Cloud - No instant coffee solution

The frequently articulated expectation that cloud projects must be implemented quickly and with manageable effort often leads to disappointment with the consequence: manual processing in the back office, dissatisfied customers, complaints due to process errors and often unmotivated users.

Put coffee powder in the cup and pour on hot water - that's how simple many companies would like the implementation of CRM applications in the cloud to be. But you don't have to be a fortune teller looking into your crystal ball: The requirements for customer retention are becoming more diverse and more challenging.

When, where and what the customer clicks on does not remain hidden and this data should be used in a targeted manner for the next contact. If you want to play along here, you have to align your processes with the much-discussed customer journey. This means managing complexity and providing the appropriate system architecture.

One purchase incentive - many systems

The following excerpt from the process illustrates the interconnections in the customer experience in the web store: customers are to be encouraged to make a purchase by means of a digital game, for example by drawing a lottery ticket. If the ticket wins, the customer receives a coupon that can be used for the next purchase.

Let's disentangle this process: the marketing system identifies the customers who have an affinity for purchase incentives (have already redeemed coupon). To sharpen the target group, only those customers are selected who have visited the store more frequently in the recent past without making a purchase.

The marketer can now execute the campaign after checking in the master data system whether the relevant consents have been obtained in accordance with the GDPR. A specialized system is used to send the emails to the target group. If a customer "bites", he opens the store via the sweepstakes link.

He chooses a ticket and wins a ten percent voucher. Anyone who now thinks it's a coincidence or believes that every customer receives a ten percent discount is mistaken. The lottery solution works together with the marketing system in real time.

Depending on the products that the customer has looked at in the past and the expected shopping cart, the coupon that increases the probability of closing the deal is played out.

High-tech fully automatic coffee machine

From our experience, companies are well positioned with the five clouds of the SAP Customer Experience (CX) solution. They have functions that only need to be brought together correctly for the process: a task for C/4 Hana experts with high architecture and process competence.

Our projects show that the first, often controversial questions regarding integration begin with the master data. In which system is the business partner initially created, when and in which systems are which data sections synchronized?

The specifications made are the foundation for the operational processes. If the data can be created in several systems for the first time and if further systems are to be supplied subsequently, the demand on the integration becomes clear. Does each software solution communicate with all the others, or is there a fixed sequence of data flow that goes hand in hand with possible data enrichment of the master data?

Because of the many design variants and in the discussion about the best solution, the question of who is responsible for the timeliness, correctness and conformity of the data then arises.

Now at the latest, it is clear that before the implementation of the functional requirements in the SAP CX Clouds and the data integration in the SAP Cloud Platform can take place, processes and responsibilities must be defined. Cloud implementations are no different from on-premises projects: All of this takes time and process expertise - like a really good cup of coffee.