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SAP Analytics
Thought Leadership

SAP’s Business Data Cloud: A Game-Changer for SAP Customers and a Perfect Complement to Darwin Analytics

Posted by Column5 Consulting on Thu, Mar 06, 2025 @ 07:03 AM

At Column5, we’ve spent decades helping SAP customers improve planning, reporting, and analytics processes by implementing solutions such as SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), all versions of SAP BPC, and associated SAP products. As a founding partner of Darwin Analytics and a proud member of the Darwin Marketplace, we are excited about SAP’s recent announcement of Business Data Cloud and its potential to drive greater data unification, AI-driven insights, and enterprise-wide planning enhancements. 

SAP BPC Customers: Stay, Migrate, or Evolve?

Posted by Column5 Consulting on Thu, Mar 06, 2025 @ 07:03 AM

A Strategic Roadmap for Your EPM Future

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) has been a trusted financial planning and consolidation solution for years, but the landscape is shifting. With SAP’s end-of-maintenance timelines approaching and cloud-based EPM solutions gaining traction, many BPC customers are facing a critical decision: 

Topics: Roadmap, BPC

Column5 Celebrates Partnership with Darwin Analytics: Transforming EPM for a Dynamic Future

Posted by Column5 Consulting on Tue, Jan 28, 2025 @ 15:01 PM

At Column5, our mission has always been to empower organizations to achieve extraordinary outcomes by optimizing their Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) processes. Over the years, we've partnered with leading providers and innovators in the EPM ecosystem to deliver advanced, high-impact solutions to our clients. Today, we’re proud to highlight our strategic partnership with Darwin Analytics, a game-changing orchestration platform that is reshaping how EPM is executed and advancing the field to new heights. 

Topics: EPM, Darwin EPM, CPM

Comparing SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) to SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC)

Posted by Hunter Moore on Mon, Jul 15, 2024 @ 08:07 AM

Choosing the right Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) tool is crucial for organizations aiming to optimize their planning, reporting, and analytics processes. SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) are two leading solutions from SAP, each offering unique capabilities tailored to different business needs. Let's examine some key considerations and comparisons regarding how well SAC can meet the evolving needs of businesses accustomed to BPC. We will focus on four key areas: Technical, Administration, User Interface, and AI capabilities. 

Topics: BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), SAC, SAP Analytics Cloud, Extended Planning & Analysis (xP&A)

6 Commonly Asked Questions About the EPM Add-in Excel Client

Posted by Steve Sussman on Wed, Jul 10, 2024 @ 08:07 AM

The EPM Add-in client is a hot topic among our customers and a subject we receive plenty of questions about. Questions usually arise during migration from the SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation (BPC) 7.x version for the Microsoft platform to SAP BPC 10.0 or 10.1, version for the Microsoft platform. This blog will cover questions about the EPM Add-in client during system upgrades. 

Topics: Excel, Technical, EPM Add-in

Using SAP Analytics Cloud as a Client to BPC

Posted by Steve Sussman on Mon, Jun 03, 2024 @ 00:06 AM

SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is delivered as a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform.  SAC combines multiple EPM, BI and Analytics features/benefits into one product.  This allows users to plan with robust collaboration features while using Predictive Analytics as well as Business Intelligence, and robust, state of the art Analytics. Currently, SAP BPC remains the default approach for Enterprise-wide Planning, Forecasting and Consolidations, while SAP Analytics Cloud fulfills relatively straightforward requirements from a planning and forecasting perspective.  

Topics: HANA, Analytics, Cloud, BPC, SAP HANA, Analytics Cloud, SaaS, SAC

Comparing Consolidation Solutions: SAP BPC vs Group Reporting - Why You Need to Move from SAP BPC to Group Reporting

Posted by Column5 Consulting on Mon, Jun 26, 2023 @ 13:06 PM

In 2007, OutlookSoft bought BPC and ten years later, SAP group reporting was released. Several versions of BPC have been released since its first debut in May 2017 including: Standard, Embedded, Optimized, and a Microsoft version. This article will compare the functionalities of BPC Standard (the most frequently used version) to the 2022 version of Group Reporting on-premise and will discuss some of the main aspects of the consolidation process.

Topics: BPC, sap bpc, group reporting

Discover the Value Formula to evaluate and implement EPM and xP&A solutions for success!

Posted by David Den Boer on Sun, May 14, 2023 @ 10:05 AM

It is said that there is no accounting for taste. Meaning, there is no mathematical formula that can define and score what individuals prefer. This is because each person has their own “taste” or set of subjective preferences they find appealing, and attempting to distill this highly variable process of selecting what one finds attractive, tasteful, even beautiful to a digital formula for universal criteria is considered impossible.

For some reason, this same subjectivity has reigned in the world of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solutions for too long, as I will argue. With the advent of xP&A (Extended Planning & Analysis), which can be thought of as high-intensity EPM, deciding which solution to buy is more critical than ever.

Topics: Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Performance, sap, xp&a

Choosing the Ideal EPM Implementation Partner, Part 2

Posted by David Den Boer on Wed, Apr 05, 2023 @ 16:04 PM

thinking

In Choosing the Ideal EPM Implementation Partner, Part 1 , I discussed the three components for an effective enterprise performance management capability: the process state of your company, technological capabilities, and your implementation partner. Today, let's dig into the 8 essential qualities to look for in an implementation partner to best assist your internal team in achieving your objectives.

Topics: Process Improvement, Training, Innovation, Implementation

Choosing the Ideal EPM Implementation Partner, Part 1

Posted by Column5 Consulting on Wed, Apr 05, 2023 @ 11:04 AM

choices

With the current state of the economy, there can be little debate about the importance of having effective enterprise performance management (EPM) systems to nimbly react and plan for the future. There are three components to having an effective EPM capability:

Topics: Process Improvement, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Implementation

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