SAP AG announced Feb. 2 an expansion of its mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) solution to include an on-demand option. The SAP CRM on-demand solution is designed for large and mid-size organizations to manage sales, service and marketing in a solution delivered directly via the Internet, offered through a subscription-based licensing model.
This hybrid CRM transcends on-demand and on-premise, while integrating with core enterprise solutions in both deployment models. The key technology enabling this solution is an “isolated-tenancy” model that combines the high availability and low risk of a single-tenancy approach with the efficiencies and deployment speed of a multi-tenancy architecture.
SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, also announced that SAP and Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM Corp. have extended their long and proven strategic alliance to provide on-demand application hosting services for the SAP CRM on-demand solution.
Sales first
The first on-demand product, Sales on-demand, is designed to help organizations manage their customers, contacts and sales pipelines. Available immediately, the on-demand sales solution will be followed by additional on-demand CRM offerings intended for release in 2006, including marketing and service products.
The CRM on-demand solution will help line-of-business executives such as the vice president of sales, service managers and marketing professionals meet current business needs for a fast and easy on-ramp to enterprise CRM. At the same time, the solution addresses the requirements of chief information officers who need a solution that can capitalize on existing information technology (IT) investments, and deliver new, integrated business processes to a growing user community with minimal disruption to the business and its systems of record, while avoiding a costly solution environment populated by disparate and disconnected applications. SAP’s on-premise and on-demand solutions are based on a common architecture, data model and common user interface, providing for a seamless transition that is easy to manage, ensures continuity of data and processes, and minimizes change-management costs.
Sales on-demand enables customers to meet traditional sales force automation business needs such as account and contact management, activity management, opportunity and pipeline management, calendar and task management, as well as sales analytics to help companies better manage new and existing business opportunities, lead generation, sales execution and client engagement.
Gap bridging
According SAP executives, it has bridged the gap between single tenancy and multi-tenancy environments, bringing together the best of both worlds to meet the real requirements of enterprise customers today. Customers appreciate the efficiencies of a software-as-a-service model found in today’s niche, pure-play, multi-tenancy offerings, including speed of deployment, automatic software updates and central management to keep costs low, SAP says. At the same time, customers are seeking high availability, security and low risk that come from isolated and dedicated resources that are found in traditional hosting—or single-tenancy environments.
Especially important for enterprise customers is the knowledge that their systems’ performance and continuous operations do not depend on the overall usage by other customers at any level, including the database. With its new isolated-tenancy approach, SAP can give customers the benefits of centrally served software while delivering a level of independence, along with dedicated technology and resources that assure a safe environment.
