SAP® Integrated Business
Planning for Supply Chain:
2021 Annual Customer Report

A Note from Management

Dear SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain Community,

Another year in the tight grip of the COVID-19 pandemic has made us realize even more that investing in resilient supply chains is key in today’s uncertain times. Ever so often during the last year, we were required to react quickly to unforeseen events, to change beloved routines, and to think in new ways, both in business and personal contexts. Despite all these challenges, we hope this note finds you well.

But it’s not just the pandemic that caused disruptions. We all still have the image in our heads of the container ship that blocked the Suez Canal for six days and brought one of the most important maritime passageways to a halt, making many companies rethink their supply chains. In situations like that, connecting the dots across different sources and systems is essential.

The innovations we delivered in 2021 aim to support our customers in their journey to become resilient, sustainable, and intelligent enterprises. This year, we enabled great user experience and new business processes with the Planner Workspace digital workplace experience and synchronized planning for production, connecting the SAP Integrated Business Planning (SAP IBP) for Supply Chain solution with the modernized and enriched SAP S/4HANA Manufacturing solution for planning and scheduling, offered side by side with our SAP Digital Supply Chain Management, edition for SAP S/4HANA. We greatly enhanced our digital twin capability with the Intelligent Visibility app, connecting network planning with design, production, transportation, and business networks. This allows planners to choose among different alternatives in case of disruptions.

Check out our annual newsletter, which is again packed with key information, best practices, upcoming events, and customer stories. Stay healthy and optimistic and enjoy!

Sincerely,

Thomas Klemm, Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Supply Chain Planning Development, SAP SE
Stephan Kreipl, Chief Product Owner, SAP Integrated Business Planning, SAP SE

Customers by the Numbers in 2021

Where Are Our Customers?
68 68
Countries
29 29
Industries
4747%
Europe, Middle East,
and Africa
2828%
North America
1313%
Latin America
1212%
Asia Pacific Japan

US$3 trillion

Planned value for SAP IBP customers globally

Customers by the Numbers in 2021

Reference Customers
186186
Customers in the Global Customer Reference Program
4444
Added in 2021

Customers by the Numbers in 2021

Planning Usage Statistics
5600~5,600
Instances of SAP IBP
11100~11,100
Average users that access
SAP IBP daily
14400~14,400
Microsoft Excel log-ins daily
Customers with
>1,000 registered
users in SAP IBP
1818
Maximum Number of Runs per Month Based on a Single Customer
7000~7,000
Supply optimization runs
13000~13,000
Supply heuristic runs
400~400
Inventory optimization runs
13000~13,000
Demand forecasting runs

Customers by the Numbers in 2021

Customer Success Events
1919
Virtual Customer Success Roundtables
513513
Attendees

136136
Companies
 
33-day
Customer Network Summit
9090
Attendees

6363
Companies

Customers by the Numbers in 2021

Webcast Sessions
5757
Sessions
2169421,694
Live participants
6283862,838
Registrations
Watch the sessions
4929849,298
Presentation downloads

2533625,336
Recordings viewed

Customers by the Numbers in 2021

Customer Influence Site

SAP has developed the Customer Influence site to continuously produce software and solutions that meet the specific needs of our customers. Influence the road map!


>350350
Requests submitted
>16001,600
Votes
125125
Enhancements delivered

Customer Success Stories

Vari
“SAP gives us the ability to scale more effectively under any business conditions. Deeper insight, more reliable data, and better processes are all crucial as we evolve as an innovative workspace company.”
Jeff Dinard, Chief Information Officer, Vari

Vari’s move from manual demand planning to SAP IBP culminated in many advantages – not just more timely and more reliable information for decision-making. Vari can now more easily and more accurately forecast inventory demand while supporting location planning using sales-trend analysis and statistical modeling.

Read more
Norgren Limited
“With SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain, we can see what’s on the horizon and take proactive action earlier. We have a common language, a shared system, and better processes for collaboration and consensus building.”
Mike Keen, Global Sales and Operations Planning Director, Norgren Limited

To evolve from reactive to proactive decisions, Norgren introduced SAP IBP. The applications offer support for planning horizons from 3 to 24 months, scenario planning and versioning capabilities, one integrated set of plans, forecasting input at the right planning level, and intuitive data integration with third-party systems.

Read more
Zinus Inc.
“We’re operating as one, toward one target. That is, SAP IBP provides us with a single source of truth that puts us on a unified path to reach our business goals.”
Claud Noh, Corporate Chief Information Officer and Vice President, Zinus Inc.

At Zinus, SAP IBP has enabled resilient supply chain operations that support the company’s plans for robust future growth. This agility has helped Zinus better address disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more.
ZF Friedrichshafen AG
“SAP IBP applications help us prepare for the future with flexibility. They provide the insights we need to make the right decisions about demand in the moment.”
Stefan König, Head of Central Inventory Management, ZF Aftermarket.

As a division of ZF Friedrichshafen, ZF Aftermarket faced the current challenges of the automotive industry and sought to prepare for the future with improved demand planning software. ZF selected SAP IBP, which connects with the company’s ERP systems to create one environment for demand planning. ZF is now operating with an accurate and unified view of demand and using new insights to drive new demand.

Read more.

Product Highlights

Top Newcomer Apps
Manage Master Data app
394394

Customers using the app in the productive system

Manage Planning Objects app
152152

Customers using the app in the productive system since launching in August 2021

 
80>80

Customer votes on the Customer Influence site

Product Highlights

Top 5 Delivered Features Requested from the Customer Influence Site
Editability Horizons for Key Figures
Enables a more flexible approach to configure editability of key figures in various horizons and planning levels, allowing users to run more refined and controlled planning processes that help to prevent errors and accidental overwrites.
6969
Customer votes
Grouping of Key Figures
Allows administrators to set up groups for key figures based on different grouping criteria, for example, by roles, business processes, or tasks. End users can now use these groups to find and select the key figures that are relevant for a specific task or process in an easier way.
4040
Customer votes
Sharing and Organization of Attribute-Based Filters
Improves the way you can manage your attribute-based filters. You can share attribute-based filters using the Organize option and organize them using the Move dialog.
3737
Customer votes
Time-Based Disaggreagation to Partially Editable Child Nodes
Allows users to edit key figure values at an aggregated level even if the values are in a period that is only partially editable.
3030
Customer votes
Enhancements for the Comparison of Planning Areas
Offers enhancements to the SAP Fiori app “Compare Planning Areas,” focusing on comparing planning areas with historical versions.
2626
Customer votes

Product Highlights

New Planning User Interface: Planner Workspace

The planner workspace was launched this year to provide a personalized, intuitive digital workplace experience with easy access to relevant planning information – with the planner front and center.

More info: Highlights video; Meet the expert webcast recording and pdf

Unified

Personalized

Engaging

Planner Workspace

Supply chain
Supply chain
Global filters
Global filters
What-if simulations and application jobs
What-if simulations and application jobs
Workspace settings
Workspace settings

Control tower
alerts

Planning views


Planning charts


What our customers are saying:
“I was impressed with both the progress and the vision regarding the planner workspace – in general, how this is pulling several components together in one UI.”

Product Highlights

Cloud Operations Highlights

Service reliability:

99.95%

Normalization:

>90% of systems on a normalized code line, resulting in performance improvements and enabling new features

SCM Optimization service:

Elastic scale-out provides planning flexibility and reduced runtime.

~30 Customers live on this cloud service.

Product Highlights

Product Survey

Thank you for your valuable feedback on SAP IBP. We take your input seriously. We will continue with our annual SAP IBP product surveys in 2022, so stay tuned.

Participants from more than 100 companies responded in our Q3 2021 survey.

The Net Promoter Score and overall satisfaction increased again and moreover, we received highest ratings for quarterly upgrades and user satisfaction.

Participation by Region

Some customer comments:

“Let me thank you for the opportunity to give such open feedback.”

“Teams from Customer Success are very helpful.”

“Cooperation was excellent.”

“Best SAP system I’ve worked with so far.”

Product Highlights

Thought Leadership in Digital Supply Chain Planning in 2021

SAP IBP Videos

2929

SAP IBP videos published in 2021
>19,800 views

Subscribe to the
SAP Digital Supply Chain channel or Supply Chain Planning playlist on YouTube.

SAP IBP Blogs and Reactions

88

SAP IBP blogs published on Forbes and SAP.com
>96,000 views

70~70
SAP IBP blogs published on SAP IBP Community
>400 questions answered

Subscribe to our LinkedIn and Twitter channels and The Digital Supply Chain podcast series and read about our Digital Supply Chain Strategy.

Looking Forward

In 2022, we will focus on more exciting innovations for SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain. One of our top priorities for 2022 is to drive synchronized planning by strengthening real-time integration with SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business Network, and SAP Analytics Cloud, providing a planning experience from strategy to execution. Further, we will accelerate the delivery of the supply network planning road map, including transport load building, characteristics-based planning, and support for comprehensive planning.

For more innovations to come, see SAP Road Map Explorer. This self-service tool allows you to gain up-to-date insights into our quarterly innovations, with the option to customize and personalize your view. If you would like to see specific enhancements or features, check out our influence portal for SAP IBP.

To learn more about SAP IBP, visit our Supply Chain Planning page and SAP IBP Community and subscribe to our newsletters.

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