Business Flows meets SAP's One Process Acceleration Layer

Russell Gomersall

After SAP acquired Signavio and announced the One Process Acceleration Layer for SAP solutions and the corresponding beta program, we were thrilled about the opportunities this may have in store for us.

The One Process Acceleration Layer is a practice for better and faster transformations and represents the collective knowledge from thousands of transformation projects SAP delivered over time. This knowledge is conveyed to organizations in the form of value accelerators such as reference business and solution architectures, solution best-practices, business metrics, and thought leadership papers.

At bpExperts our core competence is to support companies in building a process repository including all relevant artifacts and establishing a process driven approach including methodology, required roles, and governance to support the business transformation life cycle.

On its end, SAP’s One Process Acceleration Layer practice will also be driving more organizations to adopt a process driven transformation approach delivering value accelerators which can be explored and consumed centrally, via the SAP Signavio Process Explorer.

From a bpExperts perspective we were anxious about how our Business Flows fits into the equation and can work in conjunction with SAP’s One Process Acceleration Layer practices. Will Business Flows become obsolete with the provision of SAP’s reference content, will it be perceived as a competition or is there a clear added value to be addressed in using both?

After deeply diving into the content and meta-model, we are happy to announce that it is the latter:

We believe Business Flows adds considerable value to customers on their Business Transformation journey and especially in combination with SAP’s content.

Business Flows content has been mapped to One Process Acceleration Layer best-practices so that companies exploring both can find consistency, synergies and added value from a combined use.

Fig. 1 Mapping concept

Fig. 1 shows how we map Business Flows objects to SAP’s content. Let me explain which key elements our framework provides and how they link:

Strategy Framework and Capabilities

Our current strategic framework is based on the idea that companies should identify their core objectives based on SCOR performance metrics (Business Drivers) and link these to the relevant Business Capabilities, as well as their scoped E2E scenarios. Our framework supports this exercise because we have already mapped the Business Drivers to our E2E scenarios and a set of Business Capabilities.

SAP’s content that is now in beta offers insights into the various solution capabilities. We have therefore re-mapped SAP’s Business Capabilities to our Business Drivers and where possible directly to the E2E scenarios. This allows the users to identify which SAP capabilities and solutions best help them achieve their goals and create a high-level solution architecture. With the January 2023 release, SAP will also be delivering its own business drivers, connected to business capabilities, including metrics and best practice content to deliver top to bottom, strategy to execution.

E2E process reference architecture and content

Business Flows offers a comprehensive set of E2E scenarios based on a process library. The scope of the processes covers the typical use cases within industrial companies. All scenarios are organized according to their E2E - Domain (i.e., Order-to-Cash, Procure-to-Pay) as well as a scenario cluster which is a collection of scenarios of a specific topic (i.e., consignment, replenishment etc.). Each scenario consists of a value chain of business processes and interfaces to other scenarios. The whole content is consistent and can be used to scope and rapidly set up a company specific repository. The granularity of our business processes is aligned with SAP's libraries, therefore they fit very well to the value chains provided by SAP's industry content. The industry content is organized into collections such as 'AMG' for Automotive Manufacturing or 'OTC' for the Chemicals Order-to-Cash scenarios. We have created and included a scenario cluster for each of these groups and within the cluster we list each scenario with a link to the original content (see Fig. 2). This allows users to discover the industry specific content and include it in their scope, if suitable. Of course, taking an SAP scenario into scope requires transferring the relevant content into the customer repository and re-establishing the process repository’s consistency. Rebuilding a consistent Business Process library is anyhow a necessary task after scoping and a standard step within our approach.

Fig. 2 Plan to Produce End-to-End scenarios with reference to SAP HCO content

SAP Best Practices

As part of the content provided by the One Process Acceleration Layer, the scope of the solution (e.g., SAP S/4HANA) can be defined with so-called Best Practices (Scope Items). We believe that these Best Practices as defined by SAP have a great value during the process design phase. They help identify Best Practices which can be included into the solution. In Business Flows we have mapped the Best Practices to our repository. The nature of Best Practices, especially the variance on granularity, resulted in a mapping on various levels but mainly on Process Group or E2E scenario level.

Similar to the approach mentioned above, we only transfer the selected Best Practices into the customer repository and ensure a consistent repository. This consistency is especially important when the content is synchronized to the Solution Manager for the sake of solution documentation, test management or using focused build.

Process Driven SAP Cookbook

Walking the talk of SAP Activate and leveraging the content of SAP’s reference content in a Business Transformation initiative does not only require building up a process repository with the artifacts mentioned above. To ensure the 'process driven' approach, it requires coordinating many activities to refine and use the content in a consistent manner across the whole lifecycle.

To guide customers through this process we have created a Process Driven SAP “Cookbook”. In itself, this is a model in SAP Signavio (Fig. 3) which contains all work packages related to the SAP Activate Phase and Stream. They include descriptions of the key activities, involved roles, outcomes and especially guidance on which artifacts of the process repository are used or created.

Fig. 3 Business Flows Cookbook ‘Process driven SAP’

Conclusion

Our current investigation is based on the beta version, and we know that the general availability for SAP Signavio Process Explorer and the related One Process Acceleration Layer practices is actually planned for January 2023 with more content and value accelerators such as performance-driven scenarios being delivered. Nevertheless, even in its current beta state, the SAP’s approach with One Process Acceleration layer providing reference and best-practices content is a great step forward in fostering a process-driven transformation approach and it really lives up to its claim to ‘accelerate’ a business transformation. We also believe that our offering in Business Flows - a comprehensive business transformation framework with process repository and transformation cookbook – adds further value to it.

Call for Action

Please reach out if you want to have a demo on Business Flows in combination with SAP Signavio.

For questions regarding the SAP’s One Process Acceleration Layer visit the SAP Signavio website (https://www.signavio.com/one-process-acceleration-layer/).

Request Demo

Request Demo Business Flows meets SAP OPAL

Account-to-Report Maturity Assessment

Account-to-Report Maturity Assessment - A process oriented approach for evaluating the performance of your Finance & Accounting operations

- Ikemefuna Allen

Maturity assessment offers a pragmatic approach to evaluate the performance of an organization because it – unlike performance indicators alone – gives an insight to areas of improvement and helps setting realistic goals by decomposing the maturity into different dimensions and applying a ‘stages of excellence’ approach helping companies to orient and benchmark it’s performance.

Account-to-Report maturity is assessed considering different dimensions of the organization and provides a well-rounded view on whether Finance & Accounting departments “are doing things right” or whether specific areas may need improvement.

The six maturity dimensions are:

1. Process Efficiency

2. Systems standardization and integration

3. Strategic Objectives and KPIs

4. Data quality and availability

5. Process performance and compliance transparency

6. Staff empowerment

Along these six dimensions, data is collected in a maturity survey structured along 10 Account-to-Report processes areas of our Business Flows reference model. The survey results provide a diagnosis of the “as is” situation and more importantly insights on what dimension(s) should be focused on to achieve the desired level of maturity. This is where we apply a “Stages of Excellence” approach which serve to orientate companies by providing a benchmark for performance.

“Stages of Excellence” summarize the main characteristics a company must have at respective maturity levels as a benchmark which allows the organization to compare “where it is now” and “where it wants to be in future” in terms of its performance.

At the highest maturity level, the organization takes a proactive attitude about challenging circumstances impacting the financial health of the company, and has the capabilities to anticipate significant events impacting tax and accounting practices, as well as compliance. Account-to-Report mastery also implies that the finance department is advanced in the way it operates and can focus attention on achieving efficiencies and perfecting financial management processes while minimizing increases in costs and risks.

For further details on the approach, please refer to the full article.

The assessment is captured into a comprehensive report enabling prioritizing measures and initiatives for reaching the next maturity level.

For whom is the maturity assessment useful? When can it be applied?

Our maturity assessment offers a pragmatic approach to evaluate the performance of an organization because it gives an insight to areas of improvement and helps setting realistic goals. It can be used by CFOs to assess and benchmark Finance operations across the enterprise. Moreover, our maturity assessment is useful for Finance Department Heads as it offers insights on specific areas of operations for improvement. Business Transformation Managers and Process Managers also benefit from a maturity assessment as it provides them a toolkit that can be applied prior to, during, and after the business transformation initiative.

For inquiries on the Account-to-Report maturity survey and how to conduct an assessment for your organization please feel free to contact me.

Best regards

Ikemefuna Allen

Value Driven Business Transformation

How to foster seamless business steering through harmonisation of operating models, value flows and management reporting.

- Ikemefuna Allen & Sabrina Reitz

The situation

Business transformation, in essence, focuses on fundamentally changing processes, systems, roles and technologies across the entire organisation. Such initiatives are founded on the hopes of achieving measurable improvements in efficiency, effectiveness and stakeholder satisfaction. Naturally, the decision to enact business transformation must be based on a sound understanding of the required changes, how to implement them, and what the implications are once they are implemented. It is imperative to take an embracing approach involving and ensuring alignment between all the stakeholders impacted.

Experience shows that this is rarely the case, with disjunct and misaligned efforts from the two worlds of Operations, and Finance & Controlling. Typically, accounting departments are left in the dark about business operations during process design phases of major transformation initiatives, while professionals from purchasing, production planning, and sales & distribution often seem not aware how their business operations impact accounting.

What follows 

The far reaching consequences of misalignment between Operations and Finance & Controlling have been felt at all stages of major business transformation initiatives across many industries. Areas impacted range from process design and systems testing through to hyper-care and running the daily business. To demonstrate this, we present several examples from major business transformation projects, and show how things went wrong.  They demonstrate how an apparently isolated problem can have impacts far beyond the radar of those responsible for implementing and championing the change.

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Case 1: Misalignment between procurement, logistics, and accounting impacts system testing

Because involvement of local tax and finance departments into the project happened too late, the entire procurement process for certain materials had to be redesigned during testing phase. While making up for this, realignment across all related streams resulted in extra effort and the risk of delays in  go-live dates.

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Case 2: Misalignment between production, procurement, and accounting during process design phase impacts process execution during  hypercare

The weighting step that is executed by a subcontractor was part of a recipe. During the process design, the production team only focused on processes relevant for core business. Therefore, the weighting process was not designed and consequently not configured in the ERP system. There was no account assignment. This problem was noticed during hypercare when the process had to be executed. As a result, no sales order could be created. Compounding the problem was the fact that there was no process concept. The whole life cycle of the process had to be adjusted within a productive environment.

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Case 3: Misalignment between logistics, procurement, and accounting during process design phase impacts process execution during daily business

Assignment of logistic expenses to the right positions are critical from an accounting point of view. These involve cost of distributors. Incorrect valuation of cost of sales, cost of production, and time of sales recognition poses a compliance risk involving tax authorities. This can also have COPA impacts (COGS vs Production Costs), causing dissatisfactions of responsible executives in case of variable salaries. During a business transformation project, there was a lack of knowledge on two sides. Logistics was unaware about the fact that such regulation exists, and  accounting unaware about different type of contracts SCM had with its business partners. This problem was noticed during daily business, i.e. after go-live and hypercare.

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The way out

 In our Business Flows reference model we demonstrate the real-live integration of business and accounting aspects of enterprise processes. We have compiled relevant content from decades of project experience and modeled these based on established standards. First started as an internal toolbox and training facilitator, our model has reached a maturity we are confident to share externally and that is valued by numerous subscription customers.  Based on our industrial reference content and the profound insight of our partner SR Consulting Professionals in financial and management accounting and enterprise architectures, we have developed a concise and pragmatic methodology for representing both value adding activities and their finance & controlling impacts.

We are ready to help you implementing your transformation with a methodology that works. Consistently.

The solution approach

Value Driven Business Transformation ensures seamless process design and systems implementation through early alignment between operations and Finance & Controlling on key aspects of the business including financial steering, operating models, end to end scenarios and value flows. To accomplish this, we have developed an integrated approach that couples the separated views of operations and accounting. This integrated and aligned business transformation approach allows business steering through harmonization of operating models, value flows and management reporting.

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Business strategy forms the basis for aligning the operating model with the business & financial steering model. At this early stage, stakeholder from both Operations & Finance & Controlling come together and detail the future enterprise set-up. Based on the defined E2E scenarios and processes, posting rules are derived for the allocation of value flows.

• Process specifies the interaction of people and systems when executing business operations.

• Value flow is the set (scope) of postings resulting from business operations

• Posting rules are business requirements on how the system is to be configured in order to reflect the business & financial steering model in the context of a given enterprise structure

Deliverables

• Business & Financial Steering  model

• Enterprise structure

• Value flows

• Posting rules

In Summary 

An Integrated business transformation blueprint bridges the gap between finance, management reporting and operational streams during business transformation initiatives. In partnership with SR Consulting Professionals,  we have a comprehensive consulting offering including domain expertise, proven consulting approach and dedicated methodology. In addition, our reference content Business Flows provides accelerators which help kick-start your initiative. Get in contact now for a personal presentation on details of our offering.

Successful with process-driven SAP implementation

- Russell Gomersall

bpExperts and Software AG held a joint Webinar on the topic on how process management helps secure the success of SAP projects.

Although most companies have realized how important their business processes are for aligning business requirements within IT initiatives there is still a lot of room for improvement on how to exploit the potential across the whole process respective project life cycle.

Picking up this topic Joséphe Blondaut from SAG started the session by presenting the ARIS capabilities in the context of SAP projects. Based on this my part was to a present a specific customer use case of a mid-sized company which changed towards a process centric SAP implementation approach using ARIS across the whole process life-cycle. Having a good insight on how the projects were executed before and after the shift, it is a good study on where the major and measurable benefits lay. One main finding is that especially the repetitive character of roll-out tasks within typical SAP template projects (such as site verification, fit/gap, localization and defining roles and authorizations) allow a higher return of the upfront investments into BPM. You can see the recording of the webinar on our Youtube channel. We are looking forward to meeting you there for more videos on our webinars and trainings. 

'Computerwoche' publishes bpExperts article on SCRUM and SAP implementations

The 'Computerwoche', one of Germany's most popular print and online magazines for IT professionals recently published an article on Scrum and SAP implementations authored by Markus Wolf. Please follow the link for the online article.