SAP Business Planning & Consolidation Conference Kicks Off in Vegas

Jan. 26, 2009 - PRLog -- The Column 5 BPC Summit, the first user conference dedicated to users of SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) software, opened last Thursday with a keynote address by Mike Morini, Senior Vice President and Global Head of SAP’s Business User division. In his keynote address, Morini emphasized SAP’s appreciation for the BPC customer base and outlined the software giant’s vision for the future of performance management, which features BPC as the flagship of SAP’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) strategy.

SAP BPC software is used by thousands of medium to large enterprises worldwide to manage their planning, budgeting, forecasting, and financial consolidation and reporting.

“This conference has restored my faith in the commitments to the future of the product,“ commented Elaine Huryn, Director of Forecasting, Planning and Analysis for OSI Pharmaceuticals.

Also speaking at the morning’s kickoff session was David Den Boer, principal of Column 5 Consulting, who is hosting the conference.  Column 5 is a market leader in implementing SAP BPC performance management software.   Den Boer welcomed customers and stressed the critical nature of business performance management (BPM) in light of the challenges experienced by virtually every business in today’s precarious and weakening global economy.  Once considered a way to help companies become more profitable and competitive, BPM is now a matter of survival.

The two-day conference  provides three different tracks for customers, depending on their individual roles, including tracks for finance leaders, BPC administrators and users, ad BPC technical resources.  

Highlights of the day’s events included case studies presented by BPC customers Pepco Holdings (PHI) and Southwest Securities (SWS).

PHI, a $9 billion electric and natural gas company, serves nearly 2 million customers in the mid-Atlantic region.  They reported that SAP BPC greatly improved the speed and efficiency of their budgeting process and allowed them to spend their time doing more analysis rather than just data gathering.  PHI selected Column 5 Consulting for the implementation because of their long track record of successful implementations for all kinds of companies, including other utilities.

Southwest Securities is the largest full-service NYSE member firm based in Texas.  Their case study showed how they went from manual Excel-based processes for budgeting and management reporting to an automated process with a significantly shorter cycle time, more transparency, and improved accuracy.  According to SWS, the upgraded system also features executive dashboards and full Microsoft Office integration.  SWS said they used Column 5 Consulting for the implementation due to their knowledge of both SAP BPC and the financial industry.

Held at the world famous Mirage Resort and Casino, Column 5’s BPC Customer Summit has brought together BPC customers with consulting experts to help organizations learn to use SAP BPC most effectively in order to meet their objectives and improve performance.

More information about the conference can be found at http://www.column5.com/summit.htm.

# # #

Column 5 is one of the fastest growing consulting orgs in the U.S., providing top expertise in business performance management (BPM). Column 5 consultants have implemented SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (SAP BPC) software for over 300 customers.