SAP Process Control

What is SAP Process Control?

Companies need to ensure their activities are carried out following board-level directives and internal policies while complying with applicable regulations. That’s where internal controls come into play, and process control is a method that companies use to streamline and automate the monitoring of business processes. SAP Process Control, part of the SAP GRC suite, is one tool that many SAP customers use to ensure their business is operating in an efficient and compliant manner.

What is SAP Process Control?

Companies need to ensure their activities are carried out following board-level directives and internal policies while complying with applicable regulations. That’s where internal controls come into play, and process control is a method that companies use to streamline and automate the monitoring of business processes. SAP Process Control, part of the SAP GRC suite, is one tool that many SAP customers use to ensure their business is operating in an efficient and compliant manner.

SAP Process Control and similar tools offer the following capabilities, among others:

• Continuous controls monitoring (CCM), which automates the monitoring of process data.
• Single source of process control data, including internal procedures and compliance policies
• Business objective and risk alignment with controls
• Automated workflows and notifications for issue response
• Internal controls evaluation

Process Control is largely manual without a targeted solution. Automation with the help of technology enables faster response to efficiency and compliance issues, while reducing workload for GRC teams.

There are many vendors that provide services and products around process control. For example, Appsian Security’ssolutions offer attribute-based controls monitoring, continuous monitoring, and real-time process analytics. System integrators such as Capgemini, Deloitte, and Accenture assist customers with establishing process controls policies and implementing SAP Process Control and other software.

Key Considerations for SAPinsiders:

• CCM automation is an appealing piece of SAP Process Control for many SAP customers. For example, as part of an SAP Process Control implementation, Eli Lilly utilized CCM to help track the company’s controlled activities. This has helped increase transparency and efficiency in the controls process.
• Business partners need to be involved in SAP Process Control. Get out in front of the process with your business partners so you can inform and co-create, making them aware of control considerations that will impact their decisions. Challenge your current processes and leverage technology and external expertise to support adoption and behavior change. Asking questions like “what is your biggest pain point” and “how do we benchmark against our peers” is important.
• Hershey is using process control to measure process and adoption rates during its phased SAP S/4HANA implementation. This phased approach allows the company to understand what extent GRC is being leveraged. Using SAP Process Control, rationalization of manual controls is targeted at 35% and control automation is expected to increase from 20% to over 50%.