With the rollout of the 2402 release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, we introduced several new features in Solution Order Management to support the transition towards solution-based business models – check them out in this blog post. Solution-based business models are distinguishable by their broad scope and range of included offerings, alongside their high degree of customization options offered. Don’t just take my word for it – we invited a business transformation expert onto the Inside S/4HANA podcast to share some insights. This is the key to how these business models drive competitive advantage, offering businesses the opportunity to deliver end-to-end offerings specific to their customers needs. A larger scope of more varied offerings could of course require a high level of manual input to build the particular solution a customer requires. With the 2402.3 release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, however, we shipped solution bundles functionality, supporting more efficient selling and processing of holistic solutions. In this blog, we’ll look at solution bundles in more detail.
Pre-defined Solution Bundles in Solution Order Management (6BU)
A solution bundle is a pre-defined stand-alone product which consists of several items packaged together. Bundles can include the usual solution order entities such as sales items, service contracts, subscription items and projects, with both configurable and non-configurable sales and service items being supported. What’s more, you can even throw in a sales bill of material to your bundle, as sales kits of types ERLA & LUMF introduced in 2402 are also supported, with type CPFH to be supported from 2408. The price of a solution bundle is the sum of the component prices which we show as an cumulated value in the item list.
Fig. 1 A Solution Bundle exploded within solution order management to display sub-items and aggregated value.
Modeling Solution Bundles
A pre-requisite for selling bundles as part of a solution order is to define and configure the bundles in in the product master data. A new item category SOBD has been introduced for solution bundles and the products used as bundle main items must be assigned to item category group SOBU. There are two options for modelling the pre-defined bundles. Firstly, a more lightweight modelling is supported via the BTP app “Manage Solution Bundles” in which you can define the bundle simply by adding the components you wish to include and maintaining component attributes such as quantity, default quantity and whether it is mandatory for inclusion or not. After releasing the modeled solution bundle in the BTP app, it will be published automatically to the Cloud ERP productive system. Alternatively, a more complex configuration is supported in which you leverage the full scope of advanced variant configuration to model bundles and define rule-based conditions for items of the solution order bundle. This approach requires an AVC modeling license is executed following the process defined in Scope Item 22T.
Fig 2. Demonstrating the modelling of a solution bundle
Processing Solution Bundles in Solution Order Management
Solution orders simplify the sale and further processing of different types of products in a single document but with the introduction of pre-defined solution bundles, selling complex solutions becomes even more efficient. Having a variety of pre-defined bundles available to select not only saves time, but improves accuracy and consistency, ensuring the correct combination of components is sold. By introducing the configurable solution bundle product, the need for customizable solutions to be sold at scale is met. In the Solution Order Management application, entering a solution bundle item to a solution order automatically explodes the BOM to display a two-tier hierarchy of solution bundle and sub-items, or potentially a three-level hierarchy where sales kits are also included. During bundle explosion, the system determines the subitems based on the specified configuration date for the bundle item, and the plant defined for the item.
The main solution bundle item dictates the processing of the business object and propagates important business data for pricing, partners, shipping and billing. The price displayed in the cumulated value column indicates the sum of all included components.f the bundle contains configurable items, the solution order specialist can navigate directly to the configuration UI in the solution order to select the possible variants for the item. Depending on the variants selected, price adaptions will automatically be reflected in the solution order. If the bundle has been configured to include components which are defined as optional, these can be removed or added via the quantity attribute in the configuration UI by the solution order specialist. Releasing the bundle item triggers the creation of follow-up transactions and documents for all associated subitems.
Fig. 3 Processing a solution bundle with configurable service contract items
Selling multiple items under a single product provides a better user experience for solution order specialists whilst supporting the process of selling complex and configurable solution bundles at scale. Releasing the bundle item triggers the follow-up orchestration for order fulfillment. This can be tracked via the solution order progress monitor which has also been updated to reflect the processing of solution bundles. From the 2402.4 CFD release, the solution order API also supports solution bundles. It is also possible to track the profitability of your solution bundles by making the bundles available in profitability reports like solution order margin and margin analysis – find out more in this blog post.
Find out more about the full scope of solution selling in SAP S/4HANA Cloud - Check out the collection blog
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