SAP Financials future road-map.

[Former Member]

Hi,

After the acquisition of Outlooksoft and considering SAP's intention to replace BPS with BI-IP - what is the medium term product plan in the Financials area?

I was thinking about the below..

1. Will all SEM-BI-ERP reporting be integrated with Outlooksoft so that all the reporting can be rendered in excel?

2. What will happen to the CPM & Consolidation areas in SEM?

It will be good if someone can give pointers towards articles or blogs that answers these questions..

Thanks,

Sathish

sathish.vm@sap.com

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Got the answer after some research. Here we go.

Outlooksoft was acquired for its planning and consolidation front-end flexibilities. It now works on the Microsoft Analysis services as its database back-end. Going forward, Netweaver BI would become Outlooksoft's back-end and hence would become SAP's recommend planning & consolidation frontend. It would be called SAP Planning & SAP Consolidation. I guess, SEM-BCS and BI-IP would be the application layer between BI and Outlooksoft.

Further, SEM presently consists of

a) BPS -- would be replaced by Outlooksoft front-end, IP application functionality and BI back end

b) BCS -- would be enhanced by Outlooksoft front-end, existing CONS application functionality and BI back end

c) SM Balanced Scorecard (part of -CPM Corporate Performance Monitor)

Pilot software acquisition will be integrated into this and enhanced.

d) Performance Management - Management Cockpit (part of -CPM Corporate Performance Monitor)

Acorn Profit Analyzer acquisition will be integrated into this and enhanced.

Hope this answers the question atleast partly.