SAP Integration with Pricefx Solutions

SAP & Pricefx Basic Scenario

After successfully implementing your SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software and enhancing your pricing strategy, you now find yourself facing new business requirements. The need to automate and track rebates and promotions, integrate finance and CRM systems, and establish a unified pricing software solution has emerged. Congratulations on your business success! However, it is crucial to recognize the urgent need for SAP integration with a pricing software solution.

Now, the time has suddenly and urgently arrived for your business to implement SAP integration with a pricing software solution. 

Of course, there will be some processes to go through to optimize your system, and, in this article, we discuss some steps you can independently take to ease a smooth transition in integrating your SAP Platform with pricing software. 

SAP Integration Platform and Pricing Software? 

The SAP Integration Platform works effectively with most pricing software packages, allowing for swift and data-rich integration between SAP and non-SAP systems. Customization options are available to meet your specific business requirements, such as rebate management and regional breakdown.

Each business has a separate set of requirements and accordingly, your company’s integration can be customized to achieve the outcomes you need. For example, the possible outcomes are wide and varied; from rebate management to regional breakdown, to protect the integrity and security of your system, or any combination of these or additional factors are all achievable. 

SAP Data Integration

The integration facilitates two-way communication, enabling the exchange of information between SAP and the pricing software package. Regardless of the SAP interface used, master data can be pulled into the pricing software package. It is important to note that all SAP customers will eventually need to upgrade to the SAP cloud-based interface S/4 HANA.

As seen in the below graphic, master data can be pulled into your pricing software package regardless of the SAP interface (old or new, SAP Netweaver or SAP Cloud Platform Integration) that your business is running.

For each of the different SAP systems (R/3 4.6x, ECC6, S/4 HANA), there are different integration mechanisms that are identified:

• BAPI/RFC (Business Application Programming Interface/Remote Function Call): BAPI is a set of interfaces provided by SAP that allow external programs to access business processes and data in the SAP system. RFC is a remote function call that enables an external program to call a function module in an SAP system.

• IDOC (Intermediate Document): IDOCs are standardized data containers used for exchanging information between different systems. They are used for asynchronous transactions and are commonly used for exchanging data between SAP systems and external systems.

• Web Services: Web services are software systems designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. In the context of SAP, web services are often used for integrating SAP systems with other applications and services.

• ABAP PROXY (Advanced Business Application Programming): ABAP Proxies are used in SAP Process Integration (PI) and SAP Process Orchestration (PO) for communication between SAP systems and external systems. They are based on the Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP) language.

• SOAP API (Simple Object Access Protocol Application Programming Interface): SOAP is a protocol used for exchanging structured information in the implementation of web services. A SOAP API allows applications to communicate with web services using the SOAP protocol.

• REST API (Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interface): REST is an architectural style for designing networked applications. A REST API uses HTTP requests to perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations on resources, making it suitable for integrating different systems and applications.

SAP Cloud Integration Platform

The SAP Cloud Integration Platform (CPI) is an integration platform as a service (iPaaS) offered by SAP. It provides a comprehensive set of tools and services for connecting cloud-based and on-premises applications, systems, and data sources. The key features and capabilities of the SAP Cloud Integration Platform include:

• Integration Flows: CPI allows users to design, configure, and manage integration flows that connect different applications and systems. These integration flows can be used to orchestrate business processes, transform data, and facilitate communication between various endpoints.

• Pre-built Adapters: The platform offers a wide range of pre-built adapters that simplify the integration with SAP applications, non-SAP applications, and other third-party systems. These adapters provide connectivity to various data sources and services, such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, Salesforce, and more.

• Monitoring and Management: CPI provides tools for monitoring the performance and status of integration flows. It also offers capabilities for managing configurations, security settings, and user access to integration artifacts.

• Cloud Connectivity: The platform supports secure connectivity to cloud-based applications and services, enabling seamless integration with popular cloud platforms such as SAP Cloud Platform, AWS, Azure, and others.

• Data Transformation: CPI includes features for data mapping, transformation, and enrichment, allowing users to harmonize data formats and structures across different systems.

• Security and Compliance: The platform provides security features such as identity and access management, encryption, and compliance controls to ensure the protection of sensitive data during integration processes.

SAP Cloud Integration Platform is designed to simplify the complexities of integrating diverse systems and applications in a hybrid IT landscape.

Pricing Software

The final element in the integration flow is the "Pricing Software,", this suggests that all the listed SAP technologies and methodologies above are used to feed data into the Pricing Software, which likely uses this data for pricing calculations or analysis.

Pricing software can integrate with SAP in several ways to streamline and automate pricing processes. Here are a few common integration methods:

• Data Integration: Pricing software can integrate with SAP systems to access product, customer, and transactional data. This integration allows the pricing software to use real-time data from SAP to calculate prices, apply discounts, and manage pricing rules.

• API Integration: Many pricing software solutions offer APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that allow them to connect with SAP systems. This integration enables the pricing software to retrieve and update pricing-related data in SAP, such as product catalog information, customer details, and sales orders.

• Middleware Integration: Middleware platforms, such as SAP Process Integration (PI) or SAP Cloud Integration (CPI), can be used to facilitate the exchange of data between pricing software and SAP systems. These platforms provide tools for mapping data structures, transforming data formats, and orchestrating business processes.

• Custom Development: In some cases, custom development may be required to create specific interfaces or connectors between pricing software and SAP. This approach involves building custom integration components that enable seamless communication between the two systems.

By integrating pricing software with SAP, organizations can achieve greater accuracy in pricing calculations, improve sales effectiveness, and ensure consistency in pricing across different sales channels. It also enables better visibility into pricing-related data and supports more informed decision-making.

Prepare for SAP integration

When integrating SAP with your chosen pricing software solution, the quality of data is paramount. Clean data is essential for successful integration, regardless of its source or transmission method. While the shift towards cloud-based S/4 HANA is imminent, the focus should remain on ensuring data cleanliness. Establishing clean master data is a top priority for achieving a successful integration and should be addressed promptly.
 
With that in mind, the transmission of clean master data heads the wish list below of steps to pull off a successful integration. Preferably, try to get the elements below in place as soon as soon you can. 

1. Ensure Your Master Data is Clean 

Be certain that your master data is clean, meaning that there are no duplicates, and it is the sole source of truth for your future pricing decisions. Identify that data upfront and have an idea of how and where you want to use it and have it established ASAP in the integration project. Some pricing software can also clean your businesses’ blended Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) data, but note, it needs to be free of duplicates also, your single source of data truth. 

2. Use an Experienced IT Solutions Architect 

Onboard or source an in-house seasoned IT professional who is familiar with implementing ERP-level projects and managing change management who speaks the native language. In a perfect world, someone who knows your company’s system landscape and SAP intimately, your data and where it lives, and understands the overall vision of the project would be fantastic, which segues nicely to….. 

3. Identify the ‘Condition Types’ You Will Require Before You Begin

Keep in mind the required ‘Condition Types’ of your specific pricing project – Numerous condition types basically each represents a step (much like a price waterfall) in your unique pricing project on the journey to the selling price of your products – i.e., list price, invoice price override, invoice price, net price, etc.  

However, the more complex your business (in terms of customer types, number of products, sales regions etc.), the more condition types you may potentially have. Sometimes your pricing software vendor may need to redesign new condition types or data access sequences depending on your businesses’ specific pricing project requirements to communicate effectively with SAP. 

4. Facilitate Executive Buy-In  

Source an executive champion for your project – you will know much better than us who is the appropriate person in your company to drive your SAP-pricing software integration project. It might be your Pricing Manager; it could be the VP of Sales.  
 
For sure, in your organization, it will be the individual who ‘gets’ the value of pricing and is possessed with the character and the ‘oomph’ to throw their weight and support behind the integration project in your company. 

Steps to a Successful SAP integration 

In the context of successful integration with pricing software, the quality of the data stored in SAP is crucial. Even with a flawless pricing system and algorithm designed to optimize profits and align with business objectives, the presence of dirty, incomplete, or duplicated data can render the system ineffective. This issue is a common cause of integration delays or failures. While it may sound like a marketing cliché, the importance of establishing a "single source of data truth" for your company cannot be overstated.

To give your integration project the best possible chance of success, also have in mind before you begin: 

What you want to achieve now and, in the future?

Making revisions after the original integration is more difficult and time-consuming than on set-up. 

Who do you want to have access to the system? 

Quite literally, too many pricing cooks with access can potentially destroy the infinite positive possibilities of the pricing broth. Worse still, unauthorized changes such as one decimal place changed by mistake here-or-there by multiple users can have disastrous potential consequences. 

API Integration of the SAP Platform with Pricing Software

To ease you through the integration process, SAP has developed an in-house platform to help manage and accelerate enterprise-wide integration across unique business landscapes. 

Driven by Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), the SAP integration platform can specify how pricing software programs can exchange information with SAP, even though designed and run by different organizations. APIs can connect internal information you may store in SAP such as product, customer, transaction, costing, inventory data etc. with pricing software, which in turn can harness external data sources (commodity indexes, competitive, weather) and combine it to optimize customized pricing strategies for your business. Check out this link for available APIs in the SAP pricing space.