SAP’s internal IT organization—specifically its People Analytics team—acts as “customer zero,” serving as the first adopter of new SAP products before they are introduced to the broader market.
Operating within a complex landscape that spans all aspects of ERP, including HR with SAP SuccessFactors HCM, SAP’s People Analytics team faced growing demand for HR data and insights—from HR, as well as Sales, Finance, and Operations. What started as a challenge soon became an opportunity for a more governed, self-service approach.
Centralized dashboards hit their ceiling
For years, SAP’s People Analytics function operated from a centralized model focused on the consumption layer: building, maintaining, and optimizing dashboards tailored to specific business requirements. The MyTeam Dashboard—a 360-degree view of workforce data available to every people manager at SAP, covering upcoming birthdays, salary, and performance information—became the company’s single most used report. That success was a testament to how much the business valued easy access and visibility into key HR data.
But it also revealed the limits of the model. As demand grew, the analytics team found itself permanently on the defensive, saying “no” far more than “yes,” managing backlogs of individual KPI additions, and negotiating timelines for incremental changes. Furthermore, data management, maintenance, and governance proved to be a challenge. The centralized dashboard approach could not scale to meet the breadth of data needs across an organization of SAP’s size and complexity.
