Integrate your subscription business model into SAP Finance with the billwerk SAP connector
- Extension of SAP Finance in the sense of a best-of-breed solution approach for Susbscription business models
- Low initial effort, no initial costs and easy setup
- Participative pricing model (Consumption based)
- Short time-to-market phase
Frankfurt am Main, October 18th 2021 – billwerk, European market leader for subscription management solutions, has joined forces with Hamburg-based IT consultancy cimt AG to develop a connector for automating data exchange processes with SAP Finance. The standard connector – available for both SAP ERP and S/4HANA – automates and simplifies the data protection-compliant transfer of all data for monthly and annual financial statements in SAP Finance.
Subscription transition already captures all key SAP industries
Digital transformation is creating entirely new opportunities for the majority of conventional industries. As part of this paradigm shift, new business and revenue models are emerging across all industries – the majority based on subscription and consumption-based services.
A recent BITKOM study concluded that digitization will have a strong to very strong influence on the business model of 73% of all industrial companies in the future. Thus, 88% of all industrial companies are planning to introduce platform-based services. 45% of all respondents are even considering making their machines available to customers as part of pay-per-use models and thus making a long-term strategic shift from capex to opex business models.
However, for companies from conventional and hardware-based industries such as plant and mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, the automotive industry or publishing, this transformation process is often accompanied by a major challenge. After all, how can new, digital and hybrid revenue models be integrated into the existing IT infrastructure without negatively impacting existing business models?
In the results of its Industrial Subscription-Business benchmarking study, the FIR Institute at RWTH Aachen University comes to a clear conclusion: companies only have a veritable chance if “a common, efficient system with smooth communication and continuous data exchange is created by optimally integrating the customer into the company’s own processes […]”. Already 60% of subscription providers would integrate their solution into the value chain of their customers via multiple interfaces, according to the FIR.
Best-of-Breed Solution Approach
The billwerk SAP Standard Connector will enable companies using SAP to also map recurring revenue models in SAP and to synchronize all relevant financial data between billwerk and SAP – bidirectionally.
With this strategic step, billwerk underscores that it is an essential component of a best-of-breed solution architecture for the operation of subscription models. “With the billwerk SAP Connector, we are empowering everyone who uses SAP to be able to pursue a smart and effort-neutral “best-of-breed approach”,” Pierre Schramm, member of the billwerk management team, summarizes the development. “Our aim is to use the connector to expand SAP Finance in specific areas where SAP does not provide any functional scope out of the box and the effort of a custom solution or native integration would simply be too high,” Pierre Schramm continues.
Advantages of the new standard connector for SAP Finance
With the Connector, financial and invoice data can be exchanged bidirectionally between billwerk and SAP Finance. The Connector is an interface that both transfers the financial data managed in billwerk to SAP and provides SAP financial data to the billwerk ecosystem – fully automated and just in time. In contrast to individually developed integrations, the Connector requires only a small initial outlay and thus enables a faster go-to-market, since standard processes are already mapped.
“Another major advantage for our customers is the possibility that we can make customer-specific adjustments directly to the Connector, since with cimt AG we have a partner that understands both SAP and billwerk,” emphasizes Steffen Mey, Senior Solution Architect and billwerk Co-Founder. “We have mapped a certain framework in the connector. These are processes that work out of the box. Through mapping tables that we provide to the customer in our namespace, specific settings can be maintained by the customer itself,” explains Johannes Honold, Managing Partner at cimt AG.
The advantages of the new SAP Connector:
- Extension of SAP Finance in the sense of a best-of-breed solution approach for Susbscription business models
- Low initial effort, no initial costs and easy setup
- Participative pricing model (Consumption based)
- Short time-to-market phase
Summary
More than 350,000 companies worldwide, with a total of more than 12 million users, use solutions from the Walldorf-based software company SAP. The range of applications extends from ERP systems and financial applications to CRM software and solutions for the supply chain and the Internet of Things. In the context of subscription business models, however, precisely these companies face enormous challenges, because in the majority of cases customizing SAP’s own solutions is too time-consuming and also too cost-intensive and thus “mission critical”.
This is precisely where billwerk and cimt come in with the billwerk SAP Connector.
* * * * *
About billwerk GmbH
billwerk was founded in 2015 by Dr. Ricco Deutscher and his co-founders. With its subscription management platform, billwerk reliably contributes an essential part of the digital value chain for recurring business models. Today, billwerk employs more than 52 people at its headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, as well as in its offices in Minsk, Belarus and Gdansk, Poland. The subscription management platform is currently used by several hundred midmarket and enterprise customers as well as fast-growing startups in Europe.
* * * * *
About cimt
With cimt AG, billwerk has a partner with many years of experience in SAP consulting and software development. cimt AG has been an SAP consulting specialist for 20 years and scores with its broad experience in the focus topics of integration and enhancements and key industries in the development and service partnership with SAP. With the billwerk SAP Adapter, the SAP Gold Partner has created an important building block for the billwerk platform.
