SAP Planning and Forecasting Capabilities
One of the more interesting ‘assertions’ planted by a key SAP competitor which I faced was a statement that you can’t do planning and forecasting with SAP! As an Airline Industry Principal, it was an interesting pre-sales engagement to lead.
Researching the issue, I was able to show that planning happens in many different parts of the SAP portfolio:
Airlines are among many industries that use BPC in Planning Scenarios
- ERP
- Sales and Operations
- Planning
- Trade Promotion Management/Marketing
- Business Planning and SAP Simulation
- SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, version for Netweaver
- Planning Applications Kit
- SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, version for the Microsoft platform
- Supply chain-based planning (e.g., APO, IBP)
- Merchandise Assortment Planning
- Industry-based planning applications, MRO, for example.
- BW Integrated Planning
- Human Capital Management planning
Let's Dive a Little Deeper into SAP BPC - A key Planning Module
This blog is intended to take a quick look at one of the key business planning applications, namely, BPC or Business Planning & Consolidation, and how you might go about mapping your business planning scenarios to some of the supported business planning scenarios in BPC.
SAP BPC Planning Scenario Mapping
For instance, let's say you are a Retailer. Sales forecasting down to the store and item level, will be a key requirement of yours. To support this Industry Specific scenario, and many others, SAP offers Industry Specific Accelerators, called analytic applications.
Sales Planning in SAP Retail Environments
For instance, Comp Store planning for Retail, which, among other functionalities, allows you to plan and compare multi-store performance metrics.
Other supported planning scenarios include:
- Expense Planning
- Sales Promotion Planning
- CAPEX
- Liquidity Planning
Of course, each of these scenarios above can be complex in both the planning, execution and analysis phase.
Successful Planning Strategy in SAP Prerequisites
However, if you have a solid IT Strategy, an established planning process, existing performance metrics and a vision of where you want to go with your company, then you can quickly implement these scenarios successfully within your company.
Quick Reference Guide to BPC Planning Scenarios
No matter which business planning scenario you might be using, you might find our quick guide to BPC functions handy as a QRG or Quick Reference Guide when building out your planning scenarios (dozens of customers already use it). Print it out, and hang it on your wall. You can also press the button below to get the guide.
Oh, that customer that didn’t think you could do planning and forecasting with SAP. We won the deal!
Do you have a planning strategy?
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How to map SAP BPC to planning scenarios
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