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SAP Analytics
Thought Leadership

What is Visible Executive Sponsorship?

Posted by Bill Revellese on Tue, Jul 14, 2015 @ 08:07 AM

Sprinkled throughout many books, project kick-off decks, and lists of project success criteria, is the notion that your program or project needs Visible Executive Sponsorship.  If you Google the topic you will see that there is widespread agreement that this is “important”.  You will also see that there are various studies that show that project success is tied to visible Executive Sponsorship and that very high percentages of failed projects list the lack of Executive Sponsorship as a key reason.  However, I rarely see the more practical aspects of recruiting Executive Sponsors, what visibility really means, and tangible advice on how to make the sponsors visible.  Whether you are planning your EPM Strategic Roadmap, or just upgrading from BPC v7.5 to 10.0, getting the right Executive Sponsor on board is essential.

Topics: Best Practices, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Project Management, Performance, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

The Process is King

Posted by Richard Hynes on Tue, Jul 07, 2015 @ 07:07 AM

How to Get the Most from Business Process Flows in SAP BPC

Overview

The Process Flow Design is an integral part of any SAP BPC implementation project.  As a stage in the project it should come immediately after the Conceptual Design phase and before the essential Blueprinting step, as shown in the diagram, below which outlines the ten basic project stages.

Topics: Best Practices, Process Improvement, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Data, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

Using SAP BPC Restore and Export Journal Data Manager Packages - Part 2

Posted by David Kolka on Tue, Jun 30, 2015 @ 07:06 AM

This is part two of a blog on utilizing the BPC Restore Journal and Export Journal Data Manager Packages.  In the first installment we covered how to setup BPC to use the packages and a few of the reasons why a business team might utilize mass journal updates.  In the second installment, we will walk through a working example of how a team might use the packages to seed budget journals from actuals.  See part 1 for a refresher on how to setup BPC for importing and exporting journals.

Topics: Best Practices, Excel, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

Analytics, EPM, and Managed Service

Posted by Jonathon Pause on Tue, Jun 23, 2015 @ 10:06 AM

Analytics?  Analytics.  Analytics!  Let us simply get it out there – analytics are the newest, hottest technology that everyone is talking about.  “The CFO’s Technology Imperatives for 2015” by Financial Executives International (FEI) and Gartner states, “many IT organizations have made initial investments, but these tend to be tactically focused and do not address the more fundamental issues of data quality and consistency.”  The market is in such a fervor over the promise of analytics that we often lose sight of our greater IT goals, and we do not effectively outline a strategy that can move us toward the new promised land.  

Surveys from Gartner reaffirm these assertions in a study on Top Big Data Challenges.  The top three challenges include how to derive value, how to define strategy, and how to obtain the skills and capabilities needed related to a big data initiative.

Topics: Best Practices, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Analytics, Performance, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

Journal Import and Export Setup Steps - Part 1

Posted by David Kolka on Tue, Jun 16, 2015 @ 08:06 AM

Has your team ever had the need to consolidate history, including journals, when moving to a new consolidation solution?  How about detailed consolidated budgets that use journals?  Or detailed reporting on journal activity?   What about the need to move journals between development, quality, and production environments?  All of this can be accomplished using BPC’s Restore Journals and Export Journals package that comes standard with BPC. Today’s discussion will outline some of the key concepts with using BPC Restore Journal and Export Journal Data Manager Packages.   In the second installment, the discussion will continue with a couple of use cases explaining the different ways to use the functionality.  As a primer, it’s important to review the standard BPC EPM documentation on how to use Journals and Data Manager Packages.

Topics: Best Practices, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

Mind the Gap!

Posted by David Den Boer on Tue, Jun 09, 2015 @ 08:06 AM

The traditional IT vs. Finance gap and why it is essential to overcome that for EPM success.

Everyone loves a rivalry, at least when it comes to sports teams. It seems that the bitterer and longer running the rivalry, the better. When it comes to corporate politics, there can be few rivalries as legendary or potent as that between IT and Finance.

No one knows when it all started, but make no mistake, this can be trench warfare that started long before computers were even used in business. I can imagine the conflict raging so long, that there may have been a dialog like this in ancient times, “I simply can’t let you operate the wheel on your own, you don’t have the technical skills. Why don’t you tell me what you need the wheel to do, and I will operate it for you…just so there aren’t any mistakes?” “What? It’s just a stupid wheel; surely I am qualified to figure this out. Let me try it and we’ll see how it goes.”

Topics: Best Practices, Process Improvement, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Financial Information Management

The Inconvenient Truths About Organizational Change Management

Posted by Connie Folk on Wed, Jun 03, 2015 @ 10:06 AM

Why OCM is Critical to the Success of Your EPM Transformation.

According to analysts and customer feedback, EPM projects, as a subset of Analytics projects, are among the most challenging to achieve positive business value results. The reasons are many, including not having appropriate expectations laid out in a business plan, ill-advised technical designs, poor technical execution, not having internal skills to properly manage the solution, and not including a beneficial process change while implementing the technology.

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

EPM and the Wisdom of Sun Tzu

Posted by David Den Boer on Tue, May 26, 2015 @ 14:05 PM

Inspired by my colleague from Column5 EMEA’s use of a military reference, I’d like to discuss some of the parallels of 2500 year old military tactics to EPM strategic objectives.

Topics: Best Practices, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

5 Things You Can Do to Get the Best Performance from Your BPC MS 10/10.1 Server Environment, Part 1

Posted by Charles Dagaev on Tue, Apr 28, 2015 @ 10:04 AM

1. Landscape Design

I have been working with the BPC product since its inception in 2000. I am always surprised when clients have skipped or are not interested in what we refer to as a System Landscape Design. We take the functional design and/or what you are currently doing in the product to properly size the servers and client machines for the future use of BPC. If you skip this step, I believe there is no way you will get good performance!

Topics: Best Practices, Process Improvement, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Performance, Microsoft, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)

Column5 Through the Years

Posted by David Den Boer on Wed, Apr 15, 2015 @ 09:04 AM

This month marks Column5’s 10th anniversary, and we are excited to be celebrating so many years of providing top-notch consulting services to our customers.  In the end, there are two groups who enable Column5 to have such a rich history of success.

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

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