SAP Helps Companies of All Sizes to Become Customer-Centric Businesses

NEW YORK, Aug. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced strong market adoption and new industry validation for its customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for large enterprises and midsize companies. The SAP® CRM application and SAP® Business All-in-One solution have rapidly growing customer bases, with adoption by sales, marketing and service professionals in companies around the globe, including Layby Services, Lincoln Electric, PBS A/S, Sterling Planet and Yaskawa. Adding to a growing list of accolades for SAP CRM and the CRM functionality in SAP Business All-in-One, Forrester Research, Inc., recognized SAP as a leader in the CRM market, reporting in its recently released Forrester Wave™ reports that SAP provides one of the most complete offerings reflecting the requirements of large and midsize organizations. This announcement was made by SAP at the CRM Evolution 2010 Conference and Exhibition, being held in New York City, August 2-4, 2010.

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Companies of all sizes and in all industries understand that customers are one of their most valuable assets. Improving the overall customer experience is critical for continued competitiveness as well as for securing customer loyalty and repeat business. SAP CRM and the CRM functionality in SAP Business All-in-One deliver comprehensive process support for all customer-facing activities in multiple industries, helping companies consistently deliver a superior customer experience to their customers. SAP offers a complete services portfolio to maximize customers' success throughout all phases of a CRM project, from planning and implementation to education offerings, to assure ongoing benefits are achieved.

SAP Recognized as a Leading CRM Suite Provider for Midsize and Large Organizations

SAP was among the select companies that Forrester Research invited to participate in its "The Forrester Wave™: CRM Suites for Midsized Organizations, Q2 2010" and "The Forrester Wave™: CRM Suites for Large Organizations, Q2 2010" reports. Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of 19 CRM suite solutions against 516 criteria reflecting the requirements of midsize organizations. It also evaluated 18 CRM solutions against 516 criteria reflecting the requirements of large organizations. These evaluation criteria included, among other factors, offering a multifunctional CRM application suite, a solution targeted to multiple industries and a product now in general release and in wide use by customers.

In these evaluations, SAP was recognized as a leader for both large and midsize CRM suites. The report writes that "SAP has steadily built out comprehensive CRM functionality, and the company is focused on improving usability and deepening support for strategic business processes." The report recognizes that SAP CRM 7.0 is "very strong across the board for sales, marketing, partner channel management, field service and analytics… and has a very strong user interface."  

According to the report, "SAP CRM improves usability while reducing cost and implementation time for users. SAP espouses the view that by truly putting the customer at the center of its business, an organization can deliver higher value to its customers and receive higher value in return. SAP's strategy focuses on providing technology to enable companies to achieve operational excellence across all customer-related activities."

Layby Makes It Easier for Families to Save for Special Occasions

Layby Services Australia offers consumers a unique proposition designed to change the way they shop for special occasions such as Christmas without relying on credit cards. The Australian startup owns and operates catalog and online retail company Hamper King, which offers a wide range of gifts, groceries, toys and seasonal products. Layby enables customers to pay by direct debit for catalog and online purchases that are delivered directly to them in time for the holidays.  

With a large existing and potential customer base and a unique business model, Layby needed to replace its legacy system to help call center representatives quickly and easily access and manage customers' order and payment plans. Layby chose the CRM functionality in SAP Business All-in-One to improve the customer experience. The software provides an automated payment interface that directly links Layby to its bank, allowing it to handle more than one million transactions via direct debit, credit card and manual check payments. It also allows refunds and insufficient funds to be calculated, scheduled and cleared daily without manual work.

"SAP Business All-in-One has given Layby a huge competitive advantage and we started to see the results after the first few weeks," said Toby Poulson, CFO, Layby. "With SAP we were able to see a significant and direct return on investment through the elimination of 90 to 95 percent of manual processes that can cause mistakes and delays for customers."

Lincoln Electric Illuminates Sales Opportunities With SAP

Lincoln Electric is a leading global manufacturer of welding solutions with 38 factories in 18 countries on five continents. Much of the world's future economic growth is linked to welding-intensive projects such as infrastructure upgrades, production and delivery of energy resources, fabrication of construction equipment and all forms of transportation, including shipbuilding.  

Needing better control over sales processes and a more accurate view of new sales prospects, Harris Products Group, a Lincoln Electric Company, chose SAP CRM to provide sales representatives a 360-degree view of their accounts and closer connection with opportunities, as well as real-time analysis of key accounts and sales activities. With SAP CRM Lincoln Electric was able to build a common customer database, establish a standard sales methodology to provide greater accountability and visibility, eliminate duplication in reporting and provide better visibility into status of opportunities.  

"We needed one complete version of the truth about our customers, as we couldn't manage what we couldn't measure," said Greg Langston, vice president of Sales, Harris Products Group - A Lincoln Electric Company. "SAP CRM changed the way our sales reps sell and we collectively are now more in control of revenue and forecasts. It is also helping us to focus on our customers, and invest in the aspects of the business that directly impact our success. It's all about results and accountability driven by superior information and process."

PBS A/S Streamlines Customer-Facing Processes

PBS A/S is a full-service credit card and electronic payments company based in Denmark, developing and operating solutions for payment systems and supplying payment solutions and related services to banks, private associations and public institutions. As the fifth largest card processor and the eighth largest card acquirer in Europe, the company provides state-of-the-art payment solutions to companies that operate in Europe.

Implemented in under four months, SAP CRM 7.0 has helped PBS improve its customer creation process, which has resulted in improved customer response time. Enhanced pipeline performance management has given PBS management greater visibility into sales performance as well as the ability to monitor activity and quickly impact results.  

"SAP CRM 7.0 has a flexible and straightforward user interface, which has resulted in greater user adoption and end-user satisfaction, reduced effort for training and lower support costs," said Gert Blak, senior manager, SAP Competence Center, PBS A/S. "SAP CRM also provides us with the best insight about our customers through strong analytic functionalities, which supports our strategy of driving a customer-centric business."

Yaskawa Increases Customer Satisfaction With SAP

As an industry-leading manufacturer of industrial robotics, motion solutions and AC drives, Yaskawa America offers products and services that support companies' automation solution needs in the Americas.

In the fast-paced world of manufacturing, companies need to quickly access product information as well as technical support when necessary in order to keep business running smoothly. To help address its customers need for prompt support, Yaskawa selected SAP CRM to empower its employees with the right information and the right tools at the right time so they can deliver quality service and a superior customer experience during every interaction.

"The SAP CRM application tightly integrated with Yaskawa's implementation of the enterprise resource planning application SAP® ERP and SAP® Business Communications Management software provides the visibility needed to meet the needs of our techno-savvy customers, and provides a platform to continuously improve the quality and level of information we need to compete in the global market," said Don McNair, Yaskawa's senior director of Customer Satisfaction.

"We chose SAP CRM because it offers that elusive 360-degree view of our customers and a comprehensive set of tools with the right depth and breadth to support all of our customer-related processes, from prospect identification to after-market service," added Maricel Cabahug, CIO, Yaskawa America, Inc.

"SAP CRM empowers our employees to not only execute our strategies, but gather information from our customers to help refine our strategies for the future. Success in maximizing the customer experience is a direct imprint on the level of success Yaskawa as a whole has achieved," concluded Dennis Fitzgerald, vice president, Customer Satisfaction, Yaskawa America, Inc.

Helping Companies Effectively Address Customer Needs and Deliver a Superior Customer Experience

SAP provides a full suite of CRM solutions for sales, marketing, service, customer analytics, contact center, e-commerce, social CRM and mobile phones. Customers can choose the features they need now to address business challenges and the application can be rapidly deployed and productive in six to eight weeks.  The new SAP CRM delivers comprehensive, industry-specific processes for sales, marketing and service, helping companies make confident decisions, execute superbly and consistently deliver as a best-run business.

The CRM functionality in SAP Business All-in-One is designed to meet the needs of midsize companies and is based on the SAP CRM application. This functionality helps midsize companies improve marketing, sales and service management. Integration with ERP functionality enables companies to streamline processes from lead generation through deal closure to customer retention. The CRM functionality improves customer loyalty, enhances decision-making capabilities and increases employee productivity and sales revenues.

"Superior customer experiences create competitive advantage that helps companies of all sizes drive loyalty and market share," said Jujhar Singh, senior vice president, CRM Sales, Service and Marketing Lines of Business, SAP. "SAP is uniquely positioned to deliver the solutions businesses need to transform their customer experience. With SAP, companies have better insight into customer needs, improved operations and support for a broad array of touch points, which enables them to be best-run businesses."

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 102,500 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol "SAP." For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

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