Financial Close Transformation Journey: Google and SAP on Google Cloud

Businesses today need dynamic and efficient solutions to meet the demands of rapid growth. Key decision-makers, especially CFOs, are burdened with manual tasks, legacy tools, and data dispersed over various platforms. These challenges illustrate the need for transformative solutions. The collaboration between Google and SAP on Google Cloud offers valuable lessons and insights that can be instrumental for businesses seeking to transform their own financial close processes. 

Recent SAPinsider research reveals the financial close as the most challenging process for SAPinsiders over the past three years. This not only demonstrates the magnitude of the challenge, but also the urgency for transformative approaches. 

Google’s Transformational Path 

Between 2018 and 2021, Google embarked on a significant transformation journey, integrating SAP’s comprehensive data models and end-to-end business processes with Google Cloud technologies. The journey impacted 130,000 direct employees, 160,000 indirect employees, and a vast network of vendors and partners, emphasizing the scale and depth of the transformation. 

The project scope prioritized the transformation of various financial and back-office functions. This overhaul primarily targeted the core financial sectors: the general ledger, end-of-period closings, intercompany transactions, consolidations, and cash management. It also streamlined tax considerations, financial planning, and both internal and international reporting. Alongside these, the initiative optimized processes related to supplier enrollment and the entire procurement-to-payment cycle. Lastly, it enhanced management for assets, inventory, accounts payable, and accounts receivable. 

This collaboration between Google and SAP aimed to accelerate the integration of diverse data models and business processes, with the goal of addressing inefficiencies in the financial close process.  

Innovations and Solutions 

Several key innovations emerged from this collaboration, designed to address the specific needs and complexities of the financial close process: 

• Google Cloud Cortex Framework: This framework enables quick and straightforward project implementation, replicating the success of the initial project. 

• Building Blocks and Templates: These expedite time to value by providing a rich data foundation, integrating the best of SAP and non-SAP data to derive new insights. 
• BigQuery Operational Data Marts & CDC Processing Scripts: These tools remove the complexities of data modeling and processing. 
• BigQuery ML Templates: They offer advanced machine learning capabilities for diverse business scenarios such as product recommendations and customer segmentation. 
• BigQuery Connector for SAP: This innovation provides a scalable way to make SAP data fully accessible within BigQuery, allowing real-time access to crucial data for key decisions. 

Achievements and Learnings 

The collaboration yielded a more efficient and integrated environment characterized by: 

• Enhanced data granularity, security, and accessibility. 
• Reduced number of systems, integrations, and manual steps. 
• Increased user satisfaction and productivity. 

These key lessons highlight the importance of effective change management and the value of close collaboration between vendors in enabling innovation. 

Driving Innovation and Sustainability 

Google’s partnership with SAP leveraging Google Cloud has been instrumental in driving innovation, reducing risks, and simplifying deployments. By using Google’s advanced analytics, AI, and ML capabilities, the initiative has enabled finance transformation journeys. 

Moreover, deploying to Google Cloud has significant sustainability implications, reducing IT emissions through efficient data centers and supporting the achievement of sustainability goals. 

For CFOs navigating the complexities of financial close transformation, Google’s journey with SAP on Google Cloud offers tangible insights and practical solutions. The collaboration between Google and SAP  resulted in a set of innovations that significantly improve the efficiency and insightfulness of financial close processes, aligning with the broader transformation objectives within the finance industry. 

What does this mean for SAPinsiders? 

Centralize data management. Address the challenge of scattered data across numerous disorganized groups by centralizing data storage and access. Tools like BigQuery can help consolidate SAP and non-SAP data, offering real-time insights. Ensure real-time unified and integrated master data management. Over 83% of respondents find this crucial. Having a single source of truth can reduce discrepancies and streamline the close process. 

Embrace technology integration to reduce manual efforts. With manual processing identified as a significant bottleneck, using automation tools provided by SAP S/4HANA, AI/ML, and RPA can substantially reduce manual entry errors and the time taken for journal entries. Tools such as Google Cloud Cortex Framework and BigQuery Connector for SAP can expedite the data processing and integration process, enabling faster and more efficient financial closes. 

Prioritize standardization. Standardize closing processes, alerts, and reconciliations. With 80% of surveyed individuals showing a preference for standardized methods, it’s evident that they lead to predictable outcomes and fewer errors. It’s prudent to cut down on traditional, spreadsheet-heavy methods and instead, lean on best-practices automation solutions.