SAP Completes On-Demand CRM Application Lineup

SAP debuted new on-demand customer service applications Tuesday, providing the third and final piece of the vendor's on-demand CRM application set. SAP also enhanced its on-demand sales applications with new quotation management and product support features.

SAP's announcement comes just weeks before rivals Oracle and Salesforce.com hold user conferences in San Francisco, where those vendors' on-demand CRM offerings are likely to be in the spotlight.

Like the other components of the SAP CRM on-demand application suite, SAP Service is based on the same code base as the vendor's on-premises CRM applications, allowing companies to use the two together in a hybrid fashion. SAP began shipping the sales component of the on-demand CRM application suite in February and the marketing portion in May.

The on-demand service applications help service managers track service tickets, establish rules-based systems for determining service priorities, and monitor service levels for compliance with service-level agreements. The new applications are available now.

SAP has also enhanced the on-demand sales applications it began shipping earlier this year with the ability to exchange product data with mySAP ERP applications, making that information available to sales, marketing, and service workers. The on-demand sales apps can also now be used to track quotations issued to customers, manage discounts, and export quotes to Excel spreadsheets.

SAP also announced that British Gas Business has decided to implement SAP's on-demand CRM apps.