Provide your Business today the finance data for tomorrow

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Speed up your SAP Central Finance Rollout with SAP BTP data driven architecture 

Many SAP customers are on the way for their own S/4HANA transformation program. They will use this right time to get rid of the old complex ERP System landscape with the intensive customizing and move towards simplified and standardized new S/4 Architecture. They will use the core of S/4HANA as it is and with SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) in the middle as extension and integration platform. One spirit of the SAP BTP is to build a rules once and use it across the SAP BTP platform for other solutions.

And here is exactly a very strategic point in all the S/4HANA transformations. We have the analytics department bringing the data together with own mapping rules for analytics. We have the migration team who will bring the existing data from left to right and so on.  We also have the problem that the business have to wait for the future data of tomorrow until the S/4HANA Transformation is finished. But this takes often many years and business can’t wait until this time.

Few years ago with the approach of SAP Central Finance Architecture SAP offered a way for the finance business to work with this interims situation and use the future data today. This means the aspects of the finance S/4HANA migration will be handled today in the SAP Central Finance (CFIN) Rollout in regards to master data mapping/consolidation,  data quality, enrichment, cleansing and so on.

SAP BTP Future Data Stack

To build a Future Data Stack we leveraging the different capabilities of the SAP Business Technology Platform.

 

Build Future Data Stack

1. Realtime replication from SAP ERP Data (relevant migration data)


2. to Raw Dataper System (1:1) on the SAP HANA Cloud Database


3. Use Cloud data management as a data washmaschine


4. And persist the result on the Future Data Stack on SAP HANA Cloud


5. Use Testautomation to have an Audittrail about data completeness and data integrity between source and future data stack


6. Provide Self Services to the business by accessing this data with the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and on top with the SAP Analytics Cloud

Now you provide your future data to the business today and they could work with data trust and build on top of these further applications with the SAP BTP.

 

Data Mesh with BTP Data Transformation Factory

 

What benefit brings the SAP BTP Future Data Stack to a SAP Central Finance project? 

If we look to a common CFIN project, you have to do the following steps:

1. Activate your SAP Central Finance IDR – Intermediate Data Retention - stack on the future connected systems to CFIN


2. IDR will enrich these data with CFIN logic


3. Key of a CFIN Project is the master data handling. It is in customer decision, how much mappings he will provide in the future CFIN system.


4. In case of a later change of these mapping philosophy a further project on S/4HANA is needed


5. In a wave approach the relevant source systems would need to handle with the data transformation to CFIN and the relevant mapping rules

Finance First powered by BTP Data Transformation Factory

And here is exactly the game changer with the Future Data Stack architecture!

We load all relevant data from the SAP source system into the near realtime Future Data Stack where the data are transformed into the future data look. We also have identified the mapping rules and provide them to the SAP S/4HANA Central Finance System. Beside this, the business sees immediately their data view on database level and get trust into the data before they are loaded via initial load into the CFIN System.

Is the S/4HANA Transformation only a System Landscape Optimization or also a Data Transformation Chance?

Our approach with SAP Central Finance and the SAP BTP Future Data Stack Architecture is to decouple the implementation stream from the data migration stream.  With that we could transform the complete enterprise data from the very beginning and we are not limited to the migration waves decision. The data are ready for “take off” and the business work today and get trust into the correct data. Furthermore the implementation project get important insight how the data could work the the System Configuration on an early stage. This also means, once the trustful data are loaded into the CFIN of future S/4HANA system, the acceptance and the trust from the business is already their.

Reduce the complexity of your S/4 transformation Project. Reduce the Data migration risk and increase the Data trust and Data Quality in your S/4HANA transformation. Optimize your OPEX by building data transformation rules only one time with the SAP Business Technology Platform instead again and again in each project approach (silo oriented). 

And at least make your finance business happy with a shorter delivery of the digital transformation architecture.

Die Autoren:
Werner Brunner, SAP Ambassador for Digital Transformation and Business Coach
Carsten Hilker, Solution Management Central Finance