BPC Standard (Classic) vs. BPC Optimized comparison matrix

With SAP S/4HANA Finance comes an option for planning functions called BPC Optimized for S/4HANA.

A question that comes around regularly is how BPC Optimized for S/4HANA does compare to SAP’s planning tool SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC), and when to use which, or both.

In this short article, we will compare the features and use cases of both products.

First of all, let’s define more precisely what comprises each product:

BPC Standard:

BPC is a full feature planning and consolidation tool based on BW and supported on HANA. The philosophy of the tool is to be designed for flexibility and to be administered by the business users. As such, it requires its own BW namespace and its own cubes in its “standard” version.

BPC Embedded:

Version 10.1 of BPC on HANA introduced the BPC “Embedded” option, taking advantage of native BW cubes and allowing leveraging existing BW-IP logic. However, some business content features of BPC “standard”, such as the IFRS consolidation, are not yet supported on BPC Embedded (but announced on the roadmap for Q4 2016). BPC Embedded allows taking advantage of HANA optimization scenarios, such as Planning Optimization Kit (PAK), which executes in HANA the majority of ABAP Planning functions and the FOX scripting.

BPC Optimized:

BPC Optimized is in essence BPC Embedded v 10.1 installed on the BW engine present in S/4HANA Finance. BPC Optimized is only available with S/4HANA. Its first purpose is to replace planning functions from FI/CO, which are not there anymore in S/4HANA Finance. Templates specific to BPC Optimized are delivered with it.

In a nutshell:

• BPC Optimized = BPC Embedded v10.1 on BW embedded in S/4 + Business content (templates)
• BPC Embedded v10.1 = PAK (BW-IP optimized for HANA) + new UI5 and Analysis for Office UIs
• BPC Optimized runs on the BW Embedded on the ERP, and is only available with S/4HANA Finance (the component SAP Accounting for HANA is mandatory).

Figure 1 below illustrates S/4HANA Finance architecture with BPC Optimized:

Fig. 1. Overall architecture of S/4HANA Finance with BPC Optimized

BPC is SAP’s planning and consolidation tool. Figure 2 below illustrates an architecture where both products are installed on the same HANA environment:

Fig. 2. Overall architecture of S/4HANA Finance plus a separate BPC installation on the same HANA appliance (necessitates HANA SP9+ for multi-tenant support).

Comparison of each product benefits:

Benefits of BPC Optimized:

• Front-end Excel add-in (Analysis for Office)
• No data replication with ERP (actuals in real-time)
• Masterdata shared with ERP

Benefits of BPC Standard:

• Excel EPM add-in common to all SAP EPM tools, with business functions
• Consolidation (Consolidation on BPC Optimized announced for Q4 2016 by the roadmap)
• Local models
• Administration designed for business users (cubes, security, rules, etc).

Typical use cases:

Depending on each customers’ situation, the table below gives an overview of which product to consider. Of course, each customer situation is specific, but we’re trying here to give a canvas on which to build the discussion:

As this table illustrates, the choice between BPC Optimized and BPC will be mainly guided on the business features required by the project. From a technical standpoint, the 2 products are similar. The difference is really more on the business content that each provides and the existing IT landscape.