Where does SAP BPC sit in a future EPM deployment roadmap?

What is SAP BPC?

SAP Business Planning & Consolidation [BPC] delivers planning, budgeting, forecasting and financial consolidation capabilities. It allows users to easily adjust plans and forecasts, speed up budget and closing cycles and ensures compliance with financial reporting standards. SAP BPC is a mature product that was historically only available on-premises however is now available in both cloud and on-prem versions. BPC is natively connected to other SAP systems such as SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), can access real-time information from S/4HANA and, through the embedded Data Manager can be integrated with both SAP non-SAP Information systems.

History of SAP BPC

OutlookSoft Corporation was a Stamford, Connecticut based software company that developed products for business performance management. OutlookSoft developed the original BPC software, a product that offered many leading-edge features which helped them to be named in the top 25% in Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 in 2006. SAP acquired OutlookSoft in 2007 and the system we now know today as SAP BPC, became part of the SAP’s finance and Analytics suite.

As a solution that is often required to process large volumes of data and complete complex calculations and logic processes, BPC was one of the first SAP applications to leverage the benefits of the lean and efficient HANA architecture. Versions of BPC are available today that operate with different databases including SAP BW/4HANA, SAP BW NetWeaver and Microsoft SQL.

SAP’s Future Cloud Strategy

SAP’s product portfolio includes a very wide range of solutions with hundreds of products that have sometimes appeared to be fragmented or overlapping. This is arguably the result of making many acquisitions as it seeks to provide comprehensive solution capabilities to the enterprise marketplace. To streamline their portfolio, SAP today endeavour to rationalise and simplify their suite of offerings as well embrace a growing number of deployment options that customers demand.

SAP have, for some time now, promoted a cloud first policy with several of their applications launched over the last few years only being available in the form of SAP hosted, cloud-based ‘software as a service’. However, SAP acknowledge the need for deployment choices and with concerns over data residency now increased post Brexit, for example, they provide more deployment choices than ever before (SAP do not have any DCs in the UK).

SAP’s software range offers various cloud-based services (SaaS) many of which now come with deployment options including not just SAP’s own Data Centres, but also those provided by their hyperscale partners Azure, AWS and GCP. SAP Partners also now have more access to SAP solutions/platforms that allow them to customise solutions needed for specific verticals which are offered under the umbrella of SAP Industry Cloud. SAP Partner Managed Cloud (PMC) providers offer managed hosted subscription-based services. With the original DIY option still being available for more established products to facilitate customers that prefer to deploy software on their hardware or cloud of choice.

 Future Financial Reporting and Planning Apps

There are many factors that influence the future roadmap of an organisation’s Financial Reporting and Planning needs and how they are addressed. Several SAP apps can potentially deliver elements of planning, analytics and financial consolidation functionality which form the core of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) capability. For SAP ERP users, one over-riding consideration will be ‘if and when’ the organisation plans to adopt S/4HANA.

These users are likely considering their longer-term SAP road map from five to ten years and trying to determine what applications their business will need in the future. The road map for how to get there must consider how they evolve the applications used today to the ones they will need next decade.

Companies currently using SAP BPC may also be considering other applications that could play a part in the EPM or analytics solutions plan. Typically, these may include SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) and/or S/4 Group Reporting (for those moving towards a S/4HANA environment).

However, all three of these applications provide different functionality and if the future landscape is very different to the suite today, the stages for how to get there in a cost-efficient and least risk way will require careful consideration.

Of course, not all current or future SAP BPC users will be tied to an SAP ERP, with many using Oracle or Microsoft, for example, ERPs or combinations of many diverse solutions around their business. Even many SAP ERP users have subsidiaries or regions operating other systems. This is of course where SAP BPC, being a best of breed standalone product in its own right, continues to deliver value – as a platform for EPM that is underpinned by SAP’s latest platform technologies, but is not dependent on deployment of any other SAP solutions to operate. A sophisticated EPM capability in any organisation is going to need access to from many diverse sources, and these are rarely, if ever, completely provided by any one vendor.

Overlapping Applications in the Road map

Companies may consider how combinations of more than one application can meet their organisation’s needs now and over the next ten years. Functionality overlaps can be a strategy to ensure smooth transition, reduce risks as well as avoid the costs and business fall out from badly implemented or adopted systems.

SAP BPC provides functionality for both planning and consolidation. BPC combined with SAC offers various benefits from the synergy using both combined such as embedding advanced AI analytics within the overall EPM solution set or extending what are often financially based capabilities across the enterprise supporting the trend in advanced organisations in their move from FP&A to xP&A. Integrating these two products yields further benefits by adding a modern, mobile friendly interface making it more accessible to people who have less familiarity with the more traditional Excel interface, which is the primary reporting interface sitting over the BPC product. See article Why SAP Analytics Cloud is the best (and maybe only) tool to create Dashboards on top of SAP BPC data

Supporting a digital transformation roadmap, SAP ERP users might use SAP BPC as a steppingstone to S/4HANA Group Reporting. For S/4HANA or prospective S/4HANA users, this delivers embedded consolidation capabilities which simplifies and speeds up their close cycles. As a cost effective means to manage the years it will take to roll out S/4HANA to different parts of the group, but benefit from advanced BW/4HANA platform based capabilities, gain experience with the new SAP platform and address critical business needs all at the same time, many users are opting to deploy, upgrade to the latest version, or simply extend the life of their existing SAP BPC by refreshing the underlying infrastructure. See article SAP BPC and the road to Group Reporting

Understanding and incorporating a planned EPM journey as part of a broader technology road map not only provides a clear and risk reduced path towards the future landscape but can also addresses the functionality needs over the journey.

See also recording of webinar on #SAPBPC roadmap.

We had a great audience and the feedback was that it was very helpful - including over a dozen great questions from the audience ranging from what is beyond SAP BPC v 11.1 to some technical consolidation questions.

?Further Reading

What is the future roadmap for SAP BPC?

Long term Planning Analysis and Financial Reporting Consolidation may consider SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) and S/4HANA Group Reporting. How will your SAP BPC transition plan deal with refresh/EOL challenges and not waste time/costs or sign up to any long-term commitments. BPC choices: on-prem, private / public cloud or offered as SaaS and PaaS services.

Why SAP Analytics Cloud is the best (and maybe only) tool to create Dashboards on top of SAP BPC data

BPC combined with SAC offers synergy from embedding advanced AI analytics with financially based capabilities in their move from FP&A to xP&A. Integrating these two products also adds a modern, mobile friendly GIU as well as the more traditional Excel interface.

SAP BPC and the road to Group Reporting

S/4HANA users will look to S/4HANA Group Reporting to deliver embedded consolidation capabilities. However, BPC which supports ECC, S/4HANA and non SAP systems provides the ideal stepping stone to this over the years it take to roll out S/4HANA to all parts of the group in a low risk and cost effective way.