SAP BW/4HANA vs. SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

Some scenarios where SAP BW/4HANA is well suited are retail industry, supply chain, finance, warehouse, stocking processes, BI, [and] some finance analytics reporting. Some scenarios where SAP BW/4HANA is less appropriate [is when] relational queries are needed [and] in some small business with infrastructure limitations. Another scenario that is less appropriate is for ABAP processes requirements.

Incentivized

SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) overall is a good package and has helped improve our reporting a lot whilst also making it more efficient due to the reliability of data input / output. There are limitations like graphs being so limited in functionality and reports failing when too much data being processed however i would recommend to others.

Incentivized

• High speed data warehouse regardless of data volumes.
• Excellent integration with SAP systems and Data sets.
• Simplified data modelling due to columnar data base.

Incentivized

• SAP BPC is real time data. You can send information into the system and see it reflected in your reports immediately. Other systems may require a manual push into a reporting system.
• SAP BPC is a shared reporting tool, so multiple users can be working in a model/environment at the same time, real time. This is especially helpful if your workbooks incorporated multiple processes requiring multiple users to get into the same model.
• SAP BPC is a powerful tool designed to help all facets of the company, from cash flow to capital expenditures to headcount management to financial planning to consolidation.

Incentivized

• Enterprise license pricing is very expensive and run-time license limits the usefulness of the tool.
• Integration with SAP Analytics cloud for write-back to BW/4HANA. Live connection is only read from SAC.
• Make run-time licenses more useful.

Incentivized

• SAP should focus on delivering one single product for planning, consolidation and budgeting needs rather than providing a large list of options to choose from.
• The product is not very user-friendly compared to other cloud competitors. There is a heavy dependency on IT teams.
• SAP BPC should come up a pure cloud option.

Incentivized

SAP BW/4HANA requires specialized skillsets around data warehouse modeling and the access to data, however the modeling capabilities are intuitive and have now become accessible to both SAP and non-SAP data warehouse specialists. This new model allows for Interchangeable skillsets and access to a broader pool of experts throughout the industry, as well as easier access to data.

Incentivized

Unlike other SAP traditional products, SAP BPC was meant to be simple and familiar to financial users

Incentivized

SAP Max Attention and general support for SAP BW/4HANA is broadly available. Truth to be told, MaxAttention has a premium cost but brings great engineers. So this being an enterprise capability and extremely critical, we did not consider cost as the main factor since support works well. Just keep that in mind when making your selection.

Incentivized

We need a big support team with various skillset like BPC, ABAP, BW, HANA, FICO etc

Incentivized

SAP BPC training content and trainers are very good. The training is structured and provides a very good understanding of the product features and functionalities. I attended 6 separate training sessions of week-long or more. I had very good experience in all the sessions. The training is organized very well.

Incentivized

SAP Training contents are very good, informative and exhaustive.

Incentivized

The implementation was carried out in two phases spread over a period of 4 years with 2 upgrades in between. We also had multiple upgrades to HANA.

Incentivized

SAP Analytics Cloud is complemented by SAP BW/4 HANA through connectors that work in real-time and allow the display of indicator information in interactive and user-friendly visualizations. SAP Data Services integrates with BW/4 HANA allowing to automate the loading of information in the system taking as a data source a wide variety of platforms.

Incentivized

With Hyperion we struggled as it didn’t have integrated planning and consolidation, whereas BPC does have it. BPC is easier for reporting as it is Excel-based. Also BPC has prepackaged business process flows that helped a lot. Hyperion on the other hand has a faster response time for user queries or report generation.

Incentivized

• Faster turn-around to enhancements
• End users can query structures that are not limited to multi-dimensional models.
• Performance improvements means that business user can do more in the same time compared to traditional BW

Incentivized

• When originally implemented (as the predecessor product Outlooksoft) BPC took ASU from trying to budget and forecast for a 2B enterprise out of spreadsheets and into a far more consolidated tool. It has saved us considerable time over the years and paid for itself several times over.
• BPC also allows us to present our budget in multiple different views to support management, board and departmental reporting.

Incentivized