SAP Solutions with Integrated TPO
Trade Promotion Optimization (TPO) solutions complement Trade Promotion Management solutions by providing capabilities surrounding predictive analysis and what-if scenarios using context specific analytical models. These capabilities can be leveraged by the business user at the time of planning to predict the outcomes on different sets of promotion/price parameters. They could then adopt the best outcome as their plan. This will lead to more balanced plans rather than merely copying previous plans.
One evident business problem that comes up in the usage of a TPO solution with SAP TPM is the lack of out-of-the-box integration. The business user would need to manually feed in the various promotions that are the optimized outcome of the TPO solution. Moreover, the price optimization results, as part of the turn business planning, would also need to be manually applied to the backend ERP system.
Wouldn’t it be great if TPO solutions had readymade integration capabilities that could actually turn the optimized results in TPO solutions into actions in the SAP TPM and SAP ERP systems? This would mean that the optimized prices & promotions adopted (after comparing the results of various what-if scenarios using predictive analytics) in the TPO system are automatically transferred and converted to execution level objects in the SAP ERP and SAP TPM systems. I believe that TPO and TPM systems could then be said to be truly integrated at the process level.
One evident business problem that comes up in the usage of a TPO solution with SAP TPM is the lack of out-of-the-box integration. The business user would need to manually feed in the various promotions that are the optimized outcome of the TPO solution. Moreover, the price optimization results, as part of the turn business planning, would also need to be manually applied to the backend ERP system.
Wouldn’t it be great if TPO solutions had readymade integration capabilities that could actually turn the optimized results in TPO solutions into actions in the SAP TPM and SAP ERP systems? This would mean that the optimized prices & promotions adopted (after comparing the results of various what-if scenarios using predictive analytics) in the TPO system are automatically transferred and converted to execution level objects in the SAP ERP and SAP TPM systems. I believe that TPO and TPM systems could then be said to be truly integrated at the process level.
