Tip Doctor, Insider Learning Network.

With the advent of SAP CRM 7.0 and particularly enhancement package 1, SAP has greatly improved its Web Channel application. This new and improved Web Channel application adds the latest technologies such as Web 2.0 and AJAX to E-Commerce. These functionalities were further enhanced when SAP launched the Ramp-Up of the new Web Channel Experience Management in July 2011. It is based on JavaServer Faces/Facelets and has new features such as master data management-based Catalog Management.

One of the important decisions that a company must make prior to implementing SAP Web Channel is to choose between SAP Web Channel for CRM versus Web Channel for ERP. Some factors in this decision are:

•    Budget: Companies that are already using SAP ERP and have a limited budget should consider the ERP version of Web Channel. The company can leverage existing material master records to build a product catalog and get a Web shop up and running quickly. On the other hand, the company could implement SAP CRM (if it has not already) to leverage the additional capabilities of integrating with CRM Marketing modules. This increases the scope of the project, thereby making it more expensive, as a new system means more licensing costs, maintenance costs, and implementation costs.

•    Marketing capabilities: Companies that rely heavily on their marketing department to promote their products should consider the SAP CRM version of Web Channel. The CRM version provides product recommendation functionality, including cross-selling and up-selling suggestions based on customer browsing behavior and purchasing patterns. In addition, it allows email and Web campaigns to be integrated with the Web shop.

This tip was adapted from Karthik Suryanarayanan’s 2011 article in CRM Expert, “Key Design Considerations and Potential Challenges a Web Channel Implementation.” Subscribers can read the full article here.

Tip Doctor, Insider Learning Network.

This SAP CRM tip comes courtesy of Manoj Kumaran, Accrete Solutions, who spoke at our CRM 2011 event.

• SAP CRM Web Channel offers capabilities for an online presence for organizations
  
  
• The solution provides capabilities for Sales, Marketing, and Service functions to be available online
  
  
• Increased rate of consumer search activity and information search speed requires high performance Web stores
• Consumer focus on readily available information and price
• Evolving search landscape requires adjustments in optimizing your search

• Consumer expectations of Web stores being device independent
• Widespread adoption of handheld e-commerce apps
• Customers expect Web interaction with a company to be available regardless of system or device used for access
• Increased consumer data capture requires more precise market segments and parallel marketing activities

• Online Performance and Shopping Experience Leaders
• www.amazon.com
• www.apple.com
• www.walmart.com
• www.buy.com
• www.bestbuy.com
• www.tigerdirect.com
• www.macys.com
• www.newegg.com
• www.smartbargains.com
• www.overstock.com
• www.williams-sonoma.com

• SAP Web Channel solutions are typically implemented in two ways
• SAP Scenario – Complete SAP solution with Web Channel on SA{ CRM/SAP ERP backend
• Involves implementing SAP CRM B2C and B2B shops using Web Channel and integrates to SAP ERP for order fulfillment and invoicing
• Availability of Adobe Flex and AJAX technologies are allowing customers to build stores that enhance the brand

• Hybrid Scenario – Custom or 3rd party Web shop interfacing with SAP backend
• Involves use of RFC or Web services to communicate with SAP CRM for catalogs, prices, and order information
• Web stores that have significant content available to customers seem to prefer this solution

Insider Learning Network, Tip Doctor.

This tip is excerpted from “Use SAP StreamWork to Track Sentiment Analysis and Performance Metrics” by William Newman, which appeared in GRC Expert in March 2011.

Imagine the ability to look at strategy and to be able to gauge the relative success of a program or activity based on preliminary feedback from society, the customer marketplace, or your own organization. Corporations can monitor the effectiveness of brand management marketing campaigns and how to target them based on Internet opinion of recalled or new products. Governments have been using tactics based on PSA approaches to detect the relative levels of terrorist group chatter across the Internet from broad analysis of many sources.

SAP StreamWork allows for quick collaboration in an enterprise social media framework that is both real time and push centric. Real-time access functions such as chat, discussion threads, project reporting (similar to other project micro-site environments), and document exchange enable users to actively engage all dimensions and issues of project work. The push-centric features, which allow notifications to be sent to other project members, poll user responses, and gauge enterprise opinion, allow SAP StreamWork to be highly proactive relative to other Web-based collaboration environments.

For strategic initiatives and projects that are defined by them, SAP StreamWork allows you to do the following when used with SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management:

•    Formulate strategic scenarios and trade-offs. Team members can apply collaborative and decision-making tools of SAP StreamWork to develop and prioritize business scenarios and risk mitigation plans. They can also add structure to the process of defining and approving strategic objectives, key performance indicators (KPIs), and program initiatives to ensure alignment among key stakeholders and assigned owners.

•    Harness social and project networks within the enterprise. Enterprise teams often work in different physical locations, and with SAP StreamWork, dispersed teams can collaborate on the identification and analysis of business challenges and determine the best course of corrective action. Using the Web-enabled platform, they can extend problem solving and issue resolution to internal and external actors in team and value-chain environments (for example, development of inorganic intellectual property and product creation).

•    Create stronger governance and accountability. Strategic owners and stakeholders can use SAP StreamWork to create visibility and transparency with the right tools to communicate, manage, and share key insights into their areas of responsibility. You can link multi-sponsored strategic initiatives between decision-makers, subject matter experts, and best practice leaders within the organization to ensure greater cohesion and organization performance.

A more detailed explanation and demonstration of the various functions of SAP StreamWork can be found in William Newman’s full article at GRC Expert.

Tip Doctor, Insider Learning Network.

This SAP tip comes courtesy of Ahmed El Adl, PWC, who spoke at our CRM 2011 event.

The New SAP Mobility: Why It Is Now the Perfect Storm?
•    The SAP product strategy; on-premise, on-demand, and on-device reflects the  current and future IT trends
•    The acquisition of Sybase gave SAP best-in-class enterprise information management and mobilization products
•    The new powerful mobile devices provide the required computing power SAP-based mobile solutions need
•    Network bandwidth and global coverage solved major SAP mobility problem — “Time-out”
•    SAP mobile SDK as well as the new native mobile SDKs from mobile OS vendors such as Apple and Google enable developing high quality apps in less time and costs
•    SAP partner ecosystem is highly motivated and dedicates investments and resources to develop industry-specific mobile apps




Key Characteristic of the Sample SAP Mobility Architecture
•    Provides an enterprise-class mobility platform delivered, maintained, and further developed by SAP, as your unified mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP)
•    Includes fully integrated mobile device, user, apps, and security capabilities
•    Includes non-SAP, thin integration layers, so that well selected instant value prepackaged solutions can be added out of the box
•    Supports multiple mobile devices and operating systems

SAP Mobility: Strategy Best Practice
•    SAP processes are usually business critical processes. Carefully define the scope of the mobile solution(s)
•    Avoid mega mobility projects. Split it down to different solutions and/or phases
•    Shift from mobilizing SAP functionality to mobilizing tasks spanning different SAP and non-SAP systems
•    Design the data model in a way that the mobile solution(s) doesn’t overload the SAP backend systems
•    Consider business process integration, not only technical integration
•    Data quality could be disruptive and misleading to the business especially on a mobile device
•    Consider the new SAP products and roadmap in your mobility roadmap

For more CRM tips and best practices, join the CRM group on Insider Learning Network.

Tip Doctor, Insider Learning Network

The following tip is taken from the CRM Expert article “Monitor Sales Force Activities Using a Team/Branch/Organization Calendar and Account Notes” by Priti Anukampa, published in April 2011.

During a recent implementation of SAP CRM, a client wanted to give managers greater visibility into the day-to-day activities of their subordinates, and allow managers to assign new activities and tasks to their teams. One can meet those requirements either by using a team calendar view or creating a workaround. Table 1 captures the available options with their pros and cons. This helps you understand why the client implemented the My Calendar option, as it provided a unified view and ease of use.

Table 1 Options to allow a team calendar view

Figure 1 shows the standard SAP CRM calendar view of a logged-in user. As you can see, it only displays the appointments of the logged-in user. We wanted to leverage the My Calendar view to instead reflect a team calendar for managers. From here on, I refer to the standard view as My Calendar view and the enhanced version as Team Calendar view.

Figure 1 Standard SAP CRM calendar view

At this point, to understand how the Team Calendar view was achieved, you need to understand how SAP CRM identifies managers. This will help in identifying users for whom the Team Calendar view should be enabled.

There are various ways to identify the managers in the system. For example, you can configure the business role as managers or use an organization model. Then the system identifies the team members of the managers from business partner relationships or from an organization model. Given that an organization model is a single place where both managers and team members can be identified, it keeps the design consistent to use an organization model as a source. This will also determine that updates to the master data can be read from one place. To read an organization model, follow menu path CRM > Master Data > Organization Management > Organization Model > Change Organization Model. 

We performed a custom development (technical details explained later) to enhance the My Calendar view to leverage it as Team Calendar view, which gives managers the capability to view his or her daily activities along with those of subordinates. The enhancement required the following steps:

1. Read the organization model to obtain the position of the user.
2. If the user is the head of the organization unit, the custom logic retrieves the users assigned to the organization unit as subordinates and displays their open activities for the current date in the calendar.

Figure 2 shows an example of an organization model. In the example, M Limited is a sales organization and there are various sales offices under the North Division. Employee 2 is division manager of North Division and can view, navigate, and monitor the activities of subordinate users (e.g., Emp 3, Emp 4, Employee 5, and Employee 1) from the sales offices listed (e.g., B1, B2, and B3).

Figure 2 Standard SAP CRM organization model

Also, when Employee 1 (who is the B3 Branch Manager) logs in, he or she can view, navigate, and monitor the activities for the subordinate users (Emp 3, Emp 4, Employee 5) because they are assigned to the B3 branch.

Figure 3 shows an enhanced view for the B3 Branch Manager. We needed to enhance SAP CRM WebClient UI component CRM_CALENDAR to achieve this, as we’ll explain later in the technical section. The B3 Team Calendar view displays the calendar of the team members to the manager (Employee 1), along with his or her own calendar.

Figure 3 Enhanced Team Calendar view

We capture the technical details of the Team Calendar view option in a later section of this article.

Find out more about team calendar functionality in Priti’s full article on CRM Expert.