SAP Customer Engagement Lifecycle framework pays dividends in increased sales

Enhanced collaboration among the various customer-facing teams of business software giant, SAP, is paying dividends not just in terms of increasing sales for SAP - the company's global market share grew by two percentage points in 2004 - but also in delivering more extended value for the company's customers.

In SA alone in the past 12 months a number of long-standing SAP customers have either begun to move from using discrete SAP modules to exploiting the comprehensive mySAP ERP suite - and in some cases the all-embracing mySAP Business Suite - or have begun to draw more deeply on their current SAP functionality.

Absa, for instance, has moved from using only SAP HR to the full mySAP Business Suite that includes banking-specific functionality. And, in search of more comprehensive capabilities, Pioneer Foods has converted its licences for SAP R/3 to the new services architecture-based mySAP ERP.

Says SAP Africa's director of strategic initiatives, Simon Carpenter: "We spend millions of dollars annually staying ahead of technology's potential - always testing the limits of the many different ways in which technology can help our customers run more profitable, competitive, sustainable businesses. The breadth and depth of the strategic business functionality we offer is therefore unparalleled.

"It's impossible for our customers to know about all of the extremely detailed but comprehensive ways in which we can help them. The most effective means of driving that value through to them is for SAP consultants and sales people to collaborate across their specialisations - from business warehousing, analytics and radio frequency identification (RFID) to supply chain management and enterprise services architecture - as well as across industries.

"But we don't stop at delivering a precisely tailored solution. We also ensure, after implementation, that the customer not only gets the promised benefits from the solution but that he can use the solution, along with any new technology, to achieve continual improvement in all areas of his business.

"To guarantee that we achieve all of that all of the time, we've set out every step of our customer engagement process in a formal framework, known as the Customer Engagement Lifecycle (CEL). Every customer-facing person uses it to ensure that every customer approach is consistent and focused exclusively on ensuring customer value."

In particular, the CEL describes the process that ensures effective deployment of the company's resources through collaborative, integrated, empowered teams. It also sets out a common route for both SAP and customers to follow to achieve customer value.

There are four phases to the CEL: discovery, evaluation, implementation and operations. The discovery phase entails making customers planning changes to their business systems aware of the ways in which SAP can help them do that best.

"This is where our 30-year knowledge of business in general and industry sectors in particular can help customers not just optimise their systems and processes but create significant market differentiators," Carpenter says.

During the evaluation phase, SAP works closely with customers to ensure the proposed solution design will not only integrate with and enhance their existing business and technology landscape, but that the identified value is achievable.

Then, SAP creates and implements a detailed design of the specific solution requirements and recommends services tailored to deliver added value to the customer's business. SAP implements the solution with the customer - using proven SAP tools and methods to increase the efficiency of the implementation as well as minimise risk and total cost of ownership.

Once operations begin, SAP helps the customer stabilise his operations and realise the expected business benefits. To yield additional value for the customer, SAP then refines, modifies, or expands the solutions.