How to Choose the Ultimate CRM: SAP vs Salesforce

Customer Relationship Management (CRM), the ideal amalgamation of approaches, strategies, and tools, which has earned a sweet spot right up there on every company’s priority list. And why’s that, you ask? Well, what is a company’s most valuable asset?

Yes, it’s the customer(s). (Don’t roll your eyes yet). We are aware of this phrase being overused, but it’s for a reason.

A company thrives on customers. It’s fate and future lies in their hands. For it to be the paradigm of the ‘ideal company,’ all the factors related to the customers are pivotal. And that is why choosing the best CRM software is of paramount importance. Firstly, CRM software is used to handle a company’s relations and communications with both current and potential customers.

By managing customer relationships, tracking leads and organizing processes using data analytics, it focuses on improving sales growth. Primarily, it focuses on customer retention.

And that brings us to our topic. Which CRM software out of Salesforce CRM and Sap CRM would be a step in the right direction? Well, we know it feels like Sophie’s choice as both of these offers astounding functionalities and features. But stick with us, and we promise to break it down and make it easier for you.

Extensive synopsis

Salesforce has been in the game for almost two decades. This gives them a competitive edge over others. It’s been towering over the rest, having built an empire of CRM solutions on the cloud over the span. Brimming with features and functionalities, it’s a boon as well as a bane as Salesforce sometimes finds itself in a tough spot as some SMBs find it extravagant, excessive, and an unwanted expense. But over the past few years, they have acquired companies to cover up the part where they are lagging.

On the contrary, SAP has been in this field for almost 6-7 years. In such a short span, they have grown tremendously and rapidly. With almost all it’s on-premise functionalities available in the cloud, and diverse experience it has the edge over Salesforce with its singular focus. But when it comes to CRM-centric categories, it falls behind. Although, its various suites blend effortlessly, making it an easy choice for large organizations intending to use all its software.

Comparison between SAP CRM and Salesforce CRM

Sales features – With both of them dispensing almost similar features, we can dig deeper to find some difference.

SAP: SAP has the edge over Salesforce as it provides an end to end sales solution with an integrated SAP ERP system. It’s fairly easy to integrate SAP Cloud for customers with an on-premise SAP ERP. Although the user interface is not up to mark, along the years, it has improved.
Salesforce: When it comes to Salesforce, it’s an expensive and taxing task to integrate it with SAP ERP. Adapters have to be developed for the same. And it demands customization. It’s in a better position when it comes to social selling and developing relationships as a part of sales. It also provides the user with an excellent user interface.

Bulk Email marketing and utilities

We have all been at the receiving end of it. Be its coupon codes, offers, or discounts, we have received emails by various companies and have also been attracted by these offers. An email has proven to be one of the best ways of marketing, however sketchy pr unreliable it seems. Also, monitoring these emails is highly crucial. Email utilities help in keeping track of opened emails, links accessed, amongst other data.

SAP: SAP CRM offers wide scope as well as in-depth personalization. It grants their users various capabilities for cross-channel marketing and efficient campaign management. It integrates inbound and outbound marketing programs into a single platform for user convenience. It offers tracking for email interactions automatically, but requires users to enter various parameters manually.
Salesforce: Salesforce Cloud offers many features for this venture. It gives you the ability to design your own emails, or has a set of templates at your disposal. Serving the needs of the targeted audience of the user is made more efficient by using CRM data. They also offer excellent features like ‘email journeys’, which are content workflows which are designated to encourage continuous engagement with content. Another great feature is their FAQ platform which makes Salesforce stand out. Salesforce’s additional resources and step-by-step marketing campaign builders eclipse SAP as a bulk email marketing platform.

Business intelligence

Business intelligence (BI) tools are gaining popularity as an additional module in almost every other type of business software. BI and business analytics enable users to collect detailed data and monitor KPIs of their daily business operations. This data helps them make data-driven decisions for the long term benefit of the enterprise. One prominent attribute of BI is custom reports. Many enterprises’ needs are not fulfilled via pre-built report templates, so creating specialized reports can be vital for a variety of business intelligence operations.

SAP: SAP specializes in more than just CRM. Making use of SAP’s BI system BusinessObjects, it can directly provide business intelligence advantages without theed of a separate BI system. The only disadvantage being, the limitation of extensiveness. For customer reports, SAP has a user-friendly interface that provides its users with the facility to create and edit reports on the same screen.
Salesforce: Salesforce provides an amazing feature with an easy user interface and an almost non-existing reliance on IT for near real-time analysis – QlikView. The reports and dashboards present the status of your business in a peek. But keep in mind that it’s a paid service.

Marketing features

SAP: SAP proves to be better for end to end marketing solutions. SAP CRM marketing analytics supplies: optimization capabilities, predictive models/scores, etc. It automates the planning of marketing, campaign implementation, etc. It also integrates key functions like lead management, E-marketing and customer segmentation. They also allow you to request a demo.

Salesforce: Salesforce was lagging in the marketing area until it acquired ‘Exacttarget.com.’ It is a cloud-based marketing solutions company. Since then, it has consolidated its position in the marketing solutions field. Salesforce CRM provides a better user interface. With sales cloud, Salesforce promises to close more deals, gain more leads, accelerate productivity and make insightful decision.

Knowledge Creation workflow

Knowledge Creation refers to a database containing information in various forms like articles, tutorials, videos, forums, etc. which can be accessed by internal as well as external users and can be used not only to provide information to users but also can be used as training information for staff.

SAP: SAP Knowledge Base enables interactive center agents to search for various information and share it with the customer via email or chat. Public users have limited access to this knowledge base to search for FAQs and related information.
Salesforce: Salesforce Knowledge is a user-friendly knowledge base where users can create and manage articles or content. It allows increased functionality by providing role-based access for its internal and external users. It offers QnA forums, FAQs, tutorial material, etc. Salesforce has the edge over SAP, as Salesforce Knowledge Base is a little more extensive and easy to use.

Device availability and outreach

SAP CRM can be accessed on Windows, Mac, and web. Whereas, Salesforce CRM can be accessed on Windows, Linux, Android, iPhone or iPad, Mac, etc.

Apart from this, SAP CRM supports English and Dutch only. Salesforce CRM offers English, Dutch, Turkish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, and Spanish. Therefore, Salesforce CRM increases its outreach as compared to SAP.

So, after weighing up all the features and considering the neck to neck standings of the two, the ultimate decision should be based on your requirements and needs. Large companies generally prefer SAP CRM if they are already using some of their other features. And if you want to go for software with a singular focus, Salesforce CRM would be a better choice. Consider the points given above and take into account those which reflect your necessities.

So, which one proved to be the best for you? Share your thoughts and feedback with us and get in touch!