I was on a sales call recently with a current BPC customer who is about to embark on an upgrade to BPC 10.0 for the NetWeaver platform. The customer had recently implemented BPC v7.5 and was expressing their frustration with having to move to v10.0 and learn the new way to write reports after just spending a lot of time and money on implementing v7.5. Had they known that v10.0 was coming so soon they might have done things differently. This got me thinking about how many times I’ve encountered customers in similar situations. The situation being that you don’t know what you don’t know. Whether it is not knowing about the BPC roadmap or the vast community of BPC users exchanging ideas and supporting each other on the SAP forums, there is ton of information and resources available to a BPC customer. A great starting point is Column5’s own website (I have to plug my own company) where you can find info on BPC via our blogs, demos, webcasts, case studies and more at www.Column5.com. In addition to Column5’s website, BPC information is available from SAP. The challenge is finding it as it as the information is spread across several different sites and portals. A friend and former colleague of mine at SAP, Jens Koerner, wrote a very useful blog that outlines all of the information available from SAP with links directly to the content so rather than recreate what he’s already done I will simply share a link to his original blog here.
Topics:
Center of Excellence,
Best Practices,
Enterprise Performance Management (EPM),
Roadmap,
Implementation
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)
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)
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)
Column5's EPM Academy sets the industry standard in quality curriculum, with course content developed by top field experts on SAP products and delivered in a variety of formats.Software knowledge and skills are only as valuable as what's retained and applied in the real world. Column5's "360 Training Experience" ensures that your staff will not only develop good habits and acquire confidence while mastering the software—they'll build organizational enthusiasm for EPM that lasts long after implementation.
Topics:
Enterprise Performance Management (EPM),
Training,
Data,
Forecasting
Column5 is the leading edge of Enterprise Performance Management and strives to provide technical tools which enable personal growth to benefit you and your organization. This blog will provide users high level functional help using dimension properties to automatically display related members
Topics:
Enterprise Performance Management (EPM),
Training
For many companies, its getting to be that time of year again. No, I am not talking about getting ready for Christmas decorating contests in the office...although that is not far off. I am talking about getting ready for the big annual plan.
Topics:
Process Improvement,
Enterprise Performance Management (EPM),
Project Management
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)
The ultimate goal in any competitive pursuit is to achieve peak performance—and in the enterprise performance management world, that means reaching "column five" in the EPM Maturity Model.
Topics:
Enterprise Performance Management (EPM),
Training,
EPM ROI,
Value
The question of how to perform change management for BPC NetWeaver comes up often from customers. With three ways to move items between landscapes this leaves customers with the question of what is the best method? We’ll go over the pros and cons of each method.
Topics:
Process Improvement,
Enterprise Performance Management (EPM),
NetWeaver,
Performance,
Microsoft,
BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation)
David Den Boer
Michael Sheard
Peter Bull
