Please read the Introduction of CRM first

CHAPTER [7]

AUTOMOTIVE EXAMPLES [1]

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.

Now more than ever the automotive industry is looking for opportunities to speed innovation, shorten product lifecycles, reduce costs, and collaborate with new partners...all on a global basis.

Consultants must deliver leading vehicle capabilities in strategy, operations and technology to OEMs, suppliers, systems integrators, dealer groups and aftermarket retailers through in depth knowledge of all sides of the market. They must provide leading edge thinking supported with exclusive research, proprietary automotive databases, global benchmarks and best practices.

Almost anyone who has been following the auto industry, especially in the U.S., will agree that lately it has had a bumpy ride. For one thing, the difficulties of GM and Ford have filled the headlines for several months now, and there has been lots of speculation about how severe these problems are. As a recent example, the auto parts maker Delphi, which was spun off from GM in 1999, was in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings and actively negotiating with both the United Auto Workers union and GM. Yet another challenge is growing global competition: Virtually all the Japanese brands are showing an increase in market share in the U.S. And finally, questions continue to persist about advances in technology, especially as they concern the new hybrid models.

The turmoil and uncertainty among auto manufacturers and their suppliers have left people wondering when a shakeout can be expected. Experts who follow the auto sector say consolidation will take place among suppliers to a much greater extent than among carmakers, which may not experience mergers and acquisitions at all in the near term but will be engaged in ever-shifting strategic alliances and joint ventures.

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.

Customer Relationship Management solutions provides today’s market-leading companies with everything they need to become customer-centric enterprises.
These solutions 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.

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.

CRM solutions must provides a flexible foundation that enables multiple deployment options, adaptability, and fast time to value. When you put a good CRM solution 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 need to employ smart solutions that leverage existing investments and extend the capacity for clear customer visibility throughout your organization.

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.

A correct CRM Automotive solution portfolio can help. With this solution companies like yours can integrate different solutions to improve relationships with customers and dealers, enhance communication, and increase profitability. In addition, the correct solutions can help global companies understand and adapt to shifting demands and service preferences across all regions. This could be achieved with one integrated suite of applications extending across departments to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and encourage collaboration.

The correct solution must 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,
analytics and business process visibility.

This solution in brief must focuses on the core CRM processes.

Car distribution. A study of Volvo cars owners examined the links between customer satisfaction with three attributes – car purchase, workshop service and the vehicle itself – and loyalty and dealer business performance. The results indicated that a one scale-point
increase in overall customer satisfaction was associated with a 4 per cent increase in dealer profitability at next car purchase.

Increasingly, many brand owners are leveraging partners to drive revenue and meet customer demands. In fact, partner-generated revenues now account for a growing share of total brand owner revenues. Many industry segments drive significantly more than 40 percent of revenue through the partner channel. The Automotive industry, for example, sells as much as 90 percent of products through indirect channels.

As competition intensifies and globalization continues, the use of partnering will only continue to increase, helping brand owners increase revenue and profits, decrease costs, and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. In a survey conducted by Accenture, approximately 82 percent of executives believed alliances would be a prime vehicle for future growth. The same study predicted that by late 2004, the average company would derive 16 to 25 percent of shareholder value from partnerships, representing between US$25 trillion and US$40 trillion. As former General Electric CEO Jack Welch has observed, “If you think you can go it alone in today’s global economy, you are highly mistaken.”

The expanding role of partnering in today’s business environment brings with it a new set of opportunities and challenges. Accordingly we need to examine these facets of business partnering and identifies the key business benefits of enabling a partner value network by deploying a comprehensive partner relationship management (PRM) strategy.

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Customer Success Guide

This comprehensive reference guide shows how customers of all sizes are benefiting from mySAP CRM. Read the guide (PDF, 21 MB). Our Server

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 Customer Relationship Management: Features & Functions

mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) includes features and functions to support core business processes in the following areas:

Marketing -- Improve the effectiveness of your marketing activities, maximize resource efficiencies, and empower marketers to acquire and develop long-term customer relationships. mySAP CRM provides comprehensive support for marketing resource management, segment and list management, campaign management, trade promotion management, lead management, and marketing analytics.

Sales -- Eliminate productivity barriers, enforce consistency across all selling channels, and increase overall performance within your sales organization. mySAP CRM empowers sales professionals with comprehensive support for sales planning and forecasting, territory management, account and contact management, lead and opportunity management, quotation and order management, configuration, contract management, incentive and commission management, time and travel management, and sales analytics.

Service -- Transform service into a profitable line of business with a broad range of functionality to enable customer service and support, field service, e-service, service sales and marketing, service-contract management, warranty and claims management, depot repair, channel service, and service analytics.

E-commerce -- Turn the Internet into a profitable sales and interaction channel for both business customers and consumers. mySAP CRM delivers broad functionality to enable business processes in the areas of e-marketing, e-selling, e-service, and e-analytics.

Interaction center operations and management -- Enhance the performance of your interaction center with support for telemarketing, telesales, customer service, e-service, and interaction center analytics, as well as for the management of interaction centers.

Channel management -- Optimize your indirect channels with support for partner management, channel marketing, channel sales, channel service, channel commerce, and partner and channel analytics.

mySAP CRM also supports several industry-specific processes with functionality designed to meet the individual needs of diverse industry groups.

Features & Functions of mySAP CRM: Marketing

mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) enables you to maximize the efficiencies of marketing resources and empower marketers to acquire and develop long-term customer relationships. Marketers can analyze, plan, execute, and measure all marketing activities. With mySAP CRM, you gain a flexible application to power marketing success.

mySAP CRM supports critical marketing processes, including:

Marketing resource management -- Analyze, plan, develop, implement, and measure all marketing activities to maximize the efficiencies of your available resources and gain visibility and control into your marketing processes. mySAP CRM helps you control and manage your budget and marketing spend. The application also allows you to facilitate collaboration among team members and coordinate marketing activities across the enterprise, increasing the speed and effectiveness of your marketing processes.

Segment and list management -- Manage enterprise customer and prospect data without the need for IT support. With mySAP CRM, you can create and capture customer profile data to better target and personalize marketing messages, and you can view all relevant enterprise customer information from a central point. Using an interactive, drag-and-drop interface, your marketers can perform ad hoc, high-speed customer segmentation and segment analysis -- and quickly identify opportunities and gain insights into customer segments with data visualization features.

Campaign management -- Analyze, plan, execute, and measure marketing activities through all inbound and outbound interaction channels to build long-term profitable relationships. With mySAP CRM, you can make the most of dialog marketing by implementing inbound and outbound campaigns that are both multichannel and multiwave. You can develop and execute the best marketing strategy, using constraint-based optimization techniques to determine the optimum marketing mix.

Trade promotion management -- Effectively manage trade promotions that increase brand equity and achieve sales objectives. With the SAP Trade Promotion Management application, you can gain complete visibility into trade programs at each stage of their life cycles -- to reduce error, improve efficiency, and control trade spend.

Lead management -- Generate highly qualified, prioritized leads and automate your lead distribution process to handle leads faster. mySAP CRM enables you to align marketing and sales organizations -- and extend your lead management process to partner organizations -- to increase conversion rates. The application provides full visibility into the lead management process, enabling you to optimize all activities.

Marketing analytics -- Leverage a wide range of analytics, such as customer values, churn scores, and satisfaction scores, to make profitable decisions. Insights gained from mySAP CRM help you understand why marketing activities did or did not work. The application also helps you identify business challenges and opportunities -- and predict customer behaviors, anticipate their needs, and create more relevant, targeted messages.

Features & Functions of mySAP CRM: Sales

mySAP CRM empowers your sales force to effectively plan, execute, and analyze sales activity with anytime, anywhere access to critical customer information, transactions, and sales processes. Freeing your sales resources from inefficient processes, while providing analytical insight into the sales cycle, mySAP CRM enables your sales organization to boost revenue while maintaining or reducing costs.

mySAP CRM supports your key sales processes, including:

Sales planning and forecasting -- Forecast accurately, manage budgets and opportunities, and allocate resources efficiently. Proactively handle trends, shortfalls, and opportunities; plan and forecast across all sales channels; and optimize supply chain planning and execution.

Territory management -- Optimize account coverage with clear territory definition and complete visibility into team distribution. Precise monitoring of your sales force ensures that you are prepared to recognize and respond to constantly shifting market demand, and able to place the right resources in the right locations to optimize team performance.

Account and contact management -- Ensure that your sales professionals remain focused on activities that develop loyal and profitable customer relationships. Complete visibility into all sales activities fosters collaboration and team efficiency.

Lead and opportunity management -- Manage the sales cycle more effectively and predictably -- at a lower cost of sales. Get full visibility into the opportunity pipeline, improve team communication, and route leads to the best-fit sales representative.

Quotation and order management -- Generate accurate quotes, place orders, confirm real-time product availability, and track order status. Integrate order information with the supply chain for planning and fulfillment.

Configuration -- Guide sales professionals through the product configuration process with customers. Enforcement of business rules ensures that accurate product combinations are recommended to meet customer needs.

Contract management -- Develop and manage long-term customer contracts, incorporate customer agreements into ongoing customer processes, and monitor the sales process from inquiry to completion.

Incentive and commission management -- Develop, implement, and manage compensation plans with improved visibility into team performance. Sales professionals can track their current performance and evaluate potential compensation for opportunities in the pipeline.

Time and travel management -- Keep your sale force focused on tracking opportunities, not expenses. Eliminate paper-based processes, enforce travel policy compliance, and monitor and control costs associated with sales professionals' activities.

Sales analytics -- Monitor and respond in real-time. Ensure forecast accuracy, remain below budget, optimize resource alignment, and position your team to achieve revenue goals. Enable your sales force to address trends, measure customer retention, monitor revenue shortfalls, and assess future opportunities.

Features and Functions of mySAP CRM: Service

mySAP CRM maximizes the value of each customer by keeping profitable customers loyal, decreasing service costs through efficiency, and increasing service revenue. The application supports key business processes, including:

Customer service and support -- Access complete customer data such as service history, warranty and SLA information, and accounts receivable information; maintain a problem-resolution database; and manage incoming service requests efficiently and effectively. Manage installed-base assets and associated configurations.

Field service -- Automate the process of dispatching field technicians to perform services in remote locations. Keep field service professionals connected through laptops or ruggedized handheld devices.

E-service -- Coordinate e-service activities -- including e-mail, service-ticket routing, and lead routing -- from one central point of command. Manage large volumes of incoming e-mail using features such as auto-reply and auto-suggest, and enable comprehensive Web-based customer self-service.

Service sales and marketing -- Drive the sale of services and service-related products through your service department with full sales and marketing support, from targeted marketing to lead qualification and contract management.

Service-contract management -- Confirm a customer's entitlement to service before providing service, meet service-level agreements (SLAs), and drive contract renewals by alerting service agents when a customer's contracts are about to expire.

Warranty and claims management -- Manage the entire warranty and claims process, from return materials authorization (RMA) to receipt and inspection. Coordinate with third-party logistics providers to ensure timely customer credits and avoid unnecessary goodwill allowances.

Depot repair -- Automate the entire in-house repair process, from creating the RMA to billing and shipping repaired products to customers. Issue and track loaner units as necessary.

Channel service -- Manage third-party service relationships, and reduce the cost of channel service by delivering service and problem-resolution capabilities to your partners.

Service analytics -- Identify problems and trends and take corrective action. Compare the effectiveness of service territories, and see how actual values compare with target values.

Features & Functions of mySAP CRM: Interaction Center Operations and Management

mySAP CRM transforms your interaction center into a powerful and efficient profit center. With mySAP CRM, you can provide your agents with the tools they need to seamlessly handle inbound or outbound transactions. You can also provide managers with portal-based access to SAP or third-party administration, maintenance, and reporting analytics to ensure that the interaction center can operate efficiently.

mySAP CRM enables key business processes, including:

Telemarketing -- Seamlessly coordinate all interaction center efforts -- including call lists, agent scripts, promotions, and additional channels -- and coordinate interaction center agents with broader marketing activities to ensure a focus on qualified prospects. Give agents all the information they need to deliver relevant messages to prospects.

Telesales -- Enable agents to drive more qualified leads into the pipeline, target existing customers with cross-and up-selling opportunities, and process orders and status information.

Customer service within the interaction center -- Enable agents to research and diagnose problems, handle complaints, confirm contract entitlements, address customer concerns, assist with returned materials, answer technical questions, make exchanges, and even schedule internal or third-party field service personnel.

E-service -- Handle large volumes of incoming e-mail using functions such as auto-reply and auto-suggest. Enable Web-based self-services, such as searching for FAQs and solutions to problems, checking service contract entitlements, creating service requests, tracking the status of service requests, and contacting customer service.

Employee interaction center management -- Combine advanced CRM techniques with HR information in an integrated HR help desk. Streamline employee access to information through a central point of contact, and enable HR professionals to provide consistent, personalized service to employees across multiple communication channels, including telephone, e-mail, or chat forums.

Interaction center operations and administration -- Manage your multichannel interaction center through a role-based portal interface. Support agent activities with scripts, alerts and messages, and knowledge management features. Provide managers with workforce management tools, and enable forecasting and advanced scheduling.

Interaction center analytics -- Measure, predict, plan, and optimize your interaction center. Analyze customer interactions, business processes, and market opportunities -- and then apply the knowledge gained toward improving all your customer-focused operations. Predictive functions help you uncover hidden patterns, helping you to anticipate risks and exploit opportunities in marketing, sales, and service.

Features & Functions of mySAP CRM: Channel Management

mySAP CRM provides an Internet-based solution to manage partner relationships and enable channel partners to sell more effectively. Personalized portals help brand owners manage their partner relationships, collaborate with channel partners, and optimize channel operations. Plus, you can provide channel partners with portal-based access to all the information they need to sell to and interact with end customers.

With mySAP CRM, you can optimize these key channel management processes:

Partner management -- Manage channel partner relationships throughout the partner life cycle. mySAP CRM enables you to plan and forecast channel sales and revenues, segment your partner base for more effective partner programs and management, and track partner training and certifications.

Channel marketing -- Motivate partners to sell your products and services rather than competitive offerings. With mySAP CRM, you can provide relevant information to partners, maintain consistent branding, and manage partner incentives. Functionality to manage content, catalogs, collateral, campaigns, and leads -- as well as personalization features and a partner locator -- help you drive demand for your products through channel partners.

Channel sales -- Give your partners and direct sales force the same knowledge, tools, and expert advice -- and gain insight into demand across all selling channels to effectively forecast future business. mySAP CRM enables a full range of channel sales processes, including account and contact management, activity management, opportunity management, interactive selling and configuration, quotation and order management, multi-tier sales tracking and forecasting, and partner compensation management.

Channel service -- Ensure consistent and timely service to end customers by providing your partners with the tools and expertise to manage problem resolution and ongoing service relationships. mySAP CRM enables a range of business processes, including partner knowledge management, request management, real-time partner support, installed-base management, and complaints and returns management.

Channel commerce -- Include partners in collaborative selling across organizational boundaries, and enable end customers to order products and services across your demand network. With mySAP CRM, you can create a collaborative showroom environment and manage distributed catalogs and content. The application also supports distributed and hosted order management.

Partner and channel analytics -- Get a broad range of standard reports and analyses to determine partner coverage and gaps, partner and channel performance, revenue and sales statistics, the return on your partner investments, your gross margins with partners, and partner utilization. Provide channel partners with reports and analyses relevant to their business.

CRM SAP LINKS

Automotive -- Sales and service organizations gain support for channel management as well as brand and customer management.

Sales and Service Organizations: The Business Process of Channel Management

SAP for Automotive enables the vehicle sales and distribution channel to effectively sell and service vehicles by integrating dealer employees through portal applications and integrating dealer business management systems through Web-based services.

With SAP, you can handle a broad range of activities related to channel management, including:

Lead analysis and processing -- SAP solutions let you take advantage of capabilities to improve marketing, account, contact, and lead management, including the capture and routing of leads to a specific channel and partner.

Dealer vehicle sales -- SAP solutions give you the functionality you need to collaboratively sell and service vehicles through the distribution channel, with capabilities for configuring, ordering, and customer assignment.

Service parts ordering -- With SAP for Automotive, you can handle vehicle parts selection and ordering, warranty claim entry, and parts return.

Sales and Service Organizations: The Business Process of Brand and Customer Management

SAP for Automotive helps you track information about customers, business transactions, and partner relationships. You can leverage this data in customer contacts and collaborative marketing activities. You can also reach individual customers across communication channels, including the dealer network, call centers, and Web sites.

With SAP, you have the functionality you need to support a range of brand and customer management activities, including:

Campaign monitoring and analysis -- You can manage all aspects of sales, marketing, and services campaigns, including lead generation activities targeting specific groups and brand owners. SAP covers the complete campaign life cycle, including data management for capturing new business prospects and customer contacts.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty analysis -- SAP solutions enable you to execute customer loyalty initiatives and customer satisfaction surveys to attract and retain customers.

Activity processing -- With SAP for Automotive, you can cost-effectively manage sales events and related activities while measuring success.

Customer profitability analysis -- SAP for Automotive enables you to determine the value of a customer based on sales, marketing, and service costs, plus the customer's revenue contribution over time.

Brand and customer management is enabled with applications such as mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM).

Overview

"mySAP Customer Relationship Management" (PDF, 1.4 MB) -- Discover how mySAP CRM automates customer-centric business processes across and beyond enterprisewide operations -- delivering comprehensive functionality and support of end-to-end processes that address the unique business demands of more than 25 industries. Our Server

mySAP CRM: Customer Successes for Automotive

Explore how companies in the automotive industry are achieving their customer satisfaction goals with mySAP CRM:

Arctic Cat Inc. (PDF, 193 KB), United States -- Examine how Arctic Cat put the "fun" back into its business by implementing mySAP Customer Relationship Management, which forms the foundation for the company's state-of-the-art call center that has dramatically boosted support for independent dealers and distributors. Our Server
ESA (PDF, 174 KB), Switzerland -- Learn how this leading Swiss automobile industry supplier implemented mySAP CRM to keep a competitive edge well into the future. Members of the ESA sales team can now access up-to-date information about customers, products, and markets at the click of a button -- anywhere, anytime. Our Server
GRAMMER (PDF, 200 KB), Germany -- Learn about GRAMMER's aggressive supply chain initiative to consolidate its position as a world leader in the development and manufacture of innovative components and systems for automobile interiors and seats. The initiative involved setting up a Web shop using the mySAP CRM application. Our Server
Hero Honda Motors, Ltd. (PDF, 112 KB), India -- Discover how India's largest motorcycle manufacturer, commanding a 48-percent share of the national market, used SAP solutions to introduce leading-edge supplier and customer relationship management capabilities -- improving information exchange with its many partners. Our Server
Volkswagen AG (PDF, 338 KB), Germany -- Explore how this global automobile manufacturer improved customer communications, retention, and satisfaction by choosing mySAP CRM to gain a holistic view of customers and vehicles, enable one-to-one marketing through powerful analytics, and integrate IT for effective data exchange. Our Server
Volkswagen Gruppe (PDF, 82 KB), Germany -- Consider how this global auto producer achieved its goal of developing a uniform system to improve customer satisfaction by implementing mySAP CRM across its enterprise. The company successfully established a new service center and a new call center at different locations. Our Server

Industry Solution Briefs

"SAP for Automotive -- Automotive Revs Into High Gear" (PDF, 157 KB) -- Explore how automotive companies can deploy mySAP CRM to become more efficient, effective, and profitable. mySAP CRM can help companies improve the entire interaction chain by delivering new efficiency to all aspects of customer interactions. Our Server

"SAP for Automotive -- Customer Relationship Management in the Automotive Industry" (PDF, 87 KB) -- Learn how mySAP CRM 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. Our Server

Sales, Marketing, and Service -- On Demand

As part of the family of SAP CRM on-demand solutions, the SAP Sales on-demand solution and SAP Marketing on-demand solution, and the SAP Service on-demand solution are available globally today.

Solution Briefs

"Customer Relationship Management -- On Demand" (PDF, 173 KB) -- Learn how SAP CRM on-demand solutions provide a virtually seamless migration path from a hosted customer relationship management solution to an on-premise application -- enabling you to act quickly and grow strategically, without disruption. Our Server
"mySAP CRM -- E-Commerce" (PDF, 93 KB) -- Discover how you can increase sales and reduce transaction costs with the e-commerce functionality in mySAP CRM. Learn how you can turn the Internet into a sales and interaction channel for business customers and consumers. Our Server
"mySAP CRM -- E-Mail Response Management" (PDF, 150 KB) -- Discover how mySAP CRM can help transform your e-mail channel into a strategic asset for increasing customer loyalty and revenues. mySAP CRM's e-mail response management system combines advanced functionality with knowledge management and centralized administration. Our Server
"mySAP CRM -- Interaction Center Management and Operations" (PDF, 258 KB) -- Discover how mySAP CRM delivers interaction center functionality that you can use as a strategic delivery channel for service, sales, and marketing. Maximize customer loyalty, reduce costs, and boost revenue with the only fully integrated CRM application. Our Server
"mySAP CRM -- Marketing" (PDF, 180 KB) -- Discover how you can make a greater contribution to corporate revenue with fewer marketing resources using the mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) application. Learn how you can acquire and retain more profitable customers and maximize organizational efficiency. Our Server
"mySAP CRM -- Partner Channel Management" (PDF, 178 KB) -- Learn how you can build a more profitable and loyal indirect channel by strengthening your channel partnerships and optimizing channel operations. Use mySAP CRM as a partner relationship management solution to work in closer harmony with critical partner organizations. Our Server
"mySAP CRM -- Sales" (PDF, 188 KB) -- Learn how mySAP CRM helps your sales team acquire and cultivate profitable relationships with customers. Discover the tools mySAP CRM provides to power your sales reps' efforts and actions throughout the complete sales cycle. Our Server
"mySAP CRM -- Service" (PDF, 151 KB) -- Explore how mySAP CRM can help you improve your organization's service quality -- which drives customer loyalty -- while boosting your bottom line. Learn how mySAP CRM advances customer loyalty, efficiency, and revenue. Our Server

White Papers

"Integrated Service Life-Cycle Management" (PDF, 681 KB) -- Learn how comprehensive service life-cycle management can help maximize existing service profits and create new sources of revenue. Discover functionalities in mySAP CRM that enable businesses to deploy, measure, and analyze business practices for service delivery. Our Server
"SAP for Consumer Products -- SAP Trade Promotion Management" (PDF, 280 KB) -- Read how consumer product firms use this SAP application set to manage trade promotions by supporting strategic and tactical marketing; total sales volume planning; and implementation, validation, and analysis of sales promotion tactics. Our Server
"Supply Chain and Demand Chain Integration: The Pathway to Profit and Competitive Advantage" (PDF, 330 KB) -- Explore how enterprises face the challenge of integrating supplier- and customer-facing activities -- and how SAP shares and supports a visionary strategy for integrating CRM and SCM processes. Log-in required. Our Server
"The Challenge to Achieve Perfect Order Management" (PDF, 246 KB) -- Explore how to improve order management. With mySAP CRM, you can cost-effectively streamline planning, forecasting, and collaboration -- and create accurate orders and contracts, handle order changes, and resolve fulfillment issues. Log-in required. Our Server

SAP NetWeaver

SAP NetWeaver -- Your Foundation for Enabling and Managing Change

With the SAP NetWeaver platform, you can align IT with business requirements. SAP combines composition technologies and application functionality to reduce IT complexity and increase business flexibility. With SAP NetWeaver, you can compose applications using enterprise services, orchestrate business processes and events, manage enterprise information, and deliver applications and content to users more quickly and cost-effectively.

Read an overview of the SAP NetWeaver platform (PDF, 682 KB). Our Server

SAP NetWeaver COMPONENTS
SAP NetWeaver means you get a single platform with all
components synchronized into a single package. It means
one installation process, one integrated platform, and
one resource to turn to when you need support.
SAP NetWeaver is provided as a general-purpose platform.
Its capabilities are delivered by the following components:
• SAP Enterprise Portal provides a complete portal
infrastructure along with knowledge management and
collaboration software.
• SAP Business Intelligence makes information
actionable by helping companies identify, integrate,
and analyze disparate business data from heterogeneous
sources.
• SAP Master Data Management is the foundation
for providing harmonized, consistent information to
heterogeneous applications across the enterprise.
• SAP Exchange Infrastructure provides open integration
technologies that support process-centric
collaboration among SAP and non-SAP components
both within and beyond enterprise boundaries.
• SAP Mobile Infrastructure supports multichannel
access through voice and mobile technology, so people
can stay connected to the information they need, offline
or online.
• SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure provides a complete
auto-ID middleware solution. It connects radio
frequency identification (RFID) data directly from
auto-ID data capture sources, such as RFID readers,
and integrates the data directly into enterprise
applications.
• SAP Web Application Server is a development and
deployment platform that supports Web services,
business applications, and standards-based development
based on key technologies such as J2EE
and ABAP™.
SAP NetWeaver also includes the following tools:
• SAP Solution Manager provides centralized management
for all stages of the software life cycle, from design
to development, deployment, implementation, versioning
and testing, and ongoing operations.
• SAP Composite Application Framework provides the
environment for building composite applications and
comprises design tools, methodologies, services and
processes, an abstraction layer for objects, and user
interface patterns.
• SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio enables a model driven
development methodology for building professional
Web user interfaces.

Flexible, Step-by-Step Approach

By implementing crucial IT practices with SAP NetWeaver, you can address your immediate IT needs first, then expand your practice projects over time within a sustainable cost structure. The SAP NetWeaver platform enables:

Data unification -- Ensure that your master data is accurate, free of duplicated records, and normalized
Process integration -- Make disparate applications and business partners' systems work together
Business information management -- Increase the visibility and reach of structured and unstructured enterprise data

See the complete list of IT practices.

SAP NetWeaver: IT Practices

With the SAP NetWeaver platform, your organization can implement crucial IT practices in a flexible, step-by-step approach at low cost. You can address your immediate IT needs first and, since the platform components are tightly integrated, you can expand your practice projects over time within a sustainable cost structure.

SAP NetWeaver enables the following IT practices. For each practice, SAP NetWeaver supports a variety of key IT activities -- all of which are easy to perform using the platform's integrated components.

User productivity enablement -- Help users and groups improve their productivity through enhanced collaboration, optimized knowledge management, and personalized access to critical applications and data.
Data unification -- Consolidate, rationalize, synchronize, and manage all master data for improved business processes.
Business information management -- Increase the visibility, reach, and usefulness of structured and unstructured enterprise data.
Business event management -- Ensure that business events from multiple systems are distributed to the appropriate decision makers in the context of the relevant business processes.
End-to-end process integration -- Make disparate applications and systems work together consistently to perform business processes.
Custom development -- Rapidly create new enterprise-scale applications that drive you company's differential advantage.
Unified life-cycle management -- Automate application management processes and optimize all facets of an application's life cycle.
Application governance and security management -- Maintain an appropriate level of security and quality in your intellectual property and information assets.
Consolidation -- Deploy a consolidated technology platform with the ability to allocate computing power according to changing business needs.
Enterprise service-oriented architecture design and deployment -- Consolidate and standardize your basic processes and leverage existing investments to compose new, distinctive business processes.

mySAP CRM: Demos

Experience firsthand the features, functionality, and benefits of mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM). These brief, user-friendly demos show how mySAP CRM performs in a real-world environment:

Complaint Handling for Logistics Service Providers
Discover how mySAP Customer Relationship Management allows you to aggregate customer information from disparate systems, integrate processes to improve customer service, resolve customer problems in real time, and provide services that enhance customer relationships. Watch the demo. -- Log-in required.

mySAP CRM: Improving Order Management
Find out how mySAP CRM enables your sales staff to create sales orders, check product availability in real-time, and change orders on-the-fly -- so you can drive effective sales processes, respond to changing customer needs, and achieve a faster time to value. Watch the demo. -- Log-in required.

Need Registration

Automotive Applications as a whole

Consolidation. Intense competition. Changing customer demands. These are just some of the pressures that plague today's automotive industry. Whether you're a vehicle manufacturer, a supplier, or in the captive finance business, Oracle for Automotive provides a comprehensive portfolio of industry-specific solutions that help you address these challenges—while enabling you to drive continuous improvement initiatives and profitability across your entire enterprise.

Why do 15 of the top 15 automotive manufacturers run Oracle applications and technology?
Only Oracle offers a unified data model that synchronizes real-time operations, supply and demand data from across your extended automotive enterprise. And when Oracle applications run on Oracle technology, you speed implementation, optimize performance, streamline support, and maximize return on your investment.

Oracle enables you to capture, analyze, and respond to customer demand in real time. That means you maximize productivity, performance, and profitability. You build the most accurate, high-quality product mix at the lowest possible cost—and facilitate just-in-time fulfillment with the most powerful, reliable, and affordable tools for vehicle and parts forecasting and allocation, collaborative sales and operations planning, Lean manufacturing, customer analytics, transportation, financial, and human capital management.

KEY PRODUCTS FOR AUTOMOTIVE

	Oracle Database 10g		Oracle Discrete Manufacturing
	Oracle Application Server		Oracle Flow Manufacturing
	Oracle iProcurement		Oracle Inventory Optimization
	Oracle Project Collaboration		Oracle Demand Planning
	Oracle Marketing		Oracle CADView-3D
	Oracle Financials		VIEW ALL ORACLE AUTOMOTIVE PRODUCTS

CHOOSE YOUR SEGMENT

OEM

Supplier

LEARN MORE

Data sheet: Oracle Solutions for Automotive (PDF)
White paper: Oracle in Automotive: Product Information Management Data Hub 11i (PDF)
White paper: Tightening the Global Supply Chain, Best Practices among Vehicle Equipment Manufacturers (PDF)
Resource library: Search our resource library for more information

NEWS & EVENTS

Events: 1000 Events: Oracle Applications World Tour: Register today and find out how you can energize your business with business applications designed specifically for your industry
Events: Register for the OSAT Study: Integration and Collaboration: Reaping Benefits from the Value Chain

CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

Toyota relies on Oracle for vehicle order management and to power its finance transformation

Ford Motor Company establishes global accounting processes with a single database with Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise products (PDF)

The Business Benefits of CRM by Oracle Our Server

Learn how you can reduce the cost of acquiring, selling to, marketing and serving customers. Enhance revenue by increasing sales per representative, sales per customer, average order size, and other revenue driving metrics. See the quantitative results from 10 companies who improved their business using CRM.

Automotive Customers

For the automotive industry, it's not enough just to survive today's volatile economy—you need to create a decisive competitive advantage. Oracle helps OEMs accelerate build-to-order and rapidly develop vehicles, and also helps suppliers achieve continuous cost reduction and improve delivery execution.

FEATURED CUSTOMERS

Auto-Teile-Unger Handels GmbH (ATU)
Success Story

Changan Automobile
Success Story (PDF); Magazine Article; Video (3 min.)

Eaton
Video (2 min.)

Ford Motor Company
Success Story 1 (PDF), Success Story 2 (PDF)

Harbin Dongan Automotive Dynamics Company Ltd
Success Story (PDF)

Hotai Motor Company
Press Release

IMMI
Success Story (PDF); Magazine Article

Mitsubishi Motors
Success Story (PDF)

SsangYong Motor Company
Success Story (PDF)

Toyota Motor Europe
Magazine Article

Oracle / Siebel Files Automotive

MORE CUSTOMERS

AAPICO
Press Release

ArvinMeritor
Magazine Article

China Spring Factory
Success Story (PDF)

Chongqing Hongyan Motor Company
Success Story (PDF)

Continental Corporation
Success Story (PDF)

DaimlerChrysler
Success Story (PDF)

Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group
Video (2 min.)

Ducati Motor
Press Release 1, Press Release 2

Edelbrock Corporation
Success Story (PDF)

Edmunds.com
Press Release

Freudenberg Seals and Vibration Control
Magazine Article

Greenball Corporation
Success Story

Grupo Ciosa S.A. de C.V.
Press Release

Harbin Dongan Automotive Engine Manufacturing Co., Ltd
Success Story (PDF)

Juma Al Majid Group
Success Story (PDF)

JK Tyre
Success Story (PDF)

Kirloskar
Press Release

Kleyn International
Success Story (PDF)

Lydall Thermal Acoustical
Success Story (PDF)

Mando Corporation
Success Story (PDF)

Maruti Udyog Ltd.
Video (2 min.)

Metalsa
Success Story (PDF); Video (2 min.)

Nissan North America Inc.
Press Release

R.L. Polk & Co.
Press Release

SAAB Cars USA
Success Story (PDF)

Shaanxi Fast Gear Co.
Success Story (PDF)

Shanxi Heavy-Duty Automobile Company
Success Story (PDF)

Smiths Manufacturing
Success Story 1 (PDF), Success Story 2 (PDF), Success Story 3 (PDF)

Tata Motors
Success Story (PDF)

Toyota
Video (3 min.)

Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.
Magazine Article 1, Magazine Article 2

Triangle Group
Success Story (PDF)

Yamaha Motor India
Success Story (PDF)

SAAB Cars USA
"We now have an application that enables us to distribute leads in a consolidated fashion and receive dealer feedback on these leads. This helps us streamline our campaigns to see what sort of marketing mix best sells cars."

Robert Henry
Manager of eCommerce
and CRM Solutions

VIEW SUCCESS STORY (PDF)

Oracle's Siebel Customer Relationship Management applications help provide insight to the right person at the right time, leading to faster, better informed decisions. With solutions tailored to the specific needs of more than 20 industries, Siebel provides predictive analytics capabilities that deliver real-time intelligence, greater flexibility through support of both J2EE and .NET, and a lower total cost of ownership.

BUSINESS ANALYTICS APPLICATIONS

CONTACT CENTER AND SERVICE

CUSTOMER DATA INTEGRATION

CUSTOMER ORDER MANAGEMENT

ENTERPRISE MARKETING

PARTNER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

SALES

SELF-SERVICE AND eBILLING

SIEBEL CRM ON DEMAND

Siebel Business Analytics Applications Resource Library

BROCHURES

Siebel End User Survey Diagnostic (PDF, 567 KB)

DATA SHEETS

Siebel Business Analytics Product Family (PDF, 194 KB)

Siebel Enterprise Contact Center Analytics (PDF, 219 KB)

Siebel Enterprise Sales Analytics (PDF, 248 KB)

Siebel Financial Analytics (PDF, 224 KB)

Siebel Marketing Analytics (PDF, 187 KB)

Siebel Real-Time Decisions (PDF, 201 KB)

Siebel Supply Chain Analytics (PDF, 197 KB)

Siebel Workforce Analytics (PDF, 229 KB)

DEMOS

Siebel Enterprise Contact Center Analytics

Siebel Enterprise Sales Analytics

Siebel 7.7 Solutions

Register to view Siebel product demos — learn more about CRM best practices, business strategies, and product capabilities.

INTERNET SEMINARS

Using Analytics to Compete More Effectively, Improve Sales Execution, and Maximize Revenue

120 Days to Better Business Intelligence: How Baxter Healthcare Deployed and Successfully Uses Siebel Analytics

Learn Successful Strategies for Business Intelligence Across the Enterprise

How to Use Analytics to Drive Better Customer Service, Higher Customer Satisfaction, and Improved Profitability

FrontRange Links

Avidian & Other Links

Talisma Links

The 2006 Market Leaders, Part 1
They say that timing makes champions. These eight winners in as many categories (plus up-and-comers in our One to Watch boxes) prove the adage as they join more than a score of industry leaders in a year of opportunity-making industry changes.

Click here to view the Market Leaders chart. Our Server

Click here to read Part 2.

SAP NetSuite Maximizer Software Inc. RightNow Technologies Amdocs ClarifyCRM

SAS Institute Inc. Aprimo Business Objects NCR Teradata Unica Corporation

CRM Buyer Guide

Use this directory to find and research the leading CRM technology and service providers.

CRM Software, Services, & Outsourcing Solutions
(about)

Analytics

Channel Management

Customer Service/Call Centers

Enterprise CRM

Integration

Marketing Automation

Sales Automation

SMB/Mid-market CRM

Vertical CRM Solutions
(about)

Consumer Packaged Goods

Education

Financial Services/Banking

Government

Healthcare

Insurance

Manufacturing/Automotive

Non-profit

Pharmaceuticals/Chemicals

Professional Services

Retail

Sports/Entertainment

Technology

Telecommunications

Transportation

Travel/Hospitality

Home CRM	Ch1 Retention	CRM Webcasts	Ch2 BI
Ch3 On Demand	Ch4 ABM	Ch5 Opinion	Ch6 Hospitality
Ch7 Automotive	Appendix	CRM MAGAZINES