SAP BPC 10.1 NW on HANA

Cinema Exhibition and Entertainment Industry Company (Confidential) Mumbai, India

Background

The Company is an India-based entertainment company, primarily operates in the cinema exhibition industry. The Company operates approximately 100 multiplexes and 389 screens in over 54 cities making it a pan-Indian multiplex chain. It’s cinemas have facilities in terms of projection and acoustic systems; stadium styled high back seating with cup holder arm-rests; varied theatre food; a selection of Hindi, English and regional movies, and computerized ticketing. The Company is engaged in the design, construction and operation of the multiplex in Goa that hosts the International Film Festival of India.

The Challenges with spreadsheet based reporting before implementing SAP BPC

The annual planning and budgeting process in the company is an iterative and multi-level processes involving Several Units, parties, IT tools and requires significant effort at various levels to accurately generate the planning and budgeting numbers for various level of management approval and reporting. The company was doing planning and budgeting for each of its units separately which is biggest and cumbersome but critical activity for them to measure performance of each unit and keep them tightly integrated with Plan and Budget.

Before implementation of SAP BPC company was using Excel Spreadsheet based Manual Systems in the whole Planning and Budgeting process which requires manual intervention and efforts in complicated budgeting pack in excel tool. Due to complex structure in excel sheet monthly, quarterly or yearly budgeting and planning was becoming difficult reason being company was doing unit wise budgeting of its 100+ units, this requires lot of efforts by users and considerable  time was consumed in this activities for keeping the required data in sheet as well as maintaining this sheet. In addition to that, the process off Planning and Budgeting was based Manual System, tracking and monitoring of completion of planning and budgeting cycle was very difficult and each managers were highly involved in circulation and maintenance of spread sheets in turn making them less available for actual work of analysis and controlling measures. These factors eventually lead the management to improve upon this budgeting and planning activities and Company decided to go for SAP Business Planning and Consolidation product as a part of their current SAP ERP System Implementation.

Planning and Budgeting Process carried out by Company before implementation of SAP BPC

Before implementation of SAP BPC company was doing budgeting on annual basis and comparing the same with actual data on quarterly basis for variance analysis and performance management. Unit level users has to prepare budget for his unit. The same will be approval by Regional Finance Manager, after approval by Regional Finance Manager this Budget is being verified and approved by HOD. From HOD to COO/VP and from COO/VP to CEO and Director. So there is five level to approve and finalise entire budget which results in too much consumptions of time to manage the process and well as keep track for timely completion and reporting.

They were doing all budgeting activity manually in Microsoft Office excel pack. For each major head of Revenue and Expenses there was a separate sheet and for other one miscellaneous excel sheet. Once unit level user input data relating to their unit all data were combined to arrive at budgeted profit and loss account. Many budgeted expenses and revenues are budgeted based on number of patrons and ATP (Average Ticket Price). This entire process was taking too much time because over 100 unit’s data has to be accumulated at HO level to do budgeting and planning of entire company.

They were doing this budget in 47 different input templates for each existing units and 18 different input templates for each new units.

Selection and Implementation of SAP BPC 10.1 NW on HANA

SAP BPC 10.1 on HANA was selected as the tool that supports the process. From the client part, participation in the project was led by IT and Corporate Planning and Budgeting teams, making sure the main confederation from each group and department were involved to share their specific requirements through processes and examples that helped designing a solution that would be easy to maintain and would be scalable enough so they can reach and go through each other areas in the organization to derive ultimate desired solutions of managed and automated process of Planning and Budgeting with removal of manual intervention with data processing, formulation and reporting to the extent.

Implementation of SAP BPC

In process of implementing SAP BPC 10.1 on HANA, started with needs and specifications of corporate planning and budgeting unit wise as well as at different segment group level which is define by top management and confirmed which will be applicable for all levels. Each level user will fulfil these mandatory requirements along with additional ones specific for their predefined requirements and send those to corporate planning and budgeting team for approval. We have process steps in BPC with linked Input Schedule and related reports for completion of process as well as defined script logics with respect to specific and complex calculations requirements of client.

Processes we have implemented to perform planning and budgeting process in SAP BPC.

We have design and implemented master data input templates which covers all the master data containing prerequisite data for starting of preparation and computation of budget. Unit level user has to input required data field only including master data for the Non SAP Material items.

With script logics which performs computation of budget, once data input activity is completed by unit level user he has to run respective script logics to derive calculated figures, in some activities only which require manual input for completion of activity and remaining all processes and calculations were scheduled in system. Once input of data and running of script logic activities completed by user, he has to run final script logic which is written for Budgeted Profit and Loss account.

Under this huge planning and budgeting monitoring process we have covered many performance based and variance based reports which were there in design but was not achievable with plain use of Excel as the data extraction and linking for the correct formulation needs to be maintained manually, but the same have been automated to avoid any error and generate reports and complete process with more confidence on numbers. Under this activity, two types of budget reports were prepared, one based on GL(General Ledger) Level know as Financial Budget and second one based on Product Level known as Operational Budget. And variance analysis and impact on profit have been merged with hybrid budgeting reports where functional and technical merging of both the reports were done.

Final Solution

We have implemented SAP BPC 10.1 on HANA by keeping business requirements of INOX Leisure Ltd. We have designed the standard budgeting reports which fulfil requirements of all units. Under SAP BPC users are now able to access budgeting statements at monthly, quarterly and yearly at each unit as well as at City, State, Region and Group levels.

Actual data loading from SAP BI has been schedule on monthly basis which would facilitate drawing of Variance Analysis Reports. SAP BPC stores all version of data which facilitates reconciliation of budgets with actual data and also allows users to trace Budget Inputs.

Considerable time is being saved now with the use of SAP BPC. Earlier users were taking almost three months to complete annual budgeting process now with the use of SAP BPC it can be done in time span of less than one month. With this company is now able to save valuable time and efforts of top management of the company which can be used in other productive and expansion works of the company.

Considerable Value Additions

• Improvement in current reporting process with closing of gaps.
• Drastic reduction in reporting cycle
• One Data Base, One Reporting System
• Process Automation and Scheduling
• Monitored Planning and Budgeting Activities with real time scenarios.
• No More Spread Sheet Circulations!!