SAP BPC 11.0 version for SAP BW/4HANA
Is a simplified planning offering
With the release of BPC 11, BW/4HANA now has fully developed Planning and Consolidation capabilities that are above and beyond prior versions of BPC. Highlights include:
- Web worksheets are now available, allowing browser-based planning and reporting, with multiple planning objects in one screen
- Integration with SAP Analytics cloud means syncing plan data from end users who are purely cloud based
- New customizable HTML5 interface which includes visualization capabilities and task navigation similar to Business Process Flows
- Advanced performance achieved through HANA processing and Advanced Data Store Objects (aDSO, no longer InfoCubes or classic DSO)
- Standard and Embedded model choices are still available
- Microsoft Excel integration still available with Analysis for Office and EPM interfaces
Advanced Analytics:
SAP BPC 11.0 brings built-in, real-time analytics into the application’s Web Client. Users can easily create graphs and charts to visualize variances. Additionally, these can be shared amongst colleagues and attached to reports or pinned to the home screen as a favorite.
One key benefit to emphasize is that by integrating with SAP Analytics Cloud, BPC can directly utilize the Predictive Analytics functionality to generate new insights from Plan and Actuals data. Predictive Analytics is also helpful for uncovering the true drivers of business variance.
The predictive analytics has the potential to be a game changer for finance. Business users can take their actuals and plans and run them through predictive processes and gain meaningful insights using machine learning. Before running a budget or forecast, finance departments can leverage the predictive functions to see where their current data set aims to take them and then uncover influencers and business challenges.
The Cloud
With the world moving rapidly towards the cloud, SAP BPC 11.0 offers a tempered pace at which organizations can move their planning and consolidation platform. This latest release is available not just on the SAP HEC, but also on AWS, Azure, Virtustream, and other cloud providers. Finance organizations can have rapid deployments due to the ease of cloud enablement as well as utilize hybrid scenarios, which are quite popular. The platform can start on premise and then move to the cloud. Additionally, the integration with SAP Analytics Cloud allows organizations to have part of their platform (SAP BPC) on premise/cloud and then integrate with a public cloud platform for seamless integration.
Integration
Integration has been discussed a few times and it’s more than just bringing data into SAP BPC. Finance users will clearly benefit from being able to bring data in from SAP S/4HANA and other SAP data sources and non-SAP data sources via the integration that is native in SAP BW/4HANA. The key is what to do with the integration and why this matters to finance.
Accountants, analysts, controllers, and others will have the ability to bring all actuals (from ERP, logistics, marketing systems, human resources, and others) into SAP BPC to get a true reflection of actuals and compare to plans. What this leads to ultimately is one powerful financial planning system that allows organizations to perform true Integrated Financial Planning.
We all know that the CFO resides not just in finance, but in every department (like sales and marketing), every geography, every region—everyone has a finance team providing true fiscal guidance. Those silos now have the ability to come together in this integrated platform and provide a universal platform for planning.
SAP BW/4HANA also has the ability to capture things like sentiment analysis, which can be groundbreaking for finance individuals. Such analysis enables them to use market sentiments from Social Media and other sources to judge the direction of the budgets based on real-time market feedback.
Bottom Line
SAP BPC 11.0 with SAP BW/4HANA is poised to be quite the game changer for the office of the CFO and their ability to be a business partner across the enterprise. With all the tools at their disposal, gone are the days when finance responds with “I’ll get back to you.” Now, they can lead and help drive business decisions.
-Bharat Sunkari