Supernova Award Category
Data to Decisions
The Problem
With new executive leadership in 2018, L3 is in the midst of an organizational transformation that aims to optimize business operations. Focused on integration, collaboration and innovation, L3 is striving to become a more agile, data-driven, analytical enterprise, utilizing new tools for decision-making. With 60+ business units made up of separate IT systems to keep track of relevant data in separate lines of functions, including HR, Finance, Supply Chain and R&D, L3 has struggled to source the most effective data from one coherent system. This lack of common processes made routine reporting and data-gathering for analysis time-consuming, which made it difficult to have productive discussions around making decisions. L3 sought a system that would identify business issues at the “first stitch”, well ahead of a “full unravel”.
The Solution
In order to address the problem of scattered data across our business units, we created a centralized portal that aggregates and consolidates critical data across the business to provide real-time situational awareness, enabling the company to achieve its operational objectives. Built off of the resources of SAP Analytics Cloud and the SAP Digital Boardroom solution, we named the integrated platform Sumo and launched it in early 2018. Sumo is the primary platform for a single source of truth for key meetings, quarterly business reviews, market research, strategic pursuits, and all other planning activities. and has enhanced L3’s ability to undertake important efficiency initiatives and improve operations.
The results
Sumo has significantly enhanced L3’s ability to undertake and measure important efficiency initiatives and improve operations. The full suite of SAP offerings enables L3 to provide real-time, business critical insights to make faster, well-informed decisions, and monitor progress across the enterprise, including R&D investment, employee and customer data, financial metrics and key performance indicators and supply chain management.
Additional results include:
Increased transparency and reliable data − L3 Sumo helps executives make data-driven decisions using real-time information from a single source of truth. This improved visibility of operational performance and enabled management to adapt and respond in an efficient manner.
Improved decision-making and strategic planning − Sumo allows users to leverage market intelligence and model scenarios using data for improved market and competitor awareness, sharpening L3’s ability to evaluate potential growth opportunities.
Improved real-time access to multiple data chains − L3’s 60+ divisions are organized into sectors, which report into segments, each having multiple systems and processes that require hundreds of concurrent calculations. With Sumo, L3’s management team has access to the same data in real time via hybrid live data analytics.
Metrics
Sumo significantly reduces the hours required to create reports for management review. In the past, it would take 20 people more than a month to create Quarterly Business Reviews. L3 can now pre-populate significant amounts of data in one day. This extends to other specialized reports that previously required multiple data calls across the company.
Through Sumo, L3 brings key business information from various sources into a single system on SAP HANA. Sumo easily consolidates data from SAP, non-SAP and external sources, vastly simplifying a process that previously required weeks of manual labor to just hours. The executive team is now able to get a true, real-time enterprise view and unify strategies by analyzing critical information to identify and monitor trends, accelerate efficiency initiatives, improve collaboration across businesses, track technology investments and evaluate M&A. Users can also track progress on HR, M&As, financials, ethics policy, supply chain, and R&D investments.
The Technology
Sumo is a multi-layer solution utilizing multiple SAP technologies:
- SAP Digital Boardroom: Elegant UI used for clear and engaging presentations
- SAP HANA data mart: Supports Sumo and provides real-time and periodic data from SAP and non-SAP systems, and a third-party market intelligence data source.
- SAP Cloud Platform and SAP Analytics Cloud: Public clouds that provide the UI
- SAP NS2 Secure Cloud: Hosts SAP HANA and connects securely to L3’s On-Premises systems
Disruptive Factor
Sumo was designed to meet U.S. Department of Defense data security requirements. Its unique hybrid architecture also supports the use of hybrid data for government and defense applications, where data resides in the SAP NS2 Secure Cloud HANA, while using SAP Digital Boardroom and SAP Analytics Cloud solutions to provide an outstanding user experience.
L3 has deployed a three-touchscreen setup in its Corporate HQ Strategy War Room and other offices across the country to fully leverage the solution’s interactive UI. Users can also interact live via desktops and tablets. Top executive leadership now has the ability to make data-driven decisions with confidence and secure fast agreement since there is a single source of truth.
L3 has also placed value in continuing to build out its interactive UI through Sumo and its enhanced SAP Digital Boardroom interface through its SAP partnership on SAP Inscribe (formally Project E-Quill), a natural user experience based on digital paper. Leveraging the resources available through SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Digital Boardroom, L3 is using additional SAP tools for executive analytics. The teams are integrating the products with the new SAP Digital Boardoom API, delivering a personalized view of the boardroom to its users.
Shining Moment
Through the SAP product line, Sumo reduced preparation time for the quarterly business review from one month to several days. It will be adopted as a principal tool for strategic planning and real-time operational status and L3 business development teams now utilize it for strategic market intelligence opportunities. L3 is one of the first companies to deploy SAP Digital Boardroom enterprise-wide, actively collaborating with SAP’s product management teams on features and functionality.