US4A1 - Multiple crm loyalty interface framework- Google Patents US4A1 - Multiple crm loyalty interface framework- Google Patents Multiple crm loyalty interface frameworkInfo Publication number US4A1 US4A1 US14/266,538 US38A USA1 US 4 A1 US4 A1 US 4A1 US 38 A US38 A US 38A US A1 US A1 US A1 Authority US United States Prior art keywords system internal loyalty crm company Prior art date 2014-04-30 Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.) Granted Application number US14/266,538 Other versions Inventor Meenakshi Sundaram P Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate.
Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)SAP SEOriginal Assignee SAP SE Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.) 2014-04-30 Filing date 2014-04-30 Publication date 2015-04-30 Application filed by SAP SE filed Critical SAP SE 2014-04-30 Priority to US14/266,538 priority Critical patent/US9811839B2/en 2014-04-30 Assigned to SAP AG reassignment SAP AG ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: Sundaram P, Meenakshi 2014-08-26 Assigned to SAP SE reassignment SAP SE CHANGE OF NAME (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). A system and method for providing a customer loyalty framework for a customer relationship management (CRM) system. The framework includes an internal CRM system, an internal loyalty system and an internal enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The internal CRM system has a CRM repository storing CRM data and the internal loyalty system has a loyalty repository storing loyalty data for one or more customers enrolled in a company loyalty program. The internal CRM system stores business logic that is executable by the internal loyalty system, the internal CRM system, and/or the internal ERP system to execute the company loyalty program.
The system further includes an external CRM system connected with the internal network by an external communication network. The external CRM system generates a web user interface for receiving customer transaction data, and transmitting the customer transaction data via the external communication network to the internal network for processing by the internal CRM system, the internal loyalty system and an the internal ERP system according to the business logic. All companies face a number of different challenges. However, it has become increasingly important for a company to enhance the experience for each customer interacting with it. For example, customer churn, or the circumstance of losing a customer, can be very costly, as it may be many times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. Thus, companies are seeking ways to retain customers by offering a superior experience, while delivering unique experiences to different customer segments.
Customer Experience with SAP and Salesforce The traditional purchasing. Of software tools – with SAP and Salesforce –, we create best-practice solutions in line with. It comes to designing a CRM portfolio tailored to your specific requirements. Service processes focusing on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty,. This is about how can we create a membership with an FM when your requirement is to create a membership for a member which is a common requirement. First thing is that, we have to check whether a membership already exists for the member and that can be done by the FM CRMLOYMSHREADSINGLE.
In many industries, a relatively small percentage of customers represent a majority of a company's revenue, so a company will invest in the experience offered to high-value customer segments to enhance profitability. Customers today are empowered with information, and they evaluate their relationship with the company with respect to their own unique needs. However, companies often lack a rich set of data about customer behavior and insights. Without a way to collect a robust set of customer data, a company may be inclined to monitor only what is easy to measure, and will usually not develop deep insights derived from customer interactions. Loyalty management can be implemented by systems across multiple industries where customer loyalty programs are utilized to build customer relationships and to promote specific customer behaviors. Loyalty management enables marketers to plan and execute closed loop loyalty programs, such as frequent flyer programs, for example.
These programs can promote customers participation through points/reward programs where certain amounts of points are earned for a specific customer behavior. In turn, customers can redeem these points for specified rewards. Loyalty programs helps to promote specific customer behaviors by providing benefits (such as rewards for miles flown) which can help enhance the customer experience. While companies often view such point-based programs as a fast way to enhance profitability by inducing customers to buy their goods or services, they are finding that there is a much greater value provided by more comprehensive loyalty programs that rely on the collection of information from program members.
Companies can then use this data to develop a 360-degree view of customer interactions and determine how best to tailor process enhancements by segment—particularly for high-value customers. By implementing loyalty programs that are integrated across sales, service, and marketing—i.e., across all channels of interaction—a firm can greatly enhance the customer experience, increase customer retention, and foster the development of a community of people who serve as advocates for the business. A single loyalty management system for real world customers is not conventionally deployed due to existing complex CRM landscapes and complex business processes, which are spread across multiple systems. Customers are reluctant to expose their critical data outside their own firewall, so they usually segregate the external facing UI and keep the data separately.
Presently, in multiple CRM and ERP systems, i.e. When the UI is one system, the business logic is in another system, and the data is stored across multiple systems, there is no standard framework that can be used to communicate between these multiple CRM systems and ERP systems.SUMMARY. The system and method described herein can be configured and implemented on existing CRM landscapes, which employ complex business processes across multiple systems. In one aspect, loyalty programs are supported with software for program management, reward rules management, and membership handling. The core of the solution is a highly scalable engine that processes member activities and tier-level changes against the rules of the program that are stored in a separate system.
This loyalty management solution can be integrated with all aspects of existing CRM systems, including marketing, interaction centers, sales, and channel management. For example, brand owners can design and execute closed-loop loyalty based marketing campaigns, while program members can access their accounts using their preferred channel. In one aspect, a loyalty interface framework includes a user interface (UI) that is external (i.e., outside a firewall, or external to the “de-militarized zone” (DMZ) for channel partners), and business logic that is implemented in a separate system.
The loyalty interface framework further includes a Secure Network Zone (SNZ) to store the data in the system. A flexible solution which can be configured to meet various loyalty management business strategies across different Industries. Can be configured for company as well as individual rule processing requirements. A performance optimized solution, designed for mass processing. In one aspect, a system for providing a customer loyalty framework for a customer relationship management (CRM) system is disclosed. The system includes an internal loyalty system and an internal enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
The internal CRM system has a CRM repository storing CRM data and the internal loyalty system has a loyalty repository storing loyalty data for one or more customers enrolled in a company loyalty program. The internal CRM system stores business logic that is executable by the internal loyalty system, the internal CRM system, and/or the internal ERP system to execute the company loyalty program. The system further includes an external CRM system connected with the internal network by an external communication network. The external CRM system generates a web user interface for receiving customer transaction data, and transmitting the customer transaction data via the external communication network to the internal network for processing by the internal CRM system, the internal loyalty system and an the internal ERP system according to the business logic. In another aspect, a method includes reading, from an external application by an application server hosted in an external CRM system, member activities related to each of one or more customers of a company loyalty program, and determining, by the external CRM system, loyalty program information for at least one of the one or more customers of the company loyalty program, the loyalty program information including membership data of the least one of the one or more customers.
The method further includes determining, by an internal CRM system storing a rule group assigned to the company loyalty program, an applicability of one or more rules of the rule group to the member activities. The method further includes processing, by the internal CRM system, the one or more rules based on the member activities for an associated one or more customers of the company loyalty program. Implementations of the current subject matter can include, but are not limited to, systems and methods consistent including one or more features are described as well as articles that comprise a tangibly embodied machine-readable medium operable to cause one or more machines (e.g., computers, etc.) to result in operations described herein. Similarly, computer systems are also described that may include one or more processors and one or more memories coupled to the one or more processors.
A memory, which can include a computer-readable storage medium, may include, encode, store, or the like one or more programs that cause one or more processors to perform one or more of the operations described herein. Computer implemented methods consistent with one or more implementations of the current subject matter can be implemented by one or more data processors residing in a single computing system or multiple computing systems. Such multiple computing systems can be connected and can exchange data and/or commands or other instructions or the like via one or more connections, including but not limited to a connection over a network (e.g. The Internet, a wireless wide area network, a local area network, a wide area network, a wired network, or the like), via a direct connection between one or more of the multiple computing systems, etc. The details of one or more variations of the subject matter described herein are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below.
Other features and advantages of the subject matter described herein will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims. While certain features of the currently disclosed subject matter are described for illustrative purposes in relation to an enterprise resource software system or other business software solution or architecture, it should be readily understood that such features are not intended to be limiting. The claims that follow this disclosure are intended to define the scope of the protected subject matter.DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS. 1 is a block diagram of a loyalty interface framework system 100 showing multiple CRM systems 102, 104 integrated with a loyalty system 106 and an enterprise resource management (ERP) system 108 using a loyalty interface framework. In the system 100 shown, CRM system 102 is implemented externally in a DMZ (hereafter “DMZ CRM system”) while CRM system 104 (hereafter “internal CRM system”) is implemented on an intranet 110. A key for the loyalty interface framework system 100 is a Web UI 112 and a business object layer (BOL) 114 model (in DMZ CRM system 102) which interact via remote function call (RFC) Function Modules in each of internal CRM system 104, loyalty system 106, and ERP system 108, so no data will be persisted in the DMZ CRM system 102. The communication from DMZ CRM system 102 to ERP system 108 occurs via internal CRM system 104.
Since loyalty applications need to handle huge volumes of data, loyalty rules are executed separately to avoid resource contention on the database level and application server level between such loyalty applications executed by the loyalty system 106 and CRM applications executed by the internal CRM system 108. The RFC Calls from a generic interface layer (GENIL) 116 in the DMZ CRM system 102 to the internal CRM system 104 need to be minimized. For example, when retrieving details of a document, only one call should be made to retrieve all information regarding that particular object, and not several calls each retrieving only a subset of the information. In some implementations, the RFC connection can have a generic communication user with profiles, so any authorization check to be done in the ERP system 108 is done with the information provided in the RFC call itself. In accordance with preferred implementations, the loyalty system 106 is a scalable processing engine that supports online and batch processing of member activities, tier evaluation processing, point expiration processing, etc. The loyalty engine 106 can be accessed from all relevant CRM processes across customer services via a call center or the Internet, marketing campaign management (MCM), customer analytics, and others.
This architecture also provides loyalty management processes with the integration capabilities to integrate to legacy ERP systems as well as to third party systems. There are three generic RFC users which are used for communication purposes from the DMZ CRM system 102 to the internal CRM system 104, from the internal CRM system 104 to the internal ERP system 108, and from internal CRM system 104 to the internal loyalty system 106.
The different rules are processed in the loyalty system 106. The internal CRM system 104, the loyalty system 106, and the ERP system 108 located inside a firewall.
These three “generic users” have the needed roles and profiles for creating the transactional documents in the CRM and ERP systems 104, 108. The needed customizing data is kept in the shared memory 103 of the DMZ CRM system 102 to avoid performance issues.
Multiple Web UI components can be created and enhanced for Membership, Tiers, Programs, Dimension, Partner Solution, Validate Expertise, Versioning, Training Matrix, Training Transfer, Mass Activity Points, Notes, Partner and Attachments etc. In the DMZ CRM system 102. The existing BOL model can be enhanced to handle data transfers between each Web UI and RFC Function Module in the internal CRM and ERP systems 104, 108, with the support of toolbox classes, which call the RFC function modules in the internal CRM, loyalty and ERP systems 104, 106 and 108.
This toolbox class has different methods to READ and MAP the different sub-objects in transaction documents, along with READ and SAVE methods. The RFC function modules calls the One Order/Loyalty/LORD interface 118 which in turn handles the READ, MODIFY and SAVE in the CRM and ERP systems 104, 108. Loyalty program management enables set up and maintenance of loyalty programs. Program maintenance includes information about program-related loyalty status levels, tier groups and levels, set up and maintenance of point accounts, as well as program specific point accrual and redemption etc. Loyalty reward rule management includes set up and maintenance of loyalty rules and conditions which are finally being processed by the loyalty system.
All points accrued and redeemed by members are recorded within the member's point account. Loyalty membership represents the participation of an individual person, or organization to a specific loyalty program. Membership is opened by a registration to the loyalty program, either via web-self-service, or call center. It also includes member activities such as sales activities which are finally being accrued or redeemed as points. The loyalty processing engine is highly scalable to process member activities and tier transition evaluation, and is the “heart” of the CRM-based loyalty management solution described herein. As described above, the loyalty processing engine is one or more layers of the loyalty system, and can be implemented as a scalable processor that either runs online or in batch mode to process member activities.
Processing a member's activity will update the member's point account as well as the tier level if certain conditions, as defined in the loyalty program, have been met. Furthermore, in order to continuously check if a certain tier level is still applicable and if accrued points are due to expire based on company and program specific rules and policies, the loyalty processing engine also supports ongoing tier evaluation and point expiration processing. It also supports other activities such as: Accrue & Redeem Points, Update Attributes, Change Tier, Customer Specific Actions etc. Master data synchronization is done from the internal CRM system 104 to the loyalty system 106 for business objects such as Business Partners, Product, Rules, etc. The basic processing steps of the loyalty processing engine are described in further detail below. Member activities, usually sent by an external application, are read.
In this context, all relevant information such as loyalty program, membership, and the member itself can be determined. For each reward rule group being assigned to the loyalty program, the CRM-based loyalty processing engine determines the applicability of the assigned rule, and checks if a campaign has been associated and if enrollment was required. If the member has been enrolled and therefore participates in the promotional campaign, the corresponding rule will be processed and a certain action will be executed. Each action, based on a member's point account, includes accrual, redemption, and return actions to update the point balance. Or, as far as the individual tier levels are concerned, actions can change the tier level, reset or change dynamic member attributes, or execute any other customer specific logic. The needed customizing details like Status, Categories, Phases, Date Types, Reason Codes, Text types, Partner Functions, Process types, Distribution Channel, Sales Stages, Priority etc. From the internal CRM system 104 are sent to the DMZ CRM system 102 via a report program, which pulls all the needed data from different tables in the internal CRM system repository 120.
These details are stored in a shared memory in the DMZ CRM 102 so that multiple RFC calls to the internal CRM system 104 is avoided each time to get the needed details. The shared memory is populated only once in a day with a background job in the DMZ CRM system 102.
In preferred implementations, the web UI 112 is filled with dropdown values which are taken from the shared memory in the DMZ CRM system 102. This approach helps in improving the application performance. The validation business logic resides in the internal CRM system 104, which takes care of any needed authorization checks, mandatory field checks, field validation checks, and proper message handling, etc.
When the required fields are entered in the web UI 112 and when the validation is completed in the internal CRM system 104, the data is saved in the database tables in the internal CRM, loyalty and ERP systems 104, 106 and 108. The DMZ CRM system 102 pulls the needed information like partner sales, revenue details, partner credit information, funds details, and status information, from the ERP system 108 via the internal CRM system 104. In accordance with exemplary implementations, a number of webpages can be generated by the loyalty interface framework and displayed in the web UI 112 a and 112 b. 2 shows an example of a Membership Overview page UI. 3 shows an example of a Partner Overview page UI with partner types, and FIG. 4 shows an example of the Partner Overview page UI with partner type dimension and relationship. 5 shows an example of a loyalty program overview page UI, FIG.
6 shows an example of a loyalty reward rule group overview page UI, and FIG. 7 shows an example of a loyalty reward rule overview page UI. Different packages can be provided for storing different layers in the loyalty interface framework which is stored in the DMZ CRM system 102, and the internal CRM, loyalty and ERP systems 104, 106 and 108. The different UI components can be stored in one package, the BOL and GENIL components can stored in one package, the function groups can be stored in one package, the proxy objects can be stored in one package etc. As shown in FIG. 8, which shows an exemplary package structure of the loyalty interface framework application in the DMZ CRM system 102. As shown in FIG.
8, the UI layer can have different Web UI components such as: YVERSIONMAIN, YBT126HCALL, YLOMMASSUPDATE, YLOMMAIN, YLOMTRNGMATX, YLOMTRNGTRNSFR, YGSTEXT, YLOM101HMA, YLOM102AMSTIER, YLOM102HMSHPM, YLOM102MMS, YLOM102SMSH, YLOM105APR, YLOMBPDIMS, YLOMHISVSOL, YLOMMEMANREV, YLOMSPLATSOL, YLOMPLATSOL etc. The Business Object Layer (BOL) 114 a and 114 b provides modeling of business objects, relations, attributes, searches, access to other business objects, and allows create, read, change, and delete access. The BOL also provides: communication of error and warning messages; subordinate, superordinate and related business objects; root object, dependent object, and access objects; aggregations, associations, relations; buffering of object model, business object properties, relations and changes; and memory and performance optimization. The framework as implemented in a system and method described herein helps to save the data in an internal CRM system and loyalty system, while keeping the UI in the DMZ CRM system and business logic in the internal CRM and loyalty system. The RFC calls of Read and Save of the UI are optimized in such a manner that it does not hamper performance.
The master data needed for creating the transactions, and the values for drop down fields in the UI are pulled from a shared memory in the DMZ CRM so that unnecessary calls to the internal CRM, loyalty and ERP systems are avoided, which leads to better performance. One or more aspects or features of the subject matter described herein can be realized in digital electronic circuitry, integrated circuitry, specially designed application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) computer hardware, firmware, software, and/or combinations thereof. These various aspects or features can include implementation in one or more computer programs that are executable and/or interpretable on a programmable system including at least one programmable processor, which can be special or general purpose, coupled to receive data and instructions from, and to transmit data and instructions to, a storage system, at least one input device, and at least one output device. The programmable system or computing system may include clients and servers.
A client and server are generally remote from each other and typically interact through a communication network. The relationship of client and server arises by virtue of computer programs running on the respective computers and having a client-server relationship to each other. These computer programs, which can also be referred to as programs, software, software applications, applications, components, or code, include machine instructions for a programmable processor, and can be implemented in a high-level procedural and/or object-oriented programming language, and/or in assembly/machine language.
As used herein, the term “machine-readable medium” refers to any computer program product, apparatus and/or device, such as for example magnetic discs, optical disks, memory, and Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), used to provide machine instructions and/or data to a programmable processor, including a machine-readable medium that receives machine instructions as a machine-readable signal. The term “machine-readable signal” refers to any signal used to provide machine instructions and/or data to a programmable processor. The machine-readable medium can store such machine instructions non-transitorily, such as for example as would a non-transient solid-state memory or a magnetic hard drive or any equivalent storage medium. The machine-readable medium can alternatively or additionally store such machine instructions in a transient manner, such as for example as would a processor cache or other random access memory associated with one or more physical processor cores. To provide for interaction with a user, one or more aspects or features of the subject matter described herein can be implemented on a computer having a display device, such as for example a cathode ray tube (CRT), a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a light emitting diode (LED) monitor for displaying information to the user and a keyboard and a pointing device, such as for example a mouse or a trackball, by which the user may provide input to the computer.
Other kinds of devices can be used to provide for interaction with a user as well. For example, feedback provided to the user can be any form of sensory feedback, such as for example visual feedback, auditory feedback, or tactile feedback; and input from the user may be received in any form, including, but not limited to, acoustic, speech, or tactile input. Other possible input devices include, but are not limited to, touch screens or other touch-sensitive devices such as single or multi-point resistive or capacitive trackpads, voice recognition hardware and software, optical scanners, optical pointers, digital image capture devices and associated interpretation software, and the like. The subject matter described herein can be embodied in systems, apparatus, methods, and/or articles depending on the desired configuration. The implementations set forth in the foregoing description do not represent all implementations consistent with the subject matter described herein. Instead, they are merely some examples consistent with aspects related to the described subject matter.
Although a few variations have been described in detail above, other modifications or additions are possible. In particular, further features and/or variations can be provided in addition to those set forth herein. For example, the implementations described above can be directed to various combinations and subcombinations of the disclosed features and/or combinations and subcombinations of several further features disclosed above. In addition, the logic flows depicted in the accompanying figures and/or described herein do not necessarily require the particular order shown, or sequential order, to achieve desirable results. Other implementations may be within the scope of the following claims.Claims ( 15). An external CRM system connected with the internal network by an external communication network, the external CRM system having one or more computer processors to generate a web user interface for receiving customer transaction data, the one or more computer processors transmitting the customer transaction data via the external communication network to the internal network for processing by the internal CRM system, the internal loyalty system and an the internal ERP system according to the business logic.
Overview of SAP CRMCustomer Relationship Management or CRM, if you work in the field of sales, marketing or customer service, I am sure you must have heard of the word CRM, but what does it mean, what is the use of it for your business. In this tutorial, we will discuss some of the main concepts of CRM.
That is, we will mainly concentrate on SAP CRM.In this commercial world retaining existing customers and making new customers to expand the business has become more challenging. Also, the cost associated with finding new customers is too expensive that not all organizations could afford. Maintaining a healthy and productive customer relationship is the best way to make sure a bright future of your business.
Watch this SAP ABAP Video. SAP CRM Tutorial – Learn SAP CRM from ExpertsBefore moving to SAP CRM first let us understand what is CRM?
Let us take an example and understand what is CRM. Consider that you have a small book center and one of your regular customer’s visits to your shop. The first thing you will do is, greet the customer and offer them some drinks. As you already know your customer’s choice, you directly display the clothes according to their choice of preference. As they are your regular customer you will offer a discount too. This way you’re handling your customer in a good manner and you are building a good conversation with your customer, which will attract your customers.This is can be successful only if you have a countable number of customers.
What if you are handling thousands and thousands of customers in a day. Say, large organizations like Vodafone center, reliance and many more. How will you handle millions and millions of customers? And it will be very difficult for you to remember the preferences of all the customers. How will you maintain a good relationship with your customers? Watch this SAP HANA Administration Video.
SAP CRM Tutorial – Learn SAP CRM from ExpertsThis is where the concept of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) plays a major role. With a CRM system, one can get a clear overview of their customers.
Everything in one place- a simple, customized dashboard that shows customer’s history, status, orders, etc. Introduction to SAP CRMSAP CRM is a part of the SAP business suite, that is used to stay connected with customers. It is not only used to address the organization’s short-term goals but also helps the organizations to reduce cost and increasing decision-making abilities. SAP CRM ArchitectureSAP CRM includes different components that allow users to integrate the CRM module with other SAP and non-SAP modules. As you can see in the below image it includes SAP CRM server that has CRM enterprise functions and CRM middleware.It also includes three adapters to communicate with other devices and the internet. You can also see SAP ECC, SAP BI system and SAP SCM on the right-hand side of the image and are used as the backend, analytical reporting and to enhance the capabilities of SAP CRM modules respectively. Here is a list of components of SAP CRM architecture:.
SAP ERM Server (CRM Enterprise, CRM Middleware, Adapter). SAP ECC as a backend system. SAP BI for Analytical Reporting. SAP SCM. Mobile and handheld devices. Internet.
Enterprise PortalSAP CRM WorkflowA customer can use any medium to raise an issue when a customer raises an issue the CRM system will automatically identify the customer and display all the related information on the computer screen even before the customer representative receives the call. It also displays the customer purchase order, probability of future purchase.A customer may raise the issue with a vendor using any medium like fax, email, telephone, etc. If the response cannot be provided immediately, the representatives will raise a ticket to SAP CRM.
Once they receive a response from SAP CRM, the same will be forwarded to the customer.For our understanding let us take an example, consider an international call center that uses CRM which is integrated with telephone and computer systems. When a customer calls the system, the computer system will display all customer-related data like previous orders, what the customer is looking for in the future. All this happens even before the representative receives the call.
The CRM system also highlights the related products that suit best for the customer.The system also has the capability to display information based on the department. For example, for the finance department, it might show the current balance and for accounting, it may show information about the recent purchase.So we can say that the CRM system provides a well-defined platform for all businesses who are mainly into customer management. Which will help the organizations to fulfill their needs and demands effectively? SAP CRM MarketingCRM Marketing is mainly used to plan all marketing related activities and implement across organizations successfully. This basically includes analyzing the market and valuable customers. It also helps marketing persons to create marketing demands, brand awareness and build customer relationships.
SAP CRM SalesSAP CRM sales allow an organization to manage their sales activities like reducing the sales cycle, increase productivity and revenue. SAP CRM ServiceSAP CRM service mainly deals with managing the various service cycles and its components. As we are already aware that customers are expecting more services from organizations. SAP CRM provides an end-to-end solution to manage customers in terms of services.
That helps the organizations to increase customer loyalty and profitability. It also provides a predefined business role for service professionals.
One can manage the service cycles that include agreements, contracts, order management, complaints using SAP CRM.SAP CRM service can be accessed from different ways in any CRM. Following are the key functions that can be performed from an SAP CRM WebClient:.
Service Order, request, ticket and Contract Management. Complaint Management. Case Management. Workflow and base management. Workforce and knowledge management.
SAP CRM ChannelsSAP CRM provides an option to implement various channels for all your businesses such as the internet, telephony, field sales, and partners. This mainly increases customer interactions. It also provides a user-friendly interface to maintain their day-to-day activities or tasks. SAP CRM also offers customer-specific requirements and industry-specific processes.Below are some of the interaction channels in SAP CRM:. Back-office. Field service or offline-user. Interaction center.
Web channel management. Partner channel management.
Business PartnersAny persons or any parties who are interested in business interaction with the company are known as business partners. In SAP CRM business partners can be a person or group of persons or organizations such as firms, branch offices, etc. Business partners can be sold to parties, ship-to party, contact persons, etc. Business partners can be of different roles and can be created only once in the CRM system.In general, business partners can be divided into three parts.Let us see what are these.Account: Account can be a person, organization or group of persons with which one will have business relationships.
SAP CRM Pricing and Billing SAP PricingPricing is used to calculate the cost for customers and vendors related to service orders, sales and other pricing. Pricing can be defined in different conditions such as discounts, taxes, surcharges, etc. This pricing information will be calculated using the condition technique.Pricing functionality within SAP CRM is provided by Internet Pricing and configuration (IPC) which is a Java-based application. IPC is responsible for pricing throughout the entire SAP CRM application.
The pricing can be determined by various factors like product, order and these variable factors are stored in master data. Pricing data can be managed within either by CRM system or downloaded from ERP.There are two possible scenarios:. Scenario without ERP integration.
The scenario with ERP integrationElements of CRM Pricing:Pricing ProcedureAs we already discussed, SAP CRM pricing can be ERP or CRM. The pricing procedure can be defined:. Pricing conditions types. Calculation sequence of condition types in the transaction. Subtotals on pricing screen.
Possible Manual processing. The specific condition type that is considered while performing pricingPricing procedure can be defined in customizing by reaching SPRO → IMG → Customer Relationship Management → Basic Functions → Pricing → Define settings for pricing → Create Pricing Procedure.CRM Billing:CRM billing is used to generate invoices that are related to the transaction in SAP CRM. In general, a CRM system is connected to the ERP system for billing procedures. There are various business transactions that are billed in SAP CRM some of them are:. Sales orders. Deliveries.
Service contracts. Service confirmation. Complaints.
The release of sales contracts. Service ordersSteps in Billing processing:Input Processing-Billing-Output ProcessingInput Processing: This step deals with billing relevant items from various business transactions. These items are stored as billing due list items.Billing: In this step, the relevant billing items are grouped from duelist items. Billing duelist can process the duelist items. These billing items are processed as a part of individual billing. Also, it can process due list items as a part of collective billingOutput Processing: It includes,.
Invoice output. Transfer to SAP Financials. Retrieval in SAP BIYou can select different output methods like print, fax or email for the invoice output. SAP CRM TaxIn sales or processing, taxes play a very important role. In SAP ERP central component back-end integration is required, for sales processes, the taxes are defined in SAP ECC and are downloaded from SAP CRM.
However, taxes for services processes are defined in SAP CRM itself. This requires an SAP CRM technical user to be conversant with tax settings in both SAP ECC and SAP CRM.In SAP CRM, Transaction Tax Engine (TTE) is used to calculate the tax in billing. This is used to determine and calculate the tax on various invoice statements and to calculate the external tax.TTE is used in both SAP CRM and SAP SCM to calculate the tax.Transaction Tax Engine can be implemented by setting in customizing for cross-application components. Go to SPRO → IMG → Cross-Application Components → Transaction Tax Engine → Tax Maintenance Settings → Tax Determination and Calculation → Define Tax Event Determination.Tax event is used to calculate the tax and tax determination. Applicable tax type and tax rate, locations, and other factors are determined. It uses the decision tree to make tax determination and calculation more simple and transparent. You can also use a simulation tool in TTE for tax determination and for testing customizing settings.Go through this to get a clear understanding of S4 HANA Logistics!
SAP CRM Web ChannelThe main motto of CRM Web Channel or E-commerce is to convert the internet into profitable sales and provide customer satisfaction. The CRM web channel applications cover web-based sales and service transactions, targeted marketing, and analytics for system and customer behavior.In today’s market, understanding customers have become an essential concept. Customers of today are empowered, well informed and socially networked with the ability to interact with other customers directly. This fast-changing life has become a challenge for organizations of all sizes.To meet this approach of customers, web channel managers make use of an administrative tool.
This tool helps the managers to manage the process and set up the data or customer relationship. This tool is extremely beneficial in that it allows the managers to continuously make updates to their existing websites without ever involving any IT work.SAP CRM web channel provides a vast platform that enables users to provide multi-channel customer support services across all channels like e-service, e-commerce, and e-marketing. This is helpful for both consumers and customers. The below image shows the screenshot of the web channel. B2B scenarioAs the name suggests, the data is exchanged between two organizations or business partners. This communication occurs when a middleware is used like SAP Process Integrator PI/XI.
The best example we can give for the B2B scenario is our online marketing amazon, Alibaba, Indiamart, etc.You can configure the B2B source system by following the below steps:. Define the party that shows your company. Define communication Components.
Integration flow should be designed in PI. Assign sender and receiver. Assign the interface for communication. Configure the adapters for both sender and receiver. Define header mapping at receiver. Activate and deploy the integration flow. Monitor the channels.
B2C scenarioB2C scenario is used when an organization wants to connect to a number of targeted customers at a single point of time. This can be achieved by using campaigns and target groups. Flipkart, snapdeal are the example of a B2C scenario.Campaigns in this scenario can be executed as follows:.
First, you need to identify the potential customers and this can be done through external providers. Next, create segments and define them based on customer’s demand. Once this is done, marketing campaigns can be created to reach the target customers. As the last step, campaigns have to be executed such as e-mail, phone or fax. Conclusion:This brings us to the end of the SAP Customer Relationship Management tutorial. In this tutorial, we learned in detail about the overview of SAP CRM, business Partners CRM billing and pricing and many more relevant topics.
Here we have also explored the SAP web channel that is B2B scenario and B2C scenario.Are you interested in learning S4 HANA Logistics from experts? Enroll in our!If you want to learn more, I would suggest you try out our Intellipaat course “” that covers all the concepts of from scratch to advance and also covers hands-on projects and case studies.
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March 2023
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