SAP CRM vs. SalesForce.com (advantages, disadvantages, costs, ...)

[Former Member]

Hello,

I have created a few open discussions in the past, which I think are quite interesting, and I would like to add another one.

Introduction: I am currently in an assignment at a pharmaceutical company in Germany working on SAP CRM 7.0 and now the management has decided that they want to replace it with SalesForce.com. I think one reason is corporate politics as they are already using this software in other divisions. Concerning other reasons I am not sure.

Here is one of many articles about the CRM software market:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2014/05/06/gartners-crm-market-share-update-shows-41-of-cr...

What do you think: What are the advantages and disadvantages of SAP CRM and SalesForce.com? What about the costs? Are SAP CRM liscenses and implementation costs really higher? Is SalesForce.com growing faster than SAP CRM? Is it a serious threat to us?

Thomas Wagner

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Thomas and Everybody around,

This is a really good and interesting post.

I have been working with CRM solution since 1996. I have worked with Microsoft .Net Solutions, Siebel Applications, Salesforce.com, SAP CRM , SAP C4C, SAP BCM, among others solutions. And I can tell you that before making any decision they are some key success factors that you need to consider.

1.- Company Size (# of End user for your CRM solution, hundred? thousands?)

2.- Scope (Sales? Marketing? Services?, Channels: Web?, Phone? Social?, integration with Back End systems for Finance, HR, Warehousing, Quality, etc. Reporting autonomy? and so on...

3.- Define your current Pain Points, typically the one and first on top is: Usability.

The CRM Paradigm begins with the Customer, you need to be sure that you improve the Customer Experience in order to grow as a company, that is your starting point.

Then depending of the information that you can gather from these points you will start shopping for a solution that will attack all of then, of course within your budget, time, resources and your ROI target, being sure that your sales will increase and Customer and End Users will end happy!

My suggestion is for a Small-Mid Size Company the first option would be SalesForce,com then MS Dynamics.

Then for a large enterprise the first option would be the SAP Suites as a Solution, SAP CRM On premise on a hybrid environment with SAP C4C for Sales guys (also using the Mobile), and SAP ERP as back end. You can add Hybris, Successfactor, Social Engagement and Contact Center for a full solution. For companies that already have Oracle as a back end they probably will go with Siebel but will their eyes on salesforce.com

Just keep in mind that technically everything is possible. Just be sure that Your Customer will get a better experience ....that is what CRM is for!

Best Regards,

Ramon

[former_member631592]

Hi All

Just to add some more points here :

SAP CRM and Salesforce are both customer relationship management (CRM) software that help businesses manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. Here are some advantages, disadvantages, and costs to consider when deciding between SAP CRM and Salesforce:

Advantages of SAP CRM:

• Integration with other SAP products: SAP CRM integrates with other SAP products, such as SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA, which can be beneficial if your business is already using these products.
• Customization options: SAP CRM allows for a high degree of customization, which can be useful for businesses with unique processes or requirements.
• Advanced analytics: SAP CRM includes advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, which can be useful for businesses that need to analyze large amounts of data.

Disadvantages of SAP CRM:

• Complexity: SAP CRM can be complex to set up and use, which may require a larger investment in training and resources.
• Cost: SAP CRM can be more expensive than other CRM solutions, particularly for small businesses.

Advantages of Salesforce:

• User-friendly interface: Salesforce has a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate and customize.
• Wide range of integrations: Salesforce has a wide range of integrations with other apps and platforms, which can be useful for businesses that use a variety of tools.
• Strong customer support: Salesforce has a reputation for strong customer support, which can be helpful for businesses that need assistance with implementation or troubleshooting.

Disadvantages of Salesforce:

• Cost: Salesforce can be more expensive than other CRM solutions, particularly for small businesses.
• Limited customization options: While Salesforce allows for some customization, it may not offer as much flexibility as other CRM solutions.

Costs:

The cost of SAP CRM and Salesforce will depend on the specific features and modules you choose, as well as the number of users and other factors. In general, SAP CRM can be more expensive than Salesforce, particularly for small businesses. It is important to carefully consider your budget and business needs when deciding between these two CRM solutions.

[Former Member]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/4003466-party-salesforce-com-terrible-q2-earnings

Another article about Salesforce.

Maybe a bit too negative.

Thomas

[Former Member]

I just had a look at a demo Salesforce.com system.

My impression is that pricing is not that powerful (the client mentionned at the top will keep order management in SAP CRM for at least a while and will only use visit management - he espacially likes the digital signature with Salesforce.com on tablets) and I was missing service and marketing.

Otherwise it looks a lot like SAP CRM.

Reporting at that client might eventually be donw with Qlikview which seems to be a more or less strong competitor of SAP Analytics.

Thomas

[Former Member]

Though Salesforce.com is new but it is coming up pretty fast and they are not leaving any stone unturned in beating SAP. SAP on the other hand has experience which is critical. I am sure they must have thought through a plan to still stay @ no.1

SAP CRM 7.0 was recognized for:

• A well-rounded CRM supporting the end-to-end customer engagement experience
• Large and broad set of industry-specific functionality
• Very strong reporting and analytics tools
• Strong marketing automation, customer service, and field service capabilities
• A platform and architecture that is suitable for global deployment
• Very strong application ownership experience and global strategy

[Former Member]

Joy, I think your Sap company that your dealing with is different from mine.

As a huge Sap customer, I don't have a clear support from Sap, specially about eCommerce, Mobile and mainly CRM, pre-sales and sales. Yes, I'm very frustrated, and this is a bad customer experience. Is controversial to say the product or the company is good, when they don't care about huge customers. Simple like that.

Regarding  analytics. I don't think so. Our prototype with reports was so bad, they suggested to use Lumira.

Customer Service, complaints transactions are a nightmare.

The experience with eCommerce, was an earthquake. Mobile same way.

I'd like to talk with the sap product owners and fathers and say one or two things, regarding customer experience.

have a great day!

[Former Member]

I hope SAP has contacted you for further information.

Basically the usage experience could not only be determined by the product/solution itself, but also deeply depends on your real business case, the implementation quality, etc.

SAP provides already a holistic customer service channel, I think you can start with create some message with SAP Support tools and if possible, you can also ask the origional sales guy to connect you with SAP's support team.

Cheers,

Raymond (from SAP)

[Former Member]

Hi,

I´ve been working with SAP CRM from the past 10 years, and I followed up a salesforce.com prototype here in the company.

At the end, here are the main points of satisfaction for salesforce.com:

1 - Customer Experience is better - User interface is really easy to use, and friendly, more than C4C, specially for reports

2 - Customer Experience is better - The consulting company used agile, the functional/developer was side by side, raising the requirement, geting the agreement and implementing right away

3 - Customer Experience is better - Reports what is the main piece of any CRM from the user point of view, salesforce.com is really powerful. No need to include something like Lumira in context, just the salesforce.com basics are really cool and powerful

So, after the prototype, the customer, the user, had a smile on the face and said "that´s what I want".

To delight the user, and getting emotional customer satisfaction is a must. Nowadays, anyone that doesn´t see and understand it, is from the past century.

Thus, for consultants, I advise: change the mindset, change the behavior. Customer Experience, Customer Engagement is a matter of a process and delight customers and users. Agile process is an unstoppable force.

From the SAP CRM, or looking forward, teh C4C, there are important pieces of course. Don´t use the speech of saying it´s easy to connect to ECC. The customer wants to see the "show me the money", and the smile will show up. TCO and ROI tools is something the CRM consultants need to understand and handle.

[o_frick]

Adding another piece of information & discussion: The brand new Forrester Wave "CRM Suites For Large Organizations, Q1 2015"

The latest Forrester Wave for CRM looked at all the major CRM providers discussed here as well, and lists a lot of arguments for the different options.

SAP CRM 7.0 was recognized for:

• A well-rounded CRM supporting the end-to-end customer engagement experience
• Large and broad set of industry-specific functionality
• Very strong reporting and analytics tools
• Strong marketing automation, customer service, and field service capabilities
• A platform and architecture that is suitable for global deployment
• Very strong application ownership experience and global strategy

The full report is available through https://www.sap.com/cmp/dg/crm-xj15-lob-cec-tr01/index.html, go check it out.

[kavindra_joshi]

Any body with an idea on the GTM strategy for CRM marketing solution. Is it Hybris Marketing as traditional CRM Marketing solution doesn't addresses the digital space or there is a hefty custom development for the same.

~Kavindra

[o_frick]

Yes, hybris Marketing is the new “default” marketing solution from SAP. While SAP CRM Marketing will still be supported until (at least) 2025, CRM customers can easily adopt hybris Marketing as part of their S/4HANA evolution in CRM. hybris Marketing and SAP CRM really work nicely together: they can share master and transactional data (no data duplication required if they are on the same HANA DB), and are integrated on many processes (e.g. campaign execution, interaction center, …)

[Former Member]

When can we get rid of multiple boxes? Is it possible ?

[o_frick]

One of the nice things about hybris Marketing is that it can nicely embed into an existing infrastructure and share basically everything. Sharing the HANA DB is highly recommended if the CRM system runs on HANA. You can even deploy hybris Marketing as an add-on on the NW stack of an existing CRM.

[former_member184458]

Hariprasad,

you might also find this link useful for reviewing the different co-deployment options.

thank you

erich

[Former Member]

This message was moderated.

[Former Member]

http://www.cityam.com/215178/salesforcecom-shares-climb-microsoft-takeover-reports

There were stories about Salesforce.com being the target of a takeover by Microsoft or someone else. That would definitley change the market.

Thomas

[former_member184458]

Why not consider also advice from Salesforce experts:

An Expert Guide to Salesforce Integration: 22 Salesforce Experts Share The Biggest Mistakes Companie...

seems the grass is not necessarily always greener on the other site after all... 

[Former Member]

Hi Thomas,

I learned that, in CRM sapce,  the competition is between salesforce.com and ZOHO suit.

All members can go through below link and express your views.

‘Time Indian firms stepped out and sold around the world’ | Business Line

Rgds

Hari

[Former Member]

I think SAP CRM is more good option than SalesForce CRM. SAP CRM  provides more features and all of them are easy to understand. Customization features are more good in SAP. You can check the details from here  http://crm.softwareinsider.com/compare/5-445/Salesforce-Sales-Cloud-CRM-vs-SAP-CRM

[kavindra_joshi]

I think the purchase of SAP CRM vs Salesforce is a product-organizational fit question. So proper business analysis would be needed to answer this question. I would putwih forth two scenarios

1) If your sales process is very much production oriented ( you need plant level information and you have an SAP ERP solution ) , then you would tend to go with a SAP CRM solution and connect the two using CRM Middleware. Supporting CRM processes which are production oriented is the forte of SAP CRM solution which puts it in the magic quadrant of Gartner.

2) If you have sales oriented process , then either of them could work & depending on whether you have SAP solutions already with you or not. Marketing process in SAP is not great and trust me personally I have struggled to create Campaigns and Call Lists even though I have some experience in doing it. Pricing in SAP is very comprehensive but also very cumbersome and unless you have to support such scenarios it makes sense to go for a solution which is light weight and have some cooler UIs.

Also pricing of an enterprise is a very critical input to the selction .

~Kavindra

[Former Member]

Thomas i believe SAP CRM is a big decision for an organization, because the organization has to be focused on CRM as well as SAP. However i believe that its a good decision because in terms of user experiences Sales force is simple. Users find SAP CRM complicated or not user friendly(using version 7.0 & above).

[Former Member]

Hello,

I agree that the new openSAP course on S/4 HANA which started last week is very interesting and an additional deep dive openSAP course on thei topic was already announced.

I also have read an interesting interview with the Salesforce.com boss in a german magazin where is was pointed out that his company did not make any profits in the last years. They just have somehow managed a positive cash flow somehow.

Maybe they will run into difficulties somewhen.

Thmas

[Former Member]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/narrativescience/2014/11/18/salesforce-com-loss-likely-to-narrow-2/

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/04/why-its-so-hard-for-salesforcecom-to-make-a-profit....

[Former Member]

Guys,

Just completed open sap course on S/4 HANA. I can assure that with S/4 HANA, SAP is going to re- gain all the glories that it had lost.

Waiting for more info on fate of CRM, whether it is merged with SD or a different module with in  ERP is something not clear.

It seems, all the consultants have to get ready to clear new certifications on S/4 HANA.

Rgds

Hari

[Former Member]

Firstly, this is great discussion. For the past two-three years SFDC and MS Dynamics CRM are seeing a lot of traction. I have personally seen few of our very large global clients moving away from SAP CRM for the same reasons you mentioned in the blog. Comparing SAP CRM with cloud based offerings like Salesforce.com is like comparing apples and oranges. So we should stick to comparing C4C with the rest of the CRM Cloud solutions in the market.

The following are the reasons I believe SAP is lagging in the CRM race today:

a) Late mover disadvantage: SAP has been a late mover in the CRM cloud space. While SAP C4C has been picking up offlate, it is still half baked and we also need to remember that Salesforce has the first mover advantage. While many of us have been hearing Salesforce.com for the past 5 years or so, it was really started in 1999. All they have done since then is to provide CRM cloud solutions (not anymore though). Today they are clearly a market leader for cloud based CRM and SAP C4C is perhaps a distant third or fourth or even fifth in terms of market position. In SAP's defense C4C offers a great value in terms of integration with SAP ECC and other on premise solutions. Perhaps, when the solution and the more standard iflows are offered SAP C4C will have a great value proposition creating a unique position for them in the market.

b) Change in market trend: SAP CRM is undoubtedly a very robust and complete CRM solution. However, if we see the larger picture, there has been a significant shift toward adopting cloud solutions in the market especially for CRM LOB's.While CRM cloud solutions were more a phenomenon with small and mid size, that is no more the case. Even the large enterprises (Fortune 500's) have embraced cloud for CRM and other side applications like HR, SRM etc. This has been a game changer for Salesforce.com(SFDC) since it was already enjoying the market leading position in the cloud space. Lot of larger organizations found success in integrating SFDC with their SAP ECC and in some cases Oracle ERP. This clearly explains the market increase for SFDC and stagnant growth for SAP CRM on premise. So the bottom line; this is more a change in market trend and SAP CRM cannot be isolated. The reason for the change in trend can perhaps be rationalized by the economics of IT in general than the sophistication each one has to offer. For example, for organizations with skimmed budgets have lesser risk to take the cloud route Vs implementing a complex solution on premise. Organizations have also been dealing with IT with a short term view due to uncertainty in markets at large.

c) Ease of use and functionality: From my experience and user stories from my clients, it is evident SFDC is loved by sales users and considered to be more user friendly than SAP C4C and obviously SAP CRM OP. SFDC clearly wins the race with usability but I personally feel SAP C4C has great UI especially around ease of accesibility of information through out the processes.  We will really have to see how it will be recieved by users going forward.

Functionality per se Salesforce is much ahead in the game. Collaboration, ease of configuration and creating an community for salesforce practitioners has been fantastic. SAP on the other end is still crawling to create that eco system since it has not yet taken off in terms of sales/new licenses.

I cannot agree with Stephen more. Especially, with new vs existing SAP CRM OP client logic he presented. That seems to be the norm of the day. Existing SAP CRM OP clients are moving toward Hybrid model and new clients are trying to leverage cloud as much as possible. Overall, as we have been hearing for years already, cloud is the path ahead.

Regards,

Jay

[Former Member]

Hello Jay,

I agree with most of what you said.

I just want to remind us, that SAP CRM was already present in 1999 in First Custimer Shipment Projects (I was involved in such a project that year) and General Availability was 2000 while the big market leader at that time was Siebel about which I did not hear much recently (I think they were bought by Oracle later).

Best regards,

Thomas

[Former Member]

Hi Thomas,

You are correct! But SAP CRM was only offered as an on premise solution back then. I was referring to salesforce.com being the only cloud solution in the early 2000's.

Regards,

Jay

[Former Member]

Hello All, Very interesting discussion. I wanted to add my POV on this topic.

If we were to suggest an enterprise wide CRM strategy we need to look deeper especially in the current tumultuous situation in the CRM space. Five years ago in package evaluation exercises between Siebel, SAP CRM and SFDC where back end system was ECC, SAP CRM weighed better and was recommended. SAP CRM also suited over all IT strategy as SAP CRM solution fitted into Marketing, Sales, Service, interaction center, eCommerce and TPM areas. In a nut shell SAP CRM was a panaceas for all the problems enterprise had in CRM space. With due credit to SAP CRM it worked well for some years. Personally companies could have focused more on adoption and SAP on improving its UI, usability and performance.

Over last 3 years internet speeds have grown 4 times, mobile device usage has grown leaps and bounce, traffic to amazon and ebay sites have grown multiple times. Sales users started using mobile devices more than laptops. They were looking for offline and non-vpn based access as they operated from airports, hotels and customer sites. A successful CRM solution for these user groups is one that needs zero training, a very intuitive solution that can provide needed information with least clicks, acceptable speed (NOT wheel of death), ease of personalization and easy to configure dashboards and reports. SAP CRM failed to capture this audience as it failed in all the areas above. SFDC filled in this GAP well. Though initially companies were skeptical about the cloud offering better solution, easy upgrades and system interoperability assurance worked out well for SFDC and customers bought into the concept. However SFDC has lot of work to do in pricing, variant configuration as well as sales contracts area as sales solution is not just creating customer, contact data and wafer thin opportunity transaction.

On the other had companies implementing eCommerce solution for both B2B and B2C solution started expecting Amazon experience. B2B experience expectation was no less than B2C. This changed the game for SAP CRM. Packages like Hybris (Now an SAP company) and Oracle ATG matched customer expectation in this area.

This still leaves with service, interaction center, pricing driven sales scenarios and TPM areas where SAP CRM still scores better than any of its competitors. I personally feel for an enterprise wide CRM strategy companies should look at hybrid model with SFDC or MS Dynamics for their simple sales and marketing solution, SAP CRM for their service, CIC, pricing driven sales scenarios and TPM scenarios and Hybris for their ecommerce solutions. This would mean complex CRM landscape for companies, issues with record of origin, duplication, higher licensing, implementation, integration and support costs and higher total cost of ownership. But I think it is still worth investing in this hybrid model rather than risking user adoption. C4C as well as fiori/UI 5 based apps for mobile solution have long way to go before they can challenge the big weights.

[Former Member]

I am sure that SAP S/4 HANA will increase the chances for SAP CRM.

I see two important reasons for that:

- SAP CRM will be integrated on the same server as Analytics and ERP and I guess there will be no more middleware or CRM-own database required. Or data loading to BW.

- I think it is like Microsoft installing their Internet Explorer on Windows machines. Many customers might just take it as it is already there with the same user interface and backend.

And of course you have the nice Fiori UI, the on premise and on cloud option and HANA included (if it doesn't get too expensive that way as many customers did not like HANA because of the price).

Best regards,

Thomas

[former_member182421]

I don't see SAP rebuilding CRM to HANA for S4 scenario, is that your personal bet or did you heard something from offical from SAP? My personal bet is the C4C will take the relief

[Former Member]

Hello Luis,

No I have not yet heard something official. I am very keen to see S/4 HANA by myself.

Thomas

[Former Member]

On this site...

http://www.bluefinsolutions.com/Blogs/John-Appleby/February-2015/The-SAP-Business-Suite-4-SAP-HANA-(...

there was that comment:

"Goodbye Suite-Suite middleware!".

Thomas

[former_member182421]

Looks like a race between solutions/teams again, I just hope SAP just let rest in peace the CRM solution, thanks for the link!

[stephenjohannes]

Actually there was a slide in the S/4 HANA announcement where it shows CRM as a "module" sitting atop S/4 HANA on the same system using the new S/4 HANA data model.  Only SAP internally knows how they plan on doing this.  Honestly the first part of S/4 HANA which is the finance piece is the "simple" section.  Hopefully at SAPPHIRE in May SAP can reveal more information on the logistics piece.

Final conclusion from all this if you want to stay in the SAP ecoystem as technical resource long-term:  learn HANA development, learn fiori development.    Enjoy the ride.

Take care,

Stephen

[former_member182421]

CRM sitting on top of S/4....if they finally do that it will be a very big meh from my side

[Former Member]

i dont see any timeline for CRM on HANA S/4?

[stephenjohannes]

Because there hasn't been any official announcement on when/if this will happen.   Instead there was a slide in a presentation that show this a potential future state.  That means how/when/if it happens is completey unknown by the general public.  I would at this point wait to see what new details about S/4 HANA are revealed at SAPPHIRE.

[kavindra_joshi]

Stephen ,

What would be your predictions for erstwhile solution managers who were only in suite ?

[stephenjohannes]

For on-premise I can see what an end-state would look like.  For the cloud version, I'm not so sure how this all ends up.  Remember S/4 HANA is going to be provided in both on-premise and cloud versions.  I'm going to hold off in predicting anything until I see more information.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

Luis,

so you think it is an irrelevant development? Or it's just too late from your point of view?

Borut

[former_member182421]

IMHO is too late, SAP CRM has too much bad press right now, you won't find a single consultant or customer who doesn't say any of this quotes: "it's a pain", "it's too complicated", "it's too expensive", "keep away that thing from me!"

For other hand, I've seen the C4C solution and looks pretty nice, soooo much better than the classic CRM, It says: "come on, test me, I will make your life easier", if C4C is HANA based, with the fiori UI and you have the mobile doors pretty opened, why I need another heavyweight solution which even with the best intuition and debugging skills I can't really predict/understand. Just put your damn efforts on make the C4C work smooth and don't start to build N products which does the same and when I'm saying "the same" I'm not talking positively

[Former Member]

Yes, it is still a confusing direction at this point in time. Will the single data-model of S/4 embrace C4C or CRM on-prem... anyway there is a lot of work to do.

Hope to see some clarifications soon.

[former_member182421]

Maybe this opensap training give us some light:

SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA in a Nutshell -

[Former Member]

Yes, I also inscribed for it and forget to mention it. I am looking forward to this course. As all openSAP-courses it is free.

Thomas

[Former Member]

I will surely follow the OpenSap training, but I have little hope that it will give us any hint about the direction regarding CRM or better to say CEC

[stephenjohannes]

Honestly... until SAP announces/unveil the Logistics Module for S/4 HANA I dont' expect us to see anything about CRM in S/4 HANA.  It would be awesome if that openSAP course covered that, but unless the course starts after SAPPHIRE 2015, it won't happen based on history.

That being said in the short-term here is what I would recommend for those with a focus on CRM in the SAP Ecosystem:

- New CRM project - Cloud for Customer (no brainer)

- Existing CRM systems - move to EHP3 if you aren't already there.  If on EHP3 offer to your ERP brethen to "test drive" suite on HANA(let CRM figure out the bugs before ERP).  In addition for those using on-premise CRM on EHP3, test out the fiori apps for EHP3.

- Evaluate/examine customer engagement intelligence.  It works primarly with your ERP data, but it may solve some your marketing/sales needs.

For developers wanting to stay in the SAP ecosystem, learn javascript, HTML5, fiori and HANA. That is your future.  For functional consultants, determine how much of your personal knowledge is process vs tool based.  Focus on strengthing your business process knowledge.  The new guided configuration concept requires you to be a business process expert, not a tools expert.

Okay, so instead of speculating further on what will be in the future with CRM/CEC by SAP, let's get to work by getting ready. The future is now.

Take care,

Stephen

[Hendrik]

I would add: take a look at [h]ybris and its cloud solutions.. Looks like they'll be in charge of some key CRM features e.g. marketing in the future.

Also the new Yaas platform from Hybris looks pretty promising. wrote a nice blog about it:

Cheers

Hendrik

[former_member182421]

<BarrettStrong>I need money (that's what I want)</BarrettStrong>

[stephenjohannes]

Actually that's a really good conference they mention and will have more Customer Engagement/CRM/Commerce focus content than what you will find at SAPPHIRE in most years.  You also get presentations by those who know their stuff.  I attended this two years ago and would go again if the stars were aligned correctly in terms of education/travel/expense budget, I went to d-code last year instead.

[Former Member]

Now with the latest S/4HANA road map things are becoming clearer, but at the same time I'm even more confused about the role of C4C and SAP CRM in the future.

https://websmp204.sap-ag.de/~sapidb/012002523100006634812015E.pdf

Additionally a "light" version of C4C was announced.

SAP Digital for Customer Engagement | Cloud Solutions | SAP Store

Surely Sapphire will give us all the answers;)

[faisal_pc]

Hi Thomas,

Nice discussion. For me, I have never used/seen Sales force CRM system. May be because I was only working in SAP and Java. However, I heard the news from many mouths that Salesforce is booming over SAP CRM in recent years.The main reason I see is,the user interface and speed in SAP CRM is not so good. Lots of server side validations happen for each clicks and it's taking very long time. That is the usual complaint we hear from our clients.

My first project was in CRM 5.0 and believe me, the client was very much disappointed with the system having issues every other day. And in the user interface side also we were lacking a lot. I agree CRM 7.* versions are far better though, we still have miles to go in  incorporating more validations in client side and with a nice user interface.

Thanks,

Faisal

[Former Member]

In terms of user experience is Sales force simple. Users find SAP CRM complicated or not user friendly(using version 7.0 & above). Can experts share there opinion in terms of user acceptability & usage. Other than integration with ECC & middle ware(technical) what  advantage SAP CRM can have for users & stake holders like Sales Managers,decision makers.

[Former Member]

I have never seen Saesforce.com but I think that SAP made improvements in usability in the Cloud for Customer (C4C) and Fiori applications if someone doesn't like the SAP CRM WebUI.

Thomas

[former_member182421]

IMHO right know C4C is focused on a specific user set and CRM is focused on the whole users whom can be involved in the CRM processes, for user whom want to have a very specific view C4C is their soultion, considering first if the C4C acomplish all the business scenarios they need, for users who whant controll everything I would go for the CRM. Comparing both UI, between us I believe C4C beats pretty hard the WebUI

[Former Member]

Hi Guys,

I could see some companies implementing SAP CRM on cloud with .NET integration.

I hope this will be good solution if customer looking for cloud apps, Also i heard from developers of SAP Labs that SAP implementing Fiori for Mobile apps on all the areas(CRM, HCM etc).

Regards,
Nagaraju

[kavindra_joshi]

Just putting my 2 cents in it.

If you already have a SAP ECC which is oriented towards your production process , the SAP CRM solution would help you more. You could reuse the master data through middleware ( after some custom coding) obviously and run the sales process in SAP CRM. So sales & service processes could be run smoothly. Marketing in SAP CRM sucks I would say and you would need to buy a TREX or HANA possibly to segment large customers. This is an additional cost overhead.

If you have consumed the SAP ECC and there is lesser customization , then it makes more sense to go for SalesForce solution.Also UI wise there is no comparison. Salesforce beats SAP CRM handsdown.

Also one of my personal observation for the growth of Salesforce is that the developer community has the access to Salesforce study material and unlike SAP no knowledge is locked in service market ( little would be a better word actually)place or sap notes for which you need to have a user id and password. Also its certification policy are geographically neutral and one can easily go for a certification without needing a go ahead from respective companies ( At least in India SAP certifications are that way) So adoption becomes that much easier for a company thinking of migrating to SAP CRM or any solution. Now try doing the same for SAP hybris and you would need to provide your company TAN no for getting a quote for training. So even if you want your employees to scale up either become a SAP partner or SAP consumer. You cannot test waters just without being either one of them. .It means that it easier to scale your employees in Salesforce than in SAP CRM any day. I see so many Salesforce companies which have mushroomed in India and so many big companies who have moved from Siebel to Salesforce so effortlessly and have been easily able to scale up their employees in 3 months at a minimal cost.

[former_member182421]

I believe you nailed it here, I don't know how the salesforce.com guys handle the documentation, but in SAP CRM is a pain, complex module+no expertise+lack or hidden documentation = project failure. It's quite sad that you need to buy sap press books to understand the basics, some times I feel like I bought a TV and the manufacturer didn't include the instructions.

The only option that SAP has to beat salesforce.com is the C4C, the licences are cheaper and if you take a look at the C4C space there's a lot of SAP employees suporting that area...like in the SAP CRM where I have the feeling that SAP discreetly is throwing the towel, the last part is only my impressions and of course I can be wrong

[Former Member]

Hi Guys,

I saw in a video where Marc Benioff was accusing SAP for not using it's own SAP CRM solution for it's own CRM functions! I think SAP should use for it's own purpose and prove  that it's superior system.

What do you say?

Rgds

Hari

[Former Member]

Hello Hari,

I worked for SAP SI, a then subsidiary of SAP with more then 1000 employees in Germany and we implemented SAP CRM and SAP BW in 2001/2002 internally for opportunity management incl. reporting and I was part of the implementation team. And a few weeks ago I got a consulting request from SAP IT in Germany (the department administrating SAP's own IT systems) about helping them with their SAP Cloud for Customer solution. SAP is big and has many departments and is working in many countries. Of course I have no overview about their total IT landscape. Maybe somewhere they are using non-SAP software as well.

Best regards,

Thomas

[former_member182421]

Well let me strongly doubt what Mr. Benioff said, The incidents on SAP Marketplace are recorded and managed in a SAP interaction center (CRM), they migrated some time ago, but even 5 years ago they used SAP GUI to manage the incidents (I'm not sure if was CRM or not, I only saw the screen)

I have one friend who worked in the SAP as sales man and he used SAP CRM to enter all his data.

Regards,

Luis

[Former Member]

Here we got additional information from an evaluation meeting where the SAP CRM-team lead of the customer took part.

It seems that SalesForce.com has problems with background mass processing and accepting the ECC as master for pricing information.

On the other hand it seems to have a nice offline-functionality.

Thomas

[stephenjohannes]

Just to warn you the offline functionality from salesforce.com is brand new and they didn't have this feature available a year ago and questioned why anyone would need offline access .

I hadn't heard that about the background mass processing.  That seems weird since some of the suggested integration strategies involved flat file transfer between systems which I assume is batch.  Then again I didn't see enough details on how the import would be kicked off.

Honestly given the design of standard SAP SD Pricing module, it would be hard for any system to handle that.  Even SAP CRM has issues with pricing data transfer from ERP .  I would be suspicous of any vendor that would claim that they know how to handle SAP Pricing with ease .

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

Hello Stephen,

Thanks a lot for the information.

Best regards,

Thomas

[stephenjohannes]

It's actually a three horse race as Microsoft has it's Dynamics Solution which is just as complelling as Cloud for Customer, and salesforce.com.  The funny part is the Microsoft Solution is run by ex-SAP guys who were responsible for SAP CRM 7.0 launch .

If your business is going the saleforce.com route on as an emotional decision(not considering any other cloud soutions such as cloud for customer, dynamics, sugar crm, infor, etc), then you should make sure they are willing to pay for the full cost of integration.  You are going to have to buy and build out all your integration back to ERP.  Although there are some packages available, you still have a lot of work ahead.  Make sure the business is willing to pay the full cost of systems integration introduced by using salesforce.com or another solution.

The other issue is that you should strongly evalaute advanced analytic scenarios/business intelligence offered by the cloud solutions.  I know we all hear HANA too much, but the new advanced customer intelligence applicatiosn that run on SAP HANA are beyond some of the cloud offerings from other vendors.  SAP really shines in this aspect when you compare SAP CRM on HANA vs other solutions.

IMHO regardless of how pretty the user interface is, or how mobile your system will be, you will still have the same fundamental business process issues regardless of the CRM system.  When/if you migrate and all you do is replicate your old CRM processes into the new system it will be a recipe for failure.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

I agree. CRM on HANA and especially the integration with BI on HANA is a great plus for SAP.

Thomas

[former_member182421]

Well...IMHO HANA and integration (specially if most of the current solutions run in the customer are SAP based) are the only solid arguments I've seen, the UI still a pain, and I don't know how the pricing engines in other CRM solutions works, but in SAP CRM...

[former_member182575]

SAP CRM is really a big decision and your organisation must be focused on CRM and not just SAP.  Where I think Salesforce.com is for a company that knows CRM but is still a "baby" when it comes to the full solution or just thinks that CRM for them is just one part of the full picture.

SAP itself is not marketing CRM that well anyway.

Regards

Waza

[Former Member]

I also agree with that. We (germans) and our companies are often very good technicians but we are not always good sales people (another example is the automotive industry). Of course SAP is very international in the last years.

Thomas

[Former Member]

THomas, pls check my last reply on the botton.

[former_member182350]

Hello Thomas Wagner ,

Thanks for initiating live discussion on topic which highly relevant.  This is big help to consultant in order to answer lot question on "SAP CRM Vs Salesfoce.com----which is better" in confident manner to client.

I'm working as Technical Architect role for a consumer company at UK. They are using sap crm based solution (which is running more than 5 years) with sales, service module   and also internet sales - web shop, right now client  is running on  sap crm 5.0 version.For Marketing module, client is using salesforce.com for last 2 years. Based on experience of few business user, straight a way  - Business  has decided not go CRM upgrade to 7.0 and instead they are moving all solution to Salesforce.com.  There concern is not just cost, user experience with sap crm 5.0 version is not good. Also it could be internal politics, Business is not interested to listening any suggestion IT wing of same company at all.

Once again thanks for opening good discussion.

Regards,

Arjun

[Former Member]

Hello Arjun,

It is really sad that your company is not doing the upgrade as we all know that UI of SAP CRM improved heavily from 5.0 to 7.0.

Best regards,

Thomas

[former_member182350]

Hello All,

There are few points in mentioned by Brad Hodson in old  discussion on SCN forum - Salesforce vs SAP CRM

While I can't necessarily tell you the differences between Salesforce and SAP and why those differences are causing a rift in usage, but I can tell you that both are are guilty of having software that is very difficult to get into.

Both Salesforce and SAP are very cluttered systems, especially with all the data and addons that they push out. However, in one regard Salesforce does have a slight usability advantage over SAP and that is native and full cloud support. Cloud support is proven to give any software easier usability because there is no installation or maintenance.

However, while it may seem like Salesforce is destroying SAP, the numbers you get are a bit skewed. Lest we forget, the CRM industry in general is plagued with bad adoption rates (less than 50% stick with it). It's just terrible, and it's because of software like Salesforce and SAP.

The CRM systems that are changing this figure and showing markedly higher user adoption are ones like JobNimbus, Insightly, and Nimble. If anything, you should be asking why these software are winning out over more aged software with vastly longer feature lists?

And the answer is: because they're simple.

Even, I see rating from users for SAP CRM is not bad, however SAP could be lacking in marketing CRM or  Less online presence of sap user viz salesforce.(refer Compare Salesforce.com vs SAP CRM vs Microsoft Dynamics CRM | TrustRadius )

Regards,

Arjun

[ceedee666]

Hi Thomas,

one thing that is important to have in mind when implementing an CRM system are the interfaces to the back-end system. At least the implementation projects I know of that tried to connect a third party CRM with an SAP ERP back-end spent a significant efforts in implementing this interfaces.

While also the SAP CRM Middleware has some areas that are rather complex (e.g. contract replication in the utilities industry) it already takes care of a lot of possible error situations (queuing via qRFC, queues to ensure subsequent changes are processes in the correct order to name just a few). While it is possible to rebuild this functionality using e.g. some integration middleware its complexity is usually largely underestimated. I've been involved in implementation projects that ended up spending more in the implementation of the interface then the initial quote for the implementation of the SAP CRM system was!

Besides the complexity of the integration of a technical level the difference in the process design is also a reason for the problems when integrating a third party CRM with an ERP back-end. Even basic processes usually differ slightly. This leads to three options. Change the process implementation in the CRM system, change the process implementation in the ERP system or solve the differences in the middleware. as the third options is usually the simplest one (at least in the short term), it'll be the one that is chosen. Finally you end up with business logic in the integration layer and making the implementation of new features as well as the support of the landscape really complicated and expensive.

In summary, from my point of view the real cost of integrating a third party CRM with an ERP back-end are usually significantly underestimated, as the support of the landscape as well as teh complexity of building the integration layer are largely underestimated.

Best,

Christian

[Former Member]

Hello Christian,

You a right. Smooth integration with the ECC and also to BI is one of the most important factors pro SAP CRM.

Best regards,

Thomas

[former_member182421]

I believe that's a very good question, but I'm afraid we are comparing pears and apples, I mean, as you already know Salesforce.com is a cloud solution and SAP CRM is on premise solution, so cloud vs premise can become a whole discussion

If we are fair, we need to compare salesforce.com vs Cloud for customer (If I'm not mistaken), don't you think?

As I'm don't have experience in both solutions I'm afraid that's the only contribution I can do from now, I hope, more people get involved in this discussion the topic is worth it! (Former Member, , ...)

Cheers!

Luis

[Former Member]

I see that point that SalesForce.com is cloud-based. Of course it is valid. In the article it is written that SalesForce.com grew by 30% from 2012. Did SAP Cloud for Customer grew in a similar way or is SAP still in the process of trying to enter that market?

Thomas

[former_member182421]

I believe SAP is still trying to enter to that market, even the on premise SAP CRM didn't grow that much!

I found this interesting video which talks about licence cost and all this stuff, the audio quality is crappy but it has some insight information indeed!

SAP Cloud for Sales (Customer on Demand) Demo - YouTube

One think I like of the video is not a "only-powerpoint" video

[Former Member]

Hello Luis,

Thanks alot.

Thomas