EDS Vs DSiM on HANA Vs APO DP Vs S&OP on HANA- What really is the positioning strategy ?

[Former Member]

Hi,

I was struggling to visualize the following.

1) What is the main difference between Enterprise Demand Sensing (from SAP.. classified under Supply Chain Management) and Demand Signal Management ?

2) Whether and How does

     EDS integrates with APO DP

     DSiM integrates with APO DP

     native or through some BAPI's

3) Can SAP S&OP on HANA get data from EDS, DSiM and APO DP ?... native or otherwise.

I don't really know what I want but I am clearly confused on SAP's positioning strategy of these applications that is largely in the space Demand Management. The only thing I know and understand is APO DP.. that too main bits.

Appreciate your perspective on this. Other than implementing SAP modules I am also expected to give my views on such questions. I manage to find tons of help.com and release info but nothing that highlights why one should/ should not use EDS and when should one use DSiM.

Regards

BS

[anna_linden · Accepted solution]

Hi Borat,

I can only comment on your first 2 questions, but hopefully this already helps to clarify the positioning:

1. Difference DSiM and EDS:
   Enterprise Demand Sensing is a solution to calculate a daily forecast in the short term
   period (i.e. 2-4 weeks). It uses pattern recognition algorithms to identify
   demand patterns with the objective to increase forecast accuracy.
   Demand Signal Management on the other hand does not calculate forecasts, but enables
   customers to capture external market research and retailer point-of-sales (POS)
   data close to real time and combine it with internal business to sense, assess
   and respond to demand signals. DSiM provides valuable demand and market
   insights for their supply chain management, sales, marketing, and category
   management departments and enables faster demand response by leveraging the
   DSiM data in in enterprise business applications (e.g. APO DP or TPO).
2. Integration Aspects:
   EDS integrates with APO DP via the Planning book BAPI in APO. EDS gets as input
   from APO DP the consensus (mid-long term forecast) and can return the short
   term forecast. Both solutions are complementary – EDS focusing on the short
   term forecasting period with daily forecasts, while APO DP focusing in general
   on the mid-long term forecasting period with weekly or monthly forecasts.
   DSiM data (POS data) can be integrated via custom data sources in DSiM with APO DP (custom
   extractor is needed due to customer-specific data model in DSiM and APO.This is particularly true for location info-object mapping)

Best Regards,

Anna

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you Anna,

I managed to read much of high level help.com but nothing in it gives me the idea you gave in two short paragraphs. Pretty much SAP.

 
Demand Signal Management................................................and combine it with internal business to sense, assess  and respond to demand signals. 

.......enables faster demand response by leveraging the

I am unable to visualize what does "internal businesses response to demand signal" really mean.

Could you site one real example ? of what all good things can happen in Sales processes with DSiM in place.  I will much appreciate

Some more questions.

-Is DSiM some kind of a black box triggering some actions in ERP documents and programs based on some preset rules ?

- Is DSiM a system of record or a system of insight ?

- Does it take some decisions automatically ? or human intervention is needed ?

- Does DSiM in any way improve the quality of demand plan.. whatever be the earlier solution in place.

- Is improving forecast accuracy one of the purported objectives of DSiM ?

The documentation has some loaded statements.. that I am absolutely unable to comprehend.

[anna_linden · Accepted solution]

Hi,

"Internal businesses response to demand signal" means that for example retailer Point-of-Sale (POS) data which was previously loaded, cleansed and harmonized by DSiM (and which is therefor of a good quality and mapped to the internal master data) could be used in APO DP to run the Replenishment Planning based on more accurate and newest demand information.

Another example would be the usage of POS Data from DSiM in SAP Trade Promotion Optimization (TPO) where it is also used to optimize promotions based on the latest possible demand information.

Regarding your other questions:

1. Is DSiM some kind of a black box triggering some actions in ERP documents and programs based on some preset rules ?
   No. DSiM is not triggering any actions in other systems.
   What it does is really to collect external demand data (POS or Market Research data), uploads it to a repository and brings it into a state where one can report on this across all data sources (across retailers, market research databases, etc). So after DSiM uploaded the data, the format is the same across all, the quality has been checked, and most importantly, the external master data has been mapped to the internal master data. As you might know, for example one product could be named differently at each retailer with different ID, etc. And all of those different IDs are automatically mapped against the internal product ID that the manufacturer uses.
   But you can connect DSiM with other systems (APO, CRM, ...) to share data and it could be connected to ERP to receive master data information or shipment information.
2. Is DSiM a system of record or a system of insight? DSiM is both.
   DSiM acts as a central repository for all external demand signals = system of record. But you can also run analytics based on this cleansed data stored in the repository = system of insight.
3. Does it take some decisions automatically ? or human intervention is needed ? Depends on what you expect here.
   It can take decisions automatically like the automatic mapping of an external product ID to an internal one during upload. And it automatically calculated additional KPIs from the data.
   But it is not taking decisions like: There is a stock-out at a certain retailer store and the system automatically decides to replenish additional goods.
4. Does DSiM in any way improve the quality of demand plan.. whatever be the earlier solution in place. DSiM itself does not do, but the data that DSiM can provide can improve the demand plan tremendously. The better and the more recent the data, the better the demand plan!
5. Is improving forecast accuracy one of the purported objectives of DSiM? 
   DSiM itself is not creating forecasts, even though you could run HANA forecasting algorithms directly based on DSiM Data. Again, the data it provides helps to improve the forecast accuracy. See also above regarding the integration to APO DP.

Maybe this blog helps also to understand the core role of DSiM:

Best Regards,

Anna

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Fantastic Anna

Appreciate you taking time to reply in detail. For now this is good enough to begin focused sky gazing given I do not yet have any access to DSiM or EDS or S&OP

If you might like to answer these further small quick questions. Bad questions but I just need an idea.

- Will SAP consider giving it away DSiM for free to those customers who are considering implementing APO now. What is the licensing metric here ?

-Can DSiM be installed directly on SCM server (just like the BI server)

-What is the nature of integration possible between DSiM and APO. Is there a native plug in (like CIF) or it works on the ETL route through an RFC connection ?. The way data is extracted from ERP to APO BI. Or data can directly come to planning area without any transformation ?

- How is EDS  (demand sensing) installed ? Can it be installed on SCM server directly ?. or is there a separate application server needed for the same ? You already mentioned the integration to DP is via BAPI.

-What is the licensing metric for EDS ?

Sorry I am really scared of sales guys. I get intimidated so I ask a humane expert like you

Thanks

Borat

[anna_linden · Accepted solution]

Hi Borat,

sure- no problem.

I cannot comment on the pricing questions, but the functional ones. So hope this helps as well:

Can DSiM be installed directly on SCM server (just like the BI server):

Even though DSiM is often named in the context of SCM, it is not part
of the SCM Server landscape. It is a BW on HANA solution and can either be
implemented standalone or on an existing BW on HANA.

What is the nature of integration possible between DSiM and APO. Is there a native plug in (like CIF) or it works on the ETL route through an RFC connection ?. The way data is extracted from ERP to APO BI. Or data can directly come to planning area without any transformation 

Here, I am really not an expert. But I know that a RFC connection is needed between DSiM and APO system and that we used SAP BW tools to pass the harmonized data from DSiM to SAP APO. Nevertheless, some project work is needed to map objects from DSiM to SAP APO as the way customer model their APO differs a lot in between different implementations.

How is EDS  (demand sensing) installed ? Can it be installed on SCM server directly ? or is there a separate application server needed for the same ? You already mentioned the integration to DP is via BAPI.

Same here... not an EDS expert. To our knowledge the current release runs on a JAVA Server? Maybe this would be a question worth posting in the EDS are of SCN.

Best Regards,

Anna

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks a ton Anna

Really appreciate all the patience you have shown

No more questions for now. It is all clear. DSiM is a BW on HANA solution.

Many Thanks

Regards

Borat

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I have been exploring RDS & Product Roadmaps for Hana-SCM without luck ... is there some SAP-pdf showing something like this ... as @ 2015 with EDS/DSiM 2.0 :

[Former Member]

OR are these links something we might be able to pursue :

http://hana.sap.com/content/dam/website/saphana/en_us/PDFs/suiteonhanafactbooks/32758_GB_28550_6SCM_...