Dear Colleagues and community at large, I am writing this blog to share my experience with SAP C4C contract management system, and how it offers more flexibility than traditional ERP contract management system. Also, it is essential for customers who want to use entitlements in service tickets in hybris.
One of the use cases can be -
- C4C is the system of record of selling contracts.
- ERP is the system of record of fulfilling and billing contracts.
Updates are synchronized bi directionally.
Which system to use for contracts - ECC vs Hybris Sales/Service
Reasons to keep C4C as leading system/ drawbacks using ERP:
- General strategic decision to establish C4C as leading system for sales & service contracts and ERP for invoicing/costing purposes
- Service Order [aka Work Ticket] Management, relating contract determination [incl. offline] and reporting takes place only in C4C
- Same applies for Coverage settings/ determination
- Usage Restriction is a feature only existing in C4C
- Assign Entitled/ Excludes Services & parts as categories and products is only possible in C4C
- Quantity Contract [even with option for multiple periods within contract item duration via PDI] is only possible in C4C
- Contract templates only possible in C4C
- Approval for contracts only possible in C4C
- UX usability much better in C4C
- Massive Development & Maintenance effort for SAP to support ERP as leading system and C4C as leading system with same scope of functions & features each. Hence C4C will be the leading system.
- Performance, Synchronization and Consistence issues using ERP -> C4C approach
- Establish missing ECC Data (e-g. costs, invoice plan schedule, payments done ) via mash-up/ web service/ documents flow (with some restrictions) in C4C is much easier compared to establish missing data & functions of C4C in ERP
I hope this was helpful for some consultants trying to make a decision or advise a client. This again is my personal opinion, based on my experience.
Rohit
