Item: SAP Profitability and Performance Management
Rating: 8
Author: Robert Harper

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Currently, we use it to perform complex step down cost allocations, create complex profitability models, and detailed calculations for warranty reserve management and transaction-based accruals. We use the tool to address allocations required to support management reporting and to automate certain business transactional postings that we have done offline in the past. It is used by finance and IT currently. We plan to expand the number of use cases for PAPM in the next year.

Pros and Cons

Data enrichment (complex joins, lookups, and derivations).
Complex allocations and calculations.
Operates at a very high speed without disrupting the host HANA environment.
Connectivity to BW HANA and BPC.

Connectivity to SAP Analytics Cloud (this is supposedly on SAP's roadmaps to deliver in 2020).
The new tool has some bugs and quirks that need to be worked out. SAP is delivering enhancements on a regular basis.
Reports and queries.
Model Flow diagramming could work better and be visible for download or printing for training and MOC purposes.
Documentation is weak, both in system help screens and user manuals need to be more detailed.

Return on Investment

Will lower IT costs by enabling business analysts to create and execute complex profitability and cost models.
Will improve the velocity of period close and reporting cycles by executing complex allocations and calculations much more quickly than tools such as CO or COPA.
Lowers cost by reducing requirements for ETL development and data replication.

Support Rating

We did get excellent support from SAP during our implementation project. We will see about the SAP support over the long term.

Key Insights

Do you think SAP Profitability and Performance Management delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with SAP Profitability and Performance Management's feature set?

Yes

Did SAP Profitability and Performance Management live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of SAP Profitability and Performance Management go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy SAP Profitability and Performance Management again?

Yes

Other Software Used

SAP BW/4HANA, SAP S/4HANA, SAP Analytics Cloud

Likelihood to Recommend

PAPM is well suited for use cases requiring complex profitability and cost modeling where large volumes of detailed data are required. It executes calculations and allocation very rapidly at whatever level of detail is required (customer, product number, etc.). PAPM is not a reporting tool. Although it has some basic reporting functionality, the results of the models executed in PAPM need to be written to a HANA database to be accessed by reporting and analytics tools such as SAC, Tableau, or Business Objects.

SAP Profitability and Performance Management Review

Overall Satisfaction with SAP Profitability and Performance Management