SAP CRM Basic overview

Main Modules of CRM 

CRM mainly consists of three modules. 

1. CRM Sales

2. CRM Service

3. CRM Marketing

SAP CRM Sales

SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) enables sales organizations to dramatically shorten sales cycles, quickly increase revenues, maximize sales team productivity, ensure customer loyalty, and optimize indirect selling channels.

Organizations can manage the complete sales cycle in an end-to-end, order-to-cash process across all sales channels. SAP CRM addresses the needs of four sales channels: direct sales, telesales, channel sales, and e-selling. Key sales functions of SAP CRM include -

1. Sales planning and forecasting to plan and forecast revenues and product quantities

2. Organizational and territory management to enable sales managers to define territories based on various criteria, so they can assign sales reps and identify prospects for each territory

3. Account and contact management to capture, monitor, store, and track all critical information about customers, prospects, and partners

4. Activity management to schedule and manage various tasks assigned to sales professionals

5. Opportunity management to manage sales projects from the very start and track their progress to the very end

6. Quotation and order management to configure, price, and create quotes for customers, as well as create sales orders, check product availability, and track order fulfillment

7. Contract management to help develop and revise customized contracts to generate and manage long-term agreements

8. Incentives and commissions management to develop, implement, and manage compensation plans easily and effectively

9. Travel and expense management to enable field sales personnel to record, review, and update travel information, enter receipts, and maintain time sheets

10. Sales analytics to determine the financial status and overall effectiveness of the sales organization, so managers can recognize and address trends proactively

SAP CRM Service

SAP Customer Relationship Management help organizations manage the complexities of operating a service business with the following service functions -

1.Multi-channel service to support the integrated delivery of customer service through field representatives, interaction centers, partners, or the Internet
2. Customer service and support to manage and fulfill commitments with efficient service planning and execution in the interaction center, so companies can resolve customer issues quickly
3. Resource planning and optimization to plan long-term resource strategies and optimize short-term scheduling tactics, so resource planners can schedule field service representatives at customer sites based on various parameters
4. Service operations management to support single-tier and multi-tiered service operations by providing tactical and strategic service planning, service administration, transactional support, and operational and financial analytics
5. Service planning and forecasting to establish service plans to actively maintain products, so organizations can forecast planned services and properly assign resources to deliver on customer commitments
6. Professional services to cover the complete client relationship life cycle, plan resources, and manage projects, opportunities, and engagements
7.Service analytics to determine the overall performance of the service organization and the resulting profitability of the service business, so managers can optimize service plans, execution, and forecasts

SAP CRM Marketing

Generating demand, creating brand awareness and building long-term profitable relationships with customers are the top three marketing goals. Typically, marketing begins with analyzing market segments and identifying who your most valuable customers are. Marketing includes a variety of activities such as creating and running marketing campaigns across multiple channels, connecting with target customers, generating leads to support the sales force, producing and providing collateral and, last but not least, analyzing the success of all these activities in order to improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Key marketing functions of SAP CRM include -

1.Marketing planning to help plan all marketing activities centrally and implement them across the enterprise
2. Campaign management to control the complete marketing-campaign process, including design, execution, coordination, optimization, and monitoring
3. Lead management to enable sales professionals to use SAP CRM for gathering, qualifying, and distributing leads
4. Customer segmentation to allow business users to create highly targeted segments at the customer, partner, organizational, prospect, and group levels
5. Personalization to create personalized product proposals for each Web site visitor, whether the visitor is a prospect or customer
6. Marketing analytics to analyze customer behavior, segments, competitors, products, market channels, trends, profitability, and third-party market data

What is Master Data

Master data refers to all data about basic objects used in business transactions in SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) and stored on a long-term basis, such as data on accounts, products, installed bases, or warranties.

The three main areas within CRM Master Data relate to the Business Partner, the Product and the Data Exchange of both of these entities. This page contains relevant and useful information on these three main areas. For a full overview of the CRM Master Data application area, please refer to the SAP Help Documentation:

[ Ref:  http://wiki.scn.sap.com/ ]