Unknown truth of SAP ERP, SAP EM and SAP CRM trio combination

[Former Member]

This topic discusses the Unknown truth of SAP ERP, SAP Event Management and SAP Customer Relationship Management Trio Combination.

Before going into the topic let's see 'How Supply Chain Management is important in today’s end to end business process?'.

Supply chain is everywhere from running your home, in health services, hotel, retail, Wholesale, oil and gas company.

Some of you may remember an incident which took place during 2005 Katrina Hurricane disaster in New Orleans. Wal-mart, the world’s largest retailer shipped 2500 containers of disaster relief products quickly and efficiently to the devastated region in the first two and a half weeks. In fact they beat the federal emergency management agency and red cross on proven efficient supply chain. Walmart is considered to be the master of supply chain management and their efficient work during a natural disaster shows that Walmart is truly a master of supply chain management (Source: Total Supply Chain Management By Ron Basu, J. Nevan Wright).

Not only for Walmart, but, Supply Chain Management acts as a crucial part for many clients across the globe. Procuring and delivering to customers has become quite a challenge in each and every step in end to end business process cycle.

To understand the supply chain management in detail, I will take you through a scenario...

When we buy 12 cans of cola in a cardboard case from super market, the only thing we notice is the refreshing drink inside the can. But the end to end process involved, from manufacturing the cola till delivery to supermarket is lengthy process.

Bauxite ore is mined in Australia and then transferred in Trucks to nearby mill to produce powdery Alumina. Bulk Alumina is then transferred from mill to port in Truck and from there to the destination country in Ship. The molten aluminum is cast into ingots and shipped by boats or trucks to Philadelphia, US. The ingot goes into several processes to make coils. Thin coils are then shipped by truck to Can maker’s warehouse in Illinois State, US. Cans are manufactured and shipped to bottlers warehouse in pallets by truck. The cola company fill the cans and ships to supermarket by truck and cola finally reaches you.

Now we understand there are several sub-processes involved to make cola in can and deliver to supermarket. The key here is effective supply chain management which brings the products on time to port to reach destination country or to reach warehouse, to manufacture on planned time, to ship to warehouse and deliver to super market.

Now, let’s move on to understand how the trio of SAP ERP, SAP EM and SAP CRM will bring effective supply chain management.

When a supermarket orders 1000 cans of Cola, SAP ERP system raises sales order to process the order. All monitoring from order creation till receiving the payment is done by SAP EM system. SAP EM also captures expected and unexpected events. If any unexpected or unreported event occurs then SAP EM triggers a task in SAP CRM via ERMS and assigns it to relevant team for further processing.

The Sales Order is converted into production order for manufacturing. If there is any issue with production order then an unexpected event triggers to SAP EM and SAP EM will create a task in SAP CRM and assign it to production planner via ERMS to look at it. If there is no response, the issue will be escalated to the next level.

On successful completion of production, the purchasing team raises a PO to vendor to supply 1000 cans. When there is any delivery delay, short of qty, delivery time adjustment, SAP EM will trigger a task in CRM and assign it to customer service team via ERMS to notify customer about these changes.

Similarly if there is any shipment delay due to nature cause or cross border customs issues then SAP EM will trigger a task in CRM and assign it to shipment team or destination country customer service team.

In all of these scenarios, the issues have been addressed and resolved on time due to effective integration of SAP CRM with SAP EM and ERP. This proactive approach makes the business model transparent and deliver product on time without any delay. In case there is a delay, the customer would be happy if they are notified well in advance.

Everyone knows SAP ERP and SAP Event Management integration in today’s supply chain management, but integrating SAP Customer Relationship Management with SAP ERP and SAP EM are unusual but it gives a lot of benefit.

Some advantages as as follows:

• Proactive customer service
• Assign a task to relevant team
• High visibility
• Leverage to action immediately within SLA
• Fill the gaps and tighten the integration of supply chain management
• Mitigate the risk of losing customers
• Monitor and evaluate your customer service

As of now, SAP Event Management has not been integrated with SAP Customer Relationship Management in Standard SAP. However, the customized solution gives you 100% transparent visibility on Sales and proactive service approach.