10 things to know before starting a SAP BN4L Project
1990-2020 was the era for organizations to create their online presence and currently it is an era of collaboration. SAP BN4L is the State-of-the-Art Solution but are you sure, is it the right fit for your organization?
NAV IT has summarized learnings from 8+ BN4L projects below, to evaluate your business requirements:
1. BN4L has 4 components but 2 are more popular:
- Freight Collaboration (FC) – Most Popular
- Global track and trace (GTT) – Popular
- Material traceability – Specific use cases
- Intelligent Insight – Phase 2 of the project
2. BN4L is a cloud solution– You cannot develop bespoke features
Freight Collaboration offers limited customizing options and there is no option to develop your solution. A customer has to create an Influence request and the SAP team plans them for the upcoming release based on their bandwidth and product roadmap.
Global track and trace is similar to Freight Collaboration but offers an option to create a custom model to handle critical business requirements in bespoke development. Interesting, GTT is not using ABAP 🙂 mainly Scripts.
3. Carrier onboarding – Don’t underestimate it
A business network is incomplete without collaborating parties and for logistics, we need carriers to be onboarded. It seems simple technically but it includes lots of administrative efforts to coordinate between Carriers, SAP onboarding team, Project IT, and the business team. So, start early 🙂
NAV IT has onboarded more than 500 carriers globally. Contact us BN4L@nav-it.com for a free consultation.
4. BN4L GTT is for track and trace but doesn’t work without Visibility provider(VP)
Are you surprised? But this is the truth. Global organizations need multiple visibility providers based on VP’s
- regional strength
- transportation mode expertise
- Service charges etc.
and to integrate each VP needs
- additional project
- additional security checks for connect
- additional maintenance team
- additional budget.
GTT is designed to mitigate the above business challenges. GTT acts as a wrapper for your SAP ERP or SAP TM system and immunes it to the above problems. It simplifies adding, removing, or replacing a visibility provider. Additionally, GTT offers Order fulfillment tracking, ASN tracking, impact analysis, custom notifications, and many more to identify logistics risks in advance to prepare the mitigation plan.
Last but not least, GTT offers connections with partner solutions to complement SAP solutions as well as solve key customer challenges. For example – Sky – The Tracking App helps the customer to track road shipments without a visibility provider or additional telematics solution.
5. Convincing Big carriers to use BN4L-FC UI is a challenge?
Big carriers are not interested in handling business manually via UI. There is always an interest in seamless data flow to their system and the good news is that this is possible. BN4L offers standard APIs (Application programming interface) for carriers to integrate their system with BN4L. This is another key advantage of using BN4L that Customers need not to initiate separate projects to integrate their SAP TM system with each carrier. Now the question comes, who is responsible for the carrier’s integration with BN4L? Not a simple answer. Let us discuss it. Contact us at BN4L@nav-it.com.
6. You have a 4 PL in your portfolio. Does BN4L support?
Yes, SAP BN4L offers a capability to transfer Freight units from SAP TM to BN4L. 4PL carriers will receive it in their system via APIs, perform transportation planning and send the result in the form of a Freight order in Shipper’s TM system via BN4L.
7. BN4L-FC is evolving but smart tricks work
As mentioned above, the BN4L-FC is a cloud solution with no custom enhancement possibility but there are many small tricks/developments that can be done in SAP TM to get the expected result. All you need is an expert partner. NAV IT has more than 8 BN4L project experience. Contact us to discuss your problems – BN4L@nav-it.com.
8. Integration SAP S/4 to BN4L – Lots of data flow – There is a smart solution to monitor
Seamless data flow between SAP and BN4L is required for an uninterrupted logistic process. But it is impractical to mention that there are no failures in the TM-BN4L communication but there is a wonderful tool available from SAP which helps to monitor failed messages and trigger customized notifications to the responsible group.
NAV IT has done the 1st implementation worldwide of this tool for TM and BN4L integration monitoring. To know more about the tool, please contact us at BN4L@nav-it.com.
9. Dock booking offers more than it appears
Dock booking appears simple but there are lots of requirements from different customers. For example –
- Can dock bookings be automatically confirmed?
- Can we restrict the carrier to not book outside a time window?
- Can a loading location be dynamically handled based on vehicle type (small/big truck, back/side loading, etc.)?
- Can dock booking functionality work with SAP Yard Logistics?
- Can we restrict warehouse team to see only their dock booking (authorization concept)?
- Can a dock be shared with another entity? E.g. 2 companies sharing a dock in a chemical park?
Any many more. Answer to above questions are YES but not all the functionalities are available in standard. Some requirements can be fulfilled with a small enhancement in TM/YL. Do you have a doubt here? Contact us at BN4L@nav-it.com.
10. Is role-based authorization possible in BN4L?
Yes, role-based authorizations are possible in BN4L. It is not that simple as in SAP ERP/ S/4HANA system but there is enough capability to support the required business needs.
With knowledge comes success, and with experience comes success within the budget and timeframe by avoiding pitfalls and reducing hit and trial. As a leading integrator of SAP BN4L solutions, NAV IT has successfully implemented over 8 projects and developed many innovative solutions to address industry demands and business challenges. NAV IT holds the pride of implementing the 1st BN4L Project worldwide and is recognized as one of the leading implementing partners in Europe.
To know more and discuss your business-specific challenges, connect anytime.
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