Empowering Financial Analysts with Embedded Analytics: Independence from IT

On a sunny Monday morning, Sarah arrives at work, coffee in hand, ready to tackle the financial forecasts. She’s proactive, her spreadsheets are pristine, and her presentations are the stuff of legends. As she settles in, Sarah realizes she needs to update a key financial model with the latest transactional data. "No problem," she thinks, "I'll just shoot this over to IT and have it before my mid-morning snack."

Hours tick by, and there’s no word from IT. Her snack turns into lunch, and lunch nearly rolls into an afternoon coffee break. With each passing hour, Sarah imagines the IT department as a mythical kingdom where requests enter and seldom return, perhaps guarded by a dragon or lost in a labyrinth.

Finally, she receives an email, but instead of the expected data, IT needs "clarifications." They ask questions that Sarah has already answered in her initial request. Sighing, she responds, hoping for a speedy resolution. Meanwhile, she starts drafting a report using the old data, hoping to swap in the new numbers last minute.

Tuesday comes, and there’s a glimmer of hope when an IT intern kindly replies with a promise that the data is coming "soon." Sarah wonders if "soon" in IT time translates to hours, days or even weeks.

By Wednesday, the report's deadline looms large. Sarah starts receiving emails from management, inquiring if the financial forecast will be ready for the Thursday morning meeting. She types out a reassuring reply while silently cursing the dependency on IT.

When the data finally arrives late Wednesday afternoon delivered with a cheerful "Here you go!" Sarah has to burn the midnight oil. She updates the financial models, cross-checks every figure, and rehearses her presentation, all the while dreaming of a world where she can access and manipulate this data herself, free from the whims of the IT gatekeepers.

Presentation day arrives, and Sarah delivers her analysis flawlessly, though underpinned by copious amounts of coffee and not a small amount of under-eye concealer. Her ordeal sparks a discussion about empowering the finance department with self-service BI tools, leading to nods of agreement from around the boardroom.

Dear reader, have you ever found yourself in Sarah’s shoes, navigating the bureaucratic maze of IT requests for something as simple as data access for reports in S/4HANA?

How much smoother would your work life be if you could manage these tasks independently with S/4HANA embedded analytics?