The amount of data that companies manage increases constantly. It is not always easy to maintain an overview and implement the right processes to keep the data up-to-date and compliant. One solution for this is Information Lifecycle Management, or ILM for short, developed by SAP AG. But before this solution can be implemented, companies should first get an overview of their data. This is exactly where DATAGROUP came in at LEAG. In a comprehensive analysis project, the data inventory was examined and recommendations were derived that will enable more efficient work in the future.

Analysis of the Data Stock as Basis for Successful Data Management

The energy company LEAG has huge volumes of data. The basis for the tender for an Information Lifecycle Management implementation in SAP were the requirements of the Basic Data Protection Regulation for a data protection compliant use of SAP systems. DATAGROUP convinced the company with its solution approach of performing a comprehensive analysis and clustering of the data. For a successful implementation of an ILM system, it is important to know the system and the data stock in detail.

In a project of around four months, DATAGROUP analyzed the SAP data base and conducted inteviews with each department about the available data. The goal was a realistic assessment of the existing data base and the related processes in order to set up suitable Information Lifecycle Processes.

The result was revealing and provides a valuable basis for cleaning up the data system before implementing an ILM solution, thereby not only increasing efficiency but also saving costs in concrete terms.

Among other things, it was established that the SAP system contains a very large amount of data, which is due to the fact that it has grown historically. DATAGROUP developed new, helpful concepts based on the analysis and made recommendations for reorganizing the system:

• Implementation of a locking and erasing system to clean the data set
• Consolidation of the previous three archive systems to one archive system
• Defining data lifecycles

Advantages of Analysis and Data Cleansing

• Cost savings: by reducing the amount of data in the SAP system, LEAG can save storage space. DATAGROUP’s analysis showed that LEAG could halve its data inventory and save hosting fees accordingly
• Control, whether the demands of the GDPR are complied with
• Increase of performance through a slim system
• Increase in data quality
• Easier change to SAP S/4HANA in the future through smaller data bases