How to Prepare a High-Impact People Analytics Budget for 2026

As HR and People Analytics leaders head into 2026 planning season, one question looms large: what should we invest in to unlock the real value of our SAP SuccessFactors data?

In our latest webinar — “People Analytics Investment: Preparing Your SAP SuccessFactors Budget for 2026” — we tackled two of the biggest blockers to building high-impact analytics plans: unclear ROI and undefined budget structures. If your team is struggling to secure funding or simply unsure what to include in next year’s plan, this session was built for you.

Problem 1: “We can’t get budget because we can’t prove the ROI”

Too many HR teams fail to get funding for analytics staff, tools, or enablement because they can’t show why the investment matters. Our session showed how to flip the conversation.

Using 3n Strategy’s proven Questions Methodology, we walked through how to:

Identify the critical business questions CHROs, CIOs and budget-holders need answered.
Map those questions to the People Analytics capabilities required to answer them.
Show how tools, training, or team investments are essential to generating ROI — not optional extras.

Problem 2: “We don’t know what to budget for”

Even when organisations want to invest, they often lack structure. We shared a practical framework to build a comprehensive, value-focused People Analytics budget. It includes:

Strategy Development – Planning for how analytics will deliver business value.
Adoption & Change Management – Funding the behaviour change needed to make analytics stick.
Team Growth – Hiring or retaining the talent to meet analytics demand.
Skills Development – Training current teams to succeed with modern tools and techniques.
Tool Investment – Planning for solutions like Report Stories, SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), Business Data Cloud (BDC), or People Intelligence.

Whether you’re running a small HRIS team or leading a global analytics function, this structure helps you turn ambition into a credible business case.