Customer Success Guide

Now, more than ever, customer relationship management (CRM) is a critical component of any successful business operation. A key goal of CRM is to create a truly customer-centric approach –one that empowers the enterprise and its ecosystem to orchestrate all employees, partners, and resources so that they focus on delivering visibility and value around customers. Another goal is to enable a dynamic enterprise to seamlessly and quickly perceive, adapt, and respond – before its competitors – to changing market conditions, customer needs, and opportunities. For an enterprise to be successful, it needs a CRM solution that delivers more than just efficiencies from the automation of transactions and interactions. The solution must also support every customer interaction intrinsic to a customer life cycle and intuitively provide employees with clear customer information relevant to role and responsibility. Integration into current systems is also key to leveraging existing IT investments and supporting collaborative processes across suppliers and partners.
The mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) solution provides today’s market-leading companies with everything they need to become customer-centric enterprises.
mySAP CRM provides comprehensive, easy-to-use core capabilities across the breadth of CRM, including marketing, sales, service, and channel management for Web, call center, and indirect channels – complemented by powerful analytics. mySAP CRM processes are not limited to just the front office. They also provide – out of the box – the seamless incorporation of tasks in supply chain, financials, and human resources – across departmental boundaries and to your customers and partners. In addition, mySAP CRM end-to-end processes are defined by industry.
More than 25 different SAP industry business units consolidate and prioritize requirements, leveraging years of experience with the largest customer base in the software industry. And with the SAP NetWeaver® platform, mySAP CRM provides a flexible foundation that enables multiple deployment options, adaptability, and fast time to value. When you put mySAP CRM to work for you, your enterprise can determine, at a glance, which of your customers are most profitable.
You can measure and monitor the lifetime value of your customers and deliver levels of service appropriate to each. You can leverage market insights and drive innovation within your product and service functions while increasing your manufacturing efficiencies. Quite simply, you can employ smart solutions that leverage existing investments and extend the capacity for clear customer visibility throughout your organization.
SAP – as a trusted adviser – offers mySAP CRM as a long-term solution and backs it with a deep commitment to customer-focused processes, unparalleled industry expertise, and a 30-year track record of delivering compelling solutions to today’s business challenges. The stories in this book demonstrate the real value of mySAP CRM to businesses of every type and size around the world.
I am sure you will be inspired, as we have been, by the insight and ingenuity of our customers.
We invite you to learn about mySAP CRM from the people who are benefiting from it – our customers.
Sincerely,
Shai Agassi
Member of the Executive Board, SAP AG

“mySAP CRM brings our people together,
making it easier for them to communicate,
exchange experiences, share best practices,
and work efficiently . . .”
Jens Wieland, Program Manager, Customer Solution Center, Volkswagen AG

VOLKSWAGEN
Putting the Customer in the Front Seat:
Volkswagen Drives Customer Satisfaction with
mySAP™ CRM
 

Manufacturing and marketing cars used to be relatively straightforward:
in a manufacturer-driven market, consumers were content to buy what was being produced. But times have changed. Intense, global competition and increased market transparency have given buyers more choices and more leverage. In this consumer-driven market, manufacturers must make every conceivable effort to please their customers, take their wishes and concerns seriously, anticipate market trends and respond swiftly. That’s why Wolfsburg, Germany–based Volkswagen AG (Volkswagen), part of Volkswagen Group, decided to implement the mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) solution.
 

Car buyers have fundamentally changed the way they interact with the motor industry. Manufacturers have experienced a dramatic increase of inbound contacts from customers who wish to communicate directly, rather than through a dealership. They inquire about financing options, service matters, and vehicle information, and they voice complaints. The popularization
of the Internet as a convenient information and communication platform has contributed to this intensified direct dialog. In response, the car industry needs to have efficient systems for supporting customer dialogue and ensuring customer satisfaction.

A New Engine for Customer Service and Marketing
Volkswagen is Europe’s largest car manufacturer with 9.1% of the world’s passenger car market. It responded to these challenges early by expanding its customer-facing activities and adopting a variety of CRM initiatives, including a mix of stand-alone software applications and paper-based processes. But as market competition intensified, these measures fell short of meeting the company’s and customers’ requirements.

Data and processes for sales, complaints management, campaign
management, after-sales service, and lead management were not
synchronized, and each revealed only a partial view of a customer’s
dealings with Volkswagen. It was impossible to obtain a comprehensive
and consistent view of each customer or obtain information to support multichannel communications, which have become increasingly important in reaching customers.

To engage in a more effective dialog, Volkswagen needed software
capable of delivering an integrated, holistic view of current and
prospective customers. This was essential if the company was to
meet its goals of delivering best-in-class customer service,
improving rates of customer acquisition, and boosting loyalty. In
specific areas, Volkswagen required functionality for processing
customer inquiries, an open architecture for integrating external
data, and a strategic marketing tool to help win and retain
customers.
Volkswagen had a vision that all this could be achieved with one
integrated suite of applications extending across departments to
facilitate the sharing of knowledge and encourage collaboration.

On the Road to Meeting the Customer
A key consideration was to implement software applications that
would not require the development and support of interfaces
between components. Following a review of potential solutions,
it became clear that SAP was the vendor best able to provide software
with the depth of integration that Volkswagen wanted.

Several Volkswagen departments were already running mySAP
Business Suite solutions, which offered an excellent platform for
expansion.

Volkswagen and its sister brand, Audi, decided to collaborate on
the CRM project. They completed a successful pilot implementation
of SAP® interaction center software that led to the subsequent
decision to implement mySAP CRM enterprise-wide.

mySAP CRM provides full visibility of customer and vehicle
information and extensive features to link external data sources.
Volkswagen perceived a high degree of investment protection in
acquiring solutions from SAP. It recognized that, as the market
leader, SAP is quick to adopt and deploy new technology for the
benefit of clients.

Volkswagen worked in close partnership with SAP and its implementation
partner, syskoplan AG, to build a CRM solution that
has become a blueprint for the entire Volkswagen Group.

A legacy complaints management system was replaced with
software in mySAP CRM. Jens Wieland, program manager at
Volkswagen’s customer solution center, describes the process:
“Our strategy was to begin with the VIP customer and luxury
vehicle segments, then extend each component across the volume
car market. This approach proved very successful.” syskoplan
integrated the carmaker’s vehicle-ordering database and
customer Web site with mySAP CRM. These data sources were
crucial in facilitating an informed and rewarding dialog with
customers.

“Quality customer service means the
many parts of Volkswagen need to
collaborate and share information
through an integrated application
architecture. mySAP CRM fits neatly
into that concept.”
Jens Wieland, Program Manager, Customer Solution Center,
Volkswagen AG

Volkswagen also implemented the SAP NetWeaver® Business
Intelligence component to create a data warehouse to support
integrated reporting and analytics. Volkswagen is now exploring
new ways to use mySAP CRM to build closer, more profitable
customer relationships.

Personalizing Customer Care
To Wieland, the greatest value of mySAP CRM lies in its ability to
deliver an integrated, consistent, and holistic view of each
customer throughout the enterprise. Customer service agents
can quickly and easily see which products a caller has purchased
in the past and view all of the customer’s interactions with
Volkswagen, regardless of when and where contact was made
and which communication channel was used. “This comprehensive
insight into our business relationship highlights the value
of each customer to Volkswagen. We can quickly assess the best
approach to take with each caller,” explains Wieland.

mySAP CRM answers key questions such as: How much potential
does this customer have? Should this person be included in a
loyalty program? mySAP CRM identifies family and personal
links between customers, allowing Volkswagen to tailor its
marketing efforts more effectively. All this is essential for the
high-quality, personalized care the company seeks to provide to
each customer.

The integration of Volkswagen’s vehicle database with mySAP
CRM adds a further dimension to the quality of information
available about each customer. When a new customer places an
order, the customer details, vehicle purchased, and dealer are
automatically replicated in mySAP CRM. That information is
then available at every customer contact point. The customer
order can be tracked and customers can be grouped for marketing
purposes by using flexible segmentation options within
mySAP CRM.

Lead-management functionality within mySAP CRM integrates
with the Volkswagen’s dealer management system. When a
customer expresses interest in a product through the Internet,
a phone call, or mail, and that interest can be addressed by a
dealer, the request is entered into mySAP CRM and evaluated by
the customer services team. Qualified leads are forwarded to the
respective dealer’s system. “mySAP CRM tracks inquiries and
applies escalation procedures to ensure that each lead is processed
efficiently,” Wieland explains. “It acts as a quality assurance
system that ensures the customer receives the highest quality of
service and response through our dealer channels.”

By automating processes across functions, mySAP CRM has
allowed Volkswagen to extend the concept of personalized
customer care into the volume market. “This is a critical achievement,”
says Wieland. “It helps us maximize customer lifetime
value by meeting customer expectations, being more attentive
to concerns, and reacting to issues promptly.” His implementation
team has already identified plans to extract further value
from mySAP CRM. “We are using mySAP CRM to enrich the
dialog with customers making inbound communication with
Volkswagen. It is only a small step to use the same integrated
information systems for proactive customer care activities. We
will be taking that step in the very near future.”

“The company is gaining huge value
from having full visibility of each client.
We plan to extend our use of SAP software
and see enormous potential in
standardizing on this integrated solution
to replace legacy applications and complex
interfaces and profit from synergies
in different areas of the business.”
Jens Wieland, Program Manager, Customer Solution Center,
Volkswagen AG
 

Many Ways of Listening to the Customer
“There are many ways for us to listen to the voice of the customer,”
Wieland continues. “Our mySAP CRM complaints management
system is a most valuable source of customer feedback. We don’t
sell directly to end customers, so contact points are few. That is
why the complaints management system is so important to us.
We take what we hear very seriously.”
 

Using SAP interaction center software, customer service agents
capture requests for information; positive feedback; and many
comments, ideas, and suggestions for improvements. Each call is
routed quickly and efficiently to the most qualified customer
service representative. The topics addressed are matched according
to a detailed tree structure, allowing Volkswagen to evaluate
feedback by vehicle model or other relevant criteria. Standard or
customized reports and flexible analytics functionality within
mySAP CRM help pin down root causes of issues and the results
are forwarded to the relevant departments. Opportunities for
improvement in vehicle design or service quality quickly become
evident, and improvements can be monitored for effectiveness.
“Using mySAP CRM as an additional early warning system for
technical, dealer-specific, and other issues, the complaints
management system, as an accompanying measure, supports
Volkswagen’s quality assurance efforts and enables timely intervention.
It has become a strategic tool for improving customer
satisfaction,” says Wieland.

Turning Information into Knowledge
When a call comes into Volkswagen’s customer care center,
mySAP CRM immediately presents the agent with a comprehensive
profile of the customer. Extracting data from multiple sources,
intelligent analytics software within mySAP CRM consolidates
information for on-screen presentation and evaluation. “mySAP
CRM helps the agent quickly understand the customer, respond
knowledgeably to the call, and is a potential source to identify
up-selling or cross-selling opportunities,” Wieland continues.
“mySAP CRM gives us intelligence for positively influencing
customer satisfaction and retention. It reveals market trends
which can be used for proactive campaign planning and satisfies
information needs at all levels of decision making.”

Volkswagen’s internal operations also benefit from the new
CRM solution. mySAP CRM reports help management assess
the effectiveness of its customer services, answering questions
such as: How long does it take to respond to a customer inquiry?
How many inquiries are open at any given moment? Which
teams are most effective? This information helps the carmaker
define strategic targets in customer service management and
measure performance to verify that they have been met. “We
have barely begun to explore the full potential of mySAP CRM
to improve selling effectiveness,” says Wieland.

Bringing People Together
mySAP CRM has been a catalyst for improved collaboration
across departments. “All departments that access the CRM
solution share the same information and are encouraged to
collaborate,” says Wieland. “mySAP CRM brings our people
together, making it easier for them to communicate, exchange
experiences, share best practices, and work efficiently for the
benefit of Volkswagen and our customers.”

The benefits derived from mySAP CRM by Volkswagen and Audi
have been received enthusiastically by management across the
group. “The company is gaining huge value from having full visibility
of each client. We plan to extend our use of SAP software
and see enormous potential in standardizing on this integrated
solution to replace legacy applications and complex interfaces
and profit from synergies in different areas of the business,”
Wieland concludes.

Simplification, higher data quality, exchange of business information,
transparent licensing, and greatly improved customer
care are strong arguments supporting this agenda. “Quality
customer service means the many parts of Volkswagen need to
collaborate and share information through an integrated
application architecture,” Wieland concludes. “mySAP CRM fits
neatly into that concept.”
 

With the aim of creating a uniform system to improve customer satisfaction, the Volkswagen Group decided to implement mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management (mySAP™ CRM) across its enterprise.
This decision followed the successful completion of two pilot projects in 2001: a new service center supporting the launch of the new luxury car VW Phaeton and a new call center at Audi – both based on mySAP CRM. The Volkswagen call center followed on September 28, 2002.

VOLKSWAGEN GROUP
THE VOLKSWAGEN GROUP IMPLEMENTS
mySAP™ CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
TO LAUNCH CALL AND SERVICE CENTERS
 

Today, customers no longer interact solely with dealers when
purchasing a new car, exploring financing options, or submitting
a customer service inquiry. Increasingly, customers are
contacting auto manufacturers directly, which is why Audi and
Volkswagen decided to set up call centers. For the launch of the
new Phaeton, the Volkswagen Group also established a service
center specially designed to handle the inquiries of this target
group. In addition, since the fall of 2001, mySAP™ Customer
Relationship Management (mySAP™ CRM) has been supporting
its customer retention project at the VW all-glass assembly
plant called “Transparent Factory” in Dresden.

AROUND THE CLOCK SERVICE FOR 300,000 AUDI CUSTOMERS
By the end of April 2002, the VW Group had another SAPsupported
CRM project up and running: the new Audi call
center. Based in Cologne and Ingolstadt, Germany, some
200 customer care agents serve 300,000 customer and prospect
contacts around the clock. Their new desktops incorporate
computer telephony integration (CTI) components, and all
contact channels – telephone, fax, e-mail, and traditional letter
– can be managed via mySAP CRM. Written customer documents
are scanned, processed electronically, and then stored.
To make this possible, Audi integrated existing systems such as
document management into the solution. “Regardless of how
a customer reaches us, our internal processes run completely
electronically,” says Christoph Wargitsch, head of CRM and
New Media at Audi.

ACCESS TO VARIOUS DATABASES
Along with an automatic routing system, mySAP CRM integrates
an escalation management tool. As a result, customer
inquiries can be quickly and efficiently channeled to the
appropriate person, which translates into greater customer
satisfaction. To give employees as complete a picture as possible
of both customer and car, the end-to-end solution interfaces
with an array of databases. This means that users can display
a range of information on their desktops, including technical
details, interior equipment data for each car, and dealer master
data. “Our initial objective was to integrate and optimize
reactive processes for incoming inquiries and complaints
management,” says Wargitsch. Active processes, such as direct
marketing and dealer integration, will follow soon. Audi also
plans to implement the analytical functionality of mySAP CRM
to optimize its marketing activities, based on the data collected
in mySAP™ Business Intelligence (mySAP™ BI).

A UNIFORM, EASILY INTEGRATED SOLUTION
With the Phaeton VW/Audi project, the Volkswagen Group
has taken its first steps toward the successful implementation
of mySAP CRM across the enterprise. The overall strategy
envisions a uniform solution for the automakers, which are
implementing the CRM solution gradually, making constant
improvements along the way. The VW Group has already
started rolling out the solution at other subsidiaries, with Audi
Italy currently using mySAP CRM integrated campaign
management capabilities. One of the next phases includes the
implementation of mySAP CRM at VW Financial Services.

“From the beginning, we wanted to select a CRM solution that
would easily integrate with our existing systems,” says Gerhard
Nägele, project leader for the VW Group. “Volkswagen, Audi,
and the VW Bank had already implemented SAP components.
Naturally, this influenced our decision to select mySAP CRM.”
The openness of the SAP platform was key to the success of the
VW and Audi projects, as it enabled different brands within the
group to employ a uniform CRM solution to their advantage.
Further benefits included the sharing of costs and the opportunity
for one company to profit from the experience of another.

“Regardless of how a customer
reaches us, our internal processes
run completely electronically.”
Christoph Wargitsch, head of CRM and New Media at Audi
 

HERO HONDA
MOTORS LTD.
mySAP™ SRM AND mySAP CRM HELP A LEADING
MOTORCLYCLE MAKER TO STREAMLINE ITS TRANSACTIONS
WITH SUPPLIERS AND DEALERS
Founded in 1984, Hero Honda Motors Ltd. is India’s largest motorcycle
manufacturer, commanding a 48% share of the national
market. The company serves over 10 million customers, and
has a network of 350 component suppliers and over 1100 dealers,
stockists, and sales and service points. With a total workforce of
around 5,000, Hero Honda posted net sales in excess of 60 billion
Indian rupees (approximately US$1.3 billion) in 2003–2004.

In India’s highly competitive motorcycle manufacturing sector,
streamlined operations and effective business relations are essential.
To improve information exchange with its many partners,
Hero Honda decided to introduce leading-edge supplier and
customer relationship management capabilities. “We wanted to
enable our dealers and suppliers to perform online transactions,”
explains S.R. Balasubramanian (Bala), vice president of information
systems at Hero Honda, “and this was something that our
legacy solution could not support.”

Hero Honda opted for the powerful self-service features of
mySAP™ Supplier Relationship Management (mySAP SRM),
plus the e-commerce capabilities of mySAP Customer Relationship
Management (mySAP CRM). “We chose SAP over the competition
because the software could be seamlessly integrated into
our existing environment,” states Bala, “and because we saw it as
a sound investment for the future.”

SAP® CONSULTING: COMMITTED TO SUCCESS
As Hero Honda was introducing the very latest mySAP SRM and
mySAP CRM releases, SAP® Consulting was called in to provide
consulting support. “We couldn’t have done it alone,” says Bala.
“SAP’s consultants were simply the best people for the job. They
not only knew the new products inside out – they were also fully
committed to implementing them successfully.”

SAP Consulting is part of SAP Customer Services Network,
the single point of access to comprehensive services from SAP,
including consulting, education, support, custom development,
and hosting.

The SAP consultants on-site in India provided expert project
management services, coordinating resources and taking action
to avoid delays. To ensure a rapid, low-risk implementation,
SAP Consulting deployed the proven ASAP methodology. In
addition, the SAP consultants delivered targeted training for
Hero Honda’s implementation team, advised on best practices,
and configured and tested the new system.

RECORD-BREAKING IMPLEMENTATION TIME
Hero Honda also profited from services delivered remotely
by SAP consultants in Singapore and software developers in
Walldorf, Germany. This international approach ensured that
any issues were dealt with rapidly and effectively. “We were
really impressed by the speed with which technical issues were
resolved,” says Bala. “In some cases, SAP’s German developers
found answers overnight.”

Thanks to close collaboration between SAP and Hero Honda, the
project was completed in a record three months. “Implementing
the latest mySAP SRM and mySAP CRM capabilities in such a
tight time frame was an ambitious goal,” he says. “With the help
of SAP Consulting, we completed our project successfully and
on schedule.”

GREATER RESPONSIVENESS, FEWER ERRORS
Following go-live in June 2004, Hero Honda immediately saw
marked improvements. “On-line interaction has enhanced our
order execution efficiency thereby improving our responsiveness,”
explains Bala. “Our old sales orders process was very time-consuming.
Now dealers enter orders directly into the system. This
accelerates deliveries – preventing loss of business due to delays.”

Hero Honda has also streamlined its transactions with suppliers,
making for better inventory planning and reduced inventory carrying
costs. Improved information exchange guarantees that
the right goods are delivered at the right time. The company
has also significantly reduced error-prone, manual data entry.
Suppliers now create advanced shipping notifications in the
system, and when the shipment reaches Hero Honda, the company’s
employees simply have to confirm receipt.

AMBITIOUS PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
Building on the success of the project, Hero Honda is now
planning a range of new SAP initiatives. These include adding
additional mySAP SRM and mySAP CRM functionality, implementing
the SAP Strategic Enterprise Management application
of mySAP ERP Financials and integrating it with SAP Business
Information Warehouse (SAP BW), and rolling out SAP Enterprise
Portal (SAP EP) to all users. The SAP BW component is provided
in SAP Business Intelligence (SAP BI). SAP BI and SAP EP are
components of the SAP NetWeaver™ platform.

“Our new SAP solutions have enhanced our competitive edge.
We are confident that we’re on the right track for continued
success,” concludes Bala.

“Thanks to rapid response times and a clear and userfriendly
interface, our Web shop has been a complete
success. The application incorporates up- and crossselling
activities, and users have all product information
right at their fingertips. As a result, customers
often order several items at once.”
Christina Püschl, Team Leader for Sales Administration, Global Key Accounts,
GRAMMER AG

GRAMMER
mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management Solution
Enables GRAMMER to Process Orders in a Matter of
Minutes
To consolidate its position as a world leader Grammar AG employs
more than 8,000 people and is in the seating business for trucks
and off-road vehicles as well as produces interior components
for passenger vehicles. To consolidate its position as a world
leader, GRAMMER launched a comprehensive project to improve
supply chain management (SCM). Despite having an international
corporate structure and ultramodern IT systems, the
Amberg, Germany–based company was still processing a vast
portion of its purchase orders manually. As a result, it took several
days to create and process a sales order. During the SCM project,
GRAMMER realized that it had to make additional enhancements
to the IT landscape so it could continue to meet the needs
of its customers, representatives, and subsidiaries. To address this
issue, the company decided to set up a Web shop. As GRAMMER
had been using SAP® software for enterprise resource planning
(ERP) since 1998, it made perfect sense for the company to
establish this additional distribution channel using the mySAP™
Customer Relationship Management solution from SAP.

From Small Manufacturer to International Enterprise
Starting out as a manufacturer of leather seat cushions for tractors,
it took GRAMMER just 50 years to transform into an international
enterprise and go public. Today, its customers include
DaimlerChrysler, MAN, BMW, and the VW Group. With a global
staff working in 20 subsidiaries throughout 13 countries, the
group generated revenues of €824.6 million in 2004 alone.

Securing the Future with SAP Software
When GRAMMER decided to set up a Web shop, it identified
two objectives: develop a standard Internet-based shop for
GRAMMER’s subsidiaries and representatives, and create a
special solution for the aftermarket sector. Another key goal was
to use the new system to process at least one-third of the 16,000
or so individual purchase orders. GRAMMER kicked off its pilot
project in the company’s UK–based subsidiary. Thomas Ebert
from the SAP Customer Competence Center at GRAMMER
explains the reasoning behind this approach: “Think big, start
small. This has emerged as our strategy in recent years. We now
start all new projects with a pilot phase to ensure user acceptance
and that the project scope is manageable. In this case, it allowed
us to strategically position our Web shop, customize the system
gradually, and glean important information for the future.”

GRAMMER was able to take advantage of SAP expertise at the
SAP Customer Competence Center at GRAMMER’s headquarters
in Amberg, Germany. “All project members were actively involved
in each step of developing the Web shop. This means that we
now have an internal specialist with knowledge of the structure,
basic settings, and role-based authorizations for each SAP
component,” states Ebert.

“All project members were actively
involved in each step of developing the
Web shop. This means that we now
have an internal specialist with
knowledge of the structure, basic
settings, and role-based authorizations
for each SAP component.”
Thomas Ebert, SAP Customer Competence Center, GRAMMER AG

Winning Over Staff and Customers
Following the initial installation and download and setup of
basic data – including master data, catalogs, and other information
– the implementation team created a Web shop prototype
in September. The GRAMMER Web shop for the United Kingdom
went live at the start of December and was greeted with enthusiasm.
“Thanks to rapid response times and a clear and userfriendly
interface, our Web shop has been a complete success.
The application incorporates up- and cross-selling activities, and
users have all product information right at their fingertips. As
a result, customers often order several items at once,” explains
Christina Püschl, team leader for sales administration, global key
accounts, GRAMMER. Customers can use customized views to
search for products in tailor-made catalogs – while GRAMMER
benefits from optimized information channels, reducing the
number of business transactions and boosting sales.

The Web shop is linked with the company’s SAP NetWeaver®
Business Intelligence component and back-end SAP R/3® software
system by uniform interfaces, allowing GRAMMER to bundle
master data from mySAP Customer Relationship Management
and transfer it to the ERP system. This in turn enables the
company to pinpoint vital information regarding customer
behavior, which is another key benefit of the implementation.

An Outstanding Success
Püschl is pleased with the results: “We have significantly optimized
our supply chain. Processing orders using the Web shop increases
the reaction time for production, and allows us to react more
flexibly to orders.”

The pilot project in the United Kingdom has been an outstanding
success. As a result, GRAMMER plans to link more GRAMMER
subsidiaries to the system, with implementation scheduled for
the first half of 2005. In Germany, the company plans to launch
the new solution at selected dealers and wants to fully connect
all aftermarket customers from the middle of 2005 onward. Once
the implementation has been completed, GRAMMER customers
will be able to make their purchases with just a few simple clicks
of a mouse. And thanks to the new Web shop and streamlined
order processing at GRAMMER, customers can remain confident
that their goods will arrive on their doorstep just a few days after
ordering.

ESA, a popular supplier of products for the Swiss motor-vehicle industry,
wanted to ensure its competitive edge – well into the future. It chose
mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) to help it
sharpen customer focus.
Today, the solution enables the company to provide its sales team with up-to-date, detailed customer information, and ensures a seamless flow of information between in-house staff and the mobile-sales force.

SAP Customer Success Story
ESA
PAVING THE WAY FOR SYSTEMATIC MANAGEMENT OF
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS
“CRM: The Key to Success” – in fiscal 2003 this was the slogan
of ESA, a top-ranking company that supplies a diverse range of
products to Switzerland’s motor-vehicle industry. In fact, ESA
already possessed the ingredients for lasting success; its broad
product range, expert consultants, high-quality services, and
long-lasting commitment to its customers have all helped the
company maintain its position as market leader for some years.
To build on this achievement, ESA decided to implement
mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM),
the systematic CRM system that helps companies improve
operational efficiencies and sharpen customer focus.

THIRTY THOUSAND ITEMS – JUST IN TIME
Tires, batteries, and equipment – car washes and complete
garage installations: These are just some of the consumer
and equipment goods that make ESA the top choice throughout
Switzerland. Garages, automotive repair shops, car dealers
and rental firms, auto importers, and companies that provide
transport vehicles all take advantage of some 30,000 items
available through the company’s central-purchasing organization.
Around 400 employees in six branches ensure that more
than 7,000 partners and several thousand other customers
receive their deliveries “just in time.” With a range of services
to complement its product offerings, ESA posts annual
revenues of CHF 250 million (almost $196 million).

MORE THAN JUST SELLING PRODUCTS
ESA sees itself as a solution provider rather than just a seller
of products. “The needs of our customers are at the center of
everything we do,” explains Peter Blanc, ESA sales manager. This
means the company’s consultants and sales team must be able
to access up-to-date and detailed information on customers,
products, and markets – from anywhere, at anytime, all at the
click of a button.

Along these lines, the company realized it needed to improve
recognition of potential customers, as well as enhance its ability
to target up-selling and cross-selling opportunities. It also wanted
to utilize its resources more effectively to focus on profitable
customers and markets. Improving operational efficiencies also
factored into the equation. Further priorities included standardizing
processes to boost efficiency of the sales team, and improving
communications between office-based and field-sales
employees through uninterrupted information flows. IMG
Consulting Services determined that to accomplish this, ESA
needed “a methodical approach to CRM.”

AN IMPORTANT CRITERION: CUSTOMER VALUE
Within six months, ESA and IMG had devised a plan – and
chose mySAP Customer Relationship Management by virtue
of its seamless integration into ESA’s existing SAP® R/3® back-end
infrastructure, and the reliability of SAP as a partner equipped to
meet the needs of the future.

“mySAP CRM delivers the tools we need to enhance our customer
relationships and manage our field-sales staff according
to customer value,” says Blanc. Plus, by enhancing productivity,
mySAP CRM allows staff members to invest more time in
developing customers. And the improved quality of information
means that customers receive more personalized service –
something that Blanc considers crucial to ESA’s CRM strategy.
“Without forward-looking CRM tools, we would be at the
mercy of price pressures,” he says.

“mySAP CRM delivers the tools we
need to enhance our customer relationships
and manage our field-sales staff
according to customer value.”
Peter Blanc, Sales Manager, ESA

The first step of the implementation involved “turning employees
into participants at an early stage” to ensure rapid
acceptance among staff, says Blanc. The tactic proved successful.

INTEGRATED CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Today, when the 50-plus field-sales employees at ESA prepare
for customer visits, they can simply fire up their laptops to
access all the necessary information and tools they need –
whether it’s customer segmentation and classification,
overviews of customer histories and hierarchies, or activity/
opportunity management.

But this isn’t the end of the story. The company also wants to
implement the mySAP CRM marketing and campaign management
capabilities, along with a customer interaction
center for receiving orders and managing telesales. To ESA, these
plans all emphasize the importance of carefully and systematically
nurturing customer relationships.

BENEFITS
The benefits that ESA received from implementing mySAP CRM
include:
• Systematic sales management through segmentation and
focus on profitable customers
• Improved cross-selling and up-selling with comprehensive,
up-to-the-minute customer information
• Qualified customer visits and sales pitches, thanks to
optimized planning and support
• Professional consulting based on the very latest information,
resulting in increased customer loyalty
• Avoidance of customer churn by improved ability to react
quickly to new findings
• Standardized processes to help boost efficiency in the sales
department
 

“Everyone promised a close fit, but SAP was
the only vendor that could guarantee an exact fit.
Because this was such a significant project for
us, we wanted to be sure CRM would be
supported for the foreseeable future.”
Ron Moses, Project Manager, Customer Relationship Management, Arctic Cat Inc.

ARCTIC CAT
mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management
Drives Arctic Cat Support Center for Dealers
When you’re in the “business of fun,” you know something’s
wrong when customers complain that your customer support is
less than enjoyable.

“We knew we had a problem,” says Ron Moses, project manager
for customer relationship management (CRM) at Arctic Cat Inc.
in Thief River Falls, Minn., which makes and sells snowmobiles
and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) under the Arctic Cat brand
name. “Mediocre customer service was translating into a feeling
that, on a business-to-business level, we were not particularly
fun to work with.”

Arctic Cat deployed the mySAP™ CRM solution to create a
state-of-the-art call center that would help the company
optimize customer service for its global network of independent
dealers and distributors.

Internal Woes Cause Customer Problems
Arctic Cat, which competes for consumers’ entertainment
dollars, recently faced some problems that were creating
dissatisfaction among its 1,000-plus dealers and distributors.
Disconnected and outdated departmental call centers,
inefficient and untimely customer response efforts, and
ineffective call-routing operations caused long wait times for
customer service. Impersonal and untimely service delivery,
multiple call transfers, and a first-contact response rate of
less than 40% did not help matters either.

“This was the state of our customer service, and something
needed to be done,” says Moses, whose US$689.1 million
company designs, engineers, manufactures, and markets a full
line of snowmobiles, ATVs, and related parts, garments, and
accessories. An extensive network of independent dealers and
distributors market Arctic Cat products globally. Some 1,500
Arctic Cat employees work from four North American locations,
including the company’s headquarters in Thief River Falls, Minn.

Arctic Cat met its challenges with a management-driven
business plan – focusing on CRM and communications management
technologies that would leverage the firm’s existing, backend
enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and telephone
services platform. The company consolidated its disparate call
groups into one customer service unit located in a newly built
50-seat contact center. Arctic Cat also retrained staff in crossfunctional
skills necessary for delivering extended call center
services to dealers.

In addition, the company reorganized its support staff into
regional customer assistance teams (CATs). “Each CAT’s goal,”
says Moses, “is to engender customer trust, while maximizing
service delivery.”

Integration with Existing SAP® Software Is Critical
Arctic Cat had several requirements for its CRM solution. The
software had to integrate fully with the company’s existing
SAP-based ERP system and third-party telephone-services
environments, be easy to scale and upgrade, and enable
customer service agents to manage incoming and follow-up
calls easily and effectively.

Arctic Cat also wanted software that would enable its agents to
respond immediately to incoming customer calls and quickly
bring up customer information at the simple click of a mouse.
Also important: trouble-free access to product and process data
and support for a long-term strategy of customer self-service
options.

In addition, Arctic Cat needed to deploy the system within
six months.

Other vendors made promises, but they could not fully meet
Arctic Cat’s requirements. For one thing, their products could
not guarantee back-end integration with the SAP® software
for ERP.

“Everyone promised a close fit, but SAP was the only vendor
that could guarantee an exact fit,” says Moses. “Because this was
such a significant project for us, we wanted to be sure CRM
would be supported for the foreseeable future.”

Arctic Cat enlisted the help of Genesys Telecommunications
for coordinating its existing phone system with the SAP software.
“Other companies volunteered to create the integration for
us,” says Moses, "but it would have been that we were being
guinea pigs for those projects.”

Arctic Cat used the Genesys Express software as its communications
management platform and launched the call center
system within 90 days. The company kicked off the mySAP CRM
implementation in January and went live with the solution
six months later.

In addition to the mySAP CRM interaction center, Arctic Cat
used the Genesys Gplus Adapter to link the SAP and Genesys
solutions – and the SAP NetWeaver® Portal component to enable
Internet-based portal technology and expedite delivery of
customer services.

Here’s how it works: When customers call in, the Genesys
Express software collects customer account and service information
via keypad response and routes the calls to the appropriate
agents’ telephones. The Genesys Gplus Adapter then feeds the
call information to agents’ interaction center screens. The
agents can also bring up detailed and customized views of data
via the portal component. This includes information – such as
product configuration or customer history – residing in Arctic
Cat’s mySAP CRM or back-end software system.

Some 38 agents currently use mySAP CRM at Arctic Cat
headquarters, to support dealers in 34 countries.
After first targeting internal changes, Arctic Cat began extending
self-service options to dealers. “We ramped up gradually over
six months, and by 2005 we had all our dealers using the SAP
solution,” says Moses.

The CRM project manager says that the company will continue
expanding customer service offerings.

Business Is Now More Efficient and “Fun”
With the help of mySAP CRM, Arctic Cat has realized substantial
tangible advantages and has dramatically changed the way the
company does business with its dealers and distributors. Customer
satisfaction levels have soared, as Arctic Cat has achieved
first-call resolution rates of 95% and abandonment rates of
less than 1% – compared with its previous levels of 36% and 32%,
respectively.

“More customers are getting better customer service in less
time,” Moses observes.

In addition, the company has attained a 10% to 15% gain in
contact center efficiency. Now, agents are able to handle far
more calls. In fact, collectively, they are able to respond to more
than 800 inquiries per day. On one particular day, that amount
totaled around 2,000. Internal job satisfaction is up as well, since
call center agents can now respond to queries that previously
had to be handled by departmental specialists.

Moses says that Arctic Cat achieved a full return on its
investment within 15 months. In addition to increasing firstcontact
resolution, the company managed to reduce transactional
costs. And by streamlining call center operations,
the company was able to invest more resources into revenuegenerating
positions – such as sales. “We can essentially do
more with less,” comments Moses.

Despite such impressive results, Moses views the CRM solution
more as a long-term investment in his firm’s future. “This is
part of a strategy that will take us through the next 10 or 15
years,” he says. “The payback will be the improvements we make
to the company as we go forward.”

Customer satisfaction remains critical to Arctic Cat’s success.
“If we can provide better support to our dealers, they’ll do a
better job selling our product,” Moses says. “Making Arctic Cat
easier and more productive to do business with gives us an
advantage.”

Thanks to mySAP CRM, Moses believes Arctic Cat is once
again fun for dealers. “Recently,” says Moses, “dealers have told
me that, when it comes to dealer support, things are really
changing.”

Portal Technology Remains an Ongoing Project
Enhancing SAP portal technology remains an ongoing project
for Arctic Cat. While the primary focus has been on delivering
self-service capabilities to customers, Moses says that the
company is in the process of deploying portals throughout
the enterprise as well – to field sales representatives and sales
managers, for example.

“With SAP software, we can consolidate information into a
more unified, user-friendly view,” he says. “Plus, employees
clearly appreciate the simpler processes and data displays.”
SAP delivered everything Moses hoped it would – from the initial
deployment of SAP software for enterprise resource planning
and the installation of mySAP CRM to the software vendor’s
implementation assistance.

“SAP Consulting provided us with personnel who were
intimately familiar with our existing SAP setup and, more
importantly, with our business model. That was a huge benefit
to us,” says Moses. “Having consultants who already knew
how our business performed – and who had thorough
knowledge of our customers – paid off big time in helping us
make the right choices.”

With more than three decades of automotive experience, SAP provides solutions that help midsize companies gain transparency into their business processes.
By giving decision makers more control, SAP® software makes quick, well-informed choices possible. Only SAP offers comprehensive industry
solutions that support collaborative scenarios among suppliers, OEMs,
importers, and dealers.
In fact, over 1,000 midsize firms in the automotive industry have chosen SAP solutions as the platform to help grow their businesses.
 

AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
REVS INTO HIGH GEAR
When it comes to supplying businesses in the automotive
industry, whether you’re talking about large OEMs or smallparts
suppliers, midsize companies – businesses with less than
$1 billion in annual revenue – always face the seemingly nextto-
impossible task of supplying more, faster and for less. The
pressure on midsize businesses to accelerate business cycles is
intense and – not unlike a race car driver on a slippery course –
there is no room for error. Lacking the luxury of a vast pool of
personnel and financial resources, companies like yours must
maximize their internal business processes as well as pay close
attention to collaboration with technology partners and sales
channels. To stay competitive, you need to bring new products
to market faster than ever, while at the same time reducing
production costs, increasing quality, and managing customer
relationships.

ACCELERATING NEW PRODUCTS TO MARKET
Ramping up product cycles is no easy feat, especially when
such vital factors as safety and reliability are at stake. In order
to compress these cycles without sacrificing quality, companies
like yours need to participate in collaborative engineering and
prototype development. Identifying problems early and in a
collaborative environment ensures faster go to market, with
fewer last-minute glitches. As with every product evolution,
there are always engineering twists and turns along the way,
so being able to handle changes quickly and efficiently is critical.
Midsize companies positioning themselves for growth need to
handle accelerated time to market without wasting valuable
manufacturing resources.

REDUCING PRODUCTION COSTS
Today, customer pressure to reduce costs is unrelenting.
Managing purchasing, inventory, manufacturing, and even
accounting cost-effectively is a daunting responsibility, especially
when some processes are automated while others rely on
manual intervention. For midsize companies, the challenge is
to bridge the gap between lean manufacturing procedures and
traditional production line information gathering. Integrating
core processes such as shop floor production with customer
scheduling agreements and accounts billable can have a significant
impact on the bottom line. Not only do processes become
more efficient, but also managers gain clear visibility into the
entire chain of events. Armed with comprehensive information,
decision makers can accurately gauge production capacity as
well as cost-effectively manage “just-in-time” production,
inventory, and purchasing.

MANAGING QUALITY AND INSPECTION
Building a product is one thing, but building an excellent
product is another, and manufacturing is only one part of the
equation. Before shipping to customers, products need to pass
inspection for quality and safety. Optimizing quality control
means feeding information about imperfect materials or manufacturing
glitches back into engineering and production rapidly
and efficiently. For most midsize companies, having a comprehensive
electronic data interchange system that is more than
just “rip and read” is essential to keep costs under control as
well as to ensure repeat business.
Every company knows that staying in business for the long term
requires consistent and skillful management of customer relationships.
But midsize companies need innovative, cost-effective
ways to keep their hard-won customers. In the automotive
industry, companies earn and maintain those relationships
through their ability to handle customer-specific manufacturing
and requirement updates automatically. Effective “customercentric”
businesses handle ever-changing customer scheduling
agreements without disrupting production or incurring
additional costs. Translating real-time information into a highquality
product that was “just what the customer ordered” is
the best avenue for midsize companies to build their businesses,
one customer at a time.

REQUIREMENTS UNIQUE TO MIDSIZE COMPANIES
New regulations, supply chain contract demands, and evolving
technical standards haunt both large corporations and midsize
companies. In addition, organizations of all sizes are seeking to
streamline operations, enhance efficiencies, and reduce overall
costs. But for companies like yours, these efforts are particularly
difficult, because they are truly limited by time, budgets, and
IT resources. In fact, a high return on investment (ROI) is not
sufficient. You need a high ROI combined with a low total cost
of ownership. And because your success depends on being
nimble and quick, business disruption must be kept to a minimum
and without consuming large amounts of IT resources.

AVAILABLE OPTIONS
So let’s look at what the market offers to meet your special
requirements. There are indeed a number of solutions out there
that are either priced aggressively or that leverage an established
brand or technology or focus on a specific industry niche.
However, while some of these will meet the requirements today,
they will not scale as your firm grows. Others lack specific industry
expertise or support, not to mention long-term stability –
especially given today’s climate of economic uncertainty. And
there is an array of “best-of-breed” products combined with
“do-it-yourself” integration. The end result: poor support and
an enormous drain on time and IT resources. Not to mention
the ongoing maintenance required to keep them all up and
running. Since you have little margin for error, you cannot
really afford any type of resource drain. Your solution must be
right the first time out, and have enough flexibility to support
business growth for at least five years.

THE FIRST CHOICE: SAP
As the world’s leading supplier of business systems, SAP leverages
its 30 years of service and expertise to offer companies like
yours solutions that are designed to address the special needs
for growing an automotive business. SAP® solutions for midsize
businesses provide a high degree of industry-specific or even
micro-vertical functionality delivered in a cost-effective, turnkey
manner that is inherently scalable for growth. In fact, there
are more than 2,900 SAP installations in place worldwide in the
automotive industry. Following is a roundup of some of the ways
these solutions are helping to meet your industry’s unique
challenges.

Accelerated Product Delivery
SAP solutions for midsize businesses enable companies to accelerate
the time it takes to get new products to market – without
sacrificing quality or increasing costs. Using SAP solutions, midsize
companies can bridge the gap between lean manufacturing
procedures and traditional shop floor information gathering.
More importantly, SAP offerings encourage information sharing
and collaborative work flows, resulting in increased efficiencies
and on-time delivery with fewer errors. Midsize companies can
leverage the best-practices technology, industry expertise, and
partner channels offered by SAP to achieve shorter and more
direct times to market.

A Clear View of What’s Ahead
SAP technology is designed to offer a complete business view, in
real time. By using industry-specific benchmarks, SAP solutions
contain “built-in” business knowledge that enables continuous
business improvement. Best of all, companies using SAP solutions
can provide “loop-back” information feeds into critical
processes, such as manufacturing and quality assurance.
The end result is improved processes and higher product quality
with minimal consumption of valuable resources. For midsize
automotive companies faced with the necessity of reducing
production costs, SAP solutions provide managers with good
information on such critical issues as sales, inventories, cost of
goods sold (COGS), and profit margins – all in real time.

A Flexible, Open Framework
SAP solutions for midsize businesses integrate smoothly with
existing third-party applications and the entire value chain of
business partners, suppliers, and customers while at the same
time supporting a heterogeneous data environment. Through
this integration, SAP solutions empower employees by
delivering the access, the information, the applications, and
the services they need to be productive and effective in helping
the business to grow. For midsize companies looking to take
advantage of a worldwide market, SAP software provides the
support necessary to connect to strategic partners and build
symbiotic business relationships.

Excellent Management of Customer Interactions
When it comes to managing long-standing customers, SAP can
enable you to meet and surpass their expectations by helping
to optimize internal processes as well as leverage customer data
and exploit multiple sales channels. There is no greater advantage
than being able to provide customers with exactly what
they ordered precisely when they need it. SAP solutions contain
predefined functionality that allows employees to proficiently
manage complex operations in such areas as human resources,
financials, supply chain, and customer relationships. With fast,
cost-effective business processes, midsize companies can service
sales channels, customer requests, and agreements quickly and
with many fewer resources.

A SAFE AND AFFORDABLE ROAD TO GROWTH AND
SUCCESS
SAP’s extensive knowledge of business processes lies in its experience
gained from thousands of customers spanning more than
23 distinct industries and 280 micro-vertical partner solutions.
This integration of users, processes, and data within the organization
and beyond has created unparalleled efficiencies and
collaboration across the entire value chain. In addition, nearly
60% of all SAP installations are in organizations with annual
revenues of less than $500 million. With fixed-price, fixed-scope
implementations measured in weeks, automotive businesses are
benefiting from the security, innovation, and low total cost of
ownership supplied by SAP.
When it comes to midsize companies, SAP provides:
• Flexible and powerful technology combined with robust
scalability designed for investment protection
• Vendor stability that mitigates risk and offers a rich heritage
of world-class customer support
• The lowest total cost of ownership and rapid time to benefit
with minimum disruption to business activities
• An expansive, worldwide network of qualified SAP business
partners who are experts in the requirements of microvertical
industries and midsize companies
When you choose SAP, you benefit from three decades of deep
industry experience in helping companies improve their business
fundamentals. With SAP solutions, you do it once, do it right,
and then never have to do it again.

The automotive industry faces significant challenges caused by frequent disconnects in communication between manufacturers, dealers, and end
customers. The mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management solution helps increase revenues by enabling firms to manage communications across all sales and marketing channels, collaborate with dealers, interact with customers, and grow brand equity and customer loyalty. The integrated solution offers global insight, low implementation costs, and low total cost of ownership.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT IN THE
AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
How to Gain a Competitive Edge by Knowing Your
Customers and Transforming that Knowledge into
Successful Marketing Strategies for Future Growth
Faced with the increasingly complex and competitive environment
that characterizes the automotive industry – with challenges
ranging from tighter profit margins to new entrants in the new vehicle
and aftermarket service business – original equipment
manufacturers (OEMs) and dealers are turning more aggressively
to customer relationship management (CRM) to help attract
new customers, increase brand loyalty, reduce costs, increase
efficiency, and maintain a competitive advantage.

Today’s automotive consumers are increasingly well-informed
and have an unprecedented level of choice in the marketplace.
Customer loyalty is no longer a given and forward-looking automotive
companies have to work harder than ever to earn and
retain it. To respond to high customer expectations, companies
are finding they have to use both traditional and emerging channels
to deliver more effective, efficient, and profitable marketing,
sales, and customer service.

To truly get to know and understand their customers, automotive
companies are looking for ways to gather and analyze vital
data about their customers, their vehicles, and their transactions
with dealers. Only then can they effectively match their products
and service offers with the customers they want to target. So
companies need to be able to track customer behaviors and then
to link that information to not only the production scheduling
process – to build the right products now – but also to the product
development cycle – to bring new products to market faster.
And because OEMs and dealers now often need to collaborate
closely, they need to be able to share information with greater
visibility in real time.

Acting on these imperatives is hampered by the reality that
heterogeneous systems preclude a single view of the customer
or vehicle, resulting in a poor understanding of customer preferences,
higher costs, decreased responsiveness, and eroding brand
equity. A single, integrated solution can help connect disparate
sources of relevant data and lead to a better understanding of
the automotive customer and to improved implementation and
execution of the processes involved in serving that customer.

The SAP for Automotive solution portfolio can help. With the
mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM)
solution – part of SAP for Automotive – companies like yours
can integrate both SAP® and non-SAP solutions to improve relationships
with customers and dealers, enhance communication,
and increase profitability. In addition, the SAP solutions can help
global companies understand and adapt to shifting demands
and service preferences across all regions.

The mySAP CRM solution supports key automotive business
processes including brand and customer management, vehicle
life-cycle management, leasing and financing, dealer channel
management, vehicle sales and distribution, interaction center,
service parts management, warranty management, dealer business
management, and analytics and business process visibility.
This solution brief focuses on the core CRM processes.

Enabling Collaborative, Customer-Centric Business
SAP for Automotive is an industry-specific set of solutions that
enables you to deliver customer value, enhance capabilities
across the sales and service value chain, and achieve profitable
growth. With mySAP CRM, supported by the SAP NetWeaver®
platform, you can connect all resources – from suppliers to
OEMs to dealers to sales offices – in a closed-loop customer and
vehicle interaction cycle. SAP NetWeaver also provides powerful
business intelligence so that you can integrate analytics into
your customer-focused business processes. Real-time business
insight helps you make quick, informed decisions while capabilities
for capturing and mining relevant data enable you to
measure, predict, plan, and optimize customer relationships
with greater effectiveness then ever before.

The SAP solution delivers functionality throughout the customer
engagement and vehicle life cycle, enabling the full range
of CRM processes and providing all the capabilities you need –
particularly in the crucial areas of channel management, brand
and customer management, customer interaction center, and
roadside assistance.

Better Communication Across All Channels
Lack of communication between OEMs and their end customers
is a pervasive problem. Contact between OEMs and customers
is limited and often involves a customer-initiated problem or
complaint. Or customers may hear only indirectly from the
OEM in the form of marketing campaigns. So a key IT process
requirement in the automotive industry is to facilitate effective
communications between OEMs and their dealers and – through
the dealers – with the customers who buy the vehicles.

The mySAP CRM solution makes channel integration across
entire networks possible in a cost-effective manner and supports
key business processes. Sales and service organizations can give
dealer employees access through portal applications and provide
access to dealer management systems through Web-based services.
For example, the portal solutions help enable business
processes, whether it’s a dealer employee placing or confirming
orders with the OEM or whether it’s a national sales company
representative viewing vehicle inventories, flooring cost, or
aging. Using contact and vehicle management tools, you can
incorporate end-customer information and history into sales
processes, providing partners and brand owners with a single,
comprehensive view into all the information relevant to sales
accounts. You can also use the mySAP CRM solution to recruit,
train, and collaborate with dealers.

Vehicle marketing and sales is at its best when OEMs and dealers
collaborate in the process. With mySAP CRM, OEMs and dealers
can run collaborative campaigns using tools that help them
distribute marketing materials, manage sales collateral, and integrate
fulfillment. In addition, powerful lead and opportunity
management tools allow you to capture, route, and manage
sales leads so that each lead is directed to the appropriate channel
and dealer. For central campaigns, you can create rules to
manage data access, giving you greater choice, flexibility, and
control.

Ultimately, mySAP CRM helps OEMs better manage dealer and
marketing partner relationships. This leads to a better understanding
of your partners’ business – and of the end customers
they serve.

Build Brand Equity and Customer Loyalty
Given the constraints of maximizing profits in other areas of the
industry – with constant pressure on margins and the struggle
for market share – a vitally important trend is the optimization
of existing customer relationships and efforts to gain new
customers through the creation of unique brand images.

The mySAP CRM solution helps you manage structured but
highly individualized customer treatment initiatives across
multiple communication channels including call centers, brand
and third-party Web sites, and dealer networks. You will be able
to track data regarding customers, vehicles, partners, dealer relationships,
and business transactions. You can use rules-based
lead distribution to get the right leads to the right dealers. And
you can leverage data in collaborative marketing activities such
as strategic brand management, sales and service campaigns,
customer loyalty programs, satisfaction surveys, commercial
advertising, and event management activities such as vehicle
transportation and disposition.

With digital asset management tools, all of your digital content
and rich media files – such as brochures and flyers – will be available
in a central repository. You’ll also be able to track marketing
expenses using scenario planning and financial forecasting tools
that allow you to generate detailed cost plans and simulate the
effects of financial accruals.

Closing the Loop on the Customer Interaction Cycle
The quality and convenience of services are key factors in automotive
customers’ choice of brand or dealership. To properly
serve customers and grow brand loyalty, you need to be able to
deliver consistent communication and reliable service offers
synchronously across multiple channels. This illustrates a significant
challenge faced by OEMs – the potential disconnect
between the manufacturer and the end customer. Incomplete
information often leads to redundant or even conflicting messages
being sent to the consumer. As a result, OEMs and importers,
as well as dealers, need access to complete and reliable customer
and vehicle information to deliver efficient customer service.

The mySAP CRM solution provides a customer interaction center
– tailored for the automotive industry – that gives you access
to the information you need to implement case handling, marketing
campaigns, satisfaction surveys, complaints, appraisals,
service requests, call backs, and accessory sales. Users can search
and display all customer and vehicle data and manage business
transactions. The interaction center supports you in all your
contacts with customers and dealers, across multiple brands and
channels, assuring consistent and reliable communication with
your customers and a rewarding customer experience during
every interaction – be it on the phone, in person, via e-mail, or
on the Web. The result: you can manage and track complaints to
ensure proper resolution and provide higher quality customer
service around the clock.

Your managers can also oversee and track relevant customer
service information more efficiently with the mySAP CRM
interaction center. With an easy-to-use dashboard and improved
real-time monitoring applications, managers can track call list
status, call response and processing times, e-mail response status
and more. User-friendly tools help you model interaction center
processes and scripts, and share information with center agents.
Where appropriate, the solution’s dealer collaboration tools let
you share information and involve dealer personnel directly in
issue resolution.

For additional efficiencies, a rules-based e-mail response management
system allows you to automatically route e-mail, prepare
responses, create interaction records and service tickets, and
link to existing tickets. The solution brings more visibility to
the process as well, with tools for reporting and analytics.

And with case management tools you can link customer and
vehicle data to search for customer-initiated communications –
including requests for product details and brochures, or complaints
about service. Survey tools allow you to capture customer
input and perform analysis on collected data, helping you to
close the loop on the customer interaction cycle. Metric and
anecdotal information collected through the interaction center
is also a key component of early warning systems that keep you
abreast of shifts in preferences, customer requirements, and
economic conditions.

Increase Revenues and Cut Costs Across
the Value Chain
With its industry-specific capabilities and comprehensive support
for industry processes, mySAP CRM helps you increase flexibility,
speed, efficiency, and profitability across the sales and service
value chain. With specific configurations tailored to the needs
of the automotive industry, mySAP CRM is the proven solution
to support end-to-end marketing, sales, and service processes.
You can expect the following solid business benefits:
• Increased efficiency and reduced costs. To help streamline
communications and reduce friction between dealer
and brand operations, OEMs and dealers can collaborate on
eliminating customer-facing and back-office inefficiencies
involving manual and redundant processes.
• Improved brand and customer management. Using
enhanced access to customer information across channels
and access points, you can improve your understanding
of individual customer relationships. You can use improved
monitoring and targeting tools to execute more effective
marketing campaigns. And the analytical capabilities will
provide greater information transparency to better understand
the overall profitability of individual customers.
• Better channel management. The SAP solution allows
you to collaborate seamlessly, from OEM to the dealer point
of sale. In addition, you can increase sales force efficiency,
productivity, and close rates by being better able to manage
and qualify leads and contacts. The solution’s capabilities
for configuring, ordering, and customer assignment also let
you increase sales and improve vehicle service.

Find Out How SAP Can Help Drive Your Success
To find out more about how SAP can help you with a complete
solution for your customer-centric business call your SAP
representative today or visit us online at
www.sap.com/industries/automotive.