The $4.9 billion wine and spirits distributor had been an SAP shop since 2003, but never saw a need for the vendor's business intelligence tools. IT exported ERP data into Microsoft analytics services for finance and sales analysis and ran custom reports in the core SAP system for operations. "SAP had a traditional business intelligence tool," Fipps says, "but there was no real business case for it."

Normally, every IT investment goes to a strategic governing body for cost-benefit vetting, says Fipps. But the executive vice presidents of all functional areas green lit the in-memory analytics project without any articulated hard benefits or even a pilot. "We jumped into this way ahead of what we would normally do," Fipps says.

It was the promise of near real-time analytics that attracted Fipps to SAP's high-performance analytic appliance (HANA), which places data in main memory rather than reading it off disks. The 15-plus-year IT veteran envisioned HANA streamlining the company's most labor-intensive processes: the pick-pack-and-ship work that takes place in the wholesaler's warehouses.

Warehouse managers do their best based on experience and intuition, but operational performance varies wildly from location to location. More timely analysis could help them better manage inventory and staff, maximizing productivity. "Most of our labor costs happen at night," Fipps says. "If we could give these guys the information to make better decisions [then], that would give us a competitive advantage."

There will be next-day benefits too, says Fipps. The company will use HANA to create a daily, visual analysis of operational performance for company executives so they can make decisions that lower costs or increase customer satisfaction. Previously, this time-intensive analysis wasn't feasible for daily reporting.