Virtual Event | February 27, 2025 | 9am-13pm | English
Westernacher Planning, Analytics and Sustainability Forum 2025.
Organizations need to integrate data, analytics, and sustainability to stay competitive. SAP speakers will discuss trends in data and analytics, showing their impact on business operations. For example, a retail customer transformed their reporting into a mobile-enabled self-service environment. Enterprise planning is also evolving, aligning daily activities with long-term goals.
Establishing strong data management practices is crucial for Data Intelligence, driving informed decisions and innovation. SAP’s sustainability solutions help businesses reduce their environmental footprint while maintaining efficiency and profitability. Together, these elements form the backbone of successful digital transformations, enabling businesses to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
We look forward to having you with us.
Agenda.
9:00
Welcome
Even for high-performance analytics teams, it is a challenge to keep up with all the desired insights. With generative AI, getting answers from data is easy now. With new capabilities in SAP Analytics Cloud, you can combine the power of generative AI with the context of your business data and processes to create new, innovative answers. Learn how SAP Analytics Cloud can help you generate data you can rely on in no time.
Philipp Gasthalter | Solution Advisor Senior Specialist, SAP
Andreas Scholl | SAP Center of Excellence MEE, SAP
9:45
How customers should build up a modern BI architecture.
Claudia and Mark will discuss what options customers have to modernize their BI structure and give recommendations.
Mark Mrosek | Global Lead Business Planning & Analytics, Westernacher Consulting
Claudia Quilitz | Competence Center Lead for Analytics DACH, Westernacher Consulting
10:15
Datasphere & Databricks – A Unified Data Intelligence Platform for Data Analytics and AI.
In this session, Pranab will explain how to federate SAP data from Datasphere (and from other platforms) into Databricks and use machine learning tools in Databricks to predict and analyse the Data. With that you can decide, if you visualise your results using Databricks SQL (or) bring the results back to SAP Datasphere and combine with your other business data sets and visualise using SAC.
Pranab Parhi | Principal Architect & Sales Lead, SAP Data & Analytics, Westernacher Consulting
11:00
Moving from BusinessObject to SAC: how to transform your analytics.
Thalia, one of Germany’s leading booksellers, is writing the next chapter in data analytics. The goal is to provide over 500 stores and multiple online shops with current and relevant data, enabling well-informed business decisions. By implementing SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), Thalia has taken a crucial step toward an agile and data-driven corporate culture. Christoph Greiwe, Manager of SAP Analytics Cloud at Thalia Bücher GmbH, and Claudia Quilitz, Solutions Architect and Competence Center Lead Analytics DACH at Westernacher Consulting, discuss the objectives of this transformation and the project’s highlights.
Claudia Quilitz | Competence Center Lead for Analytics DACH, Westernacher Consulting
Christoph Greiwe | Manager SAP Analytics Cloud, Thalia Bücher GmbH
11:30
Collaborative Planning: How pricing and costing tie SAC and IBP together.
Synchronized financial planning in SAC and supply chain planning in IBP allow enterprises to maximize the accuracy and effectiveness of both. In our example, we show how price and cost planning depend heavily on budgeting in SAC; how these drive the optimum balancing of demand and supply in; and how thereby combined financial and supply chain planning continuously give critical context and transparency to another.
Dr. Russell Sadd | Practice Director, Supply Chain Planning (UK & Ireland), Westernacher Consulting
Pete Vainikka | Lead Consultant, Westernacher Consulting
12:00
The sustainable transformation: an overview of SAP’s sustainability suite.
The road to more corporate sustainability is further evolving. Legislations as well as solutions are growing. SAP Green Ledger is the latest addition to SAP’s sustainability suite. In the session, we will provide an overview of the individual modules like SAP Green Ledger, Green Token, Sustainability Footprint Management, and Sustainability Control Tower, highlighting the focus area tool and how they contribute to building sustainable and transparent business processes.
Caroline Kolberg | Consultant, Westernacher Consulting
The experts.
Philipp
Gasthalter
Philipp is a customer Advisor in the area of Analytics & Planning with more than 4 years of professional experience as Head of Controlling. He is focused on Analytics, Planning and Data Warehousing. He helps clients to deliver value through SAP analytics & planning solutions. Philipp supports the transformation of digitalization with SAP Analytics & Planning and he translates “business language” into “IT-language” to give data purpose.
Solution Advisor Senior Specialist, SAP
Christoph
Greiwe
Christoph is an accomplished Manager for SAP Analytics Cloud, bringing extensive expertise in data analytics and team leadership. He excels in overseeing the implementation, maintenance, and optimization of SAP Analytics Cloud solutions, ensuring data-driven decision-making throughout the organization.
Manager SAP Analytics Cloud, Thalia
Caroline
Kolberg
Caroline has several years of experience in SAP S/4HANA projects across various implementation scenarios, business areas and master data management. As a university lecturer for an SAP course, she has also been focusing on sustainability, particularly the implementation of regulatory requirements. Her primary interest lies in not only ensuring compliance but also creating business value by aligning sustainability efforts with strategic goals.
Consultant, Westernacher Consulting
Mark
Mrosek
Mark is Global Lead Business Planning & Analytics at Westernacher with more than 10 years of experience in finance and analytics across a wide range of different industries. He is currently focusing on SAP Analytics Cloud and managing first-time customer implementations across three continents.
Global Lead Business Planning & Analytics, Westernacher Consulting
Pranab
Parhi
Pranab is a Data & Analytics Architect / Lead with more than 20 years experience of delivering large scale Digital Transformation Projects, Managing budgets and leading large teams (offshore & onshore) for Global Enterprises. His skills include Business and IT senior stakeholder engagement and expectations management. He ensures on-going alignment of plans, status reporting and key issue resolution through escalation.
SAP Data & Analytics Principal Architect & Sales Lead, Westernacher Consulting
Claudia
Quilitz
Quilitz
Claudia, a seasoned SAP Solution Architect, boasts over a decade of professional experience in BI projects. She specializes in crafting Business Intelligence & Data Warehouse solutions within the realm of SAP BW, SAP HANA, and SAP Analytics Cloud.
Solution Architect Planning & Analytics, Westernacher Consulting
Dr. Russell
Sadd
Sadd
Russell is a partner at Westernacher Consulting and a highly experienced solution architect for SAP-based planning, forecasting and analytics solutions with almost two and a half decades of major project implementations behind him. He considers himself a planning generalist covering supply chain, financial, retail and personnel planning solutions.
Practice Director, Supply Chain Planning (UK & Ireland), Westernacher Consulting
Andreas
Scholl
Scholl
Andreas is an accomplished SAP Center of Excellence (CoE) Lead for the Middle and Eastern Europe (MEE) region. He oversees the strategic direction, implementation, and ongoing enhancement of SAP solutions throughout the organization. With his profound knowledge of SAP technologies, exceptional leadership skills, and collaborative approach, Andreas effectively works with cross-functional teams to meet business goals.
SAP Center of Excellence MEE, SAP
Pete
Vainikka
Vainikka
Pete has extensive experience in IT projects, particularly in business intelligence and supply chain management. He has successfully completed numerous full-cycle IT projects both domestically and internationally. His roles in these projects have been diverse, including architect, project manager, and technical implementation manager. While his primary focus has been on solution-oriented, hands-on project work, he also has significant experience in service management, sales, IT strategy, line management, and competence management.
Solutions Architect, Westernacher Consulting
