Amazon MGM Studios automates financial close process with SAP and AWS (MAM219)
SAP and AWS: Automating the Financial Close Process
Key Takeaways
Benefit of AWS and SAP Together:
AWS provides technical advantages, effective services, and innovative solutions to transform businesses.
AWS helps SAP customers innovate in the cloud by seamlessly integrating SAP and AWS services.
MGM Studios' Journey:
MGM Studios is part of the Prime Video and movie/TV production businesses.
They faced challenges in their month-end close process, taking 3 weeks to complete.
They leveraged the AWS SDK for SAP ABAP to automate the process and reduce the close time to 7 business days.
AWS SDK for SAP ABAP:
The SDK allows ABAP developers to extend and transform SAP-based business processes by seamlessly integrating SAP and AWS services.
It provides easy-to-use APIs to access over 240 AWS services from ABAP programs.
It simplifies integration, reduces development time, and enables more cloud-based solutioning.
MGM Studios' Solution Architecture:
Initial solution used AWS DataSync to sync data from SAP EFS to S3, then loaded into Amazon Redshift.
The new solution using the AWS SDK for SAP ABAP eliminated the need for DataSync, reduced hops, and enabled real-time data refreshes.
Future Enhancements:
MGM Studios plans to further automate the remaining workflows and processes to achieve their 7-day close goal.
They are exploring direct integration between SAP and other AWS services like Amazon Redshift, avoiding the need for an ETL pipeline.
Detailed Summary
Introduction
Chris Foster introduces the session and the speakers: Tagus Ramaswamy from MGM Studios and John Fen from AWS.
They will discuss how SAP and AWS work together to innovate in the cloud and how MGM Studios automated their financial close process using the AWS SDK for SAP ABAP.
Why SAP and AWS are Better Together
AWS provides technical advantages, effective services, and innovative solutions to help SAP customers transform their businesses.
AWS helps SAP customers innovate in the cloud by seamlessly integrating SAP and AWS services.
SAP is the backbone of many organizations, and AWS can help leverage the data and processes in SAP to drive innovation.
The AWS SDK for SAP ABAP enables ABAP developers to extend and transform SAP-based business processes using AWS services.
MGM Studios' Journey
MGM Studios is part of Prime Video, the movie business, and the TV business, including popular shows like Shark Tank.
As the head of finance applications, Tagus Ramaswamy's responsibility is to ensure the monthly, quarterly, and annual financial close process is efficient.
Their initial close process took 3 weeks, with a 620-line checklist, mostly manual and using Excel.
Their goal was to reduce the close process to 7 business days, including producing the financial reports.
Initial Solution Architecture
MGM Studios was still running SAP ECC EHP7, not S/4HANA, and their systems were configured to use EFS, not S3.
They used AWS DataSync to sync data from SAP EFS to S3, then loaded into Amazon Redshift for reporting and dashboards.
This initial solution improved the close process, but they faced some challenges, such as longer refresh times during ad-hoc updates and the need to manually adjust for daylight saving time changes.
Leveraging the AWS SDK for SAP ABAP
MGM Studios worked with AWS to explore the AWS SDK for SAP ABAP to address the limitations of the initial solution.
The new solution using the SDK eliminated the need for DataSync, reduced hops, and enabled real-time data refreshes.
Key benefits:
Easy to implement, with only 5 steps required.
One less hop in the data pipeline.
Eliminated the need to worry about daylight saving time changes.
Enabled more frequent data refreshes, down to 5-15 minutes.
Overall reduced the time to refresh data from source to target.
Future Enhancements
MGM Studios plans to further automate the remaining workflows and processes to achieve their 7-day close goal.
They are exploring direct integration between SAP and other AWS services like Amazon Redshift, avoiding the need for an ETL pipeline.
AWS SDK for SAP ABAP Capabilities
John Fen from AWS explains the features and benefits of the AWS SDK for SAP ABAP:
Pure ABAP implementation, no third-party libraries or agents required.
Broad compatibility from NetWeaver 7.4 to the latest S/4HANA.
Supports over 240 AWS services, with new services added daily.
Provides easy-to-use APIs that feel native to ABAP programmers.
Handles complexity of service integrations, allowing ABAP developers to focus on business logic.
Live Demos
John demonstrates two live demos showcasing the capabilities of the AWS SDK for SAP ABAP:
Using Amazon Rekognition to detect faces in images attached to service orders.
Using AWS Braket to perform quantum computations from an ABAP program.
Getting Started with the AWS SDK for SAP ABAP
John provides guidance on how to get started with the SDK:
Explore AWS services and documentation to get ideas for your business.
Review the SDK's code examples and documentation.
Join the developer preview for the BTP edition of the SDK.
Attend relevant sessions and visit the SAP kiosk at the conference.
Provide feedback to help improve the SDK and SAP on AWS content.
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