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Issue
Syensqo requires a CRM system as part of its sales lifecycle and uses salesforce.com to meet its current CRM needs. The
Syensqo's current Syensqo CRM architecture comprises of two productive instances of the salesforce.com platform , designed to support distinct business models inherited from previous M&A legacy, has resulted in the development of two separate and overly customized Salesforce instances (Core CRM and ICare), including equivalent multi-instance integrations with relevant backend systems (PRS, PF1, WP1) and point solutions (Eg., Dynasys, Gensuite, Qualtrics, Qliksense, etc.). Furthermore, the current CRM architecture is built on a heavily customized salesforce.com environment, featuring numerous bespoke and tightly coupled interfaces, primary reliant on WebMethods technology on both instances.
This architecture presents several challenges, including the following:
iCARe). Although this dual-instance setup was initially necessary to accommodate different business processes, it has now become a source of significant operational inefficiencies and complexity. These inefficiencies are increasingly misaligned with Syensqo's strategic objectives of simplification, agility, and innovation.
This architecture presents several challenges, including the following:
- Inconsistent Processes and User Experience: The presence of different types of GBUs (Solvay and Syensqo) has led to the CRM being tailored to distinct business models, resulting in customized processes within the Core CRM and iCARe instances. This fragmentation has caused inconsistencies in process maturity and user adoption, hindering efforts to deliver a unified and seamless customer experience across Global Business Units (GBUs).
- Customization Overload: Both CRM instances are heavily customized, particularly in areas such as
- Adapted processes exist in both ICare and Core CRM instances, with varying levels of maturity and user adoption.
- The customized solutions require ongoing management particularly in the areas of Quotation, Contract, and Pricing management. Intricate integrations with two backend systems and custom interfaces are adding complexityThese custom solutions are resource-intensive to maintain and evolve, especially when considering the need for frequent updates and alignment with industry best practices.
- Complex upgrade and release cycles due to customizations require significant effort and specialized tools, adding to the overall complexity.
- Current bespoke developments hinder efforts towards aligning with a Simple and Standard approach.
Recommendation
A greenfield implementation of a CRM solution is recommended to address the existing challenges, consolidating multiple instances into a single, unified platform with a focus on the out of the box functionality.
This implementation will simplify key CRM processes, unify pricing and quotation management, integrate complaint and quality inspection processes, and develop a standardized approach to sample management.
The new implementation should improve customer relationships by enabling real-time synchronization, eliminating custom logic and support imperative processes as well as reducing the total cost of ownership due to the re-implementation of the new CRM platform.
Also a new integration layer, iPaaS, is necessary since integrations are crucial and will exist regardless. This new iPaaS layer could be a key enabler to simplify the architecture, reduce costs, and accelerate time-to-market for new requirements.
One single instance will enable day-to-day collaboration across GBUs on key accounts (transversal). SpP and Composite Materials share customers with GBUs currently on Core CRM. This aligns with the future state integration with One ERP implementation.
Background & Context
Syensqo's current customer relationship management (CRM) processes are supported by a complex architecture that involves multiple applications, including two Salesforce instances, integration to both On-Premise and Cloud applications, and various manual and automated system interfaces.
The scope of the functions implemented in the existing CRM landscape are detailed below.
See below two links for existing landscape:
Core CRM interface provider.pdf
Core CRM interfaces consumer.pdf
Account & Contact Management: The management of customer master data is characterized by different creation and onboarding processes for corporate groups and customers, which are dispersed across multiple teams, including the transformation centre, data operations teams, and customer service teams. These processes employ numerous hardcoded validations and custom interfaces that rely on manual intervention at every stage, lacking real-time synchronization and potential data inconsistencies.
Product Management: An integration exists between CRM system and ERP to support the synchronization of product master information. The existing integration design relies on some user-based business rules to work seamlessly but can cause inconsistencies. For example, creation of new products, duplication of products and overwriting of records. The custom "External ID" field, required for integration, is prone to errors if not populated correctly. Additionally, users from Special Chemicals and Novecare must notify administrators to update this field, and a report is needed to track missing IDs. These challenges necessitate careful management to ensure data accuracy and integrity.
Lead Management: Some custom developments have been created on top of the lead management functionality to guide users through the lead lifecycle stages with mandatory fields and duplicate request detection functionality. Leads are processed by Dataiku, assigning owners based on matched accounts, region, or rules. However, documentation requests bypass this logic, and delegations rely on daily batch jobs and assignment rules. Some of the challenges with this solution include delayed GBU notifications, sales rep dependence, and potential errors in lead assignment and status updates.
Opportunity Management: The opportunity management system features several custom developed components, including a button to add products to an opportunity, a clone button to duplicate existing opportunities, a revenue forecast component to project revenue for the next 5 years based on expected volume, a postpone feature to delay delivery and close dates by 6 months, and a realised sales component to manually track invoiced amounts for shipped goods related to won opportunities.
Visit Report Management: A custom visit report feature generates a PDF summary of visit details, while a bespoke reporting functionality provides insights on customer data, sales, and orders. Custom buttons send reports internally or to customers using predefined templates, with automatic email distribution to team members and customers based on criteria like region and product family. The feature also allows managing visit report teams, linking contacts, and viewing related records like opportunities, quotes, and complaints.
Pricing: 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 prices, as well as custom interfaces for replicating prices to backend SAP.
Quotation Management: 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 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, and quote reporting is done in Celonis (for Composites) and Qliksense (for TS and Novecare). An existing business project exists to migrate composite business unit into the OneQuote solution.
Contract Management: Contract management encompasses various contract types, including sales, distribution agreements and inter-business unit contracts. Contract data storage varies across business units, with key details including tracked validity periods for notification purposes, maintained product information for planning and sales forecasting in Qliksense, and excludes prices and discounts.
The approval process is managed externally in ContracTech(Legal), with no output templates generated from CRM for customer sharing. Contract management is not integrated with backend systems or processes, CRM contracts serve only as a centralized repository for tracking and notifications, with contract volumes reported to Qliksense for forecasting and stored in CRM for reference and expiration reminders.
Complaint Management: Complaints, whether linked to sales orders or not, 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, but improvements are needed to connect all related processes.
Sample Request Management: Sample management and tracking is a complex process that requires enhancement. Currently, some GBUs have 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 and time wasted. 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).
Assumptions
- The choice of technology for the new CRM platform will be addressed in a later phase.
- SAP S/4HANA will serve as the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) application for managing and executing customer records, sales contracts, sales orders, logistics, warehousing, transportation, billing, and rebates. To ensure seamless business process execution and master data integrity, the recommended solution must integrate with S/4HANA.
- Orders generated globally from ecommerce solutions (Salesforce + SAP) represent only 4% of total orders for 2023.
- The technical benefits of One Platform stem from its greenfield approach. However, in case merge of the existing instances into one platform, minimal cost benefits are likely to be gained.
- A separate KDD will be created, focusing on pricing strategy, optimization, approval processes, and execution.
Constraints
- Gaining buy-in from stakeholders who may be attached to existing customizations and interfaces.
- Securing proper sponsorship and executive support to drive transformational change, ensure resource allocation, and champion the initiative across the organization.
Impacts
- Process streamlining will impact certain GBUs, requiring change management efforts to ensure a smooth transition.
- Reassess existing interfaces and only reinstate or reactivate necessary ones.
- Ongoing projects
- OneQuote rollout for Composites: scheduled for 2025
- Pricing module updates: expected by October 2024, to display List Price/Recommended Price instead of two separate prices.
Business Rules
No business rules identified in this phase to implement the recommended solution. Further assessments will be done in detailed design phase.
- and Redundant Integrations: The architecture relies on intricate, multi-instance integrations with backend systems (PRS, PF1, WP1) and point solutions (e.g., Dynasys, Gensuite, Qualtrics, Mappy), which are further complicated by the use of WebMethods technology. This results in duplicated efforts and increased risk of errors, particularly when integrating webshops and portals specific to each GBU.
- Collaboration Barriers: The existence of two separate CRM instances creates barriers to collaboration among GBUs, when managing key customers that span multiple units (transversal processes). This separation restricts the ability to operate with a unified, holistic view of customer interactions, resulting in inefficiencies and missed opportunities.
- Resource-Intensive Maintenance: The extensive customizations across both instances require significant resources, including specialized tools and expertise, to manage regressions and ensure system stability during each release cycle. This ongoing maintenance is not only costly but also hinders the organization's agility in responding to new business needs and opportunities.
- Misalignment with Strategic Objectives: The current CRM setup hinders Syensqo’s ability to align with its strategic goals of adopting a Simple and Standard approach. The dual-instance architecture adds unnecessary complexity and prevents the organization from achieving the desired levels of operational efficiency, scalability, and customer-centricity.
Recommendation
Following the split between Solvay and Syensqo, all Global Business Units (GBUs) have unified around a common vision of innovation, exploration, and growth. This presents a critical opportunity to implement a new, integrated CRM platform that supports these strategic objectives.
Recommendation highlights for Option A: Greenfield CRM implementation with Single Instance for all GBU's
- Unified CRM Platform: We recommend a greenfield implementation of a single, unified CRM solution to replace the current fragmented system. This approach will consolidate multiple CRM instances, streamline key processes, and standardize operations across all GBUs, resulting in improved efficiency and scalability.
- Standardization and Simplification: Adopting a standardized, out-of-the-box approach will simplify and optimize critical functions, including pricing, quotation management, complaint handling, quality inspections, and sample management. This will not only enhance efficiency, but improve data consistency, and ensure data integrity.
- Enhanced Collaboration: A single CRM instance will enable seamless day-to-day collaboration across GBUs, particularly for key accounts shared by Specialty Polymers, Composite Materials, and other GBUs. This aligns directly with the future state vision of integrating the One ERP system.
- Foundation for Innovation: The unified CRM platform will serve as a robust foundation for future initiatives, including key Generative AI projects, by ensuring that CRM data is consistent, reliable, and readily accessible across the organization
- Reduction of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): By consolidating into a single CRM instance, we can significantly reduce the complexity and costs associated with maintaining multiple systems and integrations. This streamlined approach will lead to lower operational costs, reduced duplication of efforts, and more efficient resource allocation.
- New Integration Layer: To support this unified approach, we propose introducing a new integration layer (to be detailed in the design phase). This will simplify the overall architecture, reduce integration-related costs, and accelerate time-to-market for new requirements, enabling Syensqo to become a more agile and innovative organization.
This recommendation not only addresses the immediate challenges of the current CRM setup but also aligns with Syensqo’s long-term strategic goals of simplification, standardization, and growth. Implementing a unified CRM platform is essential to ensure that the company remains competitive and continues to drive innovation in the marketplace.
Background & Context
Syensqo's current customer relationship management (CRM) processes are supported by a complex architecture that involves multiple applications, including two Salesforce instances, integration to both On-Premise and Cloud applications, and various manual and automated system interfaces.
See below two links for existing integration landscape:
Core CRM interface provider.pdf
Core CRM interfaces consumer.pdf
The existence of two instances, along with heavy customizations and bespoke developments, presents the following challenges to all GBUs across Syensqo.
Customization Complexity: The two CRM instances have undergone extensive customization to meet the demands of various Global Business Units (GBUs). However, this customization has led to complexity in managing existing functions and delayed the go-to-market of new functions, thereby defying the benefits of cloud application. E.g., OneQuote is a completely bespoke functionality developed to handle quotation management, but it has not been fully adopted by all GBUs. On the other hand, contract management is not being used for its intended purpose of tracking contracted sales executed, but rather only for reminder notifications.
Interoperability Barriers: GBUs have to devote considerable time and resources to managing master and transactional processes, particularly for key customers who require cross-functional (transversal) support. As Strategic Key Customers of iCARe share customers with Core CRM, this complicates day-to-day communications across teams. Also, Commercial samples management is entirely manual, relying on emails for inventory management, material records, and transactions, leading to significant communication challenges and time wasted.
Integration Constraints: The WebMethods architecture is becoming a bottleneck, hindering performance and scalability due to the large number of interfaces (over 100) across both instances. Notably, 30% of the incident backlog is attributed to interface-related issues. Furthermore, maintaining two instances results in duplicated effort, as each new interface requires double the development and implementation work.
Governance & Strategic Sponsorship: There is no top management sponsorship to implement a standard and simple solution on the current SaaS platform, and GBU requests are implemented with customizations, resulting in increasing maintenance costs year after year.
Further details on the current functional documentations related to customizations are available in the appendix.
Assumptions
- The choice of technology for the new CRM platform will be addressed in a later phase.
- SAP S/4HANA will serve as the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) application for managing and executing 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.
- A separate KDD will be created, focusing on pricing strategy, optimization, approval processes, and execution.
Constraints
- Gaining buy-in from stakeholders who may be attached to existing customizations and interfaces.
- A clear and strong Governance is key to achieve agreement (especially innovative GBUs like Novecare) to use standard solutions offered by the cloud provider.
- Securing proper sponsorship and executive support to drive transformational change, ensure resource allocation, and champion the initiative across the organization.
- The current Salesforce platform is used for other processes, such as Marketing Automation, Partner Management, Self-Service Portals, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) Voice of the Customer
Impacts
- Process streamlining will impact certain GBUs, requiring change management efforts to ensure a smooth transition.
- Ongoing projects
- OneQuote Implementation for Composites: Planned for H1 2025
- Pricing Module Improvement: Expected in October 2024, this change will unify List Price and Recommended Price into a single field, reducing complexity.
Business Rules
No business rules identified in this phase to implement the recommended solution. Further assessments will be done in detailed design phase.
Options considered
Option A: Greenfield CRM implementation with Single Instance for all GBU's
Objective: This solution represents a strategic initiative to develop a new, unified, collaborative cloud-based CRM platform for all Global Business Units (GBUs). It aims to align processes, foster collaboration, and achieve efficiencies across all units while maintaining data visibility and flexibility to support specific needs justified by a strong business case.
Key Advantages:
- Promotes cross-GBU collaboration and alignment by standardizing processes on a unified platform.
- Enables a comprehensive 360-degree view of customer interactions, enhancing decision-making and customer experience.
- Implements a CRM with enhanced and automated cross-GBU lead-to-contract processes, integrated complaint and sample management linked to ERP.
- Reduces long-term IT maintenance costs and GBU support by leveraging the cloud solution's out-of-the-box features, freeing up resources for innovation and growth.
- Simplifies integration with other IT systems and implementation of global projects, reducing complexity.
- Facilitates seamless integration of new acquisitions (M&A) with minimal disruption, enabling quicker alignment and operational integration.
Key Challenges:
- Strategic change management and executive sponsorship are required to drive adoption and alignment.
- High stakeholder involvement is needed to design and agree on new, unified processes across diverse Global Business Units (GBUs).
- Complex data migration and system integration are expected due to the consolidation of multiple legacy systems into a single instance.
- Managing security and privacy requirements across diverse global units may pose potential complexity.
Option B:Refine and streamline existing processes and integrations, retaining current two CRM instances.
Objective: This solution involves re-engineering the processes within the existing CRM solutions (Core & iCare) to align with best practices and standardize operations across all GBUs while maintaining two separate Salesforce instances. The goal is to optimize current systems without full consolidation, retaining the flexibility of separate instances while standardizing where possible.
Key Advantages:
- Maintains continuity by using existing systems, reducing disruption and the learning curve for users.
- Allows for phased improvements, providing flexibility in timing and minimizing immediate operational impact.
- Retains the autonomy of separate instances, allowing tailored configurations that meet specific GBU requirements.
Key Challenges:
- Gaining buy-in from stakeholders who are attached to existing customizations and legacy processes.
- Potential disruptions in daily activities during process re-engineering and alignment efforts.
- Ongoing complexity in managing and aligning two systems, which may limit full collaboration and process standardization.
- Accumulation of technical debt in maintaining two separate instances, which could hinder future upgrades and integrations.
Option C: Merge the two existing instances of CRM into one.
Objective: This solution involves consolidating the remaining GBUs into one of the existing Salesforce instances (Core or iCare) with minimal changes to existing processes. The goal is to reduce operational complexity and streamline CRM management by decommissioning one of the CRM instances.
Key Advantages:
- Streamlines operations by consolidating systems, leading to more straightforward governance and lower long-term maintenance costs.
- Reduces duplication of effort and systems, improving efficiency and consistency across GBUs.
- Limits the scope of disruption to only the GBUs involved in the merge, making the transition more manageable.
Key Challenges:
- Complexity in aligning new GBUs to the existing system, potentially requiring significant process adjustments.
- Technical challenges in merging data and systems due to existing customizations and legacy technical debt.
- Perceived fairness and emotional resistance from impacted GBUs, which may see the merger as unequal or disruptive.
- Potential difficulty in maintaining a consistent customer experience during the transition period.
Option D: Maintain existing CRM solution in the current state, retaining current two CRM instances.
Objective: This solution involves maintaining the current state of the existing CRM solutions (Core & iCare) without making significant changes, focusing only on adapting systems as necessary to align with the ERP program. The goal is to avoid major disruptions while ensuring compliance with ERP changes.
Key Advantages:
- Avoids the high costs and disruptions associated with major system changes or consolidation efforts.
- Maintains continuity by keeping existing processes and systems in place, minimizing the learning curve and operational disruptions.
- Allows for focused resource allocation on necessary ERP adaptations rather than widespread changes.
Key Challenges:
- Continued management of two separate CRM systems, leading to ongoing operational complexity and potential inefficiencies.
- Increased technical debt over time as systems age and customizations accumulate, potentially complicating future upgrades and integrations.
- Limited ability to standardize and optimize processes across GBUs, which may lead to inefficiencies and hinder collaboration.
- No alignment with ERP Rebuild program objectives to standardize & simplify the IT ecosystem, potentially leading to strategic misalignment and missed opportunities for synergies.
Evaluation
Option A - Greenfield CRM implementation with single instance for all GBU's | Option B - Refine and streamline existing processes and integrations, retaining current CRM instances | Option C - Merge the two existing instances into one. | Option D - Maintain Salesforce in its current state, retaining current CRM instances | |
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| Alignment with "Simplification principle" |
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| Alignment with "Standardisation principle" |
|  Two separate instances hinder full standardization and collaboration. | Adaptation to non-standard processes in retained instance limits standardization. | Retaining customizations and multiple instances prevents standardization. |
| Total Cost of Ownership |  Single instance reduces maintenance costs and minimizes integration risks, lowering overall TCO. | Higher TCO due to maintaining multiple instances and duplicated efforts. | Merging reduces interfaces, simplifying maintenance and lowering TCO. | Maintaining multiple instances increases complexity and overall TCO. |
| User Adoption and Experience & Change Management | Requires significant change management, impacting short-term adoption and UX. |
| Higher training efforts needed as users adapt to new processes. | Tailored experiences for each business unit with minimal change management required. |
| Collaboration | Enables day-to-day collaboration across GBUs, improving efficiency in managing shared customers. | Data fragmentation in two instances hinders collaboration on key transversal accounts. | Single instance improves collaboration across GBUs, especially on shared customers. | Data fragmentation hinders collaboration and efficiency in managing shared customers. |
| Project Governance & Stakeholder Engagement | High GBU availability and commitment needed for defining new processes and ensuring sponsorship. | High availability required for streamlining, with challenges in gaining stakeholder buy-in. | High availability required for merging and adapting to retained instance processes. | Minimal impact on availability and sponsorship, as existing systems and processes are retained. |
| Customer Experience Impact | Unified CRM enhances customer experience through consistent processes and interactions across GBUs. | Inconsistent processes and data across instances may lead to a fragmented customer experience. | Merged instances improves customer experience by reducing inconsistencies. | Maintaining the current state may lead to a disjointed customer experience due to inconsistencies. |
| Legal & Compliance | New instance must comply with CMMC L1; all GBUs must follow specific guidelines. | Two instances allow for specific legal and compliance requirements. | Retained instance must comply with CMMC L1; all GBUs must follow specific guidelines. | Two instances allow for specific legal and compliance requirements (iCARe is more secure). |
| Integration and Data Management | Single instance simplifies integration and data management, improving quality and integrity. | Benefits limited unless existing interfaces are optimized. | Aligning custom integrations and data for merged GBUs is challenging. | Over 100 existing interfaces create ongoing maintenance challenges. |
| Scalability & Future-Proofing | Single instance is highly scalable, easily accommodating future growth and technology advancements. | Two instances limit scalability and complicate future upgrades. | Merged instance is scalable, but customizations may limit future flexibility. | Maintaining the current state limits scalability and adaptability to future needs. |
Options considered
Option A: Greenfield CRM implementation with single instance for all GBU's
Implement a unified, cloud-based CRM platform to streamline and standardize customer-facing processes across all Global Business Units (GBUs), replacing disparate systems and manual processes. The new platform will provide a single source of truth for customer data, automate workflows, and enable real-time synchronization across Account & Contact Management, Product Management, Lead Management, Opportunity Management, Visit Report Management, Transactional Pricing, Quote Management, OneQuote Management, Contract Management, Complaint Management, and Sample Request Management. This will improve data accuracy and integrity, reduce manual intervention, and enhance customer experience.
Approach:
This option aims to:
- Replace disparate systems and manual processes with a unified CRM platform.
- Provide a single source of truth for customer data and automate workflows to enable real-time synchronization.
- Enhance the lead management process with real-time synchronization and automated lead assignment.
- Implement a standardized pricing and quotation management process, integrating with ERP and Kinaxis.
- Develop a comprehensive contract management system, integrating with backend systems.
- Streamline the complaint management process, linking quality inspections, returns handling, and credit memos.
- Implement a standardized sample request management process and automating sample order processing.
- GBUs are represented at the highest organizational level, enabling seamless M&A with minimal disruption; this allows for easy carve-outs or mergers without compromising the existing configuration.
- Provide the building blocks for expanding the usage of CRM into areas not used currently to better support our customers.
Some challenges that might need to be mitigated include:
- Re-negotiating custom-developed functions with business stakeholders can be time-consuming.
- User adoption and training will also depend on the tool identified for the greenfield implementation.
- Existing data quality issues need to be addressed.
By addressing the challenges mentioned, the greenfield CRM implementation aims to bring about significant improvements in customer-facing processes across all GBUs.
Option B: Refine and streamline existing processes and integrations, retaining current two CRM instances.
Option D: Merge the two existing instances of CRM into one.
Reengineer SPP and CM and adapt them to Core
Impacted are only SPP and CM, no cost benefit
Impact on daily activities and long freeze period, due to the usage of the same platform instead of a new instance in parallel,
Under this option, the two Salesforce instances will be retained. A comprehensive evaluation and assessment of existing processes and integrations is necessary to identify opportunities for optimization. Additionally, custom-developed functions will be re-evaluated in collaboration with business stakeholders to secure their agreement on adopting standard, out-of-the-box approaches and functions, replacing bespoke solutions where feasible.
Approach:
This option aims to:
Challenges:
- Streamlining processes and integrations across multiple CRM instances can be intricate.
- Ensuring data consistency and integrity across instances can be difficult.
- Renegotiating custom-developed functions with business stakeholders can be time-consuming.
- User adoption and training may be required.
- Existing data quality issues may need to be addressed.
- High efforts to re-engineer existing solutions.
- Current CRM instances may have limitations that hinder streamlining efforts.
Addressing these challenges is crucial to successfully refining and streamlining existing processes and integrations while retaining current CRM instances.
Option C: Maintain existing CRM solution in the current state, retaining current two CRM instances.
Continue to maintain and support the existing separate CRM instances, including the custom implementations, integrations, and interfaces currently in place.
This option allows us to preserve the existing investments in CRM technology and customizations, avoiding the need for significant changes or rework. It enables us to continue using the current systems and processes, while also allowing for future enhancements and optimizations within each instance.
Approach:
Revisit all the existing interfaces to map to the S4 HANA
Implications:
Challenges:
- Continued use of existing separate CRM instances and custom implementations.
- Potential for future enhancements and optimizations within each instance.
- Risk of maintaining complex and potentially inefficient processes across instances.
- Potential for data inconsistencies and integration challenges between instances.
- Ongoing support and maintenance costs for multiple instances.
- Potential clash with simple and standard ERP Rebuild principles.
Evaluation
Option A - Greenfield CRM implementation with single instance for all GBU's
Systems, Processes and Integrations will be simplified and thereby reducing complexity, improve efficiency, and enhance the user experience, ultimately driving business success.
Although streamlining processes and interfaces will bring some improvements, maintaining two separate CRM instances means Syensqo is not fully embracing the simplification principle.
By maintaining the current state, Syensqo is not embracing the simplification principle, which could lead to missed opportunities for efficiency gains, improved user experience, and better decision-making.
Standardization helps Syensqo by providing a unified platform for CRM and customer service, ensuring consistency across the organization, and enabling a single source of truth for customer data. This leads to efficient reporting and analytics, improved compliance with regulatory requirements, and reduced maintenance efforts. Standardization also enables scalability and flexibility, making it easier to adapt to changing business needs, and provides a consistent user experience, regardless of role or GBU.
Maintaining two separate CRM instances restricts Syensqo from achieving true standardization, resulting in a lack of unified platform for CRM and customer service, inconsistency across the organization, and no single source of truth for customer data, ultimately hindering efficiency and effectiveness. Retaining customizations and multiple instances means that standardization is not achieved, leading to inconsistent processes and data. A single CRM instance simplifies maintenance, reducing costs and minimizing the risk of integration and interface issues. Maintenance costs will be higher than they would be with a single, unified CRM instance, due to the added complexity and duplicated efforts required to maintain multiple instances Maintaining multiple CRM instances and customizations creates a complex environment that leads to duplicated efforts, resulting in costs increasing by 20-30% Release and upgrade management is significantly simplified with a single CRM instance, offering a single upgrade path, faster testing and deployment, reduced risk of version conflicts, and simpler rollback procedures, resulting in lower costs and resource requirements. Multiple instances still presents challenges for release and upgrade management, including longer testing cycles and a higher risk of version conflicts, which may require more resources and budget to navigate. Multiple instances present complex release and upgrade management, with multiple upgrade paths to manage, slower testing and deployment, higher risk of version conflicts, and more complicated rollback procedures, ultimately leading to higher costs and resource requirements. Significant change management effort as part of moving to a new simple and standardized CRM implementation. While maintaining multiple instances requires careful management, it offers a tailored experience for each business unit. Multiple CRM instances provide tailored experiences for each business unit, boosting user satisfaction and require little to no significant change management. A single CRM instance simplifies integration and data management, providing a unified database, consistent data formatting, and reduced data duplication, resulting in improved data quality and integrity. Although processes are being streamlined, it's essential to reassess existing interfaces to determine if they can be eliminated or optimized. If not, the benefits of integration and data management with multiple instances will be limited. Multiple instances introduce complexity, with disparate databases, inconsistent data formatting, and increased risk of data duplication and inconsistencies, compromising data quality and integrity, and making integration with other systems and applications more challenging. A single CRM instance enables unified reporting and analytics, providing a comprehensive view of the organization with consistent metrics and KPIs, simplified data analysis, and improved insights across Lead to Cash processes. Refining and streamlining existing processes and integrations will lead to improved reporting and analytics capabilities, without requiring significant changes to the existing CRM infrastructure. Multiple instances lead to fragmented reporting in CRM and Qliksense, inconsistent metrics, complex data analysis, and limited insights, ultimately increasing reporting complexity and hindering informed decision-making. One single instance will enable day-to-day collaboration across GBUs on key accounts (transversal). SpP and Composite Materials share customers with GBUs currently on Core CRM. Having two instances would lead to data fragmentation, hindering day-to-day collaboration across GBUs on key transversal accounts, and causing inefficiencies in managing shared customers between SpP, Composite Materials, and GBUs currently using Core CRM. Having two instances would lead to data fragmentation, hindering day-to-day collaboration across GBUs on key transversal accounts, and causing inefficiencies in managing shared customers between SpP, Composite Materials, and GBUs currently using Core CRM.See also
List of 120 currently active interfaces CRM Integrations List - File to Use - Google Sheets
List of Functional Specifications for current key custom and bespoke enhancements
Change log
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Workflow history
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