SAP

Reimagine Planning: Migrating from SAP BPC to SAP Analytics Cloud

Publish Date: February 26, 2025

Migrating from SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) to SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is a significant step towards modernizing your financial planning and analytics capabilities. This transition enhances data integration and real-time analytics, leveraging advanced features like predictive analytics and machine learning. Let’s explore the key considerations, best practices, and strategic steps to ensure a smooth and successful migration from SAP BPC to SAC, helping your organization unlock new levels of efficiency and insight.

Enterprise planning solutions have evolved. The following diagram depicts their evolution in the SAP landscape.

Over time, SAP Analytics Cloud has evolved into a robust and reliable planning solution, achieving feature parity with SAP BPC. The solution leverages generative AI with the Joule copilot, SAP’s generative AI assistant, and the compass capability of SAP Analytics Cloud to create business plans and simulate different business outcomes automatically.

This table highlights the main differences between SAP BPC and SAP SAC. While BPC specializes in financial processes, SAC is more versatile in analytics and planning, focusing on modern, cloud-based, and user-friendly solutions.

Feature	SAP BPC	SAP SAC
Primary Purpose	Financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation	Analytics, reporting, planning, and predictive analysis
Planning & Budgeting	Specialized for financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting	Flexible planning capabilities, a more modern approach to planning
Financial Consolidation	Strong support for financial consolidation, including IFRS/GAAP standards	Limited consolidation features, more focused on analytics
Integration with SAP Systems	Deep integration with SAP ECC and S/4HANA	Can integrate with SAP S/4HANA, SAP BW, and non-SAP systems
User Interface	Complex and financial expert-focused	Modern, intuitive, and user-friendly interface
Reporting & Dashboards	Primarily financial-focused reports and statements	Advanced data visualization, real-time dashboards, interactive reports
Data Connectivity	Primarily SAP data sources, with limited extensions	Flexible connectivity with SAP and non-SAP data sources (cloud, on-premise, SQL, etc.)
Real-Time Collaboration	Basic collaboration features	Real-time collaboration, commenting, and sharing on dashboards
Advanced Analytics	Limited advanced analytics	Strong support for predictive analytics, machine learning, and AI capabilities
Deployment	On-premise, private cloud, or hybrid	Cloud-based (SaaS model), scalable and easy to maintain
Cost and Licensing	Higher infrastructure and implementation costs, typically more expensive	Subscription-based, flexible pricing, cloud-first model
Strengths	Financial consolidation, regulatory compliance, detailed financial planning	Data exploration, interactive reports, advanced analytics, and real-time decision-making
User Role Focus	Finance teams, accountants, and planners	Business analysts, executives, and general users (not limited to finance)
Predictive Analytics	Not Available	In-Built Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Benefits of Migrating from SAP BPC to SAC:

Enhanced User Experience: SAC offers a modern interface with drag-and-drop functionality. It’s user-friendly, making it easier to adopt and use
Real-Time Insights: SAC real-time analytics enable faster decision-making compared to BPC
Collaborative Planning: SAC Supports cross-departmental collaboration, allowing teams to work together on planning and forecasting
Cloud Advantages: SAC’s cloud-native architecture ensures scalability and flexibility and reduces IT involvement in installation and upgrades.
Ensuring your systems remain up to date is essential. SAP BPC is rapidly becoming a legacy solution, and its support will diminish over time. Transitioning to SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) mitigates this concern. Modern planning demands speed and collaboration across various teams, and SAC is designed to facilitate this, unlike BPC, which is less equipped for contemporary planning needs.
Auto Updates: Since SAC is a cloud solution, with new updates every three months, users can access the latest features without worrying about keeping their system current.
Best practice pre-built business content: Unlike BPC, where almost everything needs to be built from scratch, SAC has pre-built models and templates for different planning areas. This makes setup quicker and simpler.

Migrating from SAP BPC to SAP Analytics Cloud can significantly enhance your organization’s planning and analytical capabilities. You can ensure a seamless transition by carefully planning your migration strategy, leveraging best practices, and proactively addressing potential challenges. Embracing SAC’s advanced features will streamline your financial processes and provide deeper insights and more agile decision-making. As you embark on this migration, remember that the key to success lies in thorough preparation, continuous learning, and a commitment to leveraging the full potential of SAP Analytics Cloud.

Yash’s expertise in migrations can significantly enhance the success of your transition from SAP BPC to SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC). We bring business process advisory, specialized analytics knowledge, and proven methodologies, ensuring a smooth and efficient migration process. Our rapid accelerators help expedite timelines, reduce risks, and minimize disruptions. Our solution is comprehensive, from initial assessments and data migration to testing, training, and post-migration optimization. Our guidance and resources help you leverage SAC’s full potential, enabling your organization to achieve greater agility, collaboration, and insight in financial planning and analysis.