For those of you working EPM 10 and contemplating using EVDREs, this blog should be of help to you and ideally save you time!

Topics: Best Practices, Training, Implementation

This exact list is, of course, debatable from one BPC Deployment Expert to the next.  In fact, I am curious to see what other experts think.  Here are my top 5 features that are often overlooked in SAP’s Business Planning and Consolidation & EPM offerings.

 #1: Business Process Flows

Also known as BPFs.  This is a free feature embedded within BPC that requires minimal consulting expense if the user takes the appropriate training.  How to achieve this:

Topics: Thought Leadership, EPM 10

“Is our BPC implementation working well?  How are competitors using the same software?  What are the best practices?  What is the ROI?”

Topics: Center of Excellence, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Financial Close, Value, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

Remember the great 1996 classic flick, Jerry Maguire? Do you recall that moment early in the movie when Tom Cruise’s character writes his memo before he got whacked? His coworkers clapped and cheered. They did so because they believed in what he said. Then corporate reality set in and they had to get back to work… back to business as usual!  So did Bob “Business as Usual” Sugar win in the end?

Throughout the movie many characters call the memo a “Mission Statement”.  Well, folks, after 20 years I have had it!  I am writing my “memo” in this blog.  While I am not staying up late and photocopying my “memo” to be hand placed on my colleague’s seats, I hope this has a (somewhat) similar effect. 

Topics: Best Practices, Thought Leadership, EPM ROI, Performance, Implementation

What Should an SAP BPC Team Look Like? Update!

Posted by Mike Sullivan on Tue, Sep 23, 2014 @ 11:09 AM

The landscape of an EPM project is literally changing right before our eyes. In fact, we posted a blog on this topic not long ago and realized that there were several updates that needed to be made. Not because the post was incorrect but because the practice in the field had changed in a few short years.

Topics: Thought Leadership, Project Management, Implementation

Organizational Change Management for SAP EPM and BPC Implementations

Posted by Connie Folk on Tue, Sep 16, 2014 @ 12:09 PM

Topics: Best Practices, Project Management, Implementation

EPM stands for Enterprise Performance Management.  In a nutshell, it is at least a 4^th generation moniker describing an underlying use of OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) technology.  Why should you care?  Well, it really is the current “end game” of computing for most organizations.  If you are an executive or in a leadership role in say, Finance or FP&A, you should really care!  One cannot manage that which they do not measure. Those who can achieve EPM and leverage OLAP technology will outperform their peer groups across the board.  How in the world can you track your EPS or monthly profit if you do not capture and report the information to do so?  How can you take action to get back on plan, or stay ahead of plan, if you have no tools to do so?  This is what EPM is for, and what OLAP has been solving for nearly 40 years.  The path to effective leadership and success is not simply about delivering results; it is about consistently delivering results.  In order to do this one must be able to both monitor their business, and be able to take actions to control the business. 

Topics: Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

If you're like a lot of people out there, you probably had to read the title of this blog twice. Over the last several years there has been a plethora of speculation, confusion, frustration and exasperation about the future of BPC for the Microsoft Platform.  From the very first announcement that SAP would port BPC to the NetWeaver platform, people have forecasted the end of the Microsoft version. The lack of roadmap beyond extensions of platform support for the latest versions and some new content (i.e. IFRS Starter Kit) does make one wonder about the future of BPC for the Microsoft Platform.  Here's the good news: SAP recently released the latest roadmap for the EPM portfolio and there are several meaningful planned enhancements to BPC for the Microsoft Platform; from here on out referred to as BPCMS.

Topics: Center of Excellence, Roadmap, Microsoft, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

This is a 100% true story.  The names have been altered to protect the innocent (and the guilty)!

Everyone likes a great story.  What makes a story great is a plot, a villain, and a hero.  What makes this particular story more interesting is that it is a business story. It also one that clients keep asking me to repeat to their teams, peers and even their executive staff.

Topics: Best Practices, Thought Leadership, Analytics, EPM ROI, Microsoft, Implementation

Using the Power of Visual Basic in EPM 10 Reporting

Posted by Michael Sheard on Wed, Aug 06, 2014 @ 07:08 AM

The Excel Add-In reporting tool of EPM 10 combines the features of Excel with EPM functionality.  A feature within Excel that is sometimes useful to meet more advanced reporting needs is macros programmed using Visual Basic (VBA).  This can achieve features that are not achievable through EPM 10 functionality.

Topics: Best Practices, Excel, Thought Leadership, Analytics, EPM 10, Value