This topic discusses the Unknown truth of SAP Transportation Management, SAP Event Management and SAP Customer Relationship Management software products as a trio, in combination with each other.

Today, supply chain management is a crucial part of business for any business. Procuring a semi-finished or finished product, from the manufacture to the full finished product, moving it to a warehouse, and then delivering to the customer becomes quite a challenge in each and every step of the business process cycle.

Take for example the manufacturing process of a car – a typical American car requires approximately 45000 components just to make a single vehicle. An exception to this rule is Toyota, as their cars only require approximately 25000 components per vehicle. For both car manufactures, getting each component produced on time, sending it to the manufacturing site, assembled on a specific production line, moved to an interim warehouse, transferred to a dealer and ultimately sold to a customer on a promised delivery date will always present a large challenge to the manufacturers. If you ask the majority of vehicle customers, they will say that on average 10% to 20% of orders are not delivered on time due to many different reasons.

Today, 40% of the manufacturing company’s revenue comes from just 5% of repeat and regular customers. To meet their expectations, including achieving a timely delivery and adhering to stringent service level agreements, costly fines are forcing the companies to make decisions to implement tight integration of supply chain management in the end to end manufacturing and delivery process.

Business processes such as acquiring a component from a vendor on the other side of the world, or selling a product to a customer in far-reaching countries such as China, Taiwan or India requires the use of rail, road, ocean and air transportation. In these situations, it is necessary to overcome many issues to send the product to the required delivery location, ensuring on ocean liners are booked on-time, freight forwarding issues are negated, cross bordering issues addressed, and countries customs regulatory issues and requirements are adhered to – of course not taking into account any issues that can be thrown in such as the weather and any subsequent delays. If you look at the supply chain management processes of most companies, these issues will be addressed in a reactive manner when something adverse occurs. But if for example communication breaks down and updates are not provided, then delays can occur to the orders and we lose visibility of when the end product will be delivered to customers – resulting in breached SLA’s and potential penalties, in addition to lower customer satisfaction.

To address many general supply chain management issues, the effective implementation of SAP Transportation Management, SAP Event Management and SAP Customer Relationship Management gives you a path to fill the gaps and tighten the integration of supply chain management, therefore mitigating the risk of losing customers, breaching SLA’s and potential additional expenses.

Most major businesses know about the possibilities and benefits of integrating SAP Transportation Management and SAP Event Management in today’s supply chain management, but integrating the SAP Customer Relationship Management product also provides high visibility and the ability to immediately perform actions within the SLA period when issues arise in the overall supply chain process. We refer to this as a proactive approach or method.

Let me talk about a specific example case:

SAP Transportation Management didn’t report an expected event such as the clearance through customs, or arrival at a customer destination, within the specified timeframe. SAP Event Management sent an alert to SAP Customer Relationship Management via the ERMS and assigned it automatically to the destination country customer service and/or shipment team. The relevant team opened the SAP Customer Relationship Management alert box and investigated why the expected events were not reported. In this example, the customer service team found that a few customs import documents were missing and they sent the relevant documentation to the customs team to arrange for clearance of the product from the destination port. The team then completed the alert in SAP Universal Worklist once the expected event was reported.

In another example, SAP Transportation Management triggers and sends an unexpected event – we’ll call this “damage to goods” – to SAP Event Management. SAP Event Management then sends an alert to SAP Customer Relationship Management via the ERMS and automatically assigns it to the customer service team to ensure that the customer is informed that damage during transit has occurred, and the customer service team then provide an alternative delivery option to the customer.

In both example scenarios I discussed, the issues have been addressed and resolved in or prior to the required timeframe due to an effective integration of SAP Customer Relationship Management. This proactive approach provides transparent insight into the business model and ensures that the products are delivered on time without any overall delay, even there is an inconsequential delay during the process, or damage to the goods. Either way, the customer ends up happy as they are notified well in advance and alternative plans can be made.

As I mentioned earlier, most businesses know about SAP Transportation Management and SAP Event Management integration in today’s supply chain management, but the additional integration of SAP Customer Relationship Management provides the following benefits:

  • Proactive customer service
  • Automated assignment of a task to the relevant team for action
  • High visibility
  • The opportunity to action immediately within the timeframes of an SLA
  • Fill the gaps and tighten the integration of the supply chain management process
  • Mitigate the risk of losing customers
  • Monitor and evaluate your customer service

Up until now, SAP Event Management has not been integrated with SAP Customer Relationship Management in the Standard SAP offering. However, the customized solution provides 100% transparent visibility of your sales and enables a proactive approach to customer service.

Transform your supply chain management today with this trio of software products working in conjunction with each other – SAP Event Management, SAP Transportation Management and SAP Customer Relationship Management.