Top secret: Securely anonymize prices and calculations in SAP S/4HANA

Reliably protecting sensitive data

What companies need today is a proven, powerful solution that automatically identifies sensitive data and reliably protects it – quickly, across systems, and without unnecessary complexity. DCS Protect meets these requirements. The solution helps companies consistently implement the requirements of established data protection frameworks such as the GDPR, the CCPA, and other international regulations.

DCS Protect has proven particularly effective in testing, migration, and transformation projects and is now an established component of many customers’ test, quality assurance, development, and training environments.

However, as these environments are increasingly outsourced to external service providers, the focus is shifting. It is no longer just about personal data. Prices, commercial terms, and complex calculation logic are among the most sensitive types of information. At a time when more and more service providers have access to such systems and markets are becoming increasingly transparent and competitive, this information represents a critical competitive factor – particularly in highly contested industries.

Who is allowed to see which data?

Any company embarking on an SAP S/4HANA transformation project inevitably opens up its system landscape. What was once clearly segregated is now deliberately shared. Development, test, and quality assurance systems have long since evolved into collaborative platforms accessed not only by internal teams, but also by nearshore and offshore partners and specialized service providers.

This new openness brings speed and efficiency, but it also raises an uncomfortable question: Which data should actually be visible in these environments?

While protecting personal data has by now become standard practice, other types of information are increasingly coming into focus – and are often considered even more critical. These include prices, commercial terms, and complex calculation logic.

In many companies, these form the backbone of competitiveness. That is precisely why they are among the most sensitive types of data.

In SAP S/4HANA programs, a clear principle is therefore increasingly being adopted: Actual prices must no longer be identifiable in test and non-production systems. This requirement applies not only to traditional procurement processes, but also extends to material valuations, contract models, conditions, invoices, as well as connected documents and analyses.

We therefore pursue a practical anonymization approach that we define together with our customers’ business departments: The price per unit is set system-wide to a neutral value, while quantities, pricing indicators, and calculation logic remain unchanged. The total price can still be calculated correctly based on the quantity, allowing business processes, simulations, and tests to be represented realistically.

The total price is therefore still calculated correctly – simply based on anonymized unit values. This keeps processes consistent, tests reliable, and simulations realistic, without exposing sensitive pricing information.

With DCS Protect, this approach can be implemented automatically, based on defined rules, and across systems. The solution reliably identifies price- and calculation-relevant data and selectively anonymizes it without compromising the business value of the data.

Protection of sensitive pricing and purchasing data

As part of the implementation, the following areas, among others, are protected:

• Price fields in purchase requisitions (PRs), purchase orders (POs), contracts, and scheduling agreements
• Conditions, prices, and references in purchasing info records
• Price fields in material master data
• Consumption data from contracts, as well as purchasing volumes and SOP information
• Service Entry Sheets and goods receipts, including original prices
• Free-text fields, notes, and comment fields across all procurement processes
• Attachments such as invoices, delivery notes, ZIP archives, and other documents

DCS Protect therefore focuses, among other things, on the targeted protection of highly sensitive pricing data and business-critical calculation mechanisms.

For us, this development was a logical next step. Protecting personal data alone is no longer sufficient for many projects. Companies need solutions that also safeguard their business-critical information – consistently and without compromising usability.

Maximum data security with full testing capability: This is how we support our customers in their projects. DCS Protect is increasingly becoming a central component of modern SAP transformation strategies – evolving from a data protection solution into a comprehensive safeguard for business-critical information.