In our inaugural Hack2Build on Enterprise Planning with SAP Analytics Cloud in 2022, it was amazing to see the wealth of Planning use-cases brought by our partners. Just 9 months back, we had witnessed 6 planning prototypes in our 2021 edition of Hack2Build. The details are available in the 2021 blog. However, in the 2022 edition, there was substantial interest on the Planning topic which led to 19 Partners joining from 9 countries to showcase their high-quality Enterprise Planning content using SAP Analytics Cloud.
SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning is an All-in-one application through which organisations can make timely plans, budgets, forecasts, and reports with greater speed and accuracy with a full set of Enterprise Planning features at one’s fingertips.
The Hack2Build held between Mar 16-24, 2022, is a 7-day rapid prototyping initiative where partners were challenged to integrate, extend, and build new planning content across functions and specific to Industries. This event was planned as a hybrid event, where partners from the 9 countries were developing their prototype virtually. However, during the Final Demo Jam the partners were invited to join physically at SAP Barcelona Experience Center, Spain. Continuous engagement with SAP Experts were offered to validate their design and architecture, address technical queries to cement their use-cases.
We were thrilled to see 18 partners showing up on the Final Demo Jam day. After many months of physical isolation, we were glad to meet 5 partners at SAP Barcelona Experience Center venue. In this blog, I take the privilege to highlight the winning prototypes here.
The Hack2Build initiative, was a part of the launch of the Partner Innovation Hub, a new resource that aims to improve customer experience and success through partner innovation. The Innovation Hub brings together the partner and sales organisations who will leverage the best practices and infrastructure of the Barcelona Experience Center. Due to the considerable number of partners participating, we had two Demo Jam days with 9 partners pitching their solution each day. Hack2Build is hosted by the SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL), in cooperation with SAP Analytics Cloud Planning Product Management, Partner Readiness BTP Strategy & Execution and the Partner Readiness BTP Solution Architects Team.
Demo Jam Day 1 held on 23rd March
We had 5 partners presenting at the Barcelona Experience Center. Karl Fahrbach, Chief Partner Officer, delivered the keynote and set the tone on the importance of partnering and the value of supporting partners in their innovation pursuit with initiatives like the Hack2Build. Karl witnessed some of the Demo Jam Finalists in action, announced the Winners and distributed the certificates.
Techedge S.p.A. was declared as the Winner for First Demo Jam day. Techedge demonstrated a Profitability and Liquidity Forecast Projection. Targeted at Consumer Goods Enterprises to use their financial resources efficiently, by providing insights into the cash allocation to distributors and by delivering levers to make more rational use of funds. On the Profitability prediction side, the solution uses historical and predictive models to estimate of Sell-in and Sell-out volumes (assuming this is shared by the distributor). Techedge’s model several factors such as promotional pressure which influences the sell-out volumes, with the final goal of forecasting the cash-in and thereby detecting possible cash allocation improvements. Through these models the solution produces a calculated vendor's inventory turnover rate and compares it with the applied Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), providing an overview of whether the vendor is financing the distributor or not. Through the planning application, the user can simulate different DSO to perform what-if analysis.
Picture 1: Techedge's Profitability and Liquidity Forecast Application
First Runner Up went to VASPP GmbH for their Intelligent Demand Planning solution.
The VASPP solution depicted data collection from diverse sources, from SAP , 3rd Party and Internet of things data using SAP Data Warehouse Cloud (SAP DWC) and after importing into the planning model, data action was used for stock calculation based on sales, inventory, customer orders. Then using SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) predictive capabilities what-if-analysis to determine the final order value and generate rolling forecast.
Picture 2: Intelligent Demand Planning Application by VASPP
By combining information from Materials and Sales modules in SAP S/4HANA with SAP Analytics Cloud for planning and with Predictive rules applied for Stock coverage scenario, Ibermatica depicted how its advanced tool could help to prevent risks on stock availability. By using several drivers and leading indicators, the tool is capable to manage all the steps of the process chain.
Picture 3: Stock Coverage Planning and Forecasting by Ibermatica
You can watch the Demo Jam Final day 1 participating partners views in this short video
Demo Jam Day 2 held on 24th March with 9 Partners showcasing their prototypes.
Braincourt GmbH was adjudged the Winner for the second Demo Jam Day.
Braincourt’s PERC application (Project-Equipment-Resources-Costs) provides a solution for integrated planning for a manufacturing company. The entire planning process from the start of project planning over the capacity planning up to the resource planning was showcased.
The Solution provides the possibility to plan existing and new projects in terms of time and volume. In addition, Capacity planning could be done to identify potential capacity bottlenecks and to adjust the project or production planning as necessary. This serves as the basis for the resource planning, in which, in addition to the availability of parts and resources, various purchasing strategies and their different costs are illustrated using historical data from SAP Data Warehouse Cloud (SAP DWC) and the SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) Prediction functionality.
Picture4: Braincourt’s PERC application
IBsolution with their Measure based personnel planning came in as the First Runner Up.
To depict the realities of HR business planning, this solution from IBsolution aims to build the measure driven personal planning, followed by forecast planning.
The planner does not record transactional data but accesses the business content via individual pop-ups for the respective measures. The effects of the planning could be tracked in a dashboard. By differentiating the measures with unique measure IDs, IBsolution provides the traceability of the personnel planning. Three options are considered as Data Integrator from Source Systems like SAP SuccessFactors and SAP human capital management (HCM) solutions. SAP BW/4HANA, SAP Data Warehouse Cloud or a hybrid Scenario. The planning data could be written back by API and persisted in Advanced Data Store Objects (aDSOs) in SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) system.
Picture 5: Measure based personnel planning
The Second Runner Up was awarded to Decision Inc.
Decision Inc. addressed the current challenge in the Retail Industry to connect the Merchandise planning detail with the financial planning and reporting. By integrating the two, Decision Inc. tries to close the gap between the two through scenario planning and eventually creating a forecast. The Planning solution depicted the merchandise data feed from source system for base setup and actualization of data periodically, say on a monthly basis. Units and Rates are loaded per commodity as actuals and extrapolated for the planned periods. The user can then adjust the units or the rates for the new sales planning figure to be calculated. Additional adjustments can be applied to calculate the input margin, example markdowns and the results are brought to the Profit and Loss statements (P&L) as per the planned sales.
Picture 6: Merchandise planning by Decision Inc.
Some noteworthy feedback from the award-winning participants on Demo Jam Final day 2, is compiled in the below video.
There are interesting solutions depicted by the other 12 partners leveraging the power of SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning and some of them connecting with SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, the details of which could not be highlighted in this blog. SAP Intends to work with all those interested partners to productize their solution as the next step.
Thanks to the SAP Panel of Judges for the two Demo Jam Finals:
Dr. Holger Handel : Head of Product Management Planning, HANA Database & Analytics
Maximilian Paul Gander: Product Expert, SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning
Damien Fribourg: Senior Director - Planning Solution Management
Harshavardhan Bhat:Senior Director Business Development for Discrete Industries Ecosystem
Rudi Held: Global Vice President, Head of Global SAP Co-Innovation Lab Network
We are grateful to all the Senior Executives and the colleagues across SAP who were key to the success of this first Hack2Build initiative in 2022 on Enterprise Planning with SAP Analytics Cloud in 2022.
Moving Forward
Like all the other Hack2Build initiatives, the SAP Co-Innovation Lab in cooperation with Partner Ecosystem Success and SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning product management teams, would pursue the next steps with all the participating companies, to help them to build their full scope solution and guide them on the Partner Innovation journey to monetise their Planning application.
Recognising the main contributors to this initiative: raghuvira.bhagavansomesh.dwivedirudolf.held
AUTHOR: vasanth.kumar
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