Page 91 -

Marketing Information Systems and the Sales Order Process
capabilities function on a location-by-location basis. If the product or material a
customer wants is not available in the location that usually serves the customer, then
the sales order clerk can check for the material in other facilities, but this must be done
on a facility-by-facility basis. With global ATP, the system automatically checks all
71
facilities and determines the most cost-efficient facility to use to meet the customer’s
request.
SAP’s approach to CRM is to provide a set of tools to manage the three basic task
areas, or jobs, related to customers: marketing, sales, and service. These task areas
contribute to the cultivation of the customer relationship. This cultivation goes
through four phases, as defined by SAP: prospecting, acquiring, servicing, and
retaining.
In prospecting, a potential new customer (or potential new business opportunity with an
existing customer) is evaluated, and development activities (emails, sales calls, mailings, etc.)
are planned to develop the prospective business. Marketing tasks predominate in this phase.
In acquiring, salespeople develop business prospects into customers. Marketing is still
the critical task, but the sales tasks (processing inquiries, quotes, and eventually sales
orders) become increasingly important in this phase.
Once sales are established with the customer, the business becomes one of servicing
the account. In the servicing phase, sales tasks are still important, but service tasks
(including technical support, warranty work, product returns, fixing quality problems, and
complaint handling) are critical to maintaining customer satisfaction.
The rate at which prospects become customers is quite low; thus, a critical part of the
process is retaining customers. It is much easier to retain a good customer than to find
a new one, so the focus of the retaining phase is making sure that current customers are
satisfied by timely delivery of quality products and services at a fair price. Sales and
service tasks are still critical, but marketing tasks are again important in terms of
anticipating changes in customers’ requirements.
In SAP CRM, the customer development cycle (prospecting, acquiring, servicing,
and retaining) is supported by contact channels, the methods the company uses to
communicate with its customers. An interaction center provides contact through a variety
of media (phone, fax, and email). Mobile technologies and the Internet are providing an
increasingly large percentage of customer contacts. For example, the Contact Channels
might aid a customer service agent on the telephone and prompt her to ask the customer
various questions relating to the account.
Another set of tools in SAP CRM is Marketing and Campaign Management.
Companies invest significant sums of money in marketing campaigns, which are
promotional activities that publicize the product and the company. Successful planning,
execution, and evaluation are critical to gain maximum effect from these efforts.
Figure 3-16 shows how SAP CRM supports marketing and campaign management. The
top half of this diagram represents planning activities, while the bottom half represents
execution and evaluation activities. These activities are supported by most CRM
software products.

Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.