Apollogic at the CRM 2015 conference – event report
Not that far ago, between 1st and 3rd of June, Prague had become the capital of the technology world. All this thanks to CRM 2015 conference, that annually gathers the biggest clients of SAP system. As a SAP CRM consultant and a representative of Apollogic, I had a chance to participate in this unique event.
Main receivers of the conference are representatives of the companies which already have or consider purchasing SAP products. Event gathers also affiliate enterprises that lately presented implementations of systems in big companies such as Bentley or Adidas. Thereby, people responsible for implementations of systems in companies have a chance to check out what’s new on the market, and how presented solutions may support realization of processes in companies.
CRM 2015 conference is also a unique occasion to get some new business contacts as show attracts a lot of specialists in one place. Among the participants are also representatives of SAP company, whose main task is to get people to know about newest achievements and products of the company such as Hybris or SAP Fiori applications.
By taking part in this event most of all I wanted to get to know, what is the future of technologies developed within the system and if SAP is going to follow the trends emerging in IT. As I am dealing with functional and technical consulting, and also programming of new functionalities for SAP CRM, it is important for me to keep an eye on development directions and gain some knowledge about newest solutions. Thanks to the conference, I could not only gain newest information about SAP system but also meet new people, who just as I am, are passionate about their job.
CRM 2015 is a unique event, and I could say that just after the first day of the conference. Main themes of the conference were: CRM strategies and technology roadmaps, sales, marketing, customer service, web and e-commerce, technical infrastructure and data management and CRM project management. Most interesting issues for me were: Marketing and e-commerce – fields of my everyday work at Apollogic. I got especially interested in e-commerce solutions, which are very promising for the future of many companies interested in this area.
During CRM 2015 I had a chance to participate in various interesting lectures and workshops, but the most impressive was speech by Scott Druckenmiller and John Heald: “Optimising ROI: Strategies and technologies to derive greater business value from existing SAP CRM investments”. During the speech were presented new functions of CRM for 7.0 version such as:
• Corbu design (UIX improved)
• Column freezing (UIX improved)
• Fuzzy search and duplicate check based on Trex
• Duplicate check by Trex is better now than trillium
Speakers also presented new and interesting solutions concerning real time offer management:
• System recommendations, what we should offer to customer
• Learning engine – system learns by made by us decisions in the past, what we liked, what worked out fine and then – what should we offer
SAP Visual Enterprise:
• Interactive 3D visualization of equipment assembly
• Precise product identification – for service order needs
• Repair instructions/ video
• 3D repair and maintenance procedures
• Design for repair persona, but can be extended for customers
• Use case: When each part of product is produced by different companies
Among the speeches that inspired me the most were also ones concerning KPI and its usefulness for creating predictive analysis.
CRM 2015 conference means also a possibility to find out trends, which are within the field of SAP’s interest.
Dominating trend, that belongs to SAP’s priority issues is the simplification of the processes. That’s why one of the proposals is SAP HANA at one platform for whole Business Suite: ERP, CRM and SCM. Another significant tendency is also SAP Fiori – a set of applications developed using SAPUI5 technology, providing users with data which are important only from their point of view, and necessary to perform the assigned tasks.
From the point of view of IT consulting businesses, it is crucial to analyze trends connected especially with UI, Hybris platform, and us of Internet of Things. Right now in Apollogic a lot of our customers have SAP Fiori in their production systems, which is a significant tendency in upcoming years. For me, as SAP CRM consultant, it is important to search for new development paths for Apollogic, which I may notice in HANA solutions, IoT and further, in the whole field of predictive analysis.
In case of IoT, SAP already has its offer of applications for smartwatches which are conquering the new technologies market for some time now. I am especially interested in functionalities of applications related to CRM module such as informing of upcoming meetings linked with calendar in SAP CRM.
Another interesting idea presented by the company was development of SAP Customer Connection Program platform, on which clients may submit their ideas concerning new functionalities, esthetic interface and other modifications that are supposed to improve the quality of experiences of users of the system. Thanks to such initiatives SAP presents an interest for customer’s needs and proves that it is a modern company that is willing to meet the requirements of the new technologies market. Interesting for the clients may be also an improvement of SAP Contact Center work, by using IVR system to detect incoming calls. This is a solution, that may effectively contribute to improvement of the quality of SAP customer service.
In conclusion, I would recommend CRM conference to every SAP expert, who wants to develop his abilities and stay tuned with new trends and directions of system development. This show is also an unique occasion to broaden horizons in previously unknown fields, and a possibility to talk to experts and explain all doubts we had concerning our specializations. Thanks to the conference I could make new contacts with members of SAP society, exchange business cards, and among most of all, be a part of unique environment of people, who are passionate about their professions.
For me as a technical and functional SAP CRM consultant, new technologies on the borderline of IT and business seem especially interesting. Participation in CRM conference lets one follow the SAP environment. The event showed that there is a lot of action in connection with technologies such as IoT or Hana, which give totally new range of solutions on this market. Another issue is knowledge, which now is useful in projects realized for Apollogic clients.
In essence, it is worth to come personally for such events. It is much easier to acquire information while being somewhere live than by just watching TV broadcast. CRM conference – thank you! I am impatiently looking forward to next edition.
Report was written by Monika Hoffmann – SAP CRM Consultant in Apollogic.
- On 01/07/2015
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