Unlocking SAP Data for Smarter Capital Planning: An Open Ecosystem Approach

Corporations have long pursued portfolio and project planning, evolving tools and practices along the way. But in large organizations that rely on SAP, siloed data systems remain a persistent obstacle. Strategic planning efforts are often undermined by disconnected digital initiatives that fragment data and create inconsistencies across departments.

Platinum DB Consulting, an SAP Enterprise Portfolio and Project Management (EPPM) solutions provider and a systems integrator, addresses this challenge head-on. As SAP landscapes become increasingly complex, CIOs are reevaluating how to maximize value from their existing investments. Many are now adopting open data strategies to enable scalable AI, eliminate data duplication, and foster better cross-functional collaboration.

Unifying SAP Data for Smarter and Scalable Project Planning

SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC), a fully managed SaaS offering, unifies applications, data, and AI on a single platform designed for curated SAP data. Built on open architecture and strengthened through SAP’s partnership with Databricks, SAP BDC supports seamless integration of data lakes and warehouses, enabling enterprise-wide data sharing and collaboration.

Integrated with SAP EPPM and other line-of-business (LOB) applications via the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), SAP BDC preserves the contextual integrity of SAP data while bridging key business areas, including Finance, HR, Asset Management, and Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A). This shared data layer aims to break down silos, enhancing planning, execution, and decision-making across capital projects.

Enabling AI-Driven Insights and Open Analytics in EPPM

A unified data foundation enables organizations to unlock AI capabilities within SAP EPPM. Agentic AI, for instance, can help dynamically prioritize project portfolios, aligning plans with strategic objectives. These intelligent systems can also detect early warning signals across project variables, assisting teams to mitigate risk before issues escalate.

SAP BDC supports open analytics strategies by enabling Zero-copy Delta Sharing through Databricks. This allows SAP data to be securely shared with Microsoft Power BI and other tools without replication. Analytics teams benefit from real-time insights while staying within enterprise governance and compliance frameworks.

A Streamlined Approach with Platinum DB

Platinum DB Consulting has been at the forefront of SAP portfolio planning innovation, delivering the first rapid deployment accelerator to integrate SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) with SAP EPPM. This solution is enhanced by the SAP Predictive Analysis Library (PAL), enabling advanced scenario modeling, risk forecasting, and machine learning use cases within capital project environments. By aligning planning, budgeting, and execution layers, the solution addresses long-standing disconnects between finance and operations in enterprise project workflows.

To support scalable and extensible architectures, Platinum DB provides a comprehensive suite of BTP–EPPM integration frameworks and managed data products. These offerings leverage technologies such as SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), Microsoft Azure, Databricks, Power BI, and Microsoft Copilot to unify data, standardize governance, and enable intelligent analytics pipelines. The result is a modular, cross-functional project management environment that improves visibility, accelerates decision-making, and enhances strategic alignment across the enterprise.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

Open data ecosystems are reshaping enterprise project planning. SAP professionals,  particularly CIOs, IT leads, and EPPM architects, should take note of how platforms like SAP

BDC are enabling unified access to SAP and non-SAP data without compromising governance. Platinum DB’s frameworks are already being deployed by Fortune 500 organizations to centralize project visibility and reduce planning cycle times.

The enterprise capital planning technology market is heating up. Vendors such as SAP, Databricks, and Microsoft are converging around open data sharing, prompting companies to reassess their legacy BI systems. SAP BDC is not the only capital planning software, but its native SAP context gives it an edge in many ERP-aligned use cases. SAP insiders evaluating providers should focus on platform openness, integration capabilities with SAP BTP, and support for AI workloads.

Interoperability is key to unified planning architectures. Best-in-class deployments have embedded SAP BDC within their SAP EPPM and FP&A workflows, utilizing tools like Power BI and Copilot for executive dashboards and scenario modeling. Common challenges include aligning semantic data models across SAP and non-SAP systems. This is an area where Platinum DB’s approach has proven effective. Companies that proactively address these challenges gain faster time to value and greater agility in long-range planning.