Your SAP Has the Data.
Your Reports Don't Show It.
SAP Business One, S/4HANA, and ByDesign are running your operations. The reports coming out of them aren't giving your leadership team the picture they need — because the analytics layer sitting between your ERP and your decision-makers is either missing, broken, or built on overnight Excel exports. We fix that.
Outcomes from SAP analytics engagements
What We See in Every SAP Engagement
These four problems appear in almost every SAP analytics audit we run — across GCC, India, and Southeast Asia.
Your SAP reports are two days late and three people wrong
SAP has the data. The problem is getting it out. Month-end stock reports are extracted to Excel by IT, sent to finance, adjusted by operations, re-sent to the CEO, and by the time anyone agrees on the numbers the window to act has closed. The ERP is not the bottleneck. The extraction process is.
Power BI is running on Excel exports, not live SAP data
The dashboard exists. It looks good in the screenshot. But it's running off a scheduled export that drops the database into Excel every night, and someone has to run the refresh manually on Monday morning. When the export misses or the data structure changes in SAP, the dashboard breaks, and nobody notices until a director asks a question it can't answer.
SAP Business One analytics are stuck at standard reports
SAP B1's built-in reports cover the basics. They don't give you cross-module analysis — purchase orders against production orders against inventory against customer commitments — in a single view. They don't let finance and operations look at the same number from the same source at the same time. The answer most implementations give is "export to Excel and analyse there." That's not an answer.
You've spent six figures on SAP. It's delivering 30% of what it could.
This is the pattern we see across mid-market manufacturers in GCC, India, and Southeast Asia. SAP is live. It's running. The transactions go through it every day. But the reporting layer sitting on top of it is Power BI pulling from stale CSV exports, or a Business Intelligence add-on that nobody uses, or both. The 70% of analytical value still locked in the system isn't a SAP problem — it's an integration and architecture problem.
SAP Business One
Mid-market manufacturers, FMCG distributors, logistics companies
SAP B1 runs a significant proportion of mid-market manufacturing in GCC and India. The analytics gap is almost universal: B1 is live, transactions run through it, but the reporting layer is Power BI pulling from a nightly SQL dump or a scheduled Crystal Reports export. We connect B1 directly to Microsoft Fabric via the B1 Service Layer API or direct database connection, with a governed semantic model that replaces the export-and-reconcile workflow.
SAP modules covered
What we deliver
- Direct SAP B1 Service Layer API connection to Microsoft Fabric
- Cross-module reporting: purchasing, inventory, production, sales, finance
- Power BI semantic model with SAP B1 field definitions and KPI logic
- Real-time or near-real-time refresh — no nightly exports
- Custom dimensions and cost centres not exposed in B1 standard reports
SAP S/4HANA
Enterprise manufacturers, EPC companies, large FMCG operators
S/4HANA has more reporting capability than B1, but the standard Fiori apps don't give operations directors the cross-functional visibility they need. The BW/4HANA implementation that was supposed to solve this is either incomplete, requires SAP BI skills nobody on the internal team has, or produces reports that finance doesn't trust. We connect S/4HANA to Power BI and Microsoft Fabric using OData services and delta extraction, with a semantic model that translates S/4 table structures into business language.
SAP modules covered
What we deliver
- S/4HANA OData service extraction to Microsoft Fabric
- Delta load architecture — only changed records, not full table pulls
- Cross-functional views: PP, MM, SD, FI/CO in one governed model
- Replaces BW/4HANA reporting for operational KPIs
- ZATCA e-invoicing data model and compliance reporting for KSA clients
SAP ByDesign
Mid-market international companies, subsidiaries of larger groups
SAP Business ByDesign is common in the GCC among mid-market companies that grew out of Business One or that needed a cloud ERP without the S/4HANA implementation cost. The OData reporting API gives access to virtually every business object, but building a proper analytics layer on top of it requires understanding both the ByD data model and a modern BI platform. Most organisations running ByD are still extracting to Excel. We build the connection and the semantic model that makes ByD data actually useful for operations and finance.
SAP modules covered
What we deliver
- SAP ByDesign OData API connection to Power BI and Microsoft Fabric
- Full business object coverage: orders, inventory, projects, finance
- Multi-entity consolidation — multiple ByD tenants into one reporting layer
- Cost centre and project analytics beyond ByD standard reports
- Bilingual reporting support for GCC clients
Trusted by operations teams at
Often Combined With SAP Analytics
Microsoft Fabric Implementation
SAP connected to Microsoft Fabric OneLake — the architecture that removes nightly exports and gives you real-time operational data.
View solution →Data Integration Services
SAP alongside WMS, IoT, and supply chain systems in one governed data layer — for operations that run across multiple platforms.
View solution →Fractional Data Consultant
SAP analytics delivered and owned as part of a broader data strategy — for companies that need senior data leadership, not a one-time project.
View solution →SAP Analytics — Common Questions
Can Power BI connect directly to SAP Business One?
Yes. SAP B1 exposes data through the Service Layer API (a RESTful OData API) and through direct HANA or SQL database access, depending on your deployment. We typically use the Service Layer for real-time or near-real-time connections, and direct database access for historical loads and complex cross-module queries. The approach depends on your B1 version, deployment model (cloud vs on-premise), and what data volumes you're working with.
Does Microsoft Fabric work with SAP S/4HANA?
Yes. S/4HANA exposes data through OData services and CDS views, and Microsoft Fabric can consume both via Azure Data Factory connectors and the Fabric pipeline layer. The extraction strategy depends on whether you're doing real-time operational reporting (use OData with delta tracking) or batch analytics (use CDS view extraction into the Fabric lakehouse). We design the architecture based on your refresh requirements and the specific S/4 modules in scope.
We already have SAP's built-in reporting. Why would we need Power BI as well?
SAP's native reporting (Fiori apps, Crystal Reports in B1, standard S/4 reports) is optimised for transaction-level and module-level reporting. It does not do cross-module analytics, custom KPI definitions, role-based dashboards for non-SAP users, or the kind of trend analysis and visualisation that operations directors and CFOs actually want to look at. Power BI on top of SAP gives you both: the governed, auditable transactional data from the ERP, and the analytical layer that makes it useful to the business.
How long does a SAP to Power BI integration typically take?
A SAP Business One to Power BI integration covering the core operational modules (purchasing, inventory, production, sales, and financial accounting) takes 4–8 weeks depending on data complexity, the number of custom fields and dimensions in your B1 implementation, and how clean the underlying data is. S/4HANA integrations typically take 8–14 weeks due to the table complexity and the volume of OData services involved. We deliver in sprints, so you have working dashboards before the engagement is complete.
Do you work with custom SAP configurations and user-defined fields?
Yes. Custom fields, user-defined tables, and non-standard configurations are where SAP analytics consulting actually earns its cost — the out-of-the-box connector doesn't know your cost centre structure, your custom item attributes, or your locally-developed add-ons. We spend the first phase of every SAP integration mapping your specific configuration, not assuming a standard implementation.
Book a SAP Analytics Discovery Call
Forty-five minutes. We look at your current SAP deployment, understand what reporting gaps your operations and finance teams are working around, and tell you exactly what the integration would involve and what it would cost. No obligation, no generic sales deck.
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