Hello, a few words about me: I have started my work with SAP Profitability and Cost Management in 2010.

Since then, I have worked with more than 20 SAP Profitability and Cost Management implementations (some
of them were long term).

Currently (during the last few years) I have completely transferred working with new SAP Profitability and
Performance Management, so I am in the good position to compare the two solutions.

Here I will try to share my experience as a long time SAP Profitability and Cost Management consultant and
business analyst, who is now working with new SAP Profitability and Performance Management.

SAP Profitability and Performance Management (known as PaPM) is a new generation SAP HANA solution
for complex calculations, allocations, and simulations.

It is co-developed by msg and SAP to be a successor to the old SAP’s ABC solution SAP Profitability and Cost
Management (known as PCM), which now is not supported anymore.

Here I will try to describe SAP Profitability and Performance Management’s advantages over SAP Profitability
and Cost Management and share my experience as a long time SAP Profitability and Cost Management user
and analyst.

First, I will cover the main advantages of the new solution from the point of someone who worked with SAP
Profitability and Cost Management extensively, then I will list the disadvantages (spoiler: you will not find
many) and then I will give a summary what to expect when working with SAP Profitability and Performance
Management.

SAP Profitability and Performance Management advantages over SAP Profitability and Cost

Management

Flexibility

When working with SAP Profitability and Cost Management, we had limitations of fixed dimension and value
tables, which were predefined. All the data had to be forced into those tables or transformed outside the model
(often in Microsoft Access or Excel).

SAP Profitability and Performance Management has no limitations in terms of data structures. It can process
unlimited number of tables and dimensions (fields), which simplifies the design of the model significantly. So,
no more Data Bridge when connecting to CSV files.

Different way of modelling

Data in SAP Profitability and Performance Management is manipulated and transformed using functions,
where each function is one (or more if needed) step of data modification. This gives a consistent way of
creating dataflows in the solution.

SAP Profitability and Cost Management had a mix of allocation engine and scripting language (it was called
Rules – written in Visual Basic script) where some really advanced functionality could be implemented,
however these rules might be really hard to follow, and accordingly, to maintain or to update.

SAP Profitability and Performance Management functions offer a more granular approach, where the input,
output and configuration of the function can be set up and checked more easily, this way enabling efficient
maintenance.

In addition, in SAP Profitability and Performance Management the results of every step are displayed after
each function (a table is created). This way it is much easier to check the results, trace and understand the
model.
Moreover, it has a visual modeler, where all the connections are shown visually – with arrows displaying the
dataflows between different functions. Comparing to SAP Profitability and Cost Management, this offers an
unprecedented clarity in understanding the model, enabling to follow the logic step-by-step, checking the
results in between.