SAP BPC is Dying
May 18, 2018

SAP BPC is Dying

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

SAP NetWeaver Edition

Overall Satisfaction with SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

SAP BPC is used to support financial consolidations by Accounting team and for budgeting & forecasting (Capex, Headcount, Opex, Integrated Financial Planning) by FP&A team. It is used across the whole organization.

Pros

  • BPC NW version can use the functionalities of SAP BW for ETL and data warehousing.
  • Complex business requirements and logic can be built using SAP ABAP.
  • Can be scaled and support huge volume of data using SAP HANA capabilities.

Cons

  • 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.
  • The total cost of ownership is high
  • Even a simple upgrade project can run into months
  • Unstable roadmap introducing the new product every year adding the ever-growing list of options to choose from
With SAP NW, BW and HANA.... integration is very robust and stable.
Anaplan UI is much better than SAP BPC. Anaplan is user-friendly and upgrades are handled automatically as it is in the cloud.
SAP BPC is well suited for complex planning and consolidations needs where the underlying transactional system is SAP ECC. It suits well if the organization has separate teams with BPC, ABAP, BW, Basis, Hana skillset.

SAP BPC is less appropriate for organizations using Agile methodology. It is not suitable for organizations in a hyper-growth cycle as the installation and implementation is time-consuming. It will not work for organizations where the planning and budgeting needs keep changing frequently. The UI of SAP BPC is not very intuitive and very difficult to set up a dynamic dashboard for senior executives and officials of CxO.

SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Feature Ratings

6.4
Long-term financial planning
7
Financial budgeting
7
Forecasting
7
Scenario modeling
6
Management reporting
5
6.9
Financial data consolidation
7
Journal entries and reports
7
Multi-currency management
7
Intercompany Eliminations
7
Minority Ownership
6
Local and consolidated reporting
7
Detailed Audit Trails
7
6.5
Financial Statement Reporting
7
Management Reporting
5
Excel-based Reporting
9
Automated board and financial reporting
5
1.0
Personalized dashboards
1
Color-coded scorecards
1
KPIs
1
Cost and profitability analysis
1
Key Performance Indicator setting
1
Benchmarking with external data
1
9.0
Flat file integration
9
Excel data integration
9
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
9
BI Standard Reporting ()
Not Rated
Ad-hoc Reporting ()
Not Rated
Report Output and Scheduling ()
Not Rated
Data Discovery and Visualization ()
Not Rated
Access Control and Security ()
Not Rated
Mobile Capabilities ()
Not Rated

Using SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

400 - Financial Planning and Analysis
10 - SAP BPC
SAP BW
SAP ABAP
SAP HANA
SAP BASIS
SAP Architect
  • Complex Gross Margin Allocations
  • Automating month-end tasks
  • Automating access provisioning
  • Automated access provisioning
  • Encrypting NPI's product price and details
  • Automating month-end and QTR-end process
  • Financial Consolidations
  • Cash Flow Statement
  • Fund Flow Statement

Evaluating SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) and Competitors

Yes - Excel
  • Product Features
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Vendor Reputation
  • Analyst Reports
SAP BPC is best suited for SAP ECC, SAP BW & SAP HANA customers.
Select a cloud player like Anaplan

SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Implementation

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.
  • Vendor implemented
  • Implemented in-house
  • Professional services company
Column 5 was the main implementation partner. But we had an expert BPC architect from SAP and expert/experienced in-house technical project manager.
Yes - We did Capex, Opex & Headcount in Phase 1.
We did Unit and Revenue Margin, Gross Margin and P&L in phase 2.
Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled - There was a dedicated change management team.
  • Handling business requirements on web interface without using EPM add-in
  • Performance of logic
  • Automating updates to 70 master data properties during month-end and QTR-end

SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Training

  • Online training
  • In-person training
  • Self-taught
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.
SAP Training contents are very good, informative and exhaustive.
We need the training to learn the product functionalities and best use of features.

Configuring SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

There is a huge dependency on IT team.
Let the design and architecture be handled by BPC experts from SAP (level 7 consultants).
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
Yes - we have added extensive custom code - We had 20+ Badi's in Phase 1 and 40+ Badi's in Phase 2.
There was also customization for SSO on the portal, Automating access provisioning, Encryption for NPI's, Automating month end and qtr-end process.

SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Support

We need a big support team with various skillset like BPC, ABAP, BW, HANA, FICO etc
ProsCons
None
None
Yes - Yes.
We are in a Mac environment and decided not to use EPM add-in tool. SAP Product team in China helped in adding more features and functionalities for going with a web-only version.

Using SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

There is a heavy dependency on IT team. The system is not very flexible for Agile projects.
ProsCons
None
None
  • Creating multiple hierarchies for each dimension
  • Scheduling a job
  • Archiving job logs
  • Creating dashboard
  • Reverting back to a point in time
  • Pushing logic to HANA
Yes, but I don't use it

SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Reliability

Integrating SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

  • SAP ECC - Transactional System
  • Mulesoft using WSDL
  • Demantra
It was a complex integration involving multiple teams.
  • Already Integrated
  • Already Integrated
  • Already Integrated
Yes. The integration is supported and is custom.
  • File import/export
  • Single Signon
  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
  • ETL tools
SAP BPC is fully backed by SAP NW, SAP BW, and SAP HANA. The integration is robust and can be scaled for large implementations. Try to setup EDW (Enterprise Data Warehouse) and Data Hub.

Relationship with SAP

Discount on Professional Services
Request for bundling the product with professional services of the platinum level 7 consultants who can lead architecture design and support during the development phase.

Upgrading SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

Yes - Upgrades are time consuming and laborious.
  • Bug fixes
  • Performance
  • New features
  • AI & ML features
  • Cloud platform
  • Seem less integration to Big Data and IoT

Comments

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