Today exists a notable need of specific information for decision-makers, to help them react quickly and effectively in their business environment.

The SAP BW pools widespread IT structures (internal and external), that are located on different platforms and countless applications. Therewith, the SAP BW as an independent business component combines management experiences of SAP application solutions with a future-oriented data warehouse architecture.

Specific characteristics of the SAP BW:

• closing the gap between business processes and the support of decisions

• preconfigured information models and reports

• automatic data supply process

• information consolidation from internal and external data stocks

• low effort of implementation and quick and simple introduction (ready-to-go-warehouse)

• open/flexible according to the integration of applications and tools of other producers

• data extractor for productive data within R/3

• data extractor for SAP-external productive data

• system for data provision (staging engine)

• administration-workbench storage and presentation

• info cubes and data manager

• meta data repository and meta data manager

• optional data storage for operative data analysis and reporting

• OLAP-processor enables the usage of data for analysis and reporting

• business explorer with Reporting Catalogue Browser, based on MS Excel