Trivia Time: Test Your SAP Business Objects Roadmap Know-how

Who’s in the mood for some SAP BusinessObjects roadmap trivia?

I hope you are, because I’ve got a swell one for you today. As a PAC Fellow, I’m contributing to a report PAC will be issuing later in April on the SAP BusinessObjects market. During my research, I gathered some fun factoids that aren’t going to make the final cut in the report but are worth sharing – not just because they are, well... fun, but because they have relevance to understanding SAP’s BO product roadmap.

So here’s the trivia question:

When SAP and BusinessObjects did a product-by-product comparison of their combined offering, they chose one product at the long-term “go to” product in the combined offering in each area, with one exception. Your trivia question is: what would be that exception?

And the answer is….drumroll…..

business consolidation!

Yes, the always exciting area of business consolidation remains entertaining for SAP customers as they wade through their future roadmap options. In this blog entry, I’ll go into some detail on these consolidation apps that we didn’t get to in the report itself. Hopefully the end result will offer a little more clarity.

To get us started, let’s recall the situation that SAP customers were in "pre-BusinessObjects." Prior to May 8, 2007, SAP customers had a simpler life when it came to consolidation. Most were either running EC-CS, the SAP R/3 consolidations component previously called Legal Consolidation, or they were running SEM-BCS, the Business Consolidation product that was part of SAP’s Strategic Enterprise Management suite.

Bonus question for vendor trivia buffs (and it’s ok to use a lifeline for this one), what happened on May 8, 2007 that changed this mix?

On that day, SAP acquired OutlookSoft, a privately held integrated planning software vendor, and the business consolidations plot thickened. Then on October 7, 2007, SAP acquired BusinessObjects, and suddenly found itself with an embarrassment of riches in terms of business consolidation functionality. Customer confusion ensued!

Eventually, SAP came out with a roadmap that included the combined product strategy. One piece of that roadmap pertained to the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) suite, which is where both of SAP’s newest consolidation products now reside. EPM is considered part of the SAP BusinessObjects suite. Along with GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance), EPM is what SAP refers to as “Performance Optimization Applications.” These are the high end products in the BO suite.

In a PAC blog entry last November, I went into some more detail on SAP’s EPM offering.

One thing I shared in that blog entry was the EPM lineup and the origin of each product in the suite:

• Strategy - SAP Strategy Management (formally Pilot Software, an SAP acquisition)'
• Planning - SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (formerly OutlookSoft, an SAP acquisition)
• Consolidation - SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (formerly OutlookSoft)
• Financial Consolidation - Business Objects Financial Consolidation (formerly Cartesis)
• Profitability - Business Objects Profitability and Cost Management (formerly ALG Software)

As you can see from the roster, both consolidation products have made the cut going forward. Why?

Because the two consolidations products each have their own strengths, so for now, SAP will continue enhancements on both of them (though the previously mentioned SEM-BCS now falls into the “no future enhancements” bucket, and EC-CS is in “maintenance mode” as well). Technically speaking, the last functionality enhancements for SEM-BCS shipped with Enhancement Package 4 late in 2008. From this point forward, the only SEM-BCS Enhancement Package updates will pertain to legal requirements.

In this era of complex regulatory requirements and merger and acquisition mania, we can all appreciate why SAP would want to have best-in-class functionality available in this area. So what are the advantages of the two consolidation products SAP is supporting going forward?

SAP’s Business Consolidation and Planning (BPC) product is ideal for companies that need:

• Integrated financial consolidation, planning, budgeting and forecasting (BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation is NOT a planning product).

• Consolidation applications that run on NetWeaver (Business Objects Financial Consolidation does not yet integrate tightly with NetWeaver, though that it in the works)

One of the strengths of BPC over previous SAP consolidations products like SEM-BCS is that it truly is designed to be “owned by the business.” Business users can use BPC in Microsoft or web-based environments without reliance on IT for report customization.

SAP’s BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation is best for companies that need:

• A consolidations engine that can handle large multinational accounts with complex consolidation needs, or a widely-distributed consolidation infrastructure.

• The fastest processing speeds for single and parallel processing.

• The BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation contains very sophisticated financial reporting and consolidation functionality that is really designed with the office of the CFO in mind.


So with all this sophisticated functionality in these new consolidation products, will SAP customers running SEM-BCS upgrade to them right away?

The answer is: not likely. The reason? For all the functionality of these newer products, they don’t have the transactional integration with core SAP ERP that SEM-BCS currently has. SEM-BCS allows users to automatically integrate data from both SAP ERP and BW systems. However, this core ERP integration is set to be a key priority of future releases of EPM products, starting with the 7.5 versions (release dates not yet available, but the target is 2009).

When tighter integration with SAP ERP is available, we can expect these products to get a more serious look from SEM-BCS users. Those customers not yet invested in SEM-BCS are more likely consider these new products now, which presents service opportunities for those who can guide customers on the pros and cons of each EPM product for their needs and business model.

I hope that this blog entry has brought a bit more clarity to one of the more confusing areas of the combined SAP BO product line. Before I wrap, though, I have to admit that I’ve been holding out on you. Things are a bit more complex than I let on with the BPC product. Care to take a guess why? Because BPC is currently being sold as two separate products: BPC MS, a product for Microsoft environments, and BPC NW, the version for NetWeaver environments. I didn’t mean to hold out on you, but the BPC MS release is not likely to be as big a factor in SAP environments at any rate.

And hey, if you got all the trivia questions in this blog entry right, you are probably due some kind of prize. If you see me at Sapphire in Orlando, I’ll try to have one ready for you!