SAP C/4HANA Explained

So lets start with a few basics

A brief overview of SAP’s new CRM product: C/4HANA

SAP is making a concerted effort to unseat Salesforce as the market leader for cloud CRM and has rebranded its customer relationship management (CRM) offering in an attempt to take them on.

The new product, called C/4HANA, is actually a suite of CRM solutions for marketing, sales, customer service and commerce and is a clear cloud-first play, marking another move into the world of software-as-a-service (SaaS).

The full C/4HANA portfolio closely resembles that of the cloud CRM market leader: Salesforce. It consists of: SAP Marketing Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, SAP Customer Data Cloud (Gigya acquisition) and SAP Sales Cloud (CallidusCloud acquisition). SAP Hybris has also been rebranded as SAP Customer Experience as a result.

Following the completed acquisitions of market leaders Hybris, Gigya and CallidusCloud, SAP now ties together solutions to support all front-office functions, such as consumer data protection, marketing, commerce, sales and customer service

How will SAP C/4HANA Enrich the Customer Experience?

The Introduction of C/4HANA will is helping SAP to consolidate its already strong position in the customer relationship management (CRM) market. The CRM market is poised to be one of the fastest growing ERP segments due to influx of latest technologies as well social media and smart devices.

The “C” in C/4HANA stands for customer while the “4” is for fourth generation CRM that runs on fast data processing capabilities of SAP HANA. The C/4HANA naming convention also fits well with SAP’s next-generation ERP business application known as S/4HANA.

SAP Customer Experience or C/4HANA brings together the four companies that SAP acquired in the past, namely, Hybris, Gigya, CallidusCloud, and CoreSystems to offer an enriched customer experience solutions in areas of commerce, marketing, sales, service and customer data. The rebranded SAP Customer Experience or even C/4HANA was previously known as SAP Hybris. Even now you’ll find a large number of references, resources and assets on SAP Hybris, rather than C/4HANA.

Those five clouds products make up SAP C/4HANA, but what makes it a suite?

It has one data model and it has one extension framework with a micro-services based ecosystem called SAP Cloud Platform. It also has better intelligence through SAP Leonardo, and that beautiful user experience from campaign to billing.

Next generation CRM

Also speaking on stage SAP CEO Bill McDermott spoke about how 'legacy CRM' is holding customers back from getting a single view of the customer.

"It's time for change, there is now a clear paradigm shift forward,"

he said. "We have moved from a 360-degree view of sales automation, where some companies focus, to a 360-degree view of the actual customer. From a world where nothing happens when you add a record to CRM, to a world where everything happens, the entire supply chain is connected to the customer experience."

SAP End to End Customer Experience

SAP clearly sees value in its ability to bring together CRM and its popular back-end systems for customers.

During a press Q&A after the keynote Atzberger said:

The connected enterprise matters so customer experience needs to connect with the supply chain and the only company that can really do that is SAP.

Going after Salesforce

Without naming them, SAP CEO Bill McDermott has criticised existing CRM providers (aka Salesforce), saying that customers can now move from "a first-generation cloud CRM experience, which by the way most users don't like, to the best consumer grade CRM experience in the industry" with C/4HANA.

?

So what is C/4HANA?

As the Brief Summary implied it is actually a suite of CRM solutions for marketing, sales, customer service and commerce and is a clear cloud-first play, marking another move into the world of software-as-a-service (SaaS). At a glance C/4HANA is just that collection of various acquired companies and the different customer experience components that make up the CRM suite of products.

Lets look at this C/4HANA suite a little bit closer

At the heart of SAP Customer Experience or C/4HANA is the personalised multi-channel experience, such as in store shopping, online shopping using smart phones or tablets or via the social media — all the while ensuring transparency of business transactions. And in doing it, C/4HANA ensures to comply with Europe-specific GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) as well as ensuring consumer privacy.

The main SAP Customer Experience is managed via C/4HANA, the back-end will completely integrate with another SAP flagship product and the next-generation ERP suite, S/4HANA, to ensure seamless logistics and supply chain management (SCM) required for an enriched customer experience.

The Five Components of C/4HANA

The five components of C/4HANA are:

1. SAP Commerce Cloud
2. SAP Sales Cloud
3. SAP Marketing Cloud
4. SAP Service Cloud
5. SAP Customer Data Cloud

SAP Commerce Cloud (formerly SAP Hybris Commerce) 

This C/4HANA component evolved from being an on-premises SAP Hybris offering to its recent launch on Microsoft Azure. SAP Commerce Cloud gives companies the ability to create products and services catalogs from which customers can choose and order.

SAP Sales Cloud (formerly SAP Hybris Sales) 

This C/4HANA component brings together former SAP Hybris Cloud for Customers with SAP Revenue Cloud, the on-premises SAP Hybris Billing solution, and the acquired CallidusCloud solutions. It’s an end-to end solution to support the sales team throughout the selling cycle. It gives customers an easy way to find information on a company’s product or service and, in addition, it captures information about the customers for the sales team. The component offers a way to create and submit quotes, create orders, and make any last-minute changes on orders. It tracks all stages of the sales order, such as the product’s or service’s delivery. It ensures timely and error-free billing for the delivered products or services. It also provides different payment options to customers, including automatic payment.

SAP Marketing Cloud (formerly SAP Hybris Marketing) 

This C/4HANA component integrates with SAP Commerce Cloud and enables companies to integrate their various marketing initiatives, such as advertisements in print, electronic or social media, and through analytics gives them the ability to track which marketing efforts are converting into sales.

SAP Service Cloud (formerly SAP Hybris Services) 

This C/4HANA component enables customers to request a return, replacement or refund for the delivered products or services with a hassle-free experience, which, in turn, boosts the likelihood that customers will recommend the company to others. It also completely supports multi-channel customer engagement.

SAP Customer Data Cloud by Gigya

This C/4HANA component gathers data of known and unknown visitors to a company’s website. This data is then evaluated to ensure more proactive engagements with visitors as well as gaining insights on the kinds of products and services visitors are interested in, inquire about or search for. It also assists companies in ensuring GDPR (General Data Protection Compliance) compliance.

Like all SAP products, C/4HANA also offers SAP Analytics Cloud to provide analytics abilities for every C/4HANA component.

SAP Best Practices for C/4HANA

SAP Best Practices bring together years of tried-and-tested approaches to standard business processes implemented in an industry. There are several SAP Best Practices available for C/4HANA collaborate with your trusted business partner to explore these. Further information can be found in Building the Right Consulting Relationships and Part II.

Deploying C/4HANA

Choosing a C/4HANA deployment model needs to be driven and be dictated by a company’s business needs and not vice versa. In choosing a C/4HANA deployment model, some of the key driving factors in the decision making process to consider are if the company needs to test new e-commerce solution in a selected market or region, if the chosen C/4HANA deployment model aligns with a company’s carefully planned growth forecast in the target markets and how much time, money and resources a company is willing to invest to maintain the support required efficiently run the chosen deployment model. Let’s review the three deployment models of C/4HANA:

• On-demand: In this deployment model, a company deploys components of C/4HANA that ensure Operating Expenditure (OpEx) and not CapEx (Capital Expenditure). The solution is easier and faster to deploy from available the out-of-box functionality and that needs minimal customisation. This deployment model also ensures minimal total cost of ownership (TCO).
• Hosted: This deployment model of C/4HANA offers greater customisation options so as to enable the company to mold the C/4HANA system’s settings to meet their unique business needs. Since the C/4HANA is hosted on cloud, therefore, there’s no hardware or IT infrastructure to manage or pay for. This C/4HANA deployment model leans toward OpEx for a greater sense of ownership
• On-premise: A complete CapEx option, this C/4HANA deployment model is complete freedom of customising the solution to meet complex and varied business processes of the company.

Rapid Deployment Solution (RDS)

There are several Rapid Deployment Solutions (RDSs) available for implementing specific components of C/4HANA. An RDS is a fixed-scope, fixed deliverable and fixed fee engagement service offered by SAP professional services. With RDS, the pre-configured and pre-installed SAP Best Practices act as a starting point for the C/4HANA implementation project. SAP Best Practices are then explored to see the ones that meet the business needs of a company, the ones that need to be changed, extended or even discarded. With RDS, standard solutions are only changed where there’s a convincing justification of the significant financial or legal impacts a standard and a pre-delivered RDS solution will have on a company’s business. RDSs of SAP Hybris Commerce, SAP Hybris Marketing and SAP Cloud for Customer are available.

My name is Mike Davis and I have been managing and supporting transformational change within major corporates for over 20 years. I am a keen contributor to the digital agenda and would be very interested in supporting and advising on successfully delivering business transformation change programs. Feel free to review my LinkedIn profile and should you wish to have a brief confidential discussion, a project or program review or engagement for a bid or program delivery please do not hesitate in contacting me.