The mining company, which doesn't run any other applications from SAP, is looking to upgrade to 4.0 "probably at the beginning of next year," Oswald says. Right now, work on upgrading the company's mining supply chain software is a top ­priority.

"I like the Business Objects road map of bringing these tools together and still making them platform-agnostic," Oswald says.

The software has already been paying serious dividends, he adds. For example, Arch Coal is now able to track and manage which equipment parts are still under warranty as they need to be replaced, which has led to significant cost savings.