North American Power Utility provider Modernizes Cost Center Planning with SAP Analytics Cloud

A North American power utility provider, relied on a legacy planning landscape built around SAP ECC, BPC, and Excel-based processes to manage cost center planning. While functional, the approach was heavily manual, spreadsheet-driven, and time-consuming—making it difficult to manage planning cycles efficiently or gain timely visibility into planned versus actual costs. 

To modernize its financial planning capabilities, they partnered with Applexus to implement SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) Planning, streamlining cost center planning and enabling controlled write-back to ECC. The new solution replaced fragmented Excel workflows with a centralized, governed planning platform that improves accuracy, efficiency, and financial transparency.

Challenges

Spreadsheet-driven planning and manual effort 

• Cost center planning relied heavily on Excel, requiring extensive manual consolidation, validations, and rework during planning cycles. 

Disconnected planning and execution systems 

• While ECC and BPC were used for financial processing, planning activities were not tightly integrated, leading to delays and inconsistencies. 

Limited visibility into planned vs actual costs 

• Finance teams lacked real-time insight into how planned values translated into actual costs, impacting financial control. 

Inefficient planning cycles 

• Multiple iterations, approvals, and data handoffs extended planning timelines and increased dependency on IT and finance teams. 

Our Solution

Modern cost center planning with SAC 

• Applexus implemented SAP Analytics Cloud Planning to enable structured, driver-based cost center planning in a single, centralized platform. 

Seamless integration with SAP ECC 

• Planned values from SAC are written back directly into ECC, ensuring alignment between planning and execution systems. 

Improved planning governance 

• SAC’s versioning, controls, and workflow capabilities replaced spreadsheet-based processes with standardized, auditable planning cycles. 

Benefits

Reduced manual effort and faster planning cycles 

• Eliminated Excel-heavy processes, significantly reducing time spent on data preparation and consolidation. 

Improved accuracy and financial control 

• Centralized planning models and automated validations improved data quality and reduced errors. 

Real-time visibility into costs 

• Finance teams gained clear insight into planned versus incurred costs across cost centers. 

Stronger governance and auditability 

• Controlled workflows, approvals, and write-back mechanisms improved transparency and compliance. 

Scalable foundation for future planning 

• The SAC Planning platform provides a future-ready foundation to extend planning into additional financial and operational use cases.