Pharmaceuticals · Supply planning & analytics
Self-Service Reporting for Supply Planners
A central reporting platform becomes useful when people can answer their own questions with it. PROVADIT designed and delivered a hands-on workshop for 40 global supply managers, connecting everyday planning questions with the client’s existing SAP reporting tools.
Explore the case- Industry
- Pharmaceuticals · Supply planning & analytics
- Our role
- Workshop design, delivery and user enablement
- Focus & technology
- SAP Business Warehouse · SAP Analysis for Office · KPI Dashboards
- Scope
- Half-day hands-on workshop · 40 participants
Client anonymized.
The starting point
How do standard reports become part of a supply planner’s daily work?
A global pharmaceutical group had consolidated much of its business-warehouse data into a central SAP Business Warehouse environment. Standard authorizations and reusable reports were intended to simplify analysis across supply, inventory, planning and quality. Yet global supply managers still often answered questions by moving between operational systems and assembling information manually. The platform was available; the confidence to use it independently was the missing link.
Their questions spanned the full supply chain. A catalogue of available reports would not be enough: planners needed to recognize which reporting product could answer a question, choose the right level of detail and reuse the result.
Our contribution
PROVADIT’s contribution
PROVADIT designed and delivered a half-day workshop for 40 participants. A prior user survey informed the content, including report navigation, extra fields, aggregations, formatting and changes to underlying data structures. The workshop taught a practical method: start with the business question, choose the appropriate tool and adapt an existing standard report.
Get access and tools working
Participants worked through the Excel analysis add-in, its connection to the reporting system, authorization requests and checks, and access to the dashboard portal. Practical troubleshooting addressed the everyday Excel environment, so access and setup would not become a recurring barrier to analysis.
Find and adapt relevant reporting
PROVADIT mapped the reporting landscape to business questions across demand and supply planning, inventory and write-offs, production and quality, orders, distribution and warehousing. Participants focused on the assets relevant to their role. They practiced adapting standard workbooks and learned how to request changes or maintain local reports when underlying structures change.
Practice realistic questions and connect to support
Exercises covered batch expiry and inventory, bills of materials, forecast-versus-plan deviations and planning books. PROVADIT connected the session to existing learning materials, basic and advanced courses, Q&A sessions, local key users and authorization and support channels. Participants were also reminded to validate information in source systems where necessary.
Inside the work
From the business question to a reusable analysis.
The exercises followed four decisions that participants could apply to a new question. Standard reports and workbooks provided the starting point.
Define the information needed
Participants first described the business question and the information required to answer it. A batch-expiry review, a bill-of-materials question and a forecast deviation call for different data and analytical views.
Choose dashboard or detailed analysis
Dashboards supported visual KPI and trend monitoring, with drill-down where needed. SAP Analysis for Office supported detailed Excel analysis across workbooks, with filtering, slicing, aggregation and formatting. Both used the same central SAP BW foundation; participants learned to select the layer suited to the question.
Select an existing reporting asset
Participants identified the standard report or workbook most likely to contain the required information. The aim was to find the relevant part of the reporting landscape for their role, rather than use every available product or build from scratch.
Adapt, save and reuse the view
Filters, fields, navigational attributes, aggregations and formatting shaped the analytical view. Participants practiced saving tailored views with prompt and filter settings so a resolved question could become a reusable or shareable analysis.
Deliverables
The work delivered. The decisions it supports.
Participants gained a working approach to accessing the environment, choosing between monitoring and detailed analysis, and tailoring existing reports to their needs. Reusable views and established support routes gave them a basis for handling daily, weekly and monthly planning questions more independently.
- A half-day hands-on workshop delivered to 40 global supply managers, based on their practical reporting needs.
- A repeatable method for selecting, adapting, saving and reusing analyses on the existing reporting foundation.
- A clear route to further learning, local key users and established access and support channels.
Engagement context
The engagement covered workshop design and delivery using the client’s existing platform, reports and support structures. It was the first step in an ongoing adoption process. More consistent reporting and less repeated manual analysis were the intended business effects; this case does not quantify subsequent time savings or sustained usage.
What this illustrates
Adoption depends on more than making data available. People need a way to connect a business question with the right report and the confidence to adapt it. Teaching that method on the client’s own reporting assets makes the existing platform more usable and gives the team a basis for continuing without the consultant in the room.
A related engagement
Inventory Optimization and Integrated Planning
Reporting skills and usable planning tools reinforce one another. A separate case shows how PROVADIT connects inventory steering, tool choices and planning-team responsibilities.
Read case study: Inventory Optimization and Integrated PlanningRelated expertise
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