Reflections on BW Modernization and Its Implications for Planning in the Cloud

Since the announcement of the Business Data Cloud (BDC) a few months ago, I’ve followed numerous discussions surrounding the topic of BW Modernization with great interest. Given my background in planning applications and analytics architecture, these conversations have sparked several ideas about how the principles of BW Modernization could be extended—particularly toward modernizing planning landscapes.

Put simply: How can existing BW customers, especially those using multiple BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) solutions, transition to the cloud without losing the value of their current investments? This question lies at the heart of Planning Modernization, and exploring it opens up promising pathways to integrate established assets with future-proof cloud architectures.

The Data Product Generator applied to Planning Solutions

The SAP Data Product Generator is a framework that allows users—particularly data domain owners and business analysts—to define, generate, and manage data products directly within SAP’s ecosystem, such as the SAP Datasphere.

It promotes a decentralized approach to data ownership, following the principles of data mesh, and provides reusable, governed data entities that can be consumed across analytical and operational use cases.

The Data Product Generator can play a key role in planning applications.

Imagine you are operating a classic BW system and decide to transition to BW/4HANA Private Cloud Edition (PCE) or to BW7.5 PCE.

In this scenario, the Data Product Generator enables you to transform existing data models and planning scenarios into structured, reusable data products, enriched with business semantics and governance. This not only facilitates integration with modern cloud-based solutions, but also lays the foundation for a future-ready planning architecture.

You could use your plan cubes or plan ADSOs and provide the data stored there inside Datasphere as a source. And this is charming. Why?

At the same time, you may already be developing your new planning applications using Seamless Planning. In this approach, SAP Datasphere serves as the underlying physical data storage.

Imagine this: a user presses the save button in your SAP Analytics Cloud planning application, which is running on BW/4HANA PCE or BW7.5 PCE. Instantly, the corresponding data becomes available within Datasphere—no duplication, no delay, fully integrated.

This real-time connectivity enables a modern, hybrid planning landscape, combining the robustness of BW with the agility of cloud-native planning and analytics.

Your investments are not lost, you are still able to profit from them. With BW7.5 PCE until 2030 and with BW/4 PCE until 2040.

Target Group, Is ths Approach for you?

Who Might Benefit from This Approach?

This approach is particularly well-suited for customers with medium to high complexity BW systems.

If your system landscape is relatively simple, a greenfield approach using Seamless Planning might be the better option—allowing you to move away from the PBC world entirely and start fresh in the cloud.

However, many organizations soon realize that their Business Warehouse landscape is more complex than expected. While it’s theoretically possible to narrow the project scope or drastically simplify planning processes, this often conflicts with legitimate business requirements that cannot be ignored.

In such cases, trying to rebuild everything from scratch—without BW and PBC—may result in delays, compromises, or unmet requirements. A hybrid approach that builds on your existing assets can provide a faster, more realistic path forward.

And you could foster the datasphere capabilities on your BW data and your data coming from seamless planning, which is quite powerful.

Another Advantage: Flexibility Without Immediate Commitment to BW/4

One of the key advantages of this approach is the flexibility it offers. You don’t need to make an immediate decision to upgrade to BW/4HANA. Instead, you can simply move your existing SAP BW 7.5 system to the Private Cloud Edition (PCE) and start your modernization journey gradually.

This gives you time to assess your needs: perhaps by 2030, you’ll have successfully replaced your BW-based solutions altogether—without ever needing to transition to BW/4HANA. But if you later determine that a BW/4 upgrade is still necessary, the project can be seamlessly executed within the same PCE environment.

This approach offers a low-risk, future-proof path that adapts to your organization’s pace and priorities.

What can you do already right now in your planning projects?

When designing your current planning landscape, it’s important to critically evaluate the need for BPC. If your planning requirements can be fulfilled using Seamless Planning or SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) Native Planning, that route is typically the preferred and future-ready approach. Of course, in certain cases, there may still be valid reasons to rely on BPC.

If you are currently implementing BPC-based solutions, make sure to use modern ADSO structures that are compatible with the Data Product Generator—this ensures smoother transitions and delta handling in future scenarios.

Also, take a close look at your frontend strategy. SAP Analytics Cloud offers a powerful and forward-looking interface for planning and analytics. Ask yourself whether using alternative tools is justified, especially if it might result in additional migration efforts down the road.

If you’re curious to see this approach in action, there will be a live demo at the DSAG AK meeting on June 26th in St. Leon-Rot.