SAP Cloud for Customer (SAP C4C)

Cloud, cloud and one more time cloud is everywhere nowadays. Yes, it is true. In this post I will introduce another cloud solution from SAP. It is called SAP Cloud for Costumer (C4C or CfC) and it is a suite of integrated on cloud based solutions. It aims to support customer related needs of organization which face the customers directly. Well they all do, right? So the suite of apps is dealing with sales, customer service, social media tracking and analytics, and marketing. It basically covers sales and sales beyond (CRM) related processes for sales persons in one common platform.

The C4C was formerly called SAP Customer OnDemand. Here are components (or sometimes called features) of the C4C. As side note, sometimes they are listed only 3 of them excluding Marketing one:

SAP Cloud for Sales – mobile, and easy to integrate with whole back office operation sales application. Means traditional and operation CRM related to marketing and field force.

SAP Cloud for Service – support reaching to customer via different channels in real-time to provide customer experience like processing, resolving an issues.

SAP Cloud for Social Engagement (or called Customer Engagement) – tools for connecting/engaging with prospects and customers via different social media.

SAP Cloud for Marketing – covers marketing functions like founds, campaigns, targeting, groups, marketing execution.

From integration point of view there are following connectors for integrating of C4C with other cloud software. This is not final list as there may be others which I just simply not aware of.

Dell Boomi’s atomsphere SAP Cloud for Customer Connector

MuleSoft SAP Customer OnDemand Connector

More information:

Online docu for C4C

SMP C4C page

Product page

SCN’s C4C community page

SAP Cloud for Customer User Guide

SAP Cloud for Customer Administrator Guide

SAP Cloud for Customer (SAP C4C) Unleashed

service.sap.com/cloud4customer

Training Application Development for SAP Business ByDesign

- update on 07/17/2015 -

In short the C4C is next evolution of SAP CRM just pure cloud based. From technology point of view C4C is built on top of SAP Business By Design (BBD) platform.

SAP Business ByDesign (BBD) delayed

Information coming from SAP is saying that SAP Business ByDesign (BBD) as a Service (SaaS) is going to be delayed for minimum one year or more according German economic newspaper Handelsblatt. Software is offered already to limited number of customer since second half of 2007. There are a lot of rumors and investigations done on this delay in web’s blogospehere. See Dennis Howlett’s post. Other blogger Joshua Greenbaum is revealing possible reasons of this delay as it is:

- Operationalizing the on-demand model in a cost-effective way – Today they have just around 150 customers; a future roll out to ten thousands of customers can’t be scaled up for such an amount of customers on cost effective way.

- Design flaws - fundamental design flaw in the system, seems to be a misunderstanding of building large scale applications.

- Performance issues - Current release has a performance issues which can cause that response time will not be acceptable for large amount of customers.

On other hand it can be just a reason coming from nature of SAP as a company. As they are traditionally Germany’s very conservative company they are too much worrying about potential lost of their reputation in case of trouble with BBD. Other let say “soft” factor can be level of the maturity of the on-demand market. Traditional SaaS vendors (e.g. salesforce.com) used to have similar problems with performance and down times. As SAP is entering this market late that means it could have a software which has no these kind of kids illnesses and be more bullet proof than others.

SAP has spent a huge effort to develop this SME solution already. In terms of money till year 2007 it was according Dave Rosenberg it was over $1 billion. So see what happen next if SAP will be able to full fill a plans related to gain of customers and market share in this area.

SAP Business ByDesign (A1S)

A1S is released for the market. Finally SAP is joining Software as a service (SaaS) initiative and delivers a solution for Small Businesses and Midsize Companies called SAP Business ByDesign. Formerly the solution was called All-in-One (A1S) business suite. It was the most expected product from SAP over the years. In nutshell it is adaptable on-demand business solution designed to liberate midsize companies from the restrictions of traditional IT. On-demand in this case means that service is hosted by SAP and is provided all necessary technology infrastructure and support services. Offering is based on subscriptions model priced per user/month for the specific capabilities pricing starts at 133€. SAP expects 10,000 customers will sign up for the SAP Business ByDesign service by 2010. So join in congratulation and wish them good luck.

Solution is currently available to early adopter customers in few major markets like US, UK, France, Germany and China.

All-in-One (A1S) business suite

There are couples of rumors regarding new SAP’s product for middle size segment of enterprises it is pretty fresh and SAP is hiding its secret very well. Because of fact that about 65% of SAP’s customers are small and medium ones they are going to more focused on them.

SAP is targeting SME market with All-in-One (A1), aimed at the upper mid-market, with a deep industry and micro-vertical focus, and Business One (B1) aimed at the pool of small businesses.

Nowadays is SAP expanding its portfolio for small and middle size companies via new solution called A1S. SAP is being working for 3 years in development of this product. It is based on NetWeaver platform, web services, ESA architecture, SOA foundation, Web 2.0 with the intension to be act as on-demand platform for companies with limited resources but with high potential to grove. It would act as service when application will be hosted outside the company available as a monthly subscription fee. There would be possibility and flexibility to set up and test the software on their own before deciding to make a purchase - "try, run, and adapt" model.

Comparing A1 to A1S, A1S is an off-the-rack product which enables some customization while A1 is more hand-tailored product that allows many kinds of styles and flavors.

When we are gonna see it?

According the news from SAP they are demonstrated a beta version of product to select groups at the CeBIT 2007 trade show in Hanover, Germany. A1S, is currently being tested by around 150 customers worldwide. Ramp-up date is still not confirmed but it is expected around second half of 2007.