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SAP puts a Web 2.0 spin on CRM upgrade

CRM 7 will feature an easy-to-use Web 2.0-style interface that SAP hopes will help increase usage rates in the enterprise

SAP on Tuesday announced an update to its customer relationship management software with a Web 2.0-style interface that could help to increase usage rates among workers.

Companies often report that usage levels for their business software is lower than they would like, with salespeople managing accounts in Microsoft Outlook instead of their more expensive CRM software, for example. SAP hopes to address that with CRM 7, an update to its CRM (customer relationship management) product that will be widely available early next year.

People accustomed to using easy-to-use Web applications in their personal life are starting to expect that same ease of use in their business software, said Stefan Haenisch, SAP’s vice president of CRM product management.

“We’re trying to bridge the gap between a cool, user-driven Web application, and an enterprise software application,” he said.

CRM 7 has a portal-like interface that workers can customize with information from within the CRM system, such as reports, or from external sources, such as publically available newsfeeds and maps. They can change the color and “theme” of the interface by clicking through different designs, or skins.

The idea is to make the software more appealing to work with, but also to provide information that might increase productivity. A salesperson might add a feed showing news about companies he plans to visit that week, Haenisch said.

The software also looks different inside. The content is laid out in task windows that users can drag and drop to rearrange. The interface is built on SAP’s NetWeaver and uses AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML), a popular interface technology on the Web.

There are also new CRM tools, including a pipeline management tool that can run “what if” scenarios on upcoming deals. A salesperson can view quarterly sales in a bar chart, and then move deals from one quarter to the next, or push expected targets up or down, to see the effect on the quarterly totals, Haenisch said.

CRM 7 will also include telephony software that uses Internet Protocol, a technology SAP acquired when it bought Wicom Communications last May. The software lets companies set up a virtual call center that could include workers in remote locations, without having to invest in specialized telephony hardware, Haenisch said.

There is also an updated trade promotions management tool, which can help marketing departments manage hundreds of concurrent programs with retail stores.

The global CRM market is growing quickly, according to Datamonitor, pushed along by organizations that recognize the benefits of creating a positive experience for their customers. The analyst company expects worldwide CRM sales to hit $6.6 billion in 2012, up from $3.6 billion in 2006, with a compound growth rate of 10.5 percent per year.

SAP and RIM team to bring native CRM to BlackBerry

SAP AG and Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) today revealed a partnership to run SAP’s CRM application natively on the BlackBerry and eventually to bring the full SAP suite to the device.

“In 2004, RIM and SAP announced a strategic partnership around SAP CRM where a sales professional could access CRM by using the BlackBerry device as a browser,” said Bill McDermott, president and CEO, SAP Americas and Asia Pacific/Japan. “Today’s a different day, a very different solution. Today we’re talking about CRM natively integrated into the BlackBerry device itself.”

For example, with the new partnership, mobile sales professionals can have leads and opportunities pushed to their BlackBerrys directly from SAP CRM. Similarly, when a mobile user clicks on a contact, the BlackBerry can access up-to-date service or sales orders.

Source – http://searchcrm.techtarget.com

Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik Implements SAP CRM 2007

Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik (HBM) now handles its customer relationships with SAP Customer Relationship Management 2007 (SAP CRM 2007).

The company is now implementing SAP components for marketing, sales, and analytics at a total of 18 locations worldwide. SAP CRM 2007 is already integrated into HBM’s British subsidiary, which is the global leader in high-tech measurement and testing products. The company is also currently rolling out the application in Scandinavia and the Benelux countries; overseeing the implementation of this project is the SAP partner Sybit. SAP CRM 2007 is to replace the Siebel system HBM has been using for CRM.
According to Frank Hölscher, manager of sales applications at HBM, the company’s users have warmed in particular to SAP CRM 2007’s intuitive interface. In addition to the application’s ease of use, HBM is looking forward to major advantages based on its integration in SAP ERP: Hölscher cites the software’s ability to design end-to-end quotation processes – including product configuration – and eliminate redundant entries of quotations and orders.

Source – http://sap.info/en

SAP Holds Top Rankings in Worldwide Market Share for SAP(R) Business Suite Applications

SAP AG  today announced that it has been named the worldwide market share leader based on total software revenue for business solutions in the customer relationship management enterprise resource planning and supply chain management  markets, according to 2007 market share reports published by renowned independent research firm Gartner, Inc.

The following is an overview of the Gartner rankings, measured by total software revenues for 2007:

— SAP leads the CRM market, with a total market share of 25.35 percent, placing nine percentage points over its closest competitor.(1)

— SAP leads the SCM market, with a total market share of 22.4 percent, a sizeable lead over second-ranked competitor at 16 percent.(2)

— SAP leads the ERP market, with a total market share of 27.5 percent, far surpassing the second-ranked competitor at 13.9 percent.(3)

“We believe SAP’s top leadership position throughout the Gartner Market Share reports is a shining confirmation of the value and continued trust companies place in the SAP Business Suite family of applications,” said Jim Hagemann Snabe, member of the Executive Board, SAP AG. “Customers around the world consistently turn to the unmatched end-to-end integration capabilities of the SAP Business Suite to help solve complex business challenges while driving top and bottom line growth.”

Within the ERP market, SAP is also further noted as the leader in several relevant categories, including financials and human capital management solutions. SAP also surpassed a major ERP milestone recently (see July 1, 2008 press release, titled “SAP Surpasses Milestone in Product Strategy as 10,000 Customers Run Latest ERP Release”), whereby SAP ERP 6.0 has become the fastest adopted SAP ERP release in the company’s history. Combined with the powerful functionality found in the most current versions of the SAP Business Suite family of applications is providing tangible results for customers on a global scale.

“When we realized our SAP package would literally run our business, we felt we had to place our bet with the most proven solution available,” said Don Whittington, vice president and chief information officer, Florida Crystals. “Our bet with SAP has paid off handsomely. The flexibility and scalability of the software has enabled us to realize our growth objectives through acquisition and support rapidly changing business requirements. This adaptability also enables continuous improvement of business processes at Florida Crystals on a global basis.”

 

Source – http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/technology/sap-holds-rankings-worldwide-market-share-sapr-business-suite-applications/

SAP Customers Worldwide Tout Early Success With Latest CRM Offering

SAP AG today announced that companies across diverse industries have successfully deployed the new customer relationship management  application from SAP in record time to deliver superior value to their customers. By selecting the SAP CRM application over competitive CRM offerings, industry leaders, including eBay, Royal Philips Electronics, Eastman Chemical, Home Shopping Europe, Apotex, StatoilHydro, Bank fuer Sozialwirtschaft and Wuerth Group, are able to leverage insights across the enterprise in order to engage with customers in exciting and innovative ways.

Further showing SAP’s momentum, the leading independent research firm Gartner Inc. has once again ranked SAP as the No. 1 CRM vendor worldwide. According to Gartner, SAP leads the CRM market with a total market share of 25.35 percent based on total software revenue, placing it nine percentage points over its closest competitor.(1)

SAP CRM Enables Interaction With eBay’s Top Customers in Europe

eBay has a global presence in 39 markets and approximately 83.9 million active users worldwide; a great deal of those trade on eBay’s European marketplaces. The quality of its business relationships to key customers — PowerSellers, top sellers and top buyers — is critical to the success of the company. In 2007, eBay decided to implement a new CRM solution to increase the satisfaction of these key accounts, as well as to drive the overall productivity of its business. eBay selected SAP CRM to support its customer interaction center for European markets. The company implemented the interaction center and the business intelligence functionalities of the application. The clear CRM roadmap and SAP’s commitment to CRM led eBay to select SAP CRM. The first European eBay country organization went live in May 2008, the last one will follow in August.

Royal Philips Electronics Excites Sales Users

Royal Philips Electronics (Sector Consumer Lifestyle), leader in healthcare, lighting and consumer lifestyle products, went live on SAP CRM 2007 with a team of sales force automation users in Canada.

“Our sales reps rave about the improved ease-of-use of the SAP CRM 2007 application, which was adopted faster than ever,” said Geert van de Ven, program manager, Royal Philips Electronics. “Due to the successful implementation, we plan to expand our rollout of SAP CRM 2007 to additional users later this year.”

Eastman Chemical Captures Comprehensive Customer Interactions

As a major producer of chemicals, fibers and plastics, Eastman Chemical requires a high degree of visibility into customer interactions in order to maintain customer satisfaction levels and support growth strategies. Eastman deployed SAP CRM to capture a more robust view of these customer interactions and provide improved support for sales.

“Our emphasis is on service and insight into customer relationships,” said Bob Strickler, technical lead, Interaction Center project, Eastman Chemical. “The interaction center functionality of SAP CRM will quickly and easily enable us to capture interactions and create the 360-degree view of the customer for all account team members. Thanks to the flexibility and scalability of SAP CRM, we plan to complete the deployment to all our CSRs in North America by the end of this year, and finish the global deployment by mid-2009. We could not have embarked on such an ambitious undertaking without the capabilities provided by SAP CRM.”

Customer is King at Home Shopping EuropeGmbH

As one of the leading shopping television channels in Germany, HSE24 (Home Shopping EuropeGmbH) has identified the multichannel approach as the key success factor for generating superior customer value. Customers can access HSE24’s offerings via TV, the HSE24 Web site, telephone, e-mail or print publications. In March 2007, HSE24 bundled its ‘customer is king’ modernization program, where the company switched the management of customer information and service requests to SAP CRM.

With SAP CRM 2007 available, the company decided to upgrade its systems immediately and extend the scope of functionality covered by the SAP system. SAP CRM 2007 allows HSE24 to integrate internal business units, external services providers and interfaces to the back-end systems as well as to the Internet shop on a single platform. With the SAP application, HSE24 is successfully managing data of more than 6 million customers, 500,000 products and 70,000 daily order entries, with 800 call center specialists who can access the CRM system at the same time.

Apotex Lowers Cost of Customer Service Operations

Apotex, the largest Canadian-owned pharmaceutical company, uses SAP CRM 2007 and the SAP(R: 67.66, -0.69, -1.00%) NetWeaver Portal component as a platform to deliver online value-added services to pharmacists, healthcare professionals and students.

“With over 12,000 Internet customers and internal users utilizing SAP CRM 2007, we were able to consolidate five separate databases and manual processes onto one common platform,” said Michael Davidson, CIO, Apotex. “This enables us to effectively track marketing programs and customer activity. The effort reduced our administrative costs and improved our visibility into customer profitability.”

StatoilHydro Drives Top Line Revenue Growth

StatoilHydro is the largest seller of oil products in Scandinavia, with more than 29,000 employees in 40 countries.

“We upgraded to SAP CRM 2007 in just three months, going live in May 2008,” said Trond Grahnstedt, project manager, StatoilHydro. “With the rapid rollout to 410 users in our Scandinavian subsidiaries, SAP CRM 2007 is keeping our sales pipeline filled. We plan to extend our use of the application to both e-commerce and complaints management functionalities in the future.”

Bank fuer Sozialwirtschaft Strengthens Customer Orientation

Bank fuer Sozialwirtschaft (BfS), based in Cologne, Germany, selected the SAP for Banking solution portfolio in 2005 to replace a legacy core banking solution. Just two years later, BfS enhanced its SAP application landscape with a preconfigured banking solution based on SAP CRM 2007. The solution provides a consistent and comprehensive 360-degree view of all accounts and prospects for all customer-facing front- and back-office employees. Focus areas include customer and prospect management, opportunity and activity management, as well as pipeline performance management. The ease of use of SAP CRM 2007 was a key reason for BfS to select SAP and it is further supported by the integration of Microsoft Office applications with SAP CRM.

Adolf Wuerth GmbH & Co. KG Leverages End-to-End Processes to Strengthen Customer Relationships

The Wuerth Group is one of the world’s leading companies in fixing and assembly materials, including screws, dowels and plugs, chemical products and other tools. To strengthen relationships with its customers, Adolf Wuerth GmbH & Co. KG searched for a CRM solution both able to support the industry-specific requirements of the construction industry and capable of integrating deeply with its existing SAP application landscape. As one of the first companies worldwide to do so, AWKG selected SAP CRM 2007. The application is combined with an industry-specific solution of SAP partner movento and allows comprehensive key-account management for the company’s project-driven business. Additional benefits for AWKG were generated by the deep integration of SAP CRM 2007 into its existing deployment of SAP’s flagship enterprise resource planning application, SAP ERP, leading to tremendous improvements in efficiency.

SAP’s Co-Innovation Commitment

SAP continues to build momentum by engaging closely with customers and partners to further enhance its solutions and help customers exceed their business goals.

“By collaborating closely with our customers and partners, SAP is able to deliver cutting edge solutions that uniquely leverage the strength of our end-to-end process platform, which simply cannot be offered by any other provider,” said Jujhar Singh, senior vice president, CRM Product Management, SAP. “As a result, businesses are embracing SAP CRM 2007 on a global scale in an effort to interact more closely with and provide unmatched value to their customers, and thereby gain a greater competitive edge.”

SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) is an important component of the SAP Business Suite. With an eye toward empowering the growing business user market, this breakthrough product has been co-innovated with leading customers and partners, and is designed to be simple and powerful to solve real business problems. SAP CRM offers capabilities such as trade promotions management, business communications management and pipeline performance management. SAP CRM features a dynamic user interface that gives business users the power to easily access all relevant information to best serve customers.

 

Source – http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/industrials/sap-customers-worldwide-tout-early-success-latest-crm-offering/

SAP user group foments revolt over massive price hike

The UK SAP user group today called on the German software giant’s customers to scrutinise plans to force them to cough up almost a third more for their contract.

The group wants companies affected to examine the changes in detail in the hope they’ll be unhappy enough about a real-terms 30 per cent costs increase to kick up a stink.

SAP announced plans to railroad customers onto higher-spec support packages earlier this month. Costs are set to be ratcheted from 17 to 22 per cent of contract value, effective immediately for all new customers and to be phased in by 2012 for everyone else.

Alan Bowling, chairman of the UK SAP users group, said: “We understand that if SAP is to provide more comprehensive support then it has to charge more for it. However, many of our members may not want or need this extra level of support and therefore are reacting negatively to having a new support product and the associated increase in costs forced upon them.”

In particular, the UK users group and its German counterpart reckon the new support will be more than many small and medium-sized businesses need. Feedback on SAP’s attempt to force them to pay more has been “hugely negative”, Bowling said.

He called on SAP management to rethink strategy . Analysts estimate the price hike could generate an extra €1bn annually by the time all its customers have been squeezed, so some pretty loud complaining is likely to be required.

 

Source – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/25/sap_user_group_price_complaint/

SAP Shutting down TOMORROWNOW Service

 

SAP said it was working with TomorrowNow’s more than 225 customers to help them move to other service providers. TomorrowNow, which SAP bought in February 2005, provides support for Oracle and other business applications. Oracle’s brands include PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel.

SAP plans to finish closing the operation before Oct. 31, 2008

TomorrowNow was at the center of a 2007 Oracle lawsuit accusing SAP of “corporate theft on a grand scale” because of document downloads by TomorrowNow employees.

The suit, which is pending, claimed TomorrowNow employees “copied and swept thousands of Oracle products and other proprietary and confidential materials into its own servers” using fake logins or credentials stolen from Oracle customers such as Bear Stearns, Honeywell, and Merck. The documents allowed SAP “to offer cut-rate support services to customers who use Oracle software, and to attempt to lure them to SAP’s applications software,” Oracle charged. Oracle later amended its suit to include copyright and breach-of-contract claims.

 

Source – http://www.informationweek.com/news/services/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209400652