CISUG CRM Team Provides Input to SAP Product Management
As stated by Bob Stutz – executive vice president of Industry Solutions:
“We can only deliver the products customers need and solve our customers’ problems if we are in constant dialog with them. This critical customer feedback is then incorporated into the organization through the portfolio planning process, which defines the framework for future solution development. SAP provides and will continue to provide the capabilities its customers need to solve their business challenges.”
One of the ways SAP can deliver products that customers need to solve their business issues is by working with organizations like CISUG:
The Chemical Industry SAP Users Group (CISUG) was formed in 2005 as a forum for sharing information and industry practices regarding SAP solutions in the chemical industry. CISUG provides a channel for providing input to SAP on solutions developments that are important and relevant to the chemical industry. The CRM Working Team is one of several sub-teams formed to focus CISUG efforts on a specific facet of the SAP solution set for the chemical industry.
On behalf of SAP, I would like to thank the CRM Working Group for their efforts to directly influence additional functionality in SAP CRM.
The CISUG CRM Team is a volunteer group working together on CRM related topics and assists SAP Product Management in enabling companies to better utilize: sales, marketing, order management and customer interactions in the chemical industry. The team’s recommendations address the unique CRM needs of the chemical industry.
The team was originally pulled together at Sapphire 2008, and met bi-monthly for 10 months driving towards providing their recommendations by the 2009 Sapphire conference. The team divided into sub-groups and worked with SAP Product Management to build additional requirements for territory management and groupware functionalities. The results of their recommendations will improve user efficiencies, analytics and usability for all chemical industry and broader CRM users. The team’s recommendations are currently being evaluated by product management, and will likely be implemented in future releases.
I’d like to recognize and thank these exceptional team members for their time and contributions:
- Eric Soll (lead) – Rohm & Haas
- Russ Hickman – Eastman Chemical
- Bill Pritchett – Dow Corning
- Robin de Bont – Lyondellbasell
- Tom Keesey – Lubrizol
- Mark Collver – Celanese Chemical
- Niels van Berkum – Honeywell
- Roger Myers – Brenntag Canada
- Lloyd Shafer – Air Products
- Tom Young – SAP CRM CVN
If you would be interested in participating in a CISUG Working group or another industry based group to influence SAP CRM Product development, you can do so through ASUG or comment on this blog.
There is a lot of CRM expertise in SCN - but the only time I have seen any one make an attempt to tap it was when one of the product managers asked us for feedback on sales applications or something last year. I think SAP should make better use of the collective expertise here on SCN.
At least in the US, SAP has established a regular community of SAP CRM 2007 customers(those live and those upgrading/in process), and has used that to gather feedback and provide information to customers. The SAP CRM CVN team does an amazing job with this effort.
As for your idea that would be a great topic for discussion.
Take care,
Stephen
But SCN gives a bigger avenue to get feedback - like consultants, developers, clients who do the same functionality in non-SAP systems and so on.
Vijay, your point regarding the scale of the broader SCN is well taken, and I believe largely correct. There have been significant developments that have come through this channel in the past. And I'm also aware of an interal effort to launch a similar site to support customer feedback directly to our product management group for CRM. We do recognize the value and strength of these channels, and hopefully we'll be able to continually optimize how we leverage them in the future.
Best Regards,
Tom