by twieberneit | Apr 29, 2017 | Analysis, Blog |
During CRM Evolution 2017 I had the chance of talking with Volker Hildebrand and Anthony Leaper from SAP. Volker is SAP’s Global Vice President SAP Hybris and Anthony is Senior Vice President and Sales GM – Enterprise Social Software at SAP. Topics that we covered were things CRM and collaboration, how and where SAP’s solutions are moving and, of course, the impact that the recent reshuffling in the executive board has. Starting with the latter, there is common agreement, that if at all it is positive as likely to streamline reporting lines and hence decision processes. First Things First – After All I Am A CRM Guy Having the distinct impression that the SAP Hybris set of solutions is going a good way I was most interested in learning from Volker about how there is going to be a CRM for S4/HANA. SAP’s new generation ERP system is growing at a good clip, and according to the Q1/2017 earnings call, now has 5,800 customers with 400 new customers in the last quarter alone. Many of these customers are net new customers. The challenge is that S4/HANA doesn’t have a CRM (yet). I have earlier already suggested two ways how this could change – marrying up the SAP Hybris family of modern CRM solutions or modernizing SAP CRM and integrating it into S4/HANA based upon HANA technology and therefore avoiding the costly CRM Middleware and data duplication. Both approaches have their merits: The cloud based SAP Hybris set of solutions is far more modern and already bases on the new SAP standard Fiori user interface. SAP CRM, on the other hand...
by twieberneit | Sep 26, 2016 | Blog |
After my SAP CRM State of the Nation and Light at the End of the Tunnel articles of earlier this year it is time again to have a look at what and how SAP is doing in the wider CRM arena. After all SAP also recently released its 1608 Hybris version, which in my eyes makes SAP very competitive again. Let’s start with some facts, which I’d like to put into a bigger context: SAP CRM 7.0 is in mainstream maintenance until end of 2025. This should give some relief to the existing customer base SAP CRM (the on premise product) continues to receive only little investment; on the positive side this investment is very customer driven At the same time CRM 7.0 is the only version that is not in customer specific maintenance; means it is the only version that still gets legal/regulatory and other updates SAP’s CRM strategy ‘Beyond CRM’ has a strong focus on the Hybris line of products, which, I think, meanwhile is highly competitive As an aside to the above points this situation makes the maintenance fee of 22 per cent for SAP CRM in combination with the suboptimal support appear very high The user interface of the Hybris line of products is a lot sleeker than the UI of CRM 7.0 From a functionality point of view, especially looking into industry specific functionalities, CRM 7.0 still has an edge over the Hybris portfolio, with the possible exceptions of Retail as an industry and Hybris Marketing. S/4HANA is getting pretty successful – this may be taken as conjecture, but people I trust confirm this;...
