And the winners are… (SAP & IFUA Horvath Visualisation Competition)

The winners of the SAP Hungary and IFUA Horváth Data Visualisation Competition have been announced. As we reported in November, fifty teams from academia and industry competed. The contestants had to use SAP Analytics Cloud to create and present spectacular data analyses from data provided by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), showing the relevant correlations.

Participants were also able to learn about the company’s next-generation digital cloud solution, participate in impactful reporting training and expand their professional network. The winners of the competition also won entry to the biggest IT event in Hungary, the „SAP NOW Hungary 2024” conference.

While a few decades ago the lack of data was one of the biggest challenges for companies, today the huge amount of data, the diversity and fragmentation of data and the proper use and interpretation of data assets are one of the biggest challenges. The SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) on the SAP Business Technology Platform combines classic business intelligence (BI) functionality with machine learning-based predictions and a complete planning solution, all in an easy-to-learn, low-code/no-code development environment.

„SAC is another solution that gives enterprises a real competitive advantage in the marketplace, with data integration and up-to-date visualisations to help them make faster decisions and take a comprehensive analytical approach. With our competition with IFUA Horváth, we wanted to make this highly effective tool as widely known as possible, to provide a platform for development on the corporate side and for newcomers to the field. I believe that with an initiative like this, not only SAP and its partner can provide useful knowledge to the participants, but we can also learn from the creative solutions and innovative ideas of colleagues and young talents”,

said Szabolcs Pintér, Managing Director of SAP Hungary.

A complex training programme for competitors

In the preparatory phase of the competition, the 84 students and 61 corporate participants in the 50 groups received special training on the SAC platform and the combination of corporate planning and data analysis, while the effective reporting training provided them with methodological basics on how to conceptually build a report, which are the right types of diagrams and how to effectively convey a message to decision-makers.

„We see with our clients that governance-based decision support systems aligned with the ‘one truth’ principle are of paramount importance, and that an IT environment with a semantic layer is needed. For artificial intelligence solutions, stable, high-quality data is essential, and the way to achieve this is through the semantic layer. Among business intelligence professionals, data visualisation skills are now part of the digital literacy competencies, so we are delighted that so many have found our initiative inspiring”,

said Levente Havas, Partner in Business Intelligence at IFUA Horváth.

Agribusiness data

For the competition, the KSH provided processable data in the field of agriculture: the participants had to analyse and visualise data collected on crop production from 2000 to 2020 at the level of the county of the duchy, by crop category. After the pre-selection, the best 5 teams of companies and 5 teams of students presented their solution to the professional jury of data visualisation experts in the SAP Creative Arena.

„The Central Statistical Office is always happy to see its data being used and considers it an important mission to promote data literacy and data skills among its users and the wider public. In today’s fast-paced world, where we have endless amounts of data at our disposal, but where the overall ability to concentrate has been drastically reduced, data visualisation solutions have a huge role to play in effectively communicating key context and information in a short time”,

explained Dr Gábor Valkó, Vice President of the Statistics Directorate of the HCSO.