Application Decisions for Opportunity Management

[alvaro_guzman]

Summary

As part of the sales process in the customer experience domain, one of the initial and probably most important tasks is to manage opportunities. Without an effective and accurate opportunity handling, sales representatives won’t have a chance to identify potential deals and generate sales.

The Opportunity Management area (Customer Sales > Sales Execution) provides a framework for presenting sales projects from the very start and tracking their progress. Your sales employees are coached through the steps of an ideal sales process from identifying the lead to closing the sale.

As target applications for this business capability, we currently have SAP Cloud for Customer, SAP Sales Cloud V2 and SAP S/4HANA Sales. This document will give you some relevant decision criteria to help you and your organization to decide how to support these business requirements in your target architecture.

Most of the information in this document is publicly accessible through various SAP channels, including the SAP Help Portal. The goal is to consolidate everything into one centralized document.

Business Requirements

During the target solution definition, these are the business capabilities related to Opportunity Management mentioned in the Reference Business Architecture (as part of the SAP EAF):

• Pipeline Management: Ability to manage a pipeline of leads and opportunities and to initiate adequate measures to reach sales targets. It includes the ability to analyze the sales pipeline, identify gaps and critical opportunities, and identify and monitor opportunity changes in the pipeline as well as to simulate what-if scenarios and to trigger actions to resolve issues and meet targets.
• Opportunity Management: Ability to create and manage opportunities through the sales phases of a deal. It includes opportunity status management, recommendation of activities throughout the sales process, creation of product proposals, valuation of opportunities, and opportunity revenue planning.
• Activity and Visit Management: Ability to plan and manage sales activities, such as appointments, phone calls, and e-mails, and to plan, conduct, and track customer visits, including planning and maintaining routes.
• Key Account Management: Ability to select key accounts and to develop and manage account plans. It includes identifying key contacts, account hierarchy, and relationships, as well as managing buying centers on the customer side. It also involves using insights to understand the health of accounts and engaging in account-based selling and nurturing of target key accounts in order to improve conversion rates.

Solution Options

Now, three options will cover the respective capabilities:

• SAP Cloud for Customer - Sales Cloud: Opportunities
• SAP Sales Cloud Version 2: Guided Selling
• SAP S/4HANA Sales: Opportunity and Pipeline Management

Characterization of the Solution Options

SAP Cloud for Customer - Sales Cloud

SAP Sales & Service Cloud, a.k.a. as SAP Cloud for Customer (C4C), is SAP's on-demand cloud-based Customer Relationship Management. It consists of SAP Cloud for Sales and SAP Cloud for Services.

Opportunity Management

Opportunity management allows you to further nurture your qualified prospects, prioritize your potential deals to improve sales productivity, engage your customers to deliver a solution that meets their needs and increase the win rate as a result. More information in the SAP help portal.

In the solution, you can capture all the information relevant to your opportunities, including products, partners, competitors, surveys and so on. With such information, you can monitor your opportunities more effectively and enable better forecasting. SAP Cloud for Customer also allows you to capture different types of opportunities, such as one-time sales, ramp-up contracts and subscription services.

SAP Sales Cloud Version 2

SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 is considered the next evolution of SAP C4C - Sales. SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 is designed to help sales teams manage their accounts, leads, opportunities, and activities. This version includes new features and improvements to help sales professionals improve their sales performance, streamline their processes, and provide better customer experiences.

Guided Selling – Opportunities

Guided selling brings together multiple processes like creating opportunities, qualifying deals and much more in an optimized workspace. It helps you identify the right opportunities, working through the sales cycle across various phases and ultimately winning the deal.

Opportunities can be tracked, managed, and analyzed in real time, providing sales teams with a comprehensive view of their pipeline. The platform allows users to create and update opportunities, assign tasks and collaborate with team members to ensure seamless sales processes. Additionally, SAP Sales Cloud version 2 provides predictive analytics and forecasting tools to help sales professionals identify potential deals and prioritize their efforts. For additional information please visit the Guided Selling help portal.

SAP S/4HANA Sales

SAP S/4HANA Sales is a component of the SAP S/4HANA suite. S/4HANA Sales is an SAP system designed to streamline and optimize sales processes within an organization. It enables businesses to manage customer accounts, opportunities, sales orders, pricing, billing and fulfillment more efficiently and effectively. S/4HANA Sales also provides real-time analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing users to make data-driven decisions and enhance their sales performance.

Opportunity and Pipeline Management

Opportunity and Pipeline Management enables you to control your sales process. Opportunity and Pipeline Management provides the framework for presenting sales projects from the very start and tracking their progress. In this way, it provides the basis for an analysis and optimization of your enterprise. For more information please visit SAP help portal.

Criteria to determine the most suitable target solution

Several aspects will determinate the best solution to handle Opportunities in your target architecture, here’s some of the most relevant ones:

1.- Deployment options

SAP Cloud for Customer - Sales Cloud
SAP Sales Cloud Version 2

Both solutions are SaaS, meaning they’re only available to be deployed in the cloud.

S/4HANA Sales

There are two main S/4HANA deployment options: Cloud and On-Premise. In the cloud area we have public cloud (offered as GROW) and private cloud (offered as RISE).

2.- Integration with S/4HANA

SAP Cloud for Customer - Sales Cloud

Cloud for Customer integration with the S/4 HANA requires an integration platform to synchronize master data like Prospects and Accounts. Two options are available:

• SAP Cloud Integration (SAP Integration Suite): It offers out-of-the-box prepackaged integration content (iFlows) for C4C and S/4HANA integration. These iFlows can be customized to match your requirements. For technical details please refer to the setting up guide
• SAP Process Integration: iFlows package needs to be downloaded and configured in SAP PI. For technical details please refer to the setting up guide

A OData Services API is also available to integrate with external systems.

SAP Sales Cloud Version 2

SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 integrates with the S/4HANA system via SAP Cloud Integration and SAP Event Mesh (SAP Business Technology Platform). Please refer to the setting up guide for more technical details.

A set of REST APIs are also available for integrations.

Note: The number of APIs is limited in comparison with SAP C4C.

S/4HANA Sales

Since S/4HANA Sales resides in S/4HANA there’s no need for an integration platform or middleware to integrate.

3.- Extensibility

SAP Cloud for Customer - Sales Cloud

SAP C4C comes with several ways to adapt the solution including non-technical or key users’ options like:

• Adaptation and Personalization
• Extension Fields / Custom business objects
• Mashups
• Workflows

For more complex adaptations you can use the SAP Cloud Applications Studio, which is a PaaS-based software development kit (SDK) often used by developers that enables you to adapt and enhance the capacities of the SAP C4C.

For more information please refer to the SAP Cloud for Customer Extension Guide.

SAP Sales Cloud Version 2

Like SAP C4C, SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 comes with various ways to adapt the solution including non-technical or key users’ options like:

• Adaptation
• Extension Fields
• Custom buttons
• Mashups

For actual enhancements, SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 preferred extensibility method is side-by-side extensions and the recommendation is to build them on the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). SAP BTP enables developers to implement loosely coupled extension applications securely, thus implementing additional workflows or modules on top of the existing SAP Sales Cloud Version 2.

For this, you can use the External hooks that provide a way for external components to interact with the main system at specific events or actions, allowing for customization and flexibility in the overall functionality.

For additional technical details please refer to the Extensibility section of the Set Up Guide.

S/4HANA Sales

S/4HANA Sales has a consistent & fresh SAP Fiori 3 UI based on SAP CRM WebClient UI technology which is the backbone of the SAP CRM system. This means that you can leverage and reuse your existing ABAP enhancements built in SAP CRM in S/4HANA Sales (considering some minor adjustments).

For additional technical details please refer to the WebClient UI Framework documentation.

Additionally, S/4HANA Sales offers the possibility to personalize the user interface, pages, tables, and search results.

4.- New releases and innovation

SAP Cloud for Customer - Sales Cloud

SAP releases quarterly updates of C4C delivering innovations to users through a combination of new functionalities and improvements, cloud-based architecture, and integration with other SAP solutions. These new releases can’t be evaded, and the date and time are well known. Please check the help portal for detail information.

Note: C4C has scheduled maintenance windows (with a downtime of max. 4 hours) weekly and major upgrade windows (with a downtime of max. 12 hours) quarterly. More information in the link above.

SAP Sales Cloud Version 2

Like C4C, SAP Sales Cloud V2 releases quarterly updates. Since SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 is built on a microservices-based cloud architecture, it allows for continuous updates and faster delivery of new features without major disruptions.

S/4HANA Sales

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition has new releases every quarter while SAP S/4HANA private edition has a 2-year release cycle with Feature Pack Stacks every six months.

5.- Machine Learning and Generative AI

SAP Cloud for Customer - Sales Cloud

Machine Learning in SAP C4C: In Sales Cloud you can use machine learning for the following scenarios:

• Deal Intelligence (Opportunity Scoring): Use machine learning to predict if an opportunity (in status – open or in process) can be won or lost. In addition to the standard SAP fields, custom fields can also be added to machine learning scenarios to train the machine learning models created for these scenarios. This functionality includes the possibility to:
  • Check Opportunity Scoring Readiness Report
  • Add Opportunity Scoring Model
  • Train Opportunity Scoring Model
  • Check Opportunity Scoring Performance Report
  • View Deal Scoring Predictions
• Leads Intelligence: With machine learning in leads, you can identify open leads that have a high potential of conversion into an Opportunity or Account.
• Business Text Intelligence: Use Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to get actionable insights such as visits and appointments from text analysis using business text intelligence.

About the Intelligent Sales Add-On for SAP Sales Cloud

As an addition, you can also use the “Intelligent Sales Add-On for SAP Sales Cloud”. This add-on aims to optimize sales processes by providing predictive insights, personalized recommendations and automated actions to help sales teams boost productivity and drive revenue. It can also help identify potential opportunities and risks, as well as provide valuable data-driven guidance for sales strategies. This add-on offers the following functionalities:

• Pipeline Manager: Use Intelligent Sales Execution to check the overall health of your pipeline and uncover opportunities in need of immediate attention.
• Pipeline Flow: Use Intelligent Sales Execution to see at a glance how the opportunity pipeline has changed over time.
• Forecast Tracker: Use Intelligent Sales Execution to deliver a highly accurate sales forecast without the need for spreadsheets.
• Trend Analytics: Use Intelligent Sales Execution to analyze and interrogate the current fiscal quarter trend comparing to the last four fiscal quarters or the current fiscal quarter trend comparing to the same quarter, over the last four years.

SAP Sales Cloud Version 2

Intelligent Sales in SAP Sales Cloud V2: Use sales data to create and train machine learning models to identify patterns and trends to make sales predictions. Here are the current business scenarios:

• Deal Intelligence: Use machine learning to predict if an opportunity can be won or lost.
• Leads Intelligence: With machine learning in leads, you can identify open leads that have a high potential of conversion into an Opportunity.
• NLP Classification: Use Natural language processing (NLP) to identify sentiment from email.
• Business Text Intelligence: Use Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to get actionable insights for appointments from note text using business text intelligence.
• Business Interaction Intelligence: Business Interaction Intelligence provides insights for appointments and visits. This can help sales representatives during interactions with customers.
• Product Recommendation: Use machine learning to get actionable insights using the Product Recommendation machine learning model. Sales representatives can use these recommendations to make quick upselling offers to customers.

Generative AI: Use Generative AI to generate account synopsis, lead booster and draft email response for opportunity.

• Account Synopsis: Account Synopsis provides all the information related to an account that helps the sales representatives.
• Lead Booster: Lead Booster provides customized information with respect to a lead that helps sales representatives win the deal.
• Email Draft Recommender: Use email draft recommender from Generative AI to draft email replies or interactions for opportunities and generate meeting minutes for appointments (currently tested for English, German, Spanish, and French).
• Survey Trend Summary: View survey trend summary from past surveys in the Pre-Visit Brief section of Visits.

SAP CX AI Toolkit

In addition to the ML and Gen AI functionalities, the SAP CX AI Toolkit uses the unique SAP data to provide you with output relevant to your solution. You can use the SAP CX AI Toolkit to answer any business question you have, for example to obtain a generated summary of your last conversation with a customer.

You can also access tools to assist you with tasks, for example scheduling a meeting, generating a summary or generating a product description. The answers and texts that the SAP CX AI Toolkit generates are based on the data sources that you connect it to, like PDF documents, Outlook, Excel, OneDrive or Microsoft Teams. For detail information please refer to the standard documentation.

S/4HANA Sales

Currently, no ML or Gen AI is offered in S/4HANA Sales.

6.- Mobile App

SAP Cloud for Customer - Sales Cloud

SAP Cloud for Customer provides you with instant access to the solution data from a phone or tablet using the SAP Cloud for Customer Mobile Apps available for iPad, Android and Windows Tablet.

Mobile edition leverages responsive UI technology to provide the same experience across different devices and platforms. You enjoy the same feature function level across platforms and devices, including access to device capabilities with minimal configuration and mobile-only effort. Offline capability is also available to add, modify or delete items that are saved locally and synchronized when you connect to the network.

More information in the About Mobile Options section of the SAP help portal.

SAP Sales Cloud Version 2

The SAP Sales Cloud Mobile application provides you access to data in SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 and allows your sales teams to get customer insights, collaborate with teams, communicate with your contacts and make informed decisions from your Android and iOS devices. Using this application, you can:

• create Leads and convert it into an Opportunity.
• create Opportunities directly from the Guided Selling.

S/4HANA Sales

No mobile app is offered.

7.- Analytics

SAP Cloud for Customer - Sales Cloud

Using the extensive and flexible business analytics features, you can easily create custom reports using the guided procedures. You can define your own Reports, Data Sources and Views. The Analytics data in the solution is real time. More information in the Overview of Analytics section of the help.

SAP Sales Cloud Version 2

The system is available with a prepackaged integration with SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), offering an embedded SAC to all users. With this prepackaged embedded SAC, you can use all features of embedded SAC in the system.

The following are the SAP Analytics Cloud, Embedded Edition features available in the system:

• Query Designer
• Linked Analysis

For more information, please visit this link.

S/4HANA Sales

SAP S/4HANA contains analytical applications that enables you to monitor and analyze your data. One of the ways of implementing embedded analytics is the use of multidimensional reports. You can also use the Query Browser or the View Browser.

S/4HANA Embedded Analytics: With the seamless integration of analytics features in S/4HANA, you can benefit from a variety of analysis options in an environment with a simplified data model, new user experience, advanced processing and deployment options suitable to your business needs.

Comparison Table

Here’s a short overview of the decision criteria we presented in this document.

	SAP C4C Sales Cloud	SAP Sales Cloud V2	S/4HANA Sales
Deployment options	Cloud	Cloud	On-Prem Cloud (Public or Private)
Integration with S/4 HANA	Cloud Integration Process Integration	Cloud Integration	NA
Extensibility	SAP Cloud Applications Studio (SDK)	Side-by-side extensions (SAP BTP)	Fully extendable using SAP CRM WebClient UI
New releases and innovation	Quarterly	Quarterly. Based on microservices.	Public Cloud: Quarterly Private Cloud: Feature Pack Stacks every six months
Machine Learning and Generative AI	ML	ML + Gen AI	NA
Mobile App	Mobile App available	Mobile App available	Not offered
Analytics	Reports	SAP Analytics Cloud, Embedded Edition	S/4HANA Embedded Analytics

Conclusion

Your organization can select a solution from the Customer Experience (CX) portfolio such as C4C or Sales Cloud V2, or S/4HANA Sales to replace your current SAP CRM Opportunity Management.

The key decision criteria outlined above focus on seven criteria commonly observed with our customers:

• Deployment
• Integration with the Backoffice: Both cloud solutions require an integration tool, whereas S/4HANA Sales operates within the same system.
• Extensibility: Depending on the scope and complexity of your enhancements, you may choose to rebuild them in SAP C4C, adopt a side-by-side approach in SAP Sales Cloud V2, or maintain them within S/4HANA Sales.
• New functionality releases: While all three options receive regular updates, most of the innovations are introduced in the CX portfolio.
• ML and AI: Currently, SAP Sales Cloud V2 is the only solution offering embedded Generative AI.
• Mobile App: SAP C4C and SAP Sales Cloud V2 both offer a mobile app that supports Opportunities.
• Analytics: SAP Sales Cloud V2 includes embedded SAC (SAP Analytics Cloud).

If you are interested in the Service area of customer experience, please check the Application Decisions for Service Request Management.