Realizing Mobile CRM

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© 2010 SAP AG 1

Which Off-Line CRM Solution for

Field Force?

Applies to:

SAP CRM 6.0 and above. For more information, visit the Customer Relationship Management homepage.

Summary

Every decision maker wants to have multiple choices when making a decision but at the same time he has to

deal with the challenges of finding the best choice. First one needs to find all credible options and gather all the relevant information about those options. And then evaluate pros and cons of each option and make a selection which is suitable for the current as well as future needs. This paper does that job for a decision

maker, who is dealing with the task of selecting best off-line CRM solution using SAP platform. This paper explores four different choices available for offline CRM solution based on SAP plat form.

Author: Kripa Tiwari, Shaik Shavali

Company: Wipro Technologies

Created on: 7 September 2009

Author Bio

Kripa is Program Manager with Wipro Technologies.

Shaik is working as SAP CRM Consultant with Wipro Technologies.

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpx-crm

Which Off-Line CRM Solution for Field Force?


© 2010 SAP AG 2

Table of Contents

Summary: ............................................................................................................................................... 3

Introduction: ............................................................................................................................................ 3

Solution Options: ..................................................................................................................................... 4

SAP CRM Mobile Solution .................................................................................................................... 5

Access to SAP CRM via internet ........................................................................................................... 5

Off-line access using SAP Interactive forms by Adobe............................................................................ 6

SAP CRM on Blackberry ...................................................................................................................... 6

Comparison of Various Off-line solutions:.................................................................................................. 7

In various Life cycle Stages .................................................................................................................. 7

Important functionality/capability comparison: ........................................................................................ 8

Overall Comparison ............................................................................................................................. 9

Conclusion: ........................................................................................................................................... 10

Related Content .................................................................................................................................... 11

Disclaimer and Liability Notice................................................................................................................ 12



© 2010 SAP AG 3

Summary:

It’s a fact of li fe that every decision maker wants to have multiple choices when making a decision but at the same time he has to deal with the challenges of finding the best choice. First one needs to find all credible

options and gather all the relevant information about those options. And then evaluate pros and cons of each option and make a selection which is suitable for the current as well as future needs. This paper does that job for a decision maker, who is dealing with the task of selecting best off -line CRM solution using SAP

platform.

This paper explores four different choices available for offline CRM solution based on SAP platform, namely

SAP CRM Mobile Solutions for Laptop users, SAP CRM on Blackberry on other PDA’s , CRM Online solution accessed over internet, Offline recording of information using SAP Interactive forms by Adobe. Every solution has inherent advantages and disadvantages depending on the kind of information needed in the

field. For example, you need a solution with complete information about products, customer and order book etc. then SAP CRM mobile solution will be suitable but it is costly to implement and maintain whereas a solution based on Adobe form will be easier to implement but has limited capability. Licensing cost for adobe

forms is another point to ponder. In this paper, each solution option has been explored for its pros & cons plus what you can and can not do with a particular solution. It also covers challenges in maintaining a particular solution after you have implemented. Paper ends with a recommendation on practical solution

options.

Introduction:

Recently someone asked me a question that i f there is so much of online connectivity/Wi-Fi/Data Cards available now a days then why do we need off-line solution and for some strange reason(we will talk bit later on those reasons) we do need to have that solution, then what is the best off-line solution for my field force.

Well, that made us think because each industry has different requirement and similarly on the technology front we have many options with different cost to pay for development, support and changes.

In this white paper, we will highlight important basic rules, pros and cons, and cost/benefit for each options. Some aspects of this paper are general and apply to almost all CRM solutions and some are very specific to SAP CRM solution. We have looked at four possible solutions in this white paper and they are:

SAP CRM Mobile Solution

Access to SAP CRM via internet

Off-line access using SAP Interactive forms by Adobe

SAP CRM on Blackberry



© 2010 SAP AG 4

Solution Options:

In this section, we will explore the various CRM Mobile Solutions available in the market. The analysis has been done considering the utility of such solutions for wide variety of Industries.

Figure 1: CRM Mobile Solutions Summary


• A brand new SAP CRM offering and still

under development

•Use of SA P CRM application on

blackberry devices

•Anyw here SAP CRM realized

•Performance might be an issue w ith

dependence on var ious factors

Offline access using SAP Adobe Interactive Forms

•Use of Adobe form by f ield w hen off line

•Can be uploaded or mailed later to

pass on the information

•Forms are transaction specif ic

•Separate forms for different

applications required

•Simple to use

SAP CRM via internet

• An option w here f ield force accesses

SA P CRM via internet

•Can be an option w ith increasing

penetration of internet

•Security might be a concern w ith data

f low ing over internet

•Same solution for all the stakeholders and

thus reduction of cost


•Standard Mobile CRM Solution

covering sales, service & marketing

•Highly customized solution especially

for mobile needs

•Problems encountered in areas of skill

requirement, UI development and

configuration

CRM Mobile

Solutions



© 2010 SAP AG 5


SAP offers functionally rich Mobile CRM solution (For Laptops and Handhelds) which covers sales, service and marketing business processes. It comes with a different user interface (compared to

Webclient user interface (UI)) and database, which resides on mobile workstation, for offline access. SAP CRM comes with standard tools for synchronizing mobile workstation with CRM server. This solution so far has got mixed response with some implementations being quite successful and some

being not so successful – the main issue cited by many customers being management of data synchronization and high costs in application maintenance . Below is brief on pros and cons of this particular solution.

Access to SAP CRM via internet

In this case, the Webclient UI is accessed by the Field force personnel on their Laptop’s via Internet.

Increased availability of internet access, more countries adopting 3G technology and availability of data cards for immediate access to corporate network makes this option most exciting as it would not require any further investment in building an additional CRM solution for field force as they can access the SAP

CRM on the field and are assured of access to latest information.



© 2010 SAP AG 6

Off-line access using SAP Interactive forms by Adobe

Off late, this solution has gained quite a bit of interest and some ways this is cheap alternative to option 1. This approach is characterized by usage of Interactive forms by Adobe in offline mode to process the

transactions. Typically, a Field sales rep completes the form designed for a particular transaction by inputting various fields and then saves/ submits the form. After that the data is submitted to backend CRM system and a corresponding transaction is created. Data can also be submitted via Email o r it can

be uploaded manually. Interactive forms seems a good solution for government and financial service industry which deals with lot of manual forms and subsequent data transfer to enterprise applications.


This approach involves extending the SAP CRM application on to Blackberry devices to enable the

sales force to access info on account, contacts, leads activities etc on the fly and push critical information to management much faster to facilitate timely decisions on issues impacting the sales cycle. This solution is still in the works and yet to be proved in the field. So, it is still very early and

putting any bet on that solution will be risky.



© 2010 SAP AG 7

Comparison of Various Off-line solutions:

In various Life cycle Stages

This section compares the four solution approaches across the lifecycle stages.



© 2010 SAP AG 8

Important functionality/capability comparison:

In this section, we will discuss the typical offline business requirements and degree of availability and

achievability using the 4 alternatives.

a – Blackberry Sales client for SAP CRM V 1.0 features.

Road map for Blackberry sales client includes

Opportunity and Sales pipeline management

Unified Calendar

Blackberry Maps and GPS Capability in SAP CRM

b – The drop down values for fields like customer, product can be made available on Adobe forms while building the form. But these values are static and not exchanged with SAP CRM backend while offline.

c- The functionality of SAP CRM accessed on Adobe forms is limited to the layout of the form designed

(Limited fields)



© 2010 SAP AG 9

Overall Comparison

The following table compares the features of the four alternatives in terms of various factors to be considered

before going for Implementation.

a - If the customer is using Webclient UI online already.

b- The Time frame of implementation is yet to proved and we believe it should be short.

Note: The Table above highlights and compares the 4 alternatives to realize the same SAP CRM functionality. The words High, Medium and Low are used to compare the alternatives with each other and do not have units in terms of

time and resources.

LowbLowLowaHighTime frame for implementation

No

No (Optional)

Low

Low

Medium

Low

Medium

SAP Interactive forms by Adobe(

offline)

Requirement Standard SAP Mobile

CRM Solution

Online Access to CRM

CRM on blackberry

Complexity of development

High Low High

Infrastructure setup costs to access SAP CRM offline

High Low High

Cost of development and change management

High Low High

User requirement mapping and achievability

High Medium Low

Training costs High Medium Low

Connectivity at offline required? No (Optional) Yes NA

PDA/ Handhelds supported?

Yes No Yes

LowbLowLowaHighTime frame for implementation

No

No (Optional)

Low

Low

Medium

Low

Medium

SAP Interactive forms by Adobe(

offline)

Requirement Standard SAP Mobile

CRM Solution

Online Access to CRM

CRM on blackberry

Complexity of development

High Low High

Infrastructure setup costs to access SAP CRM offline

High Low High

Cost of development and change management

High Low High

User requirement mapping and achievability

High Medium Low

Training costs High Medium Low

Connectivity at offline required? No (Optional) Yes NA

PDA/ Handhelds supported?

Yes No Yes



© 2010 SAP AG 10

Conclusion:

Based on the analysis of the various mobility options, we could infer that there is no single perfect choice of a mobile solution. The right solution will depend on the requirement of information in the field for your

organization and will be determined by various factors including infrastructure costs, application deployment and maintenance costs, security concerns etc. It is very important to study and get the real business requirements first. Very often we end capturing lot of nice to have requirement and important requirement

gets lost in the noise and you don’t realize that until you are very near to goin g live with the solution but then it is too late and it becomes too costly to make a course correction. So map the real field requirement and pick a solution which can not only meet the current requirement but also establishes a platform which would

address future business needs. Below is our high level recommendation:

The SAP CRM mobile solution will be most suitable if you need a solution with complete information

about products, customer and booked orders etc in the field but it is costly to implement and maintain

We would recommend exploring aggressively the option of accessing SAP CRM on internet if connectivity is good and security risk mitigation plans are in place.

Adobe interactive form has a sleek and intuitive user interface and can work very well if requirement from field force is capturing new information in the field such as sales order or new contact etc. Many

customers have cited Adobe form licensing cost as an issue.

SAP CRM on blackberry is still evolving so we will recommend waiting and seeing how it fares

before going for this option.



© 2010 SAP AG 11

Related Content

For more information, visit the Customer Relationship Management homepage.

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpx-crm



© 2010 SAP AG 12

Disclaimer and Liability Notice

This document may discuss sample coding or other information that does not include SAP off icial interfaces and therefore is not supported by SAP. Changes made based on this information are not supported and can be overwritten during an upgrade.

SAP w ill not be held liable for any damages caused by using or misusing the information, code or methods suggested in this document, and anyone using these methods does so at his/her own risk.

SAP offers no guarantees and assumes no responsibility or liability of any type w ith respect to the content of this technical article or code sample, including any liability resulting from incompatibility betw een the content within this document and the materials and

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Realizing Mobile CRM

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