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.

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.

Assumptions

SAP S4/HANA will be the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) application that will enable the management and execution of customer records, sales contracts, sales orders, logistics, warehousing, transportation, billing and rebates. The recommended solution must integrate with S4/HANA to ensure seamless business process execution and master data integrity.

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

Options considered

Option A: “Manage Customer Lifecycle” and “Manage Issue to Resolution” processes enabled by SAP

Option 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 the need for double-data entry, misalignment of enterprise structure and master data and streamlines the business processes providing a full traceability and transparency from “Lead to 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. 

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

Evaluation

See also

Change log

Workflow history