About a month ago, SAP’s cloud-based ERP system SAP Business ByDesign was upgraded to version 20.08, which brought with it many useful and efficient functionalities. There were winds of change especially in the areas of customer relationship management, personnel management, supply chain & supplier relationship management – let’s have a look at these new functionalities.
Flexibility and accuracy in customer relationship management
The upgrade brought many desirable features to customer relationship management that make it easier for those working in marketing, sales and customer service. Customer target groups can now be segmented in marketing so that the target group is based on any report or performance metric. This enables customer communication based on up-to-date business transactions, which can be utilized in f.ex. seasonal campaign management. Customer’s ABC classification can also be changed directly on the report, which allows immediate response based on the data obtained from the report, such as payment history of invoices.
Sales forecasting can be done more accurately in the new version. It can now also take into account the different versions of sales offers, as well as the sales support and service documents linked to sales offers afterwards. Different versions of sales offers can be created and analytics viewed from the master versions and, if desired, also from other working versions. This functionality better reflects the real sales situation where many negotiations are held with the customer and multiple alternative offers are prepared.
Pricing has been developed to be more flexible, as one document can maintain two different discount methods instead of one. Customer relationship management documents, such as sales and service and billing documents, can be used for both fixed amount and percentage discounts at the same time, enabling the desired flexibility in pricing.
Resource management closer to project planning
Project’s resource management has been streamlined with improved resource retrieval. The resource manager is now able to see the availability of employees according to the planned work tasks of the project, and the search takes the levels of project task, service, and seasonal planning into account. With resource search, the resource manager is able to find employees who are free to be assigned to the project. In addition to free working time, other criteria can be added as search criteria, f.ex. areas of expertise if you want to find a person proficient in a particular area of expertise for the project. Once the search criteria are met, the resource calendar can be used to view employee project attachments and, if necessary, edit project work assignments, planned hours, and even create seasonal plans directly from the calendar view. Resource search can also be used directly from the project view, and when a person is being assigned to a job, the search function in the same view can also be used to search for other available employees within the desired criteria.
Block updates to time entries
Editing timesheets has gained a desired feature where editing previous timesheets can be blocked for employees after a certain period of time. This definition can be made on a monthly basis, in which case f.ex. working time entries can be edited for the current and previous month, or even for the current month alone. Working hours can be edited later on, but in this case it can only be done by the person in charge, ie. the employee’s supervisor.
Fluency in production core data management and project inventory orders
If the product structure (BoM) or production phasing (BoO) is no longer used in production, for example due to the end of the product life cycle or changes in the production process, their status may be changed to expired. This helps organize and maintain core production information and prevents the use of outdated production models.
The project warehouse orders have gained a new functionality, in which predelivery option is also available in warehouse orders that are sent from external storage locations managed by a third party. Outgoing delivery prints have been streamlined, as it is now possible to include in them important attachments to be sent to the customer. When uploading attachments, select “Include in printout” for each desired attachment, in which case the attachment will be sent automatically with the delivery receipt by e-mail, or will be printed together with the delivery confirmation.
Intelligence for supplier invoice scanning
System users can now scan PDF documents using SAP’s Intelligent Document Extraction service, which provides a simpler and more efficient way to process vendor invoices. Compared to the previous scanning function, just scanning PDF documents is enough and text documents are no longer needed. The PDF file is scanned using SAP’s Document Information Extraction (DOX) service, which includes an integrated text recognition service (OCR) and a model based on machine-learning. The new scanning service is part of the standard SAP license, so there will be no additional costs. The supported languages of the service are currently English, German, French and Spanish.
Source: SAP
Over 4,000 companies from 27 different industries have opted for Business ByDesign solution. ISLET Group has packaged the implementation of a comprehensive ERP system for two industries: ISLET SMART PRODUCTION for manufacturing companies and ISLET SMART PROFESSIONAL SERVICES for project business and specialist organizations. We’d love to discuss more about how Business ByDesign might fit in with your business!
Get in touch:
Jukka Penttinen
Chief Business Officer, Isletter
+358 40 355 1973
jukka.penttinen@isletgroup.fi
The author of the blog, Karoliina Luhanka, is ISLET’s SAP Consultant who manages both large lines and small details in projects. She has diverse experience from different industries, so she blends like a duck in water into different environments.
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