To be relevant today, businesses must be digital and omnichannel - they must resolve the data and business process silos and become real-time and responsive to the rapidly changing marketplace.
This is according to Bernd Leukert, member of the executive board of SAP products and innovations, speaking to ITWeb this week, introducing the company's new hybris customer relationship management (CRM) tools.
The new suite includes a Profile tool that provides a profile of a business' customers by gathering customer interactions, behaviour and contextual data, allowing companies to take action on the insights such data provides.
Another tool being added to hybris is Customer Experience, which uses a content management system to tailor an e-commerce Web site to deliver content that can adapted for viewing across multiple devices, from desktops and smartphones, to tablets and wearables.
Lastly, the SAP hybris-as-a-service puts the capabilities of hybris on the front-end of the HANA cloud platform, allowing the effective merger of core business data and systems with CRM software - all delivered as a cloud-based service.
According to the company, the tools help organisations link back-office e-commerce operations and data with customer-focused sales and marketing activity.
Consumers are in the driving seat of digital business transformation and, ultimately, they will decide which companies thrive, survive or die, so it's imperative to get the customer experience right, says Carsten Thoma, president of the customer engagement and commerce business unit at SAP.
Companies that embrace this change will be able to seize the opportunity to digitally disrupt the markets they serve, differentiate their brands, and engage consumers in entirely new ways, he adds.
Thoma says one of the big issues with information that businesses use to engage with customers today is that they don't have a real-time view of that information.
He points out customers are now engaging with businesses in a dynamic fashion, on mobile, through social technology, through a company's Web site - or might even come into the store.
Every time a customer interacts with a business through one of those methods, it is telling the business something new about that customer, and being able to capture that information in real-time helps that business become more intelligent, adds Thoma.
"This is relevant to businesses of all sizes, no matter what their size or industry. This is because every business wants to be able to improve their customer experience. And as a consumer, you want the very best customer experience possible, whether you're visiting the Web page, local bike shop, or a large multi-national."
According to Leukert, the world has changed and customers' needs and expectations have changed with it. However, CRM still hasn't evolved to meet the needs of today's digitally-native customer.
CRM was an appropriate term for a past where companies could control the spread of information and attempt to guide their customers through the linear journey, or narrative, of their choosing, notes Leukert.
However, that was before the Internet, mobile and social. Now, if a business wants to forge the kinds of deeper relationships and simpler experiences that customers are asking for, it needs to go beyond CRM, he says.
Customers now expect organisations to operate in the global digital marketplace - they expect the businesses they engage with to place them and what they are trying to accomplish firmly at the centre of that experience, adds Leukert.
He points out every customer will engage differently - across a range of channels and touchpoints - and it changes every time customers engage with an organisation.
That future is digital and omnichannel - CRM has tried to evolve from its analogue-age roots, but still hasn't evolved to meet the needs of today's digitally-native customer, says Leukert.
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