Issue

The purpose of this key design decision document is to evaluate alternative CRM solutions and determine the best path forward for enhancing Syensqo’s customer relationship management functions. This evaluation will consider critical factors such as:

• System Integration: The ability to seamlessly integrate with Syensqo's existing and future enterprise systems.
• Scalability and Flexibility: Support for Syensqo's growth trajectory and adaptability to changing business needs.
• Functionality and User Experience: Comprehensive CRM features and an intuitive user interface that enhances user adoption and productivity.
• Cost Efficiency: A cost-effective solution that provides a strong return on investment.
• Risk and Change Management: Identifying and mitigating potential risks associated with transitioning to a new CRM system.

Recommendation

After a thorough evaluation of Syensqo’s current CRM system and a comprehensive analysis of alternative solutions, it is recommended that Syensqo transition from Salesforce to SAP for its customer relationship management needs. This strategic transition will address Syensqo's current challenges, improve customer engagement, and position Syensqo for sustained growth and success.

The key reasons driving this recommendation are:

• The SAP’s products are already integrated. Salesforce integration would have to be custom developed by Syensqo. In addition, SAP’s future roadmap will deliver more native integration with S4/HANA, resulting in less investment required by Syensqo.
• SAP option has richer functionalities than Salesforce.
• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of Salesforce solution is expected to be considerably higher than SAP option due to high number of interfaces required for Salesforce.
• SAP’s user interface “Fiori” enables seamless experience to all users regardless of the SAP application being used.

These points place SAP in a better position to enable the capabilities that Syensqo requires to perform the business processes and experience an unified user-experience across all applications. 

Background & Context

The current customer relationship management business processes at Syensqo are primarily supported by Salesforce, along with a variety of other On-Premises and Cloud applications that often integrate with Salesforce. The diagram below depicts the current application architecture.

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The current application architecture is very complex, involving two Salesforce instances and numerous manual and system interfaces that impact the performance of business processes and data integrity.

Key Issues:

• Double Data Entry: Business processes require manual data entry across multiple systems and manual tasks/interfaces, leading to inefficiencies and errors.
• System Integration: Limited and complex integration between Salesforce and other applications, such as SAP, results in data structures not being fully replicated in Salesforce. This increases the risk for data integrity issues across systems and adds to ongoing maintenance costs.
• Ongoing Maintenance Cost: Salesforce is heavily customized to mirror data from other Syensqo’s applications (e.g., Customer Master, Quotations, Contracts, and Sample requests), which impacts future upgrade costs.
• Customization for Different GBUs: The two Salesforce instances cater to the requirements of different Global Business Units (GBUs), with numerous customizations developed to support current business processes, further complicating the architecture.

Further developments are still required to consolidate information and harmonise data across these applications:

• Custom Interfaces: Development of custom interfaces to update customer and product data between Salesforce and SAP.
• Reports/Dashboards: Creation of consolidated reports and dashboards for Customer 360, Opportunities dashboard, etc., across Salesforce, Dynasys, and SAP.
• Database Consolidation: Consolidation of customer complaint databases (Salesforce) and economizing Gensuite.

“Manage Customer Lifecycle” business process is enabled by the following applications: Salesforce, Pardot, Dynasys, Dataiku, Data Lake. These applications add new layers of issues and complexity to the existing architecture and Syensqo’s business process, for example:

• Quotation management is custom built with no integration to pricing data that resides in SAP. Additionally, there is no linkage between quotations and orders, making it difficult to track the end-to-end execution of sales processes.
• Contract profitability reports are not able to be performed as contract execution is not integrated with SAP.
• Not user-friendly, difficult to navigate, with manual replication of the same information required in multiple areas of the systems.

Similarly, for managing “Manage Issue to Resolution” (Customer Complaints, Customer Request and Samples), four applications are currently in place: Salesforce, Gensuite, Qualtrics, Google. These applications vary in capabilities amongst each other and do not fully integrate with Salesforce, to provide the 360º customer view across various customer complaints, requests and samples. Overall, the same issues highlighted before also occur within this business process:

• Double data entry to capture customer insights and feedback from applications other than Salesforce.
• GBU’s have different solutions which creates a challenge to consolidate customer interactions for global customers.
• Case management and customer feedback processes are managed differently across the GBU’s, which does not allow to report on common KPIs to measure Syensqo’s performance and customer’s satisfaction.

Syensqo requires a robust CRM system to support its sales lifecycle and currently relies on multiple customized instances of Salesforce (Core CRM and ICARe). These instances are integrated with various backend systems (PRS, PF1, WP1) and point solutions (Dynasys, Gensuite, Qualtrics, Qliksense, etc.). However, the existing architecture, built on a heavily customized Salesforce environment with numerous bespoke interfaces, is creating challenges related to process and data consistency, scalability, and integration complexity.

These inefficiencies are hindering Syensqo’s ability to deliver a seamless and consistent customer experience, while also misaligning with the company’s strategic goals of simplification, agility, and innovation. 

There are 3 KDDs in the CRM space.

• KDD040 - CRM Platform Approach was created to determine if a single instance, greenfield approach is required for the CRM platform
• KDD061 - Sales Contract Authoring was created to understand how the contract authoring will be executed
• This KDD "CRM Platform" was created to determine which CRM tool/platform will be used.

Recommendation

Aligning with KDD040's recommendation of "Greenfield CRM implementation with Single Instance for all GBUs", we propose implementing Salesforce as the single-instance CRM and CX solution for all GBUs, to deliver a seamless customer experience, efficient processes, and consistent data management through a unified platform.

Highlights of the recommended Option B - Implement Salesforce and integrating Salesforce CRM capabilities with SAP S/4HANA

1. Incumbent Advantage: Salesforce is the incumbent solution and the associated business familiarity, operational excellence skills and IT experience are already aligned with this platform.
2. Change Impact of Alternative Solutions: The alternative solution of the SAP CX platform has a very different UX and functional flow.
3. Change Management Risk: The change management impact of moving away from Salesforce  would be very high and the risk profile would also be very high. The unique UX and functional flow of the SAP CX would necessitate major process overhauls and retraining efforts.
4. Best of Breed: The consensus from independently market analysts is that the Salesforce CRM platform is better than the SAP offering (and likely the best in the market)
5. Enhanced SAP S/4HANA Integration:  Salesforce's native integration with SAP S/4HANA has undergone significant enhancements over time, providing a more efficient connection. To fully leverage this standard integration, existing custom interfaces will be removed or adjusted to align with standard offerings supporting a more streamlined data exchange and optimized business processes integration.
6. Native Integration with Icertis: The Icertis contract authoring platform integrates effortlessly with Salesforce, providing a streamlined and embedded connection. This integration leverages the full potential of both solutions, enhancing contract management efficiency, accuracy, and visibility. (see KDD061 - Sales Contract Authoring )
7. Functional Coverage:  Synesqo's functional requirements are thoroughly met by Salesforce's extensive capabilities. SAP CX has no functional capabilities over and above the capabilities of Salesforce. That is, Salesforce has all the functional requirements that Syensqo needs.

Resolution

CRM system next step - decision.pdf

Background & Context

Syensqo's current customer relationship management (CRM) processes are supported by a complex architecture that involves multiple applications, including two Salesforce instances, On-Premises and Cloud applications, and various manual and automated system interfaces. The various functions implemented, along with their current challenges, are detailed below in the following exports from the LeanIX enterprise architecture tool: Core CRM interface provider.pdf and Core CRM interfaces consumer.pdf

• The management of Customer Master Data is characterized by diverse creation and onboarding processes for corporate groups and customers, which are dispersed across multiple teams, including the transformation centre, data operations teams, and service teams. These processes utilize custom interfaces resulting in inefficiencies and potential data inconsistencies.
• Although lead and opportunity lifecycles follow established sales cycles, custom logic is applied for lead scoring, lead assignments, revenue projections, and realized net sales tracking.
• The pricing process is a complex, multi-platform system with varying GBU adoption. It integrates SAP ECC historical data and Dynasys forecasts into BW, generating Integrated Contribution Margin (ICM) insights, Customer Product Combination (CPC) price recommendations, and Contribution Margin improvements via Dataiku. This process utilizes custom objects for reviewing and committing, as well as custom interfaces for replicating prices to backend SAP.
• OneQuote is a custom application that manages the quotation process, including creation, product configuration, pricing, approvals, and customer communications. However, it has not been adopted by all Global Business Units (GBUs). Quotation validity dates and price validity dates differ; the latter has a longer horizon to minimize the impact of policy changes on customer orders. OneQuote data is not replicated to ECC, its price conditions are replicated, and open orders are adjusted manually during price policy revisions.
• The Composites GBU uses the ECC Quotation process, which differs from OneQuote due to material group level differences. The outputs of OneQuote and ECC Quote vary significantly in detail and format across GBUs. For forecasting purposes, quotes from both systems are integrated with Dynasys, but quote reporting is done in different tools.
• Complaints follow a guided process that includes registration, investigation, commercial response, customer communication, and closure. This process integrates with Gensuite for root cause analysis and resolution, as well as Qualtrics for customer feedback. However, quality inspections, returns handling, and credit memos are not linked back to the complaint. Custom functions facilitate acknowledgments and communications between internal and external teams, and to connect all related processes.
• Sample management and tracking is a complex process, with some GBUs having an interface that integrates Salesforce, SAP, and CMC (a third-party sample provider) for automated sample transmission and information sharing. However, this interface needs to be replicated across all GBUs using CMC services for compliance purposes. The sample order process involves manual screening, which results in inefficiencies. Moreover, commercial samples management is entirely manual, relying on emails for inventory management, material records, and transactions, leading to significant communication challenges. A standardized approach is essential for capturing orders, communicating with production and R&I, and managing outbound logistics to end customers (both billable and non-billable).

Given the complexities and challenges identified in Syensqo's current CRM processes - including multiple applications, custom interfaces, and manual intervention - it is clear that a transformation is necessary. This KDD aims to explore potential solutions that will standardize CRM processes, providing a single customer view, efficient workflows, and automated processes. This will lead to improved efficiency, accuracy, and customer satisfaction.

Assumptions

• SAP S/4HANA will serve as the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) application for managing and executing

Assumptions

• customer records, sales contracts, sales orders, logistics, warehousing, transportation, billing, and rebates.

• Orders generated globally from ecommerce solutions (Salesforce + SAP) represent only 4% of total orders for 2023 (excluding Esker and Elemica).
• Salesforce also features a custom solution called Convergence, tailored for vendor management and procurement processes. As this capability is not customer-facing, it is addressed in KDD002 - Procurement Contract Lifecycle Management. 
• KDD052 - Sales Pricing Process focuses on pricing strategy, optimization, approval processes, and execution.

Constraints

No constraints identified; further updates may be determined during detailed design phase. 

Impacts

• Data Mapping: Mapping data fields from Salesforce to SAP accurately to ensure all critical data is transferred correctly.
• Custom Development: Existing developments in Salesforce need to be reviewed and potentially deploy/enhance standard features in SAP.
• Interface Redesign: Existing interfaces between Salesforce and other systems may need to be redesigned to work with SAP.
• Training Programs: Implementing comprehensive training programs for users to ensure they are proficient with SAP.

Business Rules

There are currently no known rules identified, but we will revisit and update if any emerge during the detailed design phase.

Options considered

Option A - Transition from Salesforce to SAP CX and integrate with SAP S/4HANA

Objective: This option utilizes a comprehensive SAP solution, encompassing the full SAP stack(i.e., SAP Sales and Service Cloud V2 & S/4HANA), to empower and streamline business processes. The primary benefit of this approach is that it leverages native/: “Manage Customer Lifecycle”and “Manage Issue to Resolution” processes enabled by SAPOption A leverages a full SAP solution to enable the business processes. The key advantage of this solution is the use of standard integration across all SAP products. This reduces , thereby eliminating the need for double-duplicate data entry, misalignment ensuring alignment of enterprise structure and master data, and streamlines the business processes providing a full providing end-to-end traceability and transparency from “Lead 'Lead to Cash”Cash'.

Other advantages:

1. Integrated Platform: Manage Customer Lifecycle and Issue to Resolution processes integrates seamlessly with SAP S/4HANA, providing a unified platform for CRM and ERP functionalities. This integration can streamline operations and enhance overall business efficiency.

2. Data Consistency: Having CRM and ERP data on a single platform reduces data silos and ensures real-time data synchronization, leading to better decision-making and operational insights.

3. Advanced Analytics: Leveraging SAP’s analytics capabilities, including SAP Analytics Cloud and embedded analytics in SAP S/4HANA, allows for sophisticated reporting, predictive analytics, and business intelligence.

4. Customization and Flexibility: SAP offers robust customization options and scalability, to tailor the system to specific business needs and scale operations as they grow.

5. Security and Compliance: SAP’s strong focus on security and compliance, along with its extensive experience in enterprise solutions, provides peace of mind for organizations handling sensitive data or operating in regulated industries.

The diagrams below outline the business processes that will be supported by Option 1. 

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Option B: “Manage Customer Lifecycle” and “Manage Issue to Resolution” processes enabled by SAP and Salesforce: It includes S4/HANA and Salesforce.

Approach:

• The integrated master data management of SAP CX and S/4HANA creates a unified customer platform, delivering a seamless experience through real-time data replication, tailored corporate group management, and GBU segmentation, as well as team assignments, centralized organization management, and enhanced security.
• The Lead and Opportunity lifecycles are streamlined with guided selling processes and real-time customer insights, providing a unified lead-to-cash cycle. This streamlined approach enables accurate sales revenue tracking and forecasting without the need for multiple system integrations. Moreover, machine learning-based lead intelligence and customer and relationship insights help identify high-quality leads and predict conversion likelihood.
• SAP CX streamlines the quotation process, encompassing guided selling, quotation configuration, pricing, and discounting, as well as approval workflows, customer-specific pricing, quote validity, and quote versioning. By integrating with S/4HANA, sales quotations can access real-time data, automate data synchronization, and simplify order-to-cash processing. This integration ultimately provides a single source of truth for customer, product, and pricing data, increasing efficiency and accuracy throughout the quotation-to-cash process.
• Contract Management provides a centralized repository for storing and managing contracts, automated workflows for approval and notification processes, and real-time tracking of contract validity periods, product information, and pricing. Additionally, S/4HANA provides advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, enabling real-time insights into contract performance and supporting data-driven decision making.
• The complaint management process is streamlined by integrating it with sales orders, quality inspections, returns handling, and credit memos. The guided process automates registration, investigation, commercial response, and tracking, as well as customer communication and closure, with automation of acknowledgments and communications between teams. Additionally, SAP CX and S/4HANA integrate with Qualtrics for customer feedback, providing a closed-loop process. 
• Sales order management standardizes and automates the sample order process, eliminating manual screening and inefficiencies. S/4HANA's inventory management and logistics capabilities will efficiently manage outbound logistics for end customers and distributors.

Option B - Implement Salesforce and integrating Salesforce CRM capabilities with SAP S/4HANA

Objective: This option utilizes Salesforce's CRM platform and capabilities to consolidate the current multi-tenant landscape into a unified Salesforce environment, in line with KDD040's recommendation for a "Greenfield CRM implementation with a Single Instance for all GBUs." Additionally, any non-CRM functions that can be transitioned to S/4HANA will be migrated to streamline core CRM functions. This approach will necessitate integration between Salesforce and S/4HANA to facilitate an efficient Lead to Cash execution process and enhance end-to-end business process execution and reporting capabilities.

Approach:

• Streamline master data processes by retaining Prospect creation and Customer conversion in Salesforce, eliminating PRS, and integrating Salesforce with S/4HANA for real-time data replication. Align GBU segmentation with S/4HANA's organizational structure and map team assignments to S/4HANA's business partner concepts, reducing interfaces and enhancing efficiency.

• Continue using Salesforce for lead and opportunity management, and revenue projection maintenance. However, leverage S/4HANA data for forecasting and realized sales/revenue data, ensuring an accurate view of sales performance.

• Price setting will continue in Salesforce, integrated with Dataiku for price optimizations. Salesforce will remain the platform for price execution via quotation creation. Once quotations are released, prices will be replicated to S/4HANA. Furthermore, Salesforce quotations will be replicated to S/4HANA to ensure end-to-end Quote-to-Cash process integration. To enhance visibility, Price Transparency dashboards will be implemented using S/4HANA data, covering sales revenue, prices, forward costing, orders, and contract information.

• Operational Contract management will be centralized in S/4HANA, simplifying processes, reducing errors, and boosting efficiency. S/4HANA will serve as the single source of truth, providing accurate and visible data for informed decision-making. The contract dashboard and KPIs will be driven by S/4HANA data, offering real-time insights and performance metrics. Additionally, necessary metadata required for contract database management will be replicated from S/4HANA to Salesforce.

• Salesforce will handle case management and approvals, integrating with S/4HANA for quality notifications and corrective actions. S/4HANA will manage investigation outcomes, including returns and settlements, and update Salesforce cases for tracking. Feedback tracking will remain in Qualtrics, with reporting in both Salesforce and S/4HANA for a unified view.

• Salesforce manages and approves samples, then integrates with S/4HANA for logistics and fulfilment. Third-party integrations remain in Salesforce, with S/4HANA updates flowing in for tracking and monitoring purposes.

Evaluation

Evaluation

Option A

Option B

Functional Capability

SAP option is richer in functionality

Salesforce has better ease of use

Alignment with "Simplification principle"

SAP roadmap includes additional standard integration between the SAP 
applications. 

The number of custom developments is significantly higher in the Salesforce option due to complex integration between S4/HANA and Salesforce.

Integration with S4/ HANA

Standard integration is now available to support Syensqo's business process.

Salesforce and S4/HANA integration would have to be custom developed regardless.

Implementation Cost

Change Management and Training costs are higher in SAP, since Salesforce is already in place in most regions.

Salesforce and S4/HANA integration would have to be custom developed regardless.

License Cost

Offers an opportunity to lower license 
costs due to Syensqo's Strategy “SAP First”.

Yet to be confirmed

Infrastructure Cost

Equally the same, as both leverage a combination of S4/HANA and Cloud applications. 

Equally the same, as both leverage a combination of S4/HANA and Cloud applications. 

Maintenance Cost

 Leveraging pre-built integration content and unified support structures provided by SAP significantly reduces maintenance cost.

Higher in Salesforce due to large number of interfaces between S4/HANA and Salesforce. Any updates or changes in one system may necessitate adjustments in the integration setup.

Upgrades

Upgrades are typically rolled out automatically, with SAP ensuring backward compatibility and minimal disruption 

Coordinating upgrades and ensuring compatibility between the two systems can be challenging and time-consuming

Moving to SAP CX aligns with simplification, as it unifies processes across SAP platforms, streamlining the technology landscape.	Single Instance model using standard processes and integration. Unifying multiple instances will simplify the landscape; however, the process simplification could present challenges, as the underlying data structures, workflows, and data models are unique to each application.
Alignment with "Standardization principle"	Full alignment with SAP S/4HANA, providing standardized processes across the GBU's through a unified platform.	Salesforce can be standardized to an extent, but the bespoke developments around Pricing and OneQuote solutions have intricate dependencies and customizations that may challenge full standardization.
System Integration	High integration with SAP S/4HANA due to integration content being provided by SAP.	Salesforce's native integration with SAP S/4HANA has undergone significant enhancements over time, providing an improved and more efficient connection.
Implementation Time	Transitioning to SAP CX and integrating it with SAP S/4HANA will take time, including data migration, system setup, and full alignment with business processes.	Harmonizing Salesforce and integrating it with SAP S/4HANA will require less time than a complete system change.
User Training & Change Management	Significant training and change management required to transition to SAP CX and adapt to new processes.	Users need to adjust to the streamlined Salesforce system, but they are already familiar with the platform.
Cost of Implementation	Transitioning to SAP CX and deep integration with SAP S/4HANA involves substantial costs (licenses, migration, customization, etc.).	Lower than the costs of a full transition, including system optimization and integration efforts.
Long-term Scalability	SAP CX offers excellent scalability, especially when integrated with SAP S/4HANA, allowing for growth in users, data, and complex workflows.	Salesforce can scale, but integration with SAP S/4HANA may present some limits as complexity grows.
Customization Flexibility	Customizing SAP CX can be more complex compared to Salesforce. Though it provides extensive flexibility, customizing it requires specific SAP expertise and can take more time due to its tight integration with SAP S4HANA and alignment with enterprise-wide processes.	Salesforce is highly customizable, offering flexibility to align with evolving business needs and complex workflows.
System Maintenance	Simplifies troubleshooting and maintenance as both SAP CX and S/4HANA are from same vendor. System updates and performance optimizations can be handled more cohesively.	Harmonizing Salesforce reduces maintenance complexity with some effort to manage integration with SAP S/4HANA.
Risk of Disruption	Transitioning to a new system (SAP CX) poses a high risk of operational disruption during implementation.	Some disruption during the streamlining and integration process, but users remain on Salesforce, reducing the overall risk.
Customer Experience Impact	While it delivers a better end-to-end experience with deeper integration between CRM and S/4HANA the transition phase would affect customer service consistency.	Offers the best balance between optimizing the CRM experience and minimizing disruption, ensuring smoother transitions with a positive long-term impact on customer experience.

See also

Sales Pricing Process KDD

CRM Platform Approach KDD

CRM system next step - decision.pdf

Change log

See also

Change log

Workflow history