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.
Technical/Deployment
SAP BPC
SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) can be deployed on-premises or hosted off-prem, providing flexibility for organizations with established infrastructure. Different versions of BPC are available to integrate deeply with SAP BW, BW/4HANA, S/4HANA, Microsoft SQL Server, as well as other popular data sources. Each version offers extensive customization and detailed audit trails. BPC is ideal for businesses that require a robust, customizable on-premises or private cloud solution to meet complex planning and consolidation needs.
SAP Analytics Cloud
SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is a true SaaS solution, leveraging SAP's cloud platform for seamless updates, scalability, and accessibility from anywhere. SAC excels in real-time data processing, advanced analytics, and user-friendly interfaces, making it ideal for dynamic business environments. It offers modern, cloud-based advantages for streamlined, real-time planning and analysis, ensuring quick adaptability and enhanced collaboration across the organization.
Administration
Modeling
SAP BPC:
- Complexity and Flexibility: SAP BPC is known for its robust platform designed for detailed financial modeling, budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation. It supports multidimensional data modeling, essential for complex financial structures. The flexibility in handling different financial models benefits large enterprises with intricate financial requirements.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- Ease of Use and Integration: Like BPC, SAC offers an intuitive, user-friendly modeling experience, allowing business users to create models quickly without extensive technical knowledge. SAC supports integrated planning and analytics models, facilitating seamless integration and consistency across various business processes. Both solutions are built on proven star schema multi-dimensional data models, leveraging hierarchies and properties/attributes to identify data regions and filter data for reporting or calculations.
Data Integration and ETL
SAP BPC:
- Complex Integrations: BPC integrates well with other SAP products and external data sources but often requires complex Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) processes. These integrations can be customized to meet specific business needs, requiring significant technical expertise and resources.
- Powerful Transformations: BPC’s included ETL capabilities include powerful data transformation tools such as Transformation Files and Conversion Files, allowing for complex data manipulations and aggregations, essential for organizations with sophisticated data transformation needs. For more sophisticated ETL processes, BPC is compatible with 3rd party solutions like iPaaS and other technologies that require custom integration.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- Seamless Integration: SAC provides seamless integration with a wide range of SAP and non-SAP data sources through built-in connectors, simplifying the integration process. It supports live data connections, ensuring real-time data access and reducing the need for data replication.
- User-Friendly Transformations: SAC offers user-friendly data transformation features, making it accessible to business users. It includes built-in transformation rules and data wrangling capabilities, along with automated data preparation tools that help cleanse and transform data with minimal manual intervention. SAC is the recommended tool for integration with SAP’s Datasphere cloud data platform, which includes predefined integrations for many SAP data sources.
Workflow
SAP BPC:
- Structured Workflow: BPC excels in providing structured workflows for planning and consolidation activities. It ensures tasks are completed in a predefined sequence, maintaining data integrity and auditability. This structured approach is ideal for organizations with complex approval hierarchies.
- Approval Processes: BPC includes comprehensive approval processes, ensuring changes are reviewed and authorized before implementation, enhancing control and accountability.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- Agile Workflow: SAC supports more agile workflow capabilities, facilitating ad-hoc collaboration and adjustments, crucial for dynamic business environments. It integrates task management features via the Calendar function, enabling users to assign tasks, track progress, and ensure accountability, which enhances efficiency and productivity.
Security and Auditability
SAP BPC:
- Robust Security Framework: BPC provides a robust security framework with role-based access control, ensuring sensitive financial data is protected. Typically, Users are assigned to Teams; Teams are assigned Data Access profiles (what they can see) and Task profiles (what they can do). Comprehensive audit trails help track changes and maintain data integrity, crucial for compliance and transparency.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- Advanced Security Features: SAC leverages advanced security features, including single sign-on (SSO), data encryption, and Role-based permissions, ensuring data security and accessibility only to authorized users. SAC folders can be restricted to specific Teams or Users. SAC is designed to comply with various industry standards and regulations, ensuring data security and privacy.
User Interface
Planning
SAP BPC:
- Traditional Interface: BPC offers a traditional interface, often relying on a robust Excel Add-in for input and reporting. While powerful and flexible, it can be less intuitive for new users. However, BPC excels in detailed planning, budgeting, and forecasting, handling complex financial structures effectively.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- Modern Interface: SAC features a modern, web-based interface that is highly intuitive and user-friendly. It supports drag-and-drop functionalities, making planning more accessible to a broader range of users. SAP also offers the SAC Add-in for Excel, which provides planning and reporting functionality in Excel, albeit with less capability than the more mature EPM Add-in in BPC. SAC also offers an Optimized Design Experience when constructing stories, allowing custom coding of widgets via JavaScript. Like BPC, SAC’s integration of planning and analytics within the same interface enhances user experience and efficiency.
Calculations
SAP BPC:
- Advanced Calculations: BPC supports advanced calculations and complex financial models, making it ideal for detailed financial planning and analysis. Its scripting capabilities allow for custom calculations but require significant expertise in Logic Scripts, MDX, and/or ABAP. A powerful third party calculation engine called Darwin Calculation Engine is available to extend BPC’s native business rules.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- User-Friendly Calculations: SAC offers user-friendly calculation features, including built-in formulas and functions that simplify complex calculations, as well as a visual calculation editor which allows users to toggle back and forth between Visual mode and Script mode. Its integration with planning and analytics models ensures consistency and accuracy in calculations. Users can also define calculations in stories.
Reporting/Visualizations
SAP BPC:
- Excel-Based Reporting: BPC relies heavily on Excel for reporting, which can be advantageous for users familiar with Excel but may lack advanced visualization features. The tool allows for highly customizable reports, catering to specific business needs.
- Customization: VBA for Excel can be utilized to enhance native BPC reporting (and/or planning) functionality to create an almost limitless experience within the familiar Excel landscape.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- Advanced Visualizations: SAC offers advanced visualization capabilities, including interactive dashboards and real-time analytics. It provides a wide range of chart types and customization options, enabling users to create compelling visualizations. SAC empowers users with self-service reporting, allowing them to create and modify reports without IT intervention.
- Real time access to certain data sources: SAC supports live connections to some SAP data sources without replicating or staging data, and SAP’s Datasphere product makes this connectivity even simpler.
Collaboration
SAP BPC:
- Integrated Collaboration: Collaboration in BPC is achieved through integration with tools like Microsoft Excel and SharePoint, effective but requiring additional configuration and management.
- Centralized Control: BPC’s collaboration features are more centralized, ensuring all communications and documentation are maintained within the system, enhancing data consistency and control.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- Real-Time Collaboration: SAC offers real-time collaboration features, allowing users to comment, share insights, and work together within the platform itself, enhancing the speed and effectiveness of collaborative efforts.
- Social Media Integration: SAC incorporates social media-like features, enhancing communication and engagement among team members.
Consolidation
SAP BPC:
- Native capability: BPC was designed to support both planning and consolidation, with complex business rules for processes such as Balance Carry Forward, Validation/Controls, Journals, Ownership, and Intercompany Matching & Eliminations.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- Custom capability: SAC lacks some of these native features to support the most complex calculations, but can handle most use cases with logic defined via SAC Data Actions. Prebuilt content providing Consolidation capabilities is available from SAP partners, including the Darwin Analytics Marketplace.
Prebuilt Content
SAP BPC:
- Limited: BPC has limited content released by SAP. The most widely used examples are from partners, like Darwin Analytics (recently renamed from Darwin EPM) content available through Column5 and other global distributors.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- Widely available: SAC has an extensive selection of prebuilt Business Content from SAP. In addition, SAC customers have access to prebuilt content developed by partners around the world. The Darwin Analytics Marketplace offers a wide variety of process-specific and industry-specific examples to choose from.
AI Capabilities
SAP BPC:
- Limited AI Integration: BPC has limited built-in AI capabilities, focusing primarily on traditional planning and consolidation processes. While organizations can integrate custom AI solutions with BPC, this often requires additional development and expertise in addition to potentially requiring third party tools.
SAP Analytics Cloud:
- Embedded AI and Machine Learning: SAC comes with embedded AI and machine learning capabilities, offering features like predictive analytics, automated insights, and natural language processing (NLP). These capabilities enhance the ability to derive actionable insights from data.
- Smart Assist Features: SAC’s Smart Assist features provide automated insights, recommendations, and anomaly detection, helping users make data-driven decisions quickly and efficiently. These features enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of decision-making processes.
Summary
Both SAP BPC and SAP Analytics Cloud offer unique strengths, catering to different aspects of business analytics, planning, and consolidation. SAP BPC excels in detailed financial planning, budgeting, and consolidation with robust security and workflow management. SAC has matured considerably, and it provides a modern, user-friendly interface with advanced visualization and real-time collaboration features. Its integrated AI capabilities and seamless data integration make it a powerful tool for dynamic and data-driven business environments. Both solutions support an organization's evolution to xP&A (Extended Planning & Analysis), accommodating an enterprise-wide platform for enabling integrated financial and operational planning processes.
Choosing whether to migrate from SAP BPC to SAP Analytics Cloud ultimately depends on your organization’s specific needs, existing infrastructure, and strategic goals. For some organizations that already have an existing investment and stable applications developed in BPC, the right answer may actually be a combination of both BPC and SAC. By understanding the unique strengths and capabilities of each tool, organizations can make an informed decision that aligns with their business objectives and drives success. For a deeper discussion and personalized demo, we invite you to contact us and explore how SAC can transform your business planning.