SAP Analytics
Thought Leadership

Topics: HANA, Thought Leadership, OutlookSoft, NetWeaver, Roadmap, Microsoft, Implementation, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

SAP BPC: What is the Right Amount of Time for a Design?

Posted by Will Leonard on Tue, Jun 17, 2014 @ 10:06 AM

The business blueprint is arguably the most important – and most complex – document that is delivered during an implementation.  But how much time should be allotted to this phase?

Topics: Center of Excellence, Best Practices, Thought Leadership, Value, Implementation, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

Recall your last few project status meetings. The project manager reviews the open tasks and asks for progress. The technical team reviews and responds with answers such as 50% complete, 90% complete, 34.7% complete, etc, etc, etc……. but what does it all mean?

Topics: Thought Leadership, Project Management, Implementation, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

Business Intelligence: A Core Business Competency

Posted by David Den Boer on Thu, Mar 13, 2014 @ 15:03 PM

Economic challenges are all around today’s market. We hear about struggling companies that are suffering from poor performance. We know that companies don’t exactly come with manuals for the CEO to reference when things aren’t going well. In the past, conventional wisdom was to focus on the core money making operations of the enterprise. A car manufacturer that also dabbles in satellite technology, a TV manufacturer that also makes laptops, and newspaper that also owns real estate are examples of companies that, when times get difficult, have decided to dump ventures not aligned with the company’s core competencies. That’s what makes Gartner’s assessment ( Business Intelligence: A Core Business Competency) extremely important.

Topics: Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Business Intelligence (BI), Analytics, EPM ROI, Value, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

Replace a Working Spreadsheet Based Forecasting Model with SAP BPC?

Posted by Michael Sheard on Wed, Mar 05, 2014 @ 14:03 PM

SAP BPC forecasting model implementations frequently replace existing spreadsheet forecasting models.  A key question to be asked when implementing SAP BPC is to consider how it will improve a forecasting process that works and therefore justify the disruption the change may involve and the expense, both internal and external.

Topics: Excel, Analytics, Value, Implementation, Data, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), Forecasting

Budget and Forecast – Are They The Same?

Posted by Martin Lloyd on Mon, Feb 03, 2014 @ 09:02 AM

When we report on actual data we are clear what we are looking at: the data will have been taken from our transaction systems and will have been produced in agreement with generally accepted accounting standards.  It will represent the actual performance of the organisation. But when we look at budget or forecast data are we as clear what the data represents?

Topics: Center of Excellence, Thought Leadership, Financial Close, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), Forecasting

Way back in 2009 while I was working in the EPM practice at SAP I routinely cited a Gartner survey stating that 70% of organizations still relied on spreadsheets for their budgeting, planning and forecasting processes when speaking with customers or at events. Fast forward four years to 2013 and amazingly a new Aberdeen study found that a whopping 89% of organizations use spreadsheets for these processes! What gives? We've all heard over and over about the pitfalls of using spreadsheets for these processes, often referred to as “Excel Hell”.  The bottom line is that business users love spreadsheets for their ease of use and flexibility.  So how do we let business users continue to use their tool of choice AND have the qualities of a planning system such as security, workflow, common formulas and logic, a single source of data, multi-dimensional analysis, etc.?

Topics: Center of Excellence, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Analytics, Financial Close, Implementation, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

EPM Value Is Exclusively The Client's Definition

Posted by David Den Boer on Mon, Jan 13, 2014 @ 10:01 AM

This is an old story we see all the time. A policeman happens upon a drunk frantically searching for something at the base of a streetlight. “Hello there, looking for something?” The drunk looks up, “Yesh Offisher, I lost my keysh in the park.” “In the park? Then why are you looking on this street corner?” says the confused cop. “The light is better here!” says the drunk.

This is the problem with how EPM projects are governed today, and no, I am not implying drunks are prevalent in EPM! Too often prospects make decisions based solely on price, thinking that value is equivalent across service providers, and net ROI is maximized by selecting the lowest cost implementation proposal. I encourage customers to stop and think about what they get with the low cost provider. A team that doesn’t have the ability to offer the appropriate breadth services that are specifically designed to add value while reducing risk, leave only the lowest common denominator of value in their wake.

Topics: Best Practices, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), EPM ROI, Value, Implementation, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

Are You Mature Enough for EPM - Part II

Posted by Peter Bull on Wed, Oct 16, 2013 @ 08:10 AM

In the last article we looked at a pragmatic approach to assessing EPM Maturity using a Maturity Matrix. In this article we’ll expand on the matrix and also develop the ideas of what this can be used for in developing an EPM approach in an organization.

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

Adding Value through the BPC Consolidation Process – Part II

Posted by Mike Sullivan on Thu, Oct 10, 2013 @ 08:10 AM

In part one of this post we explored some of the areas where SAP Business Planning and Consolidation has added significant value to the Consolidation process through the use of Business Process Flows. The Business Process Flow not only aided in guiding a user through the steps in a process but served as a mechanism to allow once time consuming centralized tasks to be pushed upstream and distributed across the user base.  This post will dive into some key model considerations that need to be addressed in order to achieve this value.

Topics: Training, Value, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)