Rodamco Europe is turning to Open BPM: the company has chosen ARIS BI Modeler from IDS Scheer to redocument and harmonize its existing SAP BI landscape


The real estate and investment company Rodamco Europe needed industry-specific support to help implement KPI reporting homogeneously across its operations in four countries so far. The company called in IDS Scheer to implement SAP BW as the basis for a standardized Group-wide reporting system via key performance indicators (KPI) and document the BW InfoCube landscape required for the project using ARIS BI Modeler. Rodamco Europe asked that the new system be implemented using the EDW (Enterprise Data Warehouse) approach to provide increased flexibility for new requirements.

Based on SAP BW and ARIS BI Modeler, which allows implemented SAP BI systems to be documented at a later date, IDS Scheer set up a central reporting system at Rodamco Europe allowing direct comparisons between the different countries by virtue of harmonized KPIs. ARIS BI Modeler uses a unidirectional integrated interface to SAP BI to automatically redocument existing SAP BI landscapes and creates data structures and flows using special, newly designed ARIS model types and symbols. The resulting documentation of the SAP BI landscape was published on the Intranet using ARIS Web Publisher and can now be accessed centrally by all employees.
ARIS BI Modeler gives Rodamco a unique insight into the way special InfoCubes within the SAP BI landscape are integrated into the landscape as a whole, at what point InfoObjects are used in the system and where changes are required in the overall landscape if the modeling is adapted to the system at a given point.
The centralized and cross-module reporting functionality of the SAP BI system was a strong need for Rodamco in addition to the R/3 development. As a result, the company has already launched follow-up projects for additional operational reporting.
The non-standard design and implementation of the BW application allowed the SAP BW to be positioned as a central 'Single Point of Truth' (data pool) for reporting and the provision of various interfaces to legacy systems. This resulted in a BW system that serves as a nerve center for the entire reporting process and data distribution to other legacy systems.
"Working together with Rodamco Europe was yet another opportunity to draw on the benefits of 'Open BPM'. All of the SAP BI objects can be reused in the central ARIS Repository. This means that all the data and information required in an SAP BI system can be identified, analyzed and planned on the basis of business processes and the resulting information requirements. Redocumenting SAP BI systems and analyzing business processes with the products of the ARIS Platform is key to providing specialist departments with requirement-driven, accurate information and reports that are not laden with jargon," explains Dr. Wolfram Jost, Member of the Executive Board with responsibility for Product Strategy and Development at IDS Scheer AG.
Jack van Gestel, Teamlead of European Support Centre (ESC), and project manager for interfacing and system integration in the roll-out project comments: “We are using ARIS BI Modeler for our Cube and Report overview and publish it via an intranet application. A big advantage for Rodamco Europe is that the complexity of the BI structure became clearer and is well documented. Tractability of fields in the report is possible from the source to the target. This is an essential benefit and therefore a great help in our support and maintenance of the BI model and the BW system in common. In case of changes, it is easy to detect which reports (or objects in the model) are involved. Last but not least, process relations could be mapped on the technical database relations in the BI and Report model.”

IDS Scheer AG

The software and consulting company IDS Scheer develops Business Process Management solutions for corporations and public authorities. With its ARIS Platform for Process Excellence, the company offers an integrated and complete tool portfolio for strategy, design, implementation and controlling of business processes. Thanks to the integrated approach of ARIS Value Engineering (AVE), IDS Scheer consultants build bridges between corporate strategy, business processes, IT solutions and the controlling of running processes in their customers’ organizations. IDS Scheer was founded in 1984 by Prof. August-Wilhelm Scheer and now serves about 6,000 customers in over 70 countries through a network of its own branch offices and partners. In 2006, the company earned revenues of about 354 million Euro. About 2800 people are working for IDS Scheer worldwide. The company is listed in the TecDAX on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Germany).

For further information, please contact:

Irmhild Plaetrich
Public Relations IDS Scheer AG
Tel.: +49 681 210 - 3680
FAX: +49 681 210 - 1231
E-Mail: irmhild.plaetrich@ids-scheer.com


Susanne Paul
Investor Relations / Financial Press
Tel.: +49 681 / 210 - 3201
FAX: +49 681 / 210 - 1221
E-Mail: susanne.paul@ids-scheer.com