If you have a business, you likely have a lot of data. It’s your one true source for insight to understand your customers, their needs, and what they want.

In this blog, you’ll learn how you can monetize the data your solution generates with the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and SAP BTP Startup Program from SAP.iO. To illustrate the process, you will be introduced to a use case enabled by NWO.ai, a data & analytics startup, that is among the first data providers to be listed on the data marketplace.

You will also be able to understand the main benefits of the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud for you as a data provider, and what value it can bring to your company. The possibilities are limitless with the data marketplace’s ability to bring all of your data together in one place for instant insights and seamless integration into applications like SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

“We want to give our customers an opportunity and an easy way to get instant insights from various alternative data sources and merge them with their operational information. And we see data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud as a perfect environment for that, because majority of the SAP products are already connected there. It is as simple as clicking and collecting all the necessary data, both internal and external, in one place.”

Miroslav Dimitrov, Chief Operating Officer at NWO.ai

1. Who are NWO.ai and what do they do?

NWO.ai is one of the most representative companies to successfully jump-start on the data marketplace journey.

By aggregating and analyzing massive amounts of data from various alternative data sources, such as news, social, e-commerce, financial and other sources, NWO.ai generates a real-time report addressing the current performance and future trajectory of a signal as well as an overview of the key drivers and associated microtrends that may have an impact on the business. NWO.ai’s forward-looking insights are key for both strategic business decisions and new product development initiatives.

This new type of contextual intelligence represents an incredible opportunity for companies, for example in the Consumer-Packaged Goods industry, to spot emerging trends and be the first to take advantage of data-based insights.

Source: NWO.ai’s Website

We sat down with Miroslav Dimitrov, a Chief Operating Officer at NWO.ai, who has shared NWO.ai’s experience with SAP BTP Startup Program.

2. SAP Business Technology Platform for Startups: Data-to-Value Track

“Access, share and monetize” — these are the three main benefits data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud offers for Data Providers, who can easily take advantage of sharing their Data Products on the data marketplace.

SAP BTP Startup Program: Data-to-Value Track is a joint program of SAP.iO and the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, which enables ambitious and fast-growing startups to accelerate not only through their solutions or access to the SAP software but also taking full advantage of the data, produced within their business.

As a Startup, joining SAP BTP Startup Program, you get:

• Access to more than 440 000 SAP customers: a direct exposure of data products to business users of SAP customers provides you visibility within a very clearly defined target group of potential data buyers.
• Seamless integration: Every SAP Data Warehouse Cloud customer will be able to access the data marketplace without any additional licenses, connectivity, or transfer required.
• No brokerage fees: being represented on the data marketplace and sharing data through the data marketplace is associated with predictable, low cost. No brokerage fee is associated with the data marketplace, and the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud access the data provider needs are provided for a fixed, monthly fee.
• Entire data chain coverage: the Data Provider can build and refer to matching data models and stories on top of the data product that he can share with the customer via the SAP Analytics network and monetize via the SAP Store.

Source: SAP BTP Startup Program Website

3. The decision to Join data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and first steps

Miroslav, before joining NWO.ai, has already led strategic digital transformation projects on three continents. He is a former head of the SAP.iO Foundry Berlin— the flagship open innovation unit of SAP in Europe, focusing on cutting-edge SAP Supply Chain Management and data & analytics solutions.

“As you mentioned, I was part of SAP and the ecosystem for the last decade. I’ve had various roles, but in the last few last years, I was working with different startups and specifically with NWO.ai, where I am currently working. We learned about the data marketplace from Oliver Huth’s team and we were lucky to be part of that journey from the earliest stages of its development. It’s a very personal and fascinating story for me and NWO.ai.

If you think about the nature of our business, we’re analyzing massive amounts of unstructured external data in our platform to produce valuable insights for our customers. The natural next step for our customers is to combine this contextual intelligence with the operational data from all the different parts of their business. Therefore, we were super excited to be part of data marketplace and the SAP BTP Startup Program Startup Program.“, says Miroslav.

4. Start of Data Marketplace Journey and Cooperation with SAP

“Before joining the data marketplace, we had already been working with SAP in some of their startup programs. For instance, we’re also part of the SAP.iO Rising Stars program, where we were selected among the top 7 startups to scale up their partnership with SAP. We were very excited to be selected and join the SAP BTP Startup Program, one of which is data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud now. This makes us one of the very few companies on our stage worldwide working on multiple programs with SAP.”, shares Miroslav.

5. Current stage on the data marketplace roadmap

“We have already created a data provider profile on the data marketplace and are working on the listing of our Data Product. In addition to our work there we are designing a set of dashboards built on top of our data that will allow SAP customers to get a better overview of both industry and niche trend signals that could impact their business. It has been a great experience working jointly with the different SAP teams on this and we’re looking forward to presenting our work starting in 2022.

I also want to mention that the connection with SAP Data Warehouse Cloud was simple and fast. It took us a bit of time to familiarize ourselves with data visualization and analytics capabilities in SAP Analytics Cloud, but we are now ready,” shares Miroslav.

6. Use Case Definition Phase

It is crucial to identify the needs of the market in which you are playing. SAP is serving customers from different industries and regions, and every business has its specifics. However, the thing they all have in common is a need for a scalable environment to gather, analyze and consume their ever-growing repository data, which SAP completely satisfies with the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse release.

“I can’t say that the idea for the use cases for data marketplace was exclusively ours or was solely an initiative of SAP — all the work was built and defined jointly. We have had some ideas before reaching out to SAP, but together we have solidified our plans,” says Miroslav.

7. Cooperation and Work with SAP and SAP.iO (What is your experience of cooperation with SAP.iO? What impact has this cooperation made on your company? What has changed?)

“There are different providers of data warehouse capabilities, but in my opinion, SAP has a unique position, as all SAP business applications can be seamlessly connected and integrated with SAP Data Warehouse Cloud. In the end, data is an enabler to make informed business decisions and, going forward, a key stepping stone for building a competitive advantage.

We’ve been working closely with Mark Osborn, Klaus Drews, Lior Weizman, and their teams to define use cases for Consumer-Packaged Goods and Life Sciences industries. On the solution side, we also were working closely with Oliver Huth and the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud team. It’s great to have an experienced team that you can bounce off ideas with”

8. Main Challenges and Further Steps

“Some of our main challenges were defining the proper Data Product representation, as well as learning about the capabilities of SAP Analytics Cloud. We don’t have an SAP analytics consultant within NWO.ai, who would be a professional in SAP Analytics Cloud, therefore it took a bit more time than initially expected”, shares Miroslav.

When joining SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, you get exposure to the SAP services, analytics, and the whole bundle of SAP products from one place. The data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud gives you the power of information at your fingertips, so you can run your business better than ever before.

Do you want to learn more about SAP BTP Startup Program? Check out our SAP BTP Startup Program: Data-to-Value Track or directly fill in the form to contact the SAP.iO team!

Note that a version of this post first appeared at https://medium.com/sap-io/nwo-ais-story-with-sap-data-marketplace-unlocking-the-value-of-your-data-69f4137f7ea