Which Off-Line CRM Solution for Field Force?

Transcription

1 Which Off-Line CRM Solution for Field Force? Applies to: SAP CRM 6.0 and above. For more information, visit the Customer Relationship Management homepage. Summary Every decision maker wants to have multiple choices when making a decision but at the same time he has to deal with the challenges of finding the best choice. First one needs to find all credible options and gather all the relevant information about those options. And then evaluate pros and cons of each option and make a selection which is suitable for the current as well as future needs. This paper does that job for a decision maker, who is dealing with the task of selecting best off-line CRM solution using SAP platform. This paper explores four different choices available for offline CRM solution based on SAP platform. Author: Kripa Tiwari, Shaik Shavali Company: Wipro Technologies Created on: 7 September 2009 Author Bio Kripa is Program Manager with Wipro Technologies. Shaik is working as SAP CRM Consultant with Wipro Technologies SAP AG 1

2 Table of Contents Summary:... 3 Introduction:... 3 Solution Options:... 4 SAP CRM Mobile Solution... 5 Access to SAP CRM via internet... 5 Off-line access using SAP Interactive forms by Adobe... 6 SAP CRM on Blackberry... 6 Comparison of Various Off-line solutions:... 7 In various Life cycle Stages... 7 Important functionality/capability comparison:... 8 Overall Comparison... 9 Conclusion: Related Content Disclaimer and Liability Notice SAP AG 2

3 Summary: It s a fact of life that every decision maker wants to have multiple choices when making a decision but at the same time he has to deal with the challenges of finding the best choice. First one needs to find all credible options and gather all the relevant information about those options. And then evaluate pros and cons of each option and make a selection which is suitable for the current as well as future needs. This paper does that job for a decision maker, who is dealing with the task of selecting best off -line CRM solution using SAP platform. This paper explores four different choices available for offline CRM solution based on SAP platform, namely SAP CRM Mobile Solutions for Laptop users, SAP CRM on Blackberry on other PDA s, CRM Online solution accessed over internet, Offline recording of information using SAP Interactive forms by Adobe. Every solution has inherent advantages and disadvantages depending on the kind of information needed in the field. For example, you need a solution with complete information about products, customer and order book etc. then SAP CRM mobile solution will be suitable but it is costly to implement and maintain whereas a solution based on Adobe form will be easier to implement but has limited capability. Licensing cost for adobe forms is another point to ponder. In this paper, each solution option has been explored for its pros & cons plus what you can and can not do with a particular solution. It also covers challenges in maintaining a particular solution after you have implemented. Paper ends with a recommendation on practical solution options. Introduction: Recently someone asked me a question that if there is so much of online connectivity/wi-fi/data Cards available now a days then why do we need off-line solution and for some strange reason(we will talk bit later on those reasons) we do need to have that solution, then what is the best off-line solution for my field force. Well, that made us think because each industry has different requirement and similarly on the technology front we have many options with different cost to pay for development, support and changes. In this white paper, we will highlight important basic rules, pros and cons, and cost/benefit for each options. Some aspects of this paper are general and apply to almost all CRM solutions and some are very specific to SAP CRM solution. We have looked at four possible solutions in this white paper and they are: SAP CRM Mobile Solution Access to SAP CRM via internet Off-line access using SAP Interactive forms by Adobe SAP CRM on Blackberry 2010 SAP AG 3

4 Solution Options: In this section, we will explore the various CRM Mobile Solutions available in the market. The analysis has been done considering the utility of such solutions for wide variety of Industries. SAP CRM on Blackberry A brand new SAP CRM offering and still under development Use of SA P CRM application on blackberry devices Anyw here SAP CRM realized Performance might be an issue w ith dependence on various factors Offline access using SAP Adobe Interactive Forms Use of Adobe form by field w hen offline Can be uploaded or mailed later to pass on the information Forms are transaction specific Separate forms for different applications required Simple to use CRM Mobile Solutions SAP CRM via internet An option w here field force accesses SA P CRM via internet Can be an option w ith increasing penetration of internet Security might be a concern w ith data flow ing over internet Same solution for all the stakeholders and thus reduction of cost SAP CRM Mobile Solution Standard Mobile CRM Solution covering sales, service & marketing Highly customized solution especially for mobile needs Problems encountered in areas of skill requirement, UI development and configuration Figure 1: CRM Mobile Solutions Summary 2010 SAP AG 4

5 SAP CRM Mobile Solution SAP offers functionally rich Mobile CRM solution (For Laptops and Handhelds) which covers sales, service and marketing business processes. It comes with a different user interface (compared to Webclient user interface (UI)) and database, which resides on mobile workstation, for offline access. SAP CRM comes with standard tools for synchronizing mobile workstation with CRM server. This solution so far has got mixed response with some implementations being quite successful and some being not so successful the main issue cited by many customers being management of data synchronization and high costs in application maintenance. Below is brief on pros and cons of this particular solution. Acce ss to SAP CRM via internet In this case, the Webclient UI is accessed by the Field force personnel on their Laptop s via Internet. Increased availability of internet access, more countries adopting 3G technology and availability of data cards for immediate access to corporate network makes this option most exciting as it would not require any further investment in building an additional CRM solution for field force as they can access the SAP CRM on the field and are assured of access to latest information SAP AG 5

6 Off-line access using SAP Interactive forms by Adobe Off late, this solution has gained quite a bit of interest and some ways this is cheap alternative to option 1. This approach is characterized by usage of Interactive forms by Adobe in offline mode to process the transactions. Typically, a Field sales rep completes the form designed for a particular transaction by inputting various fields and then saves/ submits the form. After that the data is submitted to backend CRM system and a corresponding transaction is created. Data can also be submitted via o r it can be uploaded manually. Interactive forms seems a good solution for government and financial service industry which deals with lot of manual forms and subsequent data transfer to enterprise applications. SAP CRM on Blackberry This approach involves extending the SAP CRM application on to Blackberry devices to enable the sales force to access info on account, contacts, leads activities etc on the fly and push critical information to management much faster to facilitate timely decisions on iss ues impacting the sales cycle. This solution is still in the works and yet to be proved in the field. So, it is still very early and putting any bet on that solution will be risky SAP AG 6

7 Comparison of Various Off-line solutions: In various Life cycle Stages This section compares the four solution approaches across the lifecycle stages SAP AG 7

8 Important functionality/capability comparison: In this section, we will discuss the typical offline business requirements and degree of availability and achievability using the 4 alternatives. a Blackberry Sales client for SAP CRM V 1.0 features. Road map for Blackberry sales client includes Opportunity and Sales pipeline management Unified Calendar Blackberry Maps and GPS Capability in SAP CRM b The drop down values for fields like customer, product can be made available on Adobe forms while building the form. But these values are static and not exchanged with SAP CRM backend while offline. c- The functionality of SAP CRM accessed on Adobe forms is limited to the layout of the form designed (Limited fields) 2010 SAP AG 8

9 Overall Comparison The following table compares the features of the four alternatives in terms of various factors to be considered before going for Implementation. Requirement Complexity of development Infrastructure setup costs to access SAP CRM offline Cost of development and change management User requirement mapping and achievability Standard SAP Mobile CRM Solution Online Access to CRM SAP Interactive forms by Adobe( offline) CRM on blackberry High Low Medium High High Low Low High High Low Medium High High Medium Low Low Training costs High Medium Low Low Connectivity at offline required? No (Optional) Yes No (Optional) NA PDA/ Handhelds supported? Yes No No Yes Time frame for implementation High Low a Low Low b a - If the customer is using Webclient UI online already. b- The Time frame of implementation is yet to proved and we believe it should be short. Note: The Table above highlights and compares the 4 alternatives to realize the same SAP CRM functionality. The words High, Medium and Low are used to compare the alternatives with each other and do not have units in terms of time and resources SAP AG 9

10 Conclusion: Based on the analysis of the various mobility options, we could infer that there is no single perfect choice of a mobile solution. The right solution will depend on the requirement of information in the field for your organization and will be determined by various factors including infrastructure costs, application deployment and maintenance costs, security concerns etc. It is very important to study and get the real business requirements first. Very often we end capturing lot of nice to have requirement and important requirement gets lost in the noise and you don t realize that until you are very near to goin g live with the solution but then it is too late and it becomes too costly to make a course correction. So map the real field requirement and pick a solution which can not only meet the current requirement but also establishes a platform which would address future business needs. Below is our high level recommendation: The SAP CRM mobile solution will be most suitable if you need a solution with complete information about products, customer and booked orders etc in the field but it is costly to implement and maintain We would recommend exploring aggressively the option of accessing SAP CRM on internet if connectivity is good and security risk mitigation plans are in place. Adobe interactive form has a sleek and intuitive user interface and can work very well if requirement from field force is capturing new information in the field such as sales order or new contact etc. Many customers have cited Adobe form licensing cost as an issue. SAP CRM on blackberry is still evolving so we will recommend waiting and seeing how it fares before going for this option SAP AG 10

11 Related Content For more information, visit the Customer Relationship Management homepage SAP AG 11

12 Disclaimer and Liability Notice This document may discuss sample coding or other information that does not include SAP official interfaces and therefore is not supported by SAP. Changes made based on this information are not supported and can be overwritten during an upgrade. SAP w ill not be held liable for any damages caused by using or misusing the information, code or methods suggested in this document, and anyone using these methods does so at his/her own risk. SAP offers no guarantees and assumes no responsibility or liability of any type w ith respect to the content of this technical article or code sample, including any liability resulting from incompatibility betw een the content within this document and the materials and services offered by SAP. You agree that you will not hold, or seek to hold, SAP responsible or liable w ith respect to the content of this document SAP AG 12