3.3 Maintaining Customer Relationships: SAP Customer Relationship Management
SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) is the active management of customer relationships. SAP CRM supports all phases in which employees of a business communicate and contact customers:
The functions of SAP CRM cover a wider scope and are used to map more complex processes than the components of SAP ERP.
Information on customers, which is usually only available to sales employees with direct customer contacts, is stored in the system. This information is also relevant for employees from the marketing and product development areas for use as the basis for promotions or to help product development better cater to customer requests. Without an IT system, important information gets lost (e.g., if an employee with close customer contact leaves the business). The sales, marketing, and service areas can access central information on current customers and potential customers to respond to their needs. You can also use SAP CRM for scheduling and resource control. In SAP CRM, reporting and analytical functions increase in importance because they are required to gain insight on customer behavior that can be used for future promotions.
[»] Mobile Application
Customer relationship management applications have been used more and more in the past few years on mobile devices such as tablet PCs or smartphones.
This trend is not limited to customer relation management. In other areas (e.g., sales, maintenance, services, etc.), employees increasingly use their own mobile devices or mobile devices provided by the company as well. When using mobile devices, stricter security guidelines might have to be followed to avoid unauthorized users from accessing confidential data.