BRIM, SD, BW and Fiori

A Modern System Landscape and SAP Architecture at Swiss Post

SD is used whenever services and mass data are not involved, such as the clothing of postal employees or for typical internal procurement processes. All services that are not tangible are invoiced via BRIM. Thus, both SAP solutions coexist in a wide variety of areas as hybrid billing options. In some cases, only individual modules of BRIM are used in conjunction with SD. "What many don't know is that SAP BRIM can also access pricing in SD for simple calculations."comments Christoph Granig on the hybrid application possibilities. "For more complex use cases, CC, Convergent Charging, is available as a module in the BRIM chain."

Reports at the touch of a button

As an end-to-end solution in SAP, BRIM maps the entire order-to-cash or offer-to-cash process. This makes everything traceable and transparent across the entire process chain: If a consumption unit comes in from somewhere, it is possible to navigate all the way to the FI or CO document in accounting. The user has complete navigation from front to back in one system. In addition, the billing system is extremely fast on the Hana database; processes such as the evaluation of open items, which previously sometimes took several hours, are completed by BRIM in just a few seconds. "At Swiss Post, we had the requirement that everything that was posted in a company code for accounting purposes had to go through the sub-ledger of SAP BRIM, i.e. FI-CA. Under no circumstances did we want to post once to FI-AR, on the other hand to FI-CA, that would be chaos for the employees in accounts receivable management."knows Christoph Granig.

In the end, all BRIM data runs into a central reporting system, where previously three BW systems were in use. As a result, employees in receivables management now also only have one customer in the subledger. This provides a 360-degree customer view of all services generated with one customer. This enables centralized reporting, and dunning and invoicing runs are completed in a matter of minutes, making every CFO glaze over. Ultimately, BRIM also relieves the IT department of analysis and report requests. Since all data is centrally stored in a database, it can be analyzed and evaluated very quickly.

"Sure, certain reports could be created at the push of a button in the past, but I had eleven systems there, had to click eleven times, in BRIM it's just one click."says Philipp Muri. Afterwards, the eleven reports had to be laid out next to each other and compared, because different master data and customer numbers had been created in each system for one and the same customer. Similarly, the cost types, products, etc. had different names in the different systems. "Evaluations were like some kind of jigsaw puzzle for managers back then"says the IT expert. And even a salesperson who wanted to get an overall view of the customer again before a customer visit had to ask up to eleven colleagues in the worst case.

"If we now have everything in one system - one push of a button and the report is available, in the best case still online on the system - then the salesperson is optimally equipped for the customer meeting."says Philipp Muri, who is pleased about this relief for the sales and finance department. 

The fact that we have now integrated the same basis and also the same master data in S/4 Core and in the billing system makes the billing process much simpler and noticeably faster in order to be able to bill new digital services flexibly.

Philipp Muri, Business Partner ERP, Swiss Post

Intuitively into the future with the Fiori Launchpad

The simultaneous introduction of SAP Fiori with S/4 was also a challenge. Christoph Granig: "With the Post project, we were the first in Switzerland to introduce Fiori with SAP BRIM at the same time as the Hana switchover." Those who take on the pioneering role always have to accept imponderables, because not everything works right away and not all the functions required are available on the Launchpad. Not everyone in the departments was enthusiastic right away, as many had been accustomed to their GUI interface for years. "We see, of course, that younger people who are used to working with apps immediately accept Fiori as a mobile front end. But it's also understandable that an accountant who has been working in client-server masks for 25 years has a hard time with it."says Markus Hägele, who knows the problem of acceptance. "But we should also look at it from the other side: If we continued to work with rigid GUI, we would hardly be able to inspire young people to join us."

The users were familiarized with the new, intuitive user interface, and from a key date on, they worked in the Launchpad. The users were taken seriously on all sides with their requirements and their fears, they were able to voice their concerns and even influence the design. For this purpose, UIX design experts from SAP were on board in the project. "When it comes to fioris, there is a distinction to be made between true fioris and embedded GUI transactions. With true Fioris, there are those that work well and those where the potential has not yet been exploited."explains Christoph Granig. Missing functionalities or bugs were reported to SAP during the project and in most cases a solution was received: "The coordination with SAP worked wonderfully and the solutions delivered ultimately convinced even skeptical users."

"In the past two years, we have reported about 200 incidents to SAP to fix bugs and tip in our requirements"says BRIM expert Christoph Granig. This is where the close cooperation with SAP is an enormous advantage. In the meantime, a few standard reports in the BRIM environment are also available in Fiori. In a kind of monitoring cockpit, for example, invoicing stock or open BITs (billable items) can be displayed at the end of the month at the push of a button.

Markus Hägele is enthusiastic: "I have to say this Launchpad is a dream, Fioris have catapulted us into the modern app world." But like everywhere else, when change processes come, there are people who can adapt, others simply cannot. "There is no alternative to using SAP Fiori. You have to go the distance, otherwise you'll be old news at some point."

After the duty the freestyle

In the meantime, other subdivisions have also switched to BRIM with their billing. With the SAP-integrated billing solution, Swiss Post was able to create a uniform billing platform where every conceivable service that cannot be categorized as a product or material can be billed automatically and flexibly. "The classic processes in the sub-ledger, such as dunning, payment, installment plans, interest calculation, collection, i.e. the sub-ledger processes, have also been harmonized," says Markus Hägele, who is satisfied with what has been achieved so far. "Ultimately, every area now uses standard processes in SAP BRIM." Many other things have also improved with S/4 Hana. One example is contract data management: In SAP ERP, you always needed a CRM for the contract data; now it's embedded, so to speak. "It's called SOM, Subscription Order Management, and we also use that in the store business, sort of as a mini-CRM for managing contracts and contract master data." 

And en passant, the BRIM team has also established a central invoice form for logistics services, so that today as few separate invoicing forms as possible need to be generated and there is also no proliferation of forms created in-house. "What good is it if the invoicing is now automated and goes through extremely quickly, and at the back the invoice forms are confusing and full of errors?"Markus Hägele points out.  

As of today, three BW systems and three invoicing solutions have already been completely replaced and the invoicing processes of three logistics systems have been adopted and harmonized.  "We are still not quite at the finish line with this, we still have other invoicing systems in use in addition to BRIM and thus have reconciliation work in many corners"explains Philipp Muri. "Our very big goal with SAP BRIM is to implement a unified, centralized and lean solution across as many business units as possible." 

The biggest change is still to come: the replacement of the internal KUREPO (KUndenREchnungPOst) postal invoicing system. The system is used for the part of the mail and parcel business that does not go through the branch partners. Revenue data is already being transferred to BRIM via an interface, fed through and posted. This is the first major step towards being able to transfer this large invoicing system completely to SAP BRIM. However, it will still take a few years before the complete price and condition logic as well as the master data logic are integrated into the billing platform. "That's when the billing solution can show its true strength. The changeover will take at least the next five years".Markus Hägele explains. "That's probably where we're all going to get BRIM-.
Deploy modules."

Wherever Swiss Post may develop in the future, it is ideally equipped for it with SAP BRIM. Future digital services and new billing models can also be integrated very quickly and flexibly and billed automatically, and perhaps there will soon be DaaS, drone as a service, or RaaS, robot as a service.

BRIM, a solution and its history

SAP BRIM has already come a long way: Over the years, not only the solution has evolved flexibly and dynamically, but also its name. For example, the core functionalities of today's universal solution were known for a long time under the title SAP Hybris Billing. In the original version, conventional billing was created from SAP SD and various industry solutions, for example. The background to this was to meet the increased technological requirements in terms of data processing speed, data volume to be handled and flexibility (configurable, modular and industry-neutral). The core components of the modular SAP BRIM are:

• Convergent Mediation by DigitalRoute
• Subscription Order Management (SOM)
• SAP Business Suite 7 or S/4 Hana with Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (SAP FI-CA) and Convergent Invoicing (SAP CI) included therein.
• Convergent Charging (SAP CC)