Item: SAP Integrated Business Planning
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) to revolutionize our sales and operation processes at a global planning level. In a prior life, all of our demand and supply planning was taking place offline and then we were doing our best to manipulate our MRP system to fulfill the final demand and material supply requirements. We have also built a custom inventory optimizer that allows for scenario modeling in an environment where our business models are changing more frequently than we would like.

Pros and Cons

Planers love the excel add-in
Planning view design flexibility
Embedded Analytics that be customized to meet the business's needs
Ability to snapshot planning views and compare historical data

Application functionality could be expanded
IBP System Up-Time

Return on Investment

Simplified forecasting logic
Tracking demand changes w/ planner notes
System flexibility has led to endless design tweaking

Usability

It looks and feels like an extension to SAP S4, so you are experiencing fiori apps. This ensures are end users have a consistent user experience and they can quickly realize they are in the SAP platform. From the excel add in, it is very intuitive on how to update the planning view, as well as save data whenever updates are required.

Key Differentiators

Other

Our erp transformation journey to S4 HANA was taking longer than expected and we were eager to prove value of the sap platform. We had been provided some SAP IBP licenses as a part of our SAP RISE package. There was no reason to wait for S4 to go live, we decided to start designing a planning solution that would support each unique business area at our company.

Alternatives Considered

It has been a while since we have evaluated inventory and planning related SAAS products. We have primarily evaluated the level of effort to custom build tools to support the planning team. The maintenance and flexibility required for each business area made it so that we did not have enough resources to centralize a solution that could be used by all demand and supply planners.

Key Insights

Do you think SAP Integrated Business Planning delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with SAP Integrated Business Planning's feature set?

Yes

Did SAP Integrated Business Planning live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of SAP Integrated Business Planning go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy SAP Integrated Business Planning again?

Yes

Other Software Used

SAP Signavio Process Transformation Suite, LeanIX Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM), SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Analytics Cloud

Likelihood to Recommend

We only have access to the integrated business planning sales & operations planning module, so there may be some limitations we experience that could be solved by other modules. Overall, we have found that moving planners from their offline processes to a structured, cloud system is much easier with the excel plug in. They can operate in a tool they are more familiar with, but then have access to even more functionality from the web ui (i.e. analytics)

Transforming S&OP with SAP IBP

Overall Satisfaction with SAP Integrated Business Planning