Macrospect Helps Ascend Integrate Operational and Financial Planning with SAP

Overview

Ascend Performance Materials operates in a dynamic manufacturing environment where profitability depends on tight coordination between production, logistics, and financial planning.

However, the company’s planning systems lacked integration. Finance teams could not easily evaluate how materials, manufacturing, inventory, and logistics decisions affected profitability. Planning gaps often led to missed opportunities or operational issues that were only discovered after reporting periods had closed, limiting Ascend’s ability to respond quickly and optimize performance.

Ascend partnered with Macrospect to implement an integrated planning solution using SAP BPC 10 powered by SAP HANA. The new platform connected operational and financial data in a single environment, enabling faster analysis and more informed decision-making across the business.

Business Challenge

Ascend’s planning processes were constrained by fragmented data across operational and financial systems. Without a unified view of production, logistics, and financial performance, the company struggled to evaluate the true profitability of its operations before decisions were made.

Operational drivers such as materials usage, manufacturing activity, inventory levels, and freight costs were managed separately from financial planning processes. This made it difficult for finance and operations teams to analyze the full impact of operational decisions or respond quickly when conditions changed.

Ascend needed a planning environment capable of integrating operational and financial data so the organization could evaluate profitability more accurately, improve forecasting, and make better operational decisions.

Solution

Macrospect implemented SAP BPC 10 on HANA to create an integrated operational and financial planning environment.

The solution enabled Ascend to:

• Integrate operational data with financial planning and reporting
• Generate faster, on-demand planning and performance reports
• Analyze bill of materials, production, inventory, and logistics data alongside financial results
• Integrate freight (ECC) date with financial planning to evaluate shipment profitability before products were shipped
• Expand access to planning insights across the organization

By bringing operational and financial data together in a single platform, Ascend gained the ability to analyze profitability drivers in near real time and make more informed decisions across the business.

Business Outcomes

With integrated planning enabled by SAP and implemented by Macrospect, Ascend gained a clearer and more timely view of operational and financial performance.

Finance and operations teams can now analyze production costs, logistics data, and customer profitability using near real-time information. Faster reporting and integrated planning processes allow leadership to make better decisions about production, inventory, and shipments before those decisions impact financial results.

Key outcomes include:

• Near real-time insight into customer profitability
• Better alignment of inventory and production planning to support cash flow management
• Improved ability to predict shipping availability and meet customer expectations
• Improved visibility into operational and financial performance
• Faster reporting and executive analysis
• Near real-time insight into customer profitability
• More informed production, logistics, and inventory decisions
• A more responsive and integrated planning environment