Asia training consultants in best practices, and I gave presentations at numerous user and partner conferences. Additionally, it assisted in updating the questions for the SAP certification test.
Regardless of who was performing the migration, Key Account customers would naturally receive extra attention from me as I verified their plans and activities.
I moved to the UK consulting team after the team was disbanded following the successful migrations and upgrades of multiple releases.
Multinational healthcare company
As part of their investment in SAP Analytics solutions, the Swiss-based client had put together a team to be their first BI Competency Centre. A colleague had already visited them and taken them through roles, responsibilities, and structure.
I worked with them to teach them the technical skills to be self-sufficient.
Working with them, I developed their security model, ways of working, life cycle management processes, and development best practices. Each considering the stringent compliance rules they abide by.
We also worked through an upgrade to a newer major release. At this time, there were over 86k global users.
Working with SAP Product Managers, we tested and provided feedback to the upgrade tools so they could be reliable and trusted for a migration of this size.
We ran the migration in 4 increments, one month apart, allowing for BAU. Each period of downtime was limited to 44 hours.
As well as the successful outcomes, the designs, models, scripts, and plans became SAP best practices for SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise.
UK Government Ministry
For each of its directorates, every UK government ministry creates a report pack every month. These were created by combining Excel and manual report analysis, after which the content was copied and pasted into PowerPoint for distribution. While some recipients would have the results printed for them, others would view them on a laptop.
It would take roughly two days to produce each pack, allowing for the inclusion of pertinent commentary and meeting the strict month-end closure deadlines.
The Ministry's SAP ERP systems would serve as the primary source of the necessary data.
I used Web Intelligence (a component of SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise) to come up with a solution that would reuse the rules that were already hidden in the Excel workbooks to generate the report content automatically. Additionally, the necessary commentary was typed straight into the report, and the finished product was exported to PDF format for sharing.
Each report pack would then be updated, examined, verified, and finished in a few hours, not including waiting for the commentary.
Naturally, a great deal of time was saved, and the recipients were not aware of the modifications. This began the strategic shift to improve the Ministry's capacity and response time to all requests by combining data modelling with reporting and analysis.
In subsequent work, I assisted with the analytics strategy, which included using cloud SaaS apps and adhering to data governance and sovereignty regulations set forth by the UK government.