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15 DecBusinessSAP

The economics behind digital business models and how they have evolved in recent times

The world as we know it today is continuously changing, and one of the fundamental drivers is digital transformation. Across industries, new digital business models have emerged—many in response to the pandemic as companies are forced to innovate their ways to meet customer demands. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, many digital-based subscription business models fared well due to their promise of convenience and strong business continuity. Organizations now more than ever feel the pressure to leverage digital investments to innovate with existing or add new monetization models.

According to Gartner’s predictions, digital business models (such as subscription-based business models) will continue to evolve for competitive advantage. Gartner also proclaims that organizations can turn continuous change into an asset if they sharpen their vision. Now, what does it mean? To put it plainly, digital business models are here to stay and have tremendous potential to grow in the years to come. These predictions bring us to our next BIG question.

How big is a digital transformation market?

A recent report from Grand View Research evaluated the global digital transformation market size at USD 608.72 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.1% from 2022 to 2030. Similar projections were made by Fortune Business Insights in their report. They predict that the global digital transformation market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.1% from 2021 to 2028.

Looking at these figures, it is abundantly clear that digitally driven industries are growing faster than any other industry globally. Companies across industries are adopting different monetization models either to stay relevant in the market (survival) or to uncover new revenue streams (growth). One of the best examples is Kahoot!, the Norwegian educational gaming company founded in 2013 and now valued at roughly USD 2.2 billion. The company was born as a free platform for social learning, targeting particularly the education industry. It then changed its model and started to also target businesses with a commercial subscription offering that provides customers with premium features such as the number of participants.

According to IDC’s Digital Monetization Models report, 55% of organizations globally will focus on the digitalization of their products, services, and customer experiences. The key focus area for 2022 will be the revenue engine – in other words, how companies can leverage digital technologies to create new revenue streams and new monetization opportunities. This includes:

  • Enhancing the customer experience by leveraging new digital interfaces
  • Creating new ways to charge and monetize, such as subscription and usage-based models

Types of Digital Business Models

On a broad level, digital business models can be classified under four major heads. These are:

  • Free (ad-supported) or Freemium business models are business models where users get free access to a basic version of the product for free (ad-supported). If users want to use premium features, then they can upgrade to the premium version by paying service fees. A great example would be Spotify, LinkedIn, etc.
  • Subscription-based business models are business models in which a customer pays a recurring fee on a regular interval period for using products and/or services. Examples like Netflix, Office 365, Salesforce, etc. are moving from transacting with customers to building long-term relationships and recurring revenues.
  • Usage-based business models are the new business models in which customers pay according to the usage of resources. In contrast to the subscription-based pricing model, the consumption-based pricing model charges customers based on the per-unit usage of the resources rather than a fixed price. Examples like AWS, Abertis, AXA, Uber, etc.
  • E-Commerce or Marketplace business model is a business model where a seller and a buyer use a third-party platform to trade their goods and services. Examples include Zalando, Amazon, Facebook, etc.

These heads can be further classified into sub-heads such as On-Demand business models (examples like Uber), Access-over-ownership models (examples like Airbnb) etc., depending on the digital offerings.

 

Digital Business Models
Among all the different digital business models, the e-Commerce subscription business model is the largest in terms of annual revenue and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25% from 2022 to 2025, as per the UBS Wealth Management report, followed by streaming services (18.74% CAGR) and cloud computing services (17.9% CAGR).

How do Acuiti Labs fit in this economy?

The boom in the digital business model economy over the past decade has also led to the growth of businesses supporting those models. Major players like SAP, Salesforce Cloud, Zoura, Stripe, Nami ML, etc. have seen tremendous growth in recent years. Further, digitally driven innovative consulting firms like Acuiti Labs, Deloitte Consulting, PwC Advisory, etc., are not far behind. Acuiti Labs, being a specialist consulting firm in the field of “Consume-to-Cash” or “Quote-to-Cash” business processes, is uniquely placed with expertise to deliver business technology and digital transformation by deploying subscription and billing management tools such as SAP BRIM on S/4HANA, SAP CPQ, SAP Subscription Billing and Entitlement Management. With a proven track record in delivering the most complex business use cases with 100% efficiency, it has helped organizations globally to transform their manual or semi-manual billing environments into the fully automated billing process. Considering the current growth trajectory of the digital transformation market, Acuiti Labs can be hugely benefited from its expertise and experience in providing technical support and digital transformation for B2B and B2C customers. Currently, the company caters to multiple industries, from shipping to media, from SaaS to postal services, etc., and has also developed different industry-specific accelerators (for example, AcuitiMobi for public transport; AcuitiPay for connected vehicles; Acuiti Subscription Manager for subscription management; AcuitiPort for seaports; AcuitiMedia for media and entertainment; and AcuitiAirport for automating aeronautical and non-aeronautical billing) to meet the industry’s needs.
Author, Amit Kumar Shaw SAP Specialist, Acuiti Lab
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06 DecBusinessSAPTechnology

Benefits of Switching from Manual Billing to Automated Billing. Why Choose SAP BRIM for Billing Automation?

Automated billing software not only helps businesses in streamlining their invoicing process, but it eliminates errors that manual billing causes and helps in deriving valuable business insights that you can leverage for your overall growth.

Handling larger volumes of recurring customers through a manual billing process can be tedious, time-consuming, and might require extra resources. The manual billing process is also susceptible to inaccuracies and is not quite recommended for businesses handling a large volume of data to avoid errors. When a business offers subscription-based services, the processes including billing, invoicing, payments, and revenue recognition are almost impossible if are being carried out manually.

Businesses that offer usage-based or subscription-based services should definitely choose to go with recurring billing software to update and automate their billing systems. This will not only streamline the complete billing procedure but will also fully eradicate the probability of manual errors.

A lot of subscription-based businesses are already leveraging the benefits of their shift from manual billing to fully automated billing software. And it is certainly important and recommended for all the businesses dealing with a large volume of customer data that are still using the conventional billing software.

The points below may help you to clearly understand the importance of automated billing software – 

1. Saves additional time and effort:

You lose a lot of time and effort if you look at each customer manually to determine its subscription plan and deploy its bill accordingly. Manual billing can further complicate the process for you and your customers when there is some change in the existing plans where you will have to track each new add-on, product removal, and customer update manually. In simple terms, working with more customers and continuing to use the manual invoicing system is not practical. 

An automated billing software saves you precious time that you spend needlessly sending bills to customers and collecting payments on a recurring basis. Billing automation is the best option to go within these modern times. When you use this, you put instructions in place in advance and save your billing team a great deal of time and effort. 

When you opt for an automated, self-serve system for your company’s billing requirements, you provide your customers the freedom of altering their preferences whenever they wish to. They can review their bills and make the payments themselves, saving your team time and effort. 

2. Improve accuracy and eliminate errors

Recurring manual billing and invoicing processes increase the risk of human error and can result in several errors and inaccuracies in customers’ invoices. The more repetitive the manual activities are, the greater will be the risk of inaccuracies in the end results. Aside from the fact that errors are expensive, there are also long-term costs associated with declined customer satisfaction. 

With the billing automation process, customer information or subscription plans are required to be entered into the system only once. This means that any time you update a new subscription, the information will always be accurate every time a customer is billed, no matter what number of customers you are serving. 

Automation is about being able to drive and grow your business with confidence. 

3. Improved understanding of the Major Subscription measures.

Each business must have a complete understanding of what is going on behind the scenes and what the data suggests. For SaaS (Software as a Service) and other subscription-based businesses, access to relevant reports is a critical component in monitoring business health. 

The reporting features offered in the automated billing system can provide you with significant business information to project future revenues. You get to access reports that allow you to see what’s working and what isn’t and quickly fix it. This will assist businesses in making informed strategic decisions going forward. 

4. Automated billing system can simplify the way payment collection is done.

Payment collection is easy when you use a modern recurring billing software like SAP BRIM. This is because it automates the entire invoicing and collections process for your business. It also helps small and large businesses in identifying and flagging customers that have due payments and sends out past due notices automatically. Once you start using a system that automates these processes, you will immediately get an idea about the customers’ payments that have not been received, so you can easily identify which clients you need to pay attention to. 

Using traditional billing solutions can make it difficult for your company in handling partial payments and payments in various currencies. Tracking partially outstanding payments and converting international payments to your local currency will take up your time and energy if the number of customers you are handling is huge. Automated billing software like SAP BRIM can automate similar activities, saving your significant time and efforts and making payment collection a hassle-free task for you. 

5. Improved relationships with customers.

Easy access to client accounts resulted in a better understanding of client behaviour, which resulted in the identification of turnover risks. 

Recurring or r automated billing software is much more advanced, sending automated email notifications to the customers once payments are received, which is yet another way to that adds to your relationship with your customer. 

No matter how much money a bill is for customers still enjoy receiving this little thank you from your company. As a matter of fact, a simple ‘Thank you’ note can increase your chances of being paid more. 

6. Offers Improved security

Automated billing adds an extra layer of security and where certain tasks could only be allowed to certain people within the organization. When an automated billing system is used, it gives you total control over who can do what on your billing platform. 

Most businesses have security as one of the major concern when looking for an automated billing system. SAP BRIM solution for Billing automation assures safety for its customers and is the best choice to go with if looking for an automated invoicing billing system. 

SAP BRIM for Billing Automation:

Below are SAP BRIM advantages of the on-premise solution –

SAP BRIM advantages of the on-premise solution

Conclusion –

Manual billing processes are comparatively slow, inaccurate, and prone to errors, and they do not offer the agility needed to innovate and compete. In order to position your large-scale business that offers subscription or usage-based services and succeed in this increasingly competitive landscape, having an automated billing system is crucial. Automated billing software is an often-overlooked component of a complete digital transformation. And unfortunately, a lot of businesses do not think of improving their billing procedure until some of their pain points have already appeared. But, as a business, it is important for you to maintain a healthy cash flow and keep your business performing at its best in terms of efficiency, security, and customer satisfaction. Go for SAP BRIM automated invoicing system as it is an essential development for your organisation to grow.

Acuiti Labs can help you Switch from Manual Billing to Automated Billing 

Automated billing increases accuracy and reduces costs. With an automated billing system, you can save time and streamline your billing process. Acuiti Labs’ team of experts can help you make the transition from manual billing to automated billing with ease, providing direct support for all questions and issues as well as recommendations for upgrades or new systems.  

How can we help?

  1. Assessment and Analysis: Acuiti Labs can conduct a thorough assessment of your current billing process to identify areas for improvement and determine the best approach for automating your billing process. We customize the process to fit your business needs, implementing any necessary changes to ensure high-quality oversight throughout the process. 
  2. Implementation: Let Acuiti Labs implement a comprehensive, automated billing system that is tailored to your specific business needs. It can include configuring the software, integrating it with other systems, and training your staff on how to use it. 
  3. Customization: Acuiti Labs can customize the automated billing system to meet your unique business requirements. This can include customizing the user interface, adding new features and functionalities, and integrating with other systems. 
  4. Integration: Acuiti Labs can help to integrate the automated billing system with other systems, such as SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft Dynamics, and integrate with third-party systems. This can help to ensure that your billing process is seamlessly integrated with your other business processes and systems. 
  5. Ongoing Support: Once you have your automated billing system in place, Acuiti Labs can provide ongoing support and maintenance for your automated billing system, helping to ensure that it runs smoothly and that any issues are quickly resolved when they do emerge. Our team of experts is available to discuss options and answer questions, so you can be sure you’re getting the most out of your billing system. 

Overall, Acuiti Labs can make the transition from manual to automated billing smooth and efficient, and with minimal disruptions to your business. With its expertise in billing automation, Acuiti Labs can ensure that your new billing system is effective, and it is tailored to fit your specific needs. 

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22 NovBusinessSAPTechnology

SAP BRIM Application Management Services for your business, just the way you want it!

Acuiti Labs’ full Implementation and Management support for your BRIM system allows your team to leverage the maximum potential of your SAP solutions. 

Let your team focus more on strategic and essential activities. Give your IT team the advantage of accessing on-demand SAP support in different functional and technical areas depending on your requirements. Services are easy to work with, easy to access, and always available. 

Why Choose a Dedicated SAP AMS Service Provider for your Business?

Enables businesses to be more Strategic and Focused 

Get benefits from strategic & focused methods that can drive more value from your existing SAP system. Customized SAP BRIM Application Management Services can free up your internal IT resources and allow your team and business to leverage the full potential of your SAP system.

Helps in meeting business goals with custom AMS Solutions

AMS Partners, help you remain updated with changing IT needs. They can work together in describing right-sized and right-shored delivery models based on the specific requirement of your business. 

Continuous Assistance for Your SAP Applications

Businesses that choose a dedicated SAP AMS partner get expert SAP assistance on-demand, in any functional or technical area, without extra effort. Services are easy to access, easy to work with, and always available.

Advantages of Exclusive SAP BRIM AMS Services 

Below listed are some of the major advantages that are offered to you when you choose SAP BRIM Application Management Services from Acuiti Labs:

  • Allows your employees to focus on internal projects and take care of other priority tasks.
  • Reduces cost of operation with the help of a hybrid delivery model and flexible support model.
  • The benefit of leveraging best-practice methodologies designed by SAP BRIM knowledgeable experts.
  • You do not have to worry about resource availability while you use SAP Application Management Services.
  • SAP AMS gives your business the flexibility to scale up and down as it grows. Avoid hiring delays and the charges associated with the frequent shift in the workforce.
  • Strategic SAP consulting and operational SAP application management from a single source.
  • Use resources as and when you need them without paying anything extra.
  • Help businesses in cutting the infrastructural cost for the team.
  • Complete support with high resource requirements to ensure 24/7 in-house operation

Why SAP BRIM AMS Services is unique and offer a world-class experience?

Acuiti Labs’ team of SAP Experts comes with vast industry knowledge and experience providing complete assurance of utilizing your SAP Landscape in the best and most optimized manner. 

Our SAP BRIM Based Administration Services include: 

  • Monitoring and maintenance of your SAP Landscape.
  • Storage space monitoring and Expansion as required.
  • User management.
  • Managing safety and security of Apps.
  • Upgrade and Migration to SAP S/4 HANA.

Below are a few reasons you should right away go with our AMS Services

  • We offer AMS Support irrespective of location, industry, and size of the organization.
  • We are flexible and utilize different support models (shared or dedicated).
  • We have the expertise to offer the best in market support for CC, CI, FICA, SOM, etc. with the help of our knowledgeable and experienced team of SAP Experts.
  • Our flexible pricing models fit both small and large enterprises.
  • Right from development, to upgrade, to maintenance, of your SAP Landscape, we do it all.

Our SAP AMS Support Models

Dedicated support model  

This support model can help your business with an effective transition of SAP business systems into a competent managed services model, letting your business focus on what really matters for your growth and success. Our agenda takes full responsibility of your application life cycle with the flexibility and affordability you would want from your AMS partner. 

Shared support model

There could be times when businesses might struggle with the availability of skilled and adequate number resources or do not have a sufficient budget. Acuiti Labs’ AMS Shared support model brings predictable value that leverages best-in-class strategies, processes, templates, and reporting framework. Our shared support model features a centralized pool of talented, experienced, and knowledgeable SAP Experts who can help you in maintaining, enhancing, and managing your SAP BRIM system with complete flexibility.

Why Choose Acuiti Labs?

Choose us for SAP Application Management Services for your BRIM System, because our SAP BRIM AMS Services offers a full range of industry-leading services with complete transparency and reduced costs. We have a proven methodology designed to take care of your business’ application management services.  

Our models cover application, technical and functional support for Application Maintenance and other support services. Our highly knowledgeable SAP Certified experts make us the perfect partner when it comes to delivering maintenance and support services for your business. 

Conclusion

Our process allows business to combine all their different data and processes into a single tool. This eliminates extra work which is associated with manual data entry, multiple database usage, and other unwanted and time-consuming aspects that help keep your BRIM system up and running.

For more details, visit now – https://www.acuitilabs.com/application-management-services-for-brim/

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04 AugBusinessSAPTechnology

Usage-Based Billing: What Businesses need to know

The marketplace is evolving rapidly, and businesses are leaving no stone unturned to remain ahead of their competition. Usage-based billing is playing a key role in transforming many businesses that have already started leveraging its benefits. Offering precise, customized, and responsive services to your customers can be a game-changer especially when it comes to the pricing and billing options you are offering to your customers.

A lot of companies are rapidly moving towards adopting and utilizing the usage/ consumption-based billing model to meet the demand of their customers. It introduces a pricing model that can attract a wide range of customers, irrespective of their product line or where a business stands in terms of its growth.

Why Usage-based Billing?

Why is usage-based billing becoming imperative, and why are SaaS companies increasingly adopting a usage-based revenue model? The honest answer to this question is – the benefits it offers to its customers. It opens a wider customer base for business and is a sort of win-win for both customers and the companies. SAP BRIM is a new-age solution to choose usage-billing option for your business.

In simple words, it allows your customers to enjoy the much-needed flexibility when it comes to their budgets; and at the same time, you are also holding themselves responsible for how much they end up using your product.

Business benefits of choosing Usage-based Billing 

Usage-based pricing does not have straightforward and accurate price offerings for its customers like flat-rate billing, etc., but it does come with a lot of business benefits. Here is the list –

1. Allows the customer to start at a low cost, minimizing friction.

2. Directly links the price paid with the value received.

3. Allows more users to access the product within an account, making the software more ubiquitous and seeding new use cases.

4. Provides businesses with the agility to anticipate, in the future, the requirements of their customers.

5. While the usage is being metered, businesses can easily track and analyze usage data for the product or service.

6. Provide the customers with options/choices that are aligned with their perceived value of any product or service.

7. On-demand product availability that attracts more potential customers

8. Get the flexibility to offer different combinations of services to increase revenue streams.

9. Overall, it is flexible, easy to use, and comes with several customer benefits.

Why Usage-based billing is even better than a One-time sales or Subscription Model?

There are three types of monetization models that businesses generally follow –

  • one-time
  • subscription
  • consumption/usage

Out of the three models mentioned above, the consumption or usage-based model comes with the widest range of monetization options. The one-time sale option provides exactly what the name says (a one-time purchase/transaction), on the other hand, the subscription model offers a fixed recurring rate irrespective of what is or is not used. But the consumption model or usage-based billing model is the most feasible of all the options and can work for a variety of different options, thus significantly increasing the number of offerings available for the customers and helping businesses in reaching maximum revenue numbers.

When the fixed-rate subscriptions are combined with flexible usage-based pricing, it results in the form of a consumption or usage-based model. This model allows the business to take advantage of a recurring fee and provides them a special ability with the help which they can charge for overages and increase revenue while any product or service is being used or consumed.

Minimize Business challenges with a usage-based model

To take full benefits of the usage-based model, it is important to work on the most common roadblocks that businesses might face in strategizing, GTM, and finance. Here are a few questions in each category that any business should understand to fully leverage the advantage of the usage-based model –

Strategy & Pricing:

– Is usage-based pricing the right revenue model for us?

– Did we pick the right usage-based value metric?

– What if customers do not like paying based on usage?

– How do we handle overages?

GTM Strategy

– What should be the role of self-service, sales, and customer success?

– How do we navigate sales comp?

– How do we grow adoption and usage?

Finance & Operations

– Is usage revenue valued differently than subscription?

– How do we handle billing?

– How do we handle financial planning with volatile revenue?

– How do we handle cash management and rev rec?

Choose a usage-based metric that meets the following criteria:

1. Value-based – Aligns with how customers derive value from your product and how they see success. Helps you communicate your unique product value.

2. Flexible – This allows the customer to choose and pay for their exact scope of usage. Helps overcome buying constraints and budget thresholds.

3. Scalable – Generates more, spends from a customer over time as they use more of the product. Revenue scales naturally with customer growth

4. Predictable – Provides billing and budget predictability for customers large and small.

5. Feasible – Possible for you to monitor, administer, and police with your customers. Tracks with your COGS so that you do not have consistently unprofitable customers.

What are the 5 Financial Metrics that businesses should mainly focus on –

  • Revenue
  • Remaining performance obligations (RPO)
  • Billings
  • Dollar-based net expansion
  • Active customer accounts

Major challenges of shifting to a usage-based billing model –

Shifting your business to usage-based billing comes with its own set of risks and difficulties – from how you execute it in your business subscription plans, to whether your customer is taking the change kindly or not. Here are a few major challenges that you as a business need to overcome to move successfully to a usage-based pricing model –

Picking the right pricing model for your business:

A simple way to understand whether the usage-based pricing is the correct model for your business is to contemplate your company costs; if this remains static irrespective of the number of customers using the service, then the usage-based billing model may not be the right fit for your business.

Therefore, usage-based billing is most suitable for businesses working on SaaS, cloud, and data. This is because of the higher costs generated by increased usage, and the comfort of metering such digital services.

Convincing your customers

While moving to a usage-based billing model, you might face some challenges from your customers, especially when you have started to charge them for a service that you once offered for free.

Now it is up to you, that’s how you convince your customers in understanding that this change is worthwhile, and they will be offered a lot of its benefits once they start using it. If you as a business fail to effectively articulate this, then your customers might not be okay with the shift. Your business might also experience an increase in customer churn. At this stage only you will be able to identify how effective your customer communications strategies are and also who are your loyal and trustworthy customers.

Predicting your revenues

You must be prepared for unpredictable revenues at the time you bill your customers if you are looking forward to implementing usage-based billing.

A lot of subscription-based businesses forecast their revenues on the basis of Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) but forecasting your revenue with a usage-based pricing model is a little more difficult. One thing that further complicates this is the variable cost of delivering the service; if your expenditure is bound to customer usage, then your associated costs will fluctuate with that usage too.

Billing your customers

Businesses need to have the best recurring billing system for collecting user consumption data and then further charging them timely and most importantly in a transparent way. Subscription businesses must be able to map and collate usage data from many different systems and sources, irrespective of their format, to track usage and apply the right pricing. This is where executing and integrating a robust charging and billing system is important. It helps in streamlining the payment processes and producing itemised invoices.

Conclusion 

Usage-based pricing/business model is a very effective way to improve business performance. However, billing for a usage-based pricing model comes with a lot of difficulties too. This is where Acuiti Labs with its vast experience in ‘consume to cash’ can help the companies in transforming their business model.

Contact us to know how our technical expertise in SAP BRIM can be the right choice for your business?

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28 JulBusinessSAPTechnology

Yet another success, yet another solution on SAP Store by Acuiti Labs – AcuitiPay

After successfully launching AcuitiMobi – A mobility-as-a-service app for public transport published on SAP Store, Acuiti Labs’ another SAP BRIM/Billing based application is now available on SAP Store. AcuitiPay a connected vehicle billing service– An application based on BRIM technology for connected vehicles is successfully published on SAP Store and available for businesses to download. This app provides world’s first end-to-end payment, billing, subscription, and data management platform for the connected vehicle. This is a new technology app capable of working with partners from the automotive, telecom, and insurance industries (among others) designed to assist the drivers and brings together a wide range of potentially useful functions into one easy-to-use platform.  AcuitiPay brings together all the services that drivers need into one easy-to-use platform such as:

  • Fuel and charging  
  • Roadside / accidents  
  • Parking and Tolls  
  • Insurance 
  • Vehicle Accessories  
  • Maintenance and repairs  
  • Wi-Fi and streaming media  
  • Food and Beverages  
  • Vehicle Financing & Leasing  

Key Features of the AcuitiPay –  

  • Enterprise-grade, worldwide, cross-industry solution  
  • Able to support B2C and B2B transaction volumes & complexities  
  • Future-Proof monetization capabilities of subscription and usage-based business models with agility  
  • Real-time consumer Data Management with GDPR  
  • Configuration based enablement not coding  
  • Industry-leading rating and charging engine  
  • Billing and Invoicing, Outcome-based, Event-based or recurring subscriptions  
  • Track every change to any of the customer’s subscriptions at any period of time during the usage  
  • Overcharging or underpayment is eliminated with precise billing processes  
  • Customers can buy or contract any service from anywhere, at any time with the best possible terms  

Customer benefits of using AcuitiPay –  

  • Enable quick, convenient, one-click payment for services, making driver’s life easier  
  • Single Sign-on “Market-place” experience  
  • Multi-national, multi-currency, taxation, and languages capability  

AcuitiPay uses SAP BRIM backend –  

SAP BRIM (Billing and Revenue Innovation Management) helps users/customers in replacing and revolutionizing the entire traditional billing process. The automated billing solution enables the business to manage the billing process flexibly and efficiently. The entire offer-to-cash business process can be mapped along with the usage-based or recurring price models – keeping a track of entire quotations to the billing and evaluation of the services used, right from consumption, billing, invoicing, and receivables management.  

AcuitiPay revs up the ease and convenience of its connected vehicle billing service platform by using SAP Technology in the following way:  

  • Customer requirements can be implemented better and faster, reducing the overall processing time and cost.   
  • High volume and usage-based data can be processed with high performance efficiently.  
  • Pricing, billing, and invoicing of a wide variety of services.  
  • Reduce deployment time to introduce new services for connected cars.  
  • Integrate efficiently innovative services from third-party providers.  
  • Flexible handling of revenue-sharing models  
  • High transparency/traceability of the entire billing process  
  • Monitor numerous recurring subscriptions/recurring revenue metrics with ease  
  • Manage multiple subscription orders in real-time   
  • Enable various billing schedules (monthly, quarterly, annually)  
  • Drivers can make use of the variety of services under one single platform.   
  • Pay-per-use and auto-renewal services with minimal investment.  
  • Enable quick, convenient, one-click payment for services  
  • Collate billable items accurately and avoid missed consumed items.  
  • Onboard partners’ existing services, offerings, and loyalty programs seamlessly.  

Now count on your driving experience with AcuitiPay. While drivers get choose AcuitiPay, they get numerous services that they might need during their journey.  

Get ready for the Hassle-free ride with AcuitiPay.

Contact us today! Check out more details about AcuitiPay on SAP Store – 

sap store

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22 JunBusinessSAPTechnology

The wait is over! AcuitiMobi is now available on SAP Store

The much-awaited Mobility as a Service (MaaS) application which will enable account-based travel instead of old school ticket-based travel – AcuitiMobi is now available on SAP Store!

Acuiti Labs is proud to announce the launch of its very new application AcuitiMobi. The primary aim of this new age, mobility as a service application is to enable account-based travel and to resolve critical challenges that commuters face while using public transport. Customers can register and easily plan and execute their journeys with this sophisticated application. It integrates various means of transport that an induvial use while travelling like train, car, bus, taxi, bike sharing, tram etc.

This is an on-demand solution for public transport users which works in real-time and offers complete flexibility to its customers. Being an account-based, customer-centric platform, it brings in a lot of options to make the entire journey hassle-free and allow commuters to plan and use the multi-modal transport seamlessly. It offers on-demand capability for individuals to buy entitlements, subscriptions and passes. Basically, providing complete support to a user while they choose different combination of transport to reach to their destination.

AcuitiMobi – Transforming public transport.

Change the way commuters use public transport with AcuitiMobi! There are several ways in which AcuitiMobi is transforming public transport for commuters.

Provide your commuters with an innovative way to use Public Transport while they use AcuitiMobi. The app comes with very simple navigation choices which can guide its users to choose the required multi-modal transport options as per their convenience and make their journeys efficient and enjoyable. It has everything that a user needs for an effortless & stress-free traveling experience. Right from the user’s travel plan to easy payment options, all this is included in AcuitiMobi app.

The primary purpose of this mobility as a service application by Acuiti Labs is to offer its customers account-based travel, with complete flexibility and payment options. This app will change the way people consume mobility by integrating all forms of transport, like taxi, trains, bike, etc. with the unique feature “pay-as-you-go” option!

Unique Combination of Mobility as a Service and SAP BRIM

While you choose AcuitiMobi, you get the freedom of choosing subscription-based or consumptions based billing options, hassle-free travelling experience and a comfortable journey while using public transportation. The combination of MaaS and SAP BRIM at Acuiti Labs opens several options for its customers. Acuiti Labs is an SAP Certified Silver Partner and offers accelerated implementation services for SAP BRIM, Subscription Billing, Entitlement management, and more. Our experience and competency in ‘mobility as a service’ market can help businesses that are looking for transformation and adoption of a new way of mobility by providing clear view and a complete road map to move ahead in the same direction.

Mobility as a Service and SAP BRIM

Customer benefits of using AcuitiMobi –

  • Account based travel rather than ticket based travel
  • Easy pre-book, subscription or consumption based ‘pay-as-you-go’ model
  • Provide smarter and efficient platform to use city transport.
  • Inbuilt features like smart route planning, personalized user-experience, flexible payment choices, and QR code integration.
  • It is based on S/4HANA BRIM technology, thus offering innovative way to use public transportation.
Checkout all the details about the app on SAP STORE
sap store
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07 AprBusinessSAP

All that you need to know about SAP CPQ and its importance for businesses today

CPQ stands for Configure, Price, Quote. It is software designed to ease the complexities of the sales team by enabling it to generate quotes quickly and accurately for complex products. Each part of the abbreviation represents a key component of the modern sales process:

· Configure: Almost all businesses today are familiar with the old business mantra that says “The customer is the king” — Well, the same mantra is applicable for businesses to succeed even today. Customers’ demand has become specific, and they now expect products and services that can be tailored based on their specific requirements. The precise requirement of personalized products and services from the customers would keep the sales team on their toes to configure and offer custom packages. The sales reps will be responsible to manage and figure out which products and services should be bundled, whether these bundles need to be approved, and what will be the process for getting these bundles delivered to the end customers. This is when the – “Configure” from CPQ comes into the picture and helps your reps in simplifying any complexities and confusion that might occur during the process.

· Price: Being a business in the modern era, you cannot afford to go with the outdated option of the “one-size-fits-all” pricing model. This type of pricing model certainly cannot be followed for today’s customers and, is also not too realistic when it comes to SaaS sales. No matter your business deals with high-volume pricing, bundled pricing, or any other kind of pricing which would also include special discounts or offers, you will be dealing with an overwhelming number of facts and figures and you will have to keep a track of the same. Here, even the smallest miscalculation can cost you a valuable customer, which you as a business would never want. This option helps you in offering the right pricing model to the customers based on the required configuration already done.

· Quote: A quote that is being generated by the sales team must be clear and precise. Not only the quote should look professional, but it is also required to be clearer, and precise and must accurately show the price quoted to the customer by a representative during the sales cycle. Also, most of the time a quote needs to be accompanied by various other documents like SOW, Legal, and MSA to name a few. CPQ offers a fully configurable solution where all types of documents and templates can be generated and managed and can be used by the sales reps as and when they need them.

How does CPQ software work?

Using CPQ software allows your sales teams to address various challenges that are faced during different stages of the sales cycle. This is done through a combination of process automation, guided selling, and quote management.

When you decide to choose the CPQ tool along with subscription management software, you can easily automate the complete quote-to-cash process. The automation of the process is done by configuring rules for bulk discounts, approvals, customizations, and more. Whenever any sales process is initiated by a sales rep, CPQ plays an important role and ensures that the entire process is carried out within the specific set of rules that your business has decided and has established for pricing, discounting, and approvals, and so on. This determines that your sales team is even more agile and can perfectly streamline the entire sales cycle as per your customer’s requirements.

While you decide to choose SAP CPQ services from Acuiti Labs, you can easily bridge the gap between your front-end sales and back-office finance teams. CPQ can be called a sales tool, which is a lot more capable and is not very different from a customer relationship management (CRM) system. It comprises of various things like discounts, contract terms, and billing terms, which are considered closely related to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. That is why, it was previously mentioned that CPQ is known for filling the gap that exists between CRM and ERP systems, thus allowing a higher degree of interdepartmental collaboration and making it possible to expand your stakeholder set.

Benefits of choosing SAP CPQ software for your business

There are several advantages of using SAP CPQ software. Listed below are a few of them – Check this infographic to know more

· Never lose a sale due to bad information – Let us take an example to explain this scenario in detail. Suppose a prospect tells one of your sales reps that they are willing to buy two different software licenses, but they would those purchase as a bundle at a discount. The sales rep initially tells the customer that their requirement can be fulfilled and submits the bundle for approval, only for getting the approval to be denied. The sales rep then goes back to the customer and informs them that contrary to their previous commitment, they will not be able to bundle the products and loses the sale as a result. But when you use SAP CPQ, you can easily prevent this scenario from happening by building in automated business rules and logic — A system with a CPQ solution, would have automatically indicated that product bundle was not allowed or could not be done, and the sales rep could have worked with the prospect to find a different solution to this unique business challenge.

· Having a better understanding of customers through guided selling – Your organization’s success largely depends on the way how well your sales reps are able to connect with your customers. Better understanding of your customer’s requirements will always allow you to evolve and offer better service each time. Though a lot depends on what information you are collecting and what questions you are asking. More accurate is the information you collect from your customers, and better will be the offerings based on your customer’s specific needs. SAP CPQ solutions use guided selling to learn about the customers by targeting specific questions and evaluating itself based on their exact requirements. Once it collects the information, your CPQ solution can automatically produce recommendations customized based on your customer’s specific needs. Another advantage of using guided selling for a business is that it helps your sales team in identifying upselling and cross-selling opportunities. For example, A CPQ Software, based on guided selling can specify a particular software package opted by a large number of customers, which the sales team can further recommend to other customers and increase the sales and revenue for the business.

· Minimizing the complexities and generating quotes with ease – Most SaaS companies have a complex price book, with multiple pricing tiers and dependencies for each tier. Guided selling uses the same business logic and rules mentioned earlier to help both sales teams and customers make sense of these intricate pricing structures by automatically updating the quote as products and services are added. Since everything is done through automation, you can eliminate the risk of human error and ensure more accurate consistent pricing.

· Streamline the sales cycle – A good SAP CPQ software for your business can help you in eliminating most of the manual data entry and errors linked to these, thereby shortening the sales cycle. CPQ solutions are constantly getting better and are becoming even more sophisticated with time. It is very likely that the average sales cycle for CPQ is getting shorter and more reorganized with time.

· Increase sales team performance – The performance of any sales team is quantified only through the data and the performance metrics, and the businesses where the sales teams are using CPQ solutions have already shown promising results. “According to the Aberdeen Group, CPQ adopters consistently report higher attainment of sales quotas, higher lead conversion rates, higher average numbers of proposals delivered, and higher average deal size than non-CPQ users, as shown in the table below. CPQ makes it easier for sales reps to identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities, thereby increasing their average deal size.” CPQ solutions also help in streamlining the ordering process for complex products/services that our organization offer — even enabling customers to generate quotes and place orders on their own, making customers more likely to complete their orders.

· Gain better control over quote document generation – Many organizations that are using CPQ solutions can generate quote documents including custom components and company branding, which is also the requirement of today’s business. When your sales reps produce a quote document that is not only precise and easy to understand but visually pleasing and professional, your business is going to create a lasting first impression and will also guarantee a better overall customer experience.

How to understand that your business needs an SAP CPQ solution?

Deciding whether you should buy CPQ software is not exactly what you need to know; having said that, there are a few key pointers that can make you know that CPQ might be a smart investment for your business. Here are a few reasons that can help you in identifying the requirement of CPQ for your business-

1. If your business offers any product or service that has got complicated pricing model, using CPQ not only simplifies the entire pricing and billing model for your customers but also helps you in offering accurately tailored products/services at the best possible price.

2. If you have a product and service, you think is outdated and/or you are looking for a way to update your pricing information.

3. If a lot of time is being consumed by your sales team putting together a quote for your customers. Or, if they are stuck in difficult pricing or configuring Scenarios that are creating confusion for your customers.

4. If your sales team is struggling to identify upselling and cross-selling opportunities and you are losing valuable customers because of this, then CPQ can be a savior for your business.

5. If your sales team does not have complete transparency and you are lacking visibility through your sales process

6. If your sales team is dealing with a lot of manual errors during the process, CPQ can fully automate the process and help you in eliminating such errors that can cost you your valuable customers.

7. If you are lacking in offering the right quotations to your customers and your offered quotes are also unable to meet the demands of your customers, then it is high time you should choose an SAP CPQ software for your business.

8. If you are looking to switch to usage-based billing capabilities, CPQ is going the most appropriate business solution for you.

Why Choose Acuiti Labs for CPQ Services –

Choosing right CPQ partner for your business is very important. While you choose Acuiti Labs as your Configure Price Quote Partner, you are helping your sales teams in delivering the best in market customized service, and user experiences. All this is possible because of competitive pricing, clear and conscience proposals, and a variety of product congurations we help you with. Our end-to-end CPQ solution speeds up the sales cycle for you and allows your reps to effortlessly sell through any channel at any time, improving the overall performance and efficiency of your business.

Basically, if your organization is looking for options to improve the sales process that can help you in configuring products and services in the most appropriate manner, manage all kinds of pricing complexities, and help you in automating the complete quote process, then our customized SAP CPQ solution is all that your business need.

Acuiti Labs can help businesses with top-notch CPQ solutions for clients from various industries like Hi-tech, Finance, Media and entertainment, technology, manufacturing, and retail/service industries to achieve their business sales goals. If you would like more information on why SAP’s CPQ technology from Acuiti Labs is right for you, get in touch with our certified SAP Consultant and we’d love to tailor a solution for you just the way you want!

 

 

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08 MarBusinessSAP

Digital transformation programs across ‘Consume / Lead to Cash’ using advanced SAP Solutions for 2021

SAP innovations/solutions have made a significant change in the way businesses operate, helping run them more efficiently and smoothly. The ever-growing customer demand, flexibility, and agility are the key unpredictable market challenges for any business today. If you are still confused about why to choose SAP technology, or whether your business require SAP Solutions or not; Here are a few reasons to clear all such doubts in your mind

SAP Solutions – When and where should you consider these

Scalable solutions : If your business is ready to expand and requires additional resources, SAP Solutions is the best way to facilitate the growth of your business.

Improved productivity : With real-time analysis, transparency of SAP Solutions helps employees to work more efficiently, solve customer queries faster thus saving time and increasing productivity.

Flexibility : With increasing customer demand, SAP Solutions can be tailored to meet the unique requirements of the business.

Streamlined and automated business processes – SAP Solutions are capable of automating the entire end-to-end order to cash management to ease the complexities of billing and invoicing procedures. This will help in increasing the productivity and efficiency of businesses.

Here are some of the SAP Solutions you can look forward to start with in 2021

 

SAP Billing (BRIM)

SAP BRIM, previously known as SAP Hybris Billing, is an end-to-end cross-industry solution that includes Subscription Order Management, SAP Convergent Charging, SAP Convergent Invoicing, and Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable as individual module/components.

Subscription Order Management : Aimed with the purpose to maintain subscription contracts and maintain catalogs to ensure easy order and contract management. Manage your customers by addressing contract charges, renewals, order distribution, contact management, product catalog, and offer management.

SAP Convergent Charging : SAP Convergent Charging is a tool that is used to evaluate the consumption as per the flexible rate structure. Apart from usage, it also offers support for recurring and one-time charges.

SAP Convergent Invoicing : This process is linked to convergent charging, where the storage and aggregation of billable items, billable item details, invoice creation, and invoicing the customer is handled.

Contract Accounts Receivables and Payables : This is the last component of SAP BRIM that provides highly automated receivables and payments handling and provides the agent with a broad view of customer financial data.

Benefits offered by SAP BRIM:

  • Cutback on revenue leakage
  • Decrease in billing cost
  • Cutback on offer management cost

SAP Subscription Billing Cloud

Subscription Billing Management gives rise to modern and simplified order-to-cash cycles. The cloud-based solution will help the sales reps monitor order and automate the order fulfilment process across multiple systems to work more profitably in a complex partner ecosystem. SAP Subscription Billing Cloud helps businesses in delivering the right mix of subscriptions, enable product, and service bundling to create personalized offers. It also delivers usage-based charges.

The main features of SAP Subscription Billing are subscription order management, mediation, charging, and billing. Along with this the benefits offered by the solution are:

1. Simplified purchase-to-billing cycle

Quick processing: A better way to create the right mix of subscription product and services.

Automated: Can be integrated with multiple systems for order fulfilment.

Monitoring: Monitoring can be done from the initial level up to the activation of the subscription.

2. Customer experience

Convergence: It focuses on selling outcomes and user experience.

Management: It makes the use of customer usage data to quickly iterate offers.

Transparency: The billing process is transparent & simple enough to solve disruptions

SAP Entitlement Management

SAP Entitlement Management comes into the picture when organizations have to implement and execute new business models. With SAP Entitlement management you can manage any number of entitlements your customer has the right to use. SAP Entitlement management is developed from SAP Cloud Platform and can be deployed on various system architecture.

It consists of 3 main models:

1. Entitlement Modelling

2. Entitlement Lifecycle Management

3. Entitlement Repository

Why choose SAP Entitlement Management?

Increase sales and revenue: Gain new customers with flexible subscription-based business models that empower sales. Streamline with an intelligent entitlement management system that reduces the revenue lost to unauthorized usage of subscriptions.

Deliver improved customer experience: With a wide range of self-service options, customers will have transparency over their entitlements leading to improved customer satisfaction.

Reduce cost: Improved customer support opportunities with automated and standardized entitlement and reporting.

SAP Configure, Price and Quote (CPQ)

Implementing SAP Configure, Price and Quote solution enables sales reps to respond more quickly to customer inquiries and consequently help them get in touch with customers and to close deals faster.

What do you see as the benefits of SAP CPQ?

Efficiency: With the help of SAP CPQ, you can speed up the process of the sales cycle which increases the efficiency of sales. It can support quoting for internal sales, partners, agents, and distributors when integrated with common CRM platforms.

Increased customer satisfaction: SAP CPQ easily supports complex quoting for a variety of industries, helping implement highly complex and rules-based pricing and discounting scenarios and schemes. With the document generator in SAP CPQ, quotations are easy to comprehend, and if there are change requests, these can be implemented quickly.

Reduce cost: The preparation of proposals is a time-consuming process. Sales reps can manage quotations of subscription-based products and maintain current client assets within the SAP CPQ application, automating the selling of the right product. This will intern help to save time and reduce costs.

SAP Contract lifecycle management (CLM)

CLM systems assist businesses in contract management by establishing a centralized and authoritative repository of contracts, and renewals of contracts.

Few reasons why you may need a Contract Lifecycle Management solution:

Track compliance: A major issue in many contracts is compliance and ensuring it from suppliers can be time-consuming and difficult. Any organization with poor contract management will likely suffer from cost inefficiencies.

With SAP CLM, organisations can comply with the agreed terms and have opportunities to save on the cost from special terms.

Increase contract cycle efficiencies: The traditional contract cycle takes a while to complete. A CLM platform can identify opportunities where you can save money, improve delivery, and reduce cycle time so that the contact managers can take advantage of it.

Deliver great value to customers and suppliers: Contracts are one of the most important documents and the way these are managed reflects directly on your organization. Exceeding customer expectations through proper contract performance enhances businesses’ values, reliability, and credibility. CLM solution does this for you by streamlining the process through automation and digitization.

Centralized repository: A CLM platform has the ability to combine all contracts and peripheral documentation relevant to it in a central repository. Your team can be more productive and focused as the CLM solution eliminates the need to shift through paperwork manually

Application Management Services (AMS)

Availing Application management services can streamline your IT world by putting it in the hands of people who streamline your systems efficiently. If you want to turn your SAP solution into a strategic tool, you need to have the right AMS partner who has SAP expertise and an in-depth understanding of your IT infrastructure and processes. This will help your business achieve its transformation goals.

Let’s get specific about the benefits of AMS:

Freeing up the need for a large team: AMS Services will support your engineering tools and frees up people to address other issues.

Facing rigorous changes: Application management takes care of all the new applications, new features/upgrades, downgrading software that might require upgradation at any point in time. These are well organized and braced to take care of the changes automatically or as and when requested.

Measure performance: Application management being coherent and reliable, supports measuring the performance and also helps in keeping a track of other activities based on your requirement. Having performance measured in numbers, you can make sure your applications are performing as up to the mark.

Save time and money: The right AMS partner will ensure that you get the most out of your business while using SAP Solutions. This not only allows your team to focus on other strategic activities but also saves a lot of time and money.

The SAP team at Acuiti Labs mainly focuses on providing: deployment flexibility, demand-driven consumption, and value-added services making sure you can keep going on the technology curve.

SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP)

Let’s get specific about the benefits of SAP Business Technology Platform:

SAP BTP is an easy to use platform that provides companies with the ease and flexibility to quickly adapt the changing business scenarios. The SAP Business Technology Platform helps its customers in becoming an intelligent enterprise through integration, extension, and data-to-value from all SAP and third-party application and data assets, while ensuring that the customers’ long-term success through agility, value-creation and continual innovation. It is both a strategy and a portfolio of cloud integrated solutions.

SAP Sales Cloud

SAP Sales Cloud is the full-blown SAP CRM solution for your sales. With SAP Sales Cloud businesses can better manage customer relationships, recognize sales opportunities in due time, and sustainably increases sales volumes. You can have an eye on everything in sales as the SAP Sales Cloud provides you with highly cross-linked and up-to-date data. It empowers sales reps with intelligent recommendations to sell their best anytime, anywhere, and on any device. While also reducing the overall length of the sales cycle, it also creates an opportunity for the sales reps to build a better relationship with the customer.

Benefits of using SAP Sales Cloud:

  • Makes data available on both desktops and mobile devices.
  • Increase in sales volume as it helps in the exact identification of customer needs.
  • Efficiently manage leads and sales opportunities.
  • Real-time analytics of customer data
  • Automation and streamlining of quotation, discount, and price.
  • Target planning and sales forecasting.

Revenue Recognition

The motive behind building the RevSym solution was to address the challenges posed by ASC 606 and IFRS 15. Organizations make use of RevSym solution to work efficiently and effectively, automating the process of consolidating data from multiple systems and delivering real-time GAAP reporting. It helps automate the five steps of ASC 606 and real-time disclosure reporting.

The Five Steps of ASC 606 and Real-Time Disclosure Reporting

1. Identify contracts

Identify revenue contracts through system configuration based on your existing system and processes. Make sure that you allow your user to manually group transactions into contacts.

2. Identify performance obligations

Make use of various attributes to automatically identify contract performance obligations. Hold rules for each performance obligation.

3. Determine the transaction price

With the help of aggregating historical data, estimate the dollar value of all your variable across contracts.

4. Allocate the transaction price to the performance obligation

Standalone selling price estimator will tell you about the automated revenue by looking at the historical data, cost, customer type, and so on.

5. Recognize revenue

Get real-time visibility into revenue waterfalls and liability account balances with configurable reports and automate revenue recognition with performance obligation rules.

Benefits that revenue recognition provides

1. Automate ASC 606 and IFRS 15 accounting

Revenue recognition consists of a simple setup, accounting policies, and rules. It includes configurable, real-time disclosure reports.

2. Accelerate period close and increase compliance

With the help of revenue recognition, we can shorten the financial close cycle while enabling accurate, timely, and automated rule-based revenue recognition and cost accounting.

3. Configure accounting policies with ease

Revenue recognition produces real-time disclosure reports in accordance with the new standards that empower business users.

SAP S/4 HANA

We can say that SAP S/4 HANA is SAP’s most successful ERP System. It’s a path leading to a next-generation, digitalized business platform, allowing you to experience better performance as it relates to complex and time-driven business activities.

Here are some significant benefits you can look forward to:

Performance: SAP S/4 HANA allows you to experience better performance as it allows you to plan, execute, and generate reports & analytics based on live data, as well as prompt period closing and improved forecasting. Besides, it enables organizations to provide better service for customer-centric applications.

Agility: SAP S/4 HANA is completely SAP Fiori driven. It enables users to easily access overview pages, worklists, and list reports, making the user-friendly rendition of real-time business insights and intelligence on any mobile device a business advantage.

Simplicity: SAP S/4 HANA simplification reflects in management and administration of the IT landscape. The hardware and network resources have never been so centralized before.

Innovation: SAP S/4 HANA applications leverage the speed, context, and data accessibility like never before to make sure enterprises stay ahead of the curve and make decisions that are future-ready.

Cost-effectiveness: As far as cost efficiency is considered S/4HANA is a cost-efficient option when you consider the fact that you can combine all the analytical and transactional capabilities of different systems into a single source.

How Acuiti Labs can help you with these solutions?

We are a leading Consulting firm on SAP BRIM and Consume to Cash business process offering solutions to deal with all kinds of billing challenges. With big four consulting experience in delivering process optimization and business transformation programs across industries like Telco, Media, Travel, Logistics, Ports, Hi-tech, Utilities, etc. Acuiti Labs delivers exceptional experiences that exceed client’s expectations.

Each year comes with new advancements in technology and to stay ahead in the competition you need to choose the right solution for your business. We at Acuiti Labs advise businesses on how they can leverage SAP solutions to deliver their business requirements and work with clients to deploy, upgrade, and maintain their chosen solutions.

SAP Solutions have already turned out to be a game-changer for businesses in the past few years and is definitely going to play an important role in defining the success rate of business growth in 2021. Are you planning to use one of the SAP Solutions listed? Get a quote  – www.acuitilabs.com

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08 JanBusinessSAP

Why Debt Management is so pertinent for Businesses today?

Do you know with continuing economic slowdown and increasing unemployment, household incomes have been squeezed making it difficult for companies to manage debt.

At the same time, Liberlization & intensifying competition in various markets have posed risk for companies. This is why Debt Management is considered to be really important for businesses today. It is interesting to understand how companies with larger customer base like Utilities, Telecom etc. can be innovative in managing their debt. And how SAP is the right choice?

Let’s go into the details of these question! Companies in Utilities, Telecom, etc. businesses work on the process of capturing consumption and raising bills for their customers. Once these bills are generated, they are sent to the customers giving them a certain period of time to pay the dues. Problem arises when customer do not or cannot pay the due amount in time. This is where companies have to following up with the customers. Challenge with the business process is that due will not become a ‘debt’ until the due date has been traced.

Let’s understand this with an example. Assume that there is a bill with due date of November 25. If the bill remains unpaid, companies will begin the follow up process only after November 25. This follow up with customer over unpaid dues through various channels is part of Debt Management and termed as Collection Strategy.

With millions of customers and invoices to be traced daily, the process requires a robust and efficient tool. This is where SAP provides a powerful tool capable of identifying unpaid customer and invoices, segmenting based on various attributes and perform reminder activities .

So, for Debt management, we use SAP Collection Strategy with BRFPLUS.

Understanding SAP Collection Strategy with BRFPLUS

Based on Business requirement, Collection Strategies are defined in SAP system for different segment of customers. These strategies when executed retrieved all attributes defined in BRFPLUS for each customer to decide the Next Best Action.

When due becomes Debt!

When in a customer account, due becomes debt, the automated process identifies the overdue invoices and how long they have been overdue. All such customers are placed in a defaulter list and this is where debt follow-up beings. Based on parameters like days in arrear, amount of debt, credit profile, last follow-up actions; the list is segmented and the next best action is identified for each customer.

SAP Collection Strategy with BRFPLUS provides a platform which can scale the solution to include dynamically calculated parameters based on mathematical formulas and even can call Function Modules.

Sending Reminder Messages

Next Best Action for Debt Management can range from sending reminder message through text, email to posting charges to performing remote disconnection if customer is not paying of their debt. The most common way that companies follow is to send reminder messages to such customers. If the customer still does not make the payment then, the company decide to send letter or email  warning them about the debt, and also the late charges (if applied). This sequence of steps are known as the collection step.

Simplified process with web-based user friendly UI

SAP Collection Strategy with BRFPLUS also offers a web based user friendly UI which enables Business to take control of the strategy changes. Any change to an existing strategy or creation of a new strategy is now no more an IT change. It also allows running multiple strategies to perform Champion-Challenger & do success valuation to identify which strategy is performing better.

Various option available to ensure changes made by Business in the strategy are risk free like simulation run after strategy change or running the changed strategy on a subset (%) of customer base helps Business check if changes made are aligned to their expectation else can be reverted back to existing version.

Seamless integration with 3rd party Debt Collection Agencies

SAP Collection strategy provides seamless integration with 3rd party Debt Collection Agencies. Let’s talk about a scenario where even after using all means to correspond and remind customer of the overdue, the payment is not received. In such cases SAP allows out of box integration with 3rd party agencies specialized in debt recovery. It allows 2 way interaction where information of all such customer and their debt is passed on to the DCAs and collection or any other feedback shared by the agencies are then accepted in the system. This is an ongoing process where any change recorded on customer’s master data or debt position is informed to the DCA and DCAs either inform companies of the payment they have received or they also mark closure to case in certain scenario.

Advantages of SAP Collection Strategy

  • Robust
  • Flexible
  • User-friendly
  • Agile
  • Scalable
  • Seamless integration
  • Reduced TCO
  • No requirement of getting a new licence

SAP Collection Strategy is not only more superior than its predecessor but also offers all features which other best in breed Debt solution available in the market. With no new licences requirement and no need to maintain complex integration between Billing system & Debt Management system; reduces TCO drastically, making the solution a win-win in all respect.

Why Acuiti Labs for Debt Management?

On Debt Management transformation, Acuiti Labs has collaborated with clients across industry segments like Utilities, Telcom, Postal, Port and supported them in containing their Debt position not only by technology implementation but also by offering Industry best practices. With experts having domain experience and strong technology capability in the required field, we, Acuiti Labs, are best placed to understand your Business objective and co-create the desired solution.

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23 NovBusinessSAPTechnology

Looking for a Debt Management Solution? How SAP is the right choice?

Are you looking for a debt management solution? ‘Bad Debt’ is a term used by organisations when the user or customers do not or cannot pay their bills. It is difficult to ignore the fact that with the current economic slowdown and rising unemployment, household incomes around the world have seen a downfall, increasing the possibility of delinquency and an upsurge in bad debt charges. The ambiguities arising from global shocks such as Brexit, trade wars, and a possible recession also pose risks for utilities & similar organisations. At the same time, liberalization and intensifying competition in many markets are resulting in higher levels of switching among customers, sometimes accompanied by bad debt when final bills are not paid.

In liberalized retail markets, utilities bear full responsibility for debt collection, but their manoeuvring room in recovering the bad debt is limited by regulatory and political constraints. The focus on maintaining the best customer experience, together with service obligations and provisions such as long grace periods, protection for vulnerable groups, and winter moratoriums, makes it difficult to suspend the service even as a last resort. Public opinion and political pressure act as a further deterrent, and utility companies need to reconfirm to the public time and again that their processes are fully compliant and adhere to the highest professional standards when it comes to debt collections.

Loss of income is becoming a burden on businesses and inhibiting growth, and the situation shows no signs of improving. Sectors like Utilities, Telecom can ill afford to ignore such waste and eliminating it can generate resources to invest in future growth. In a tight economic and regulatory context, utilities need to work harder to prevent and manage bad debt if they want to stay competitive and improve their resilience. Experience shows that companies are better at weathering downturns if they have already cleaned up their credit processes and minimized overdue debt because they are able to move fast to cut costs, protect profitability, and reserve growth capacity. Thus utilities will have to take matters into their own hands. By reshaping their credit and collections processes, they can improve their ability to predict risk, reduce bad-debt charges by, and provide a better experience for customers.

Barriers & Opportunities

Data Analytics & Customer Engagement

Data Analytics isn’t all new for organisations with large customer base like Utilities, Telecom – it’s actually been around for quite some time. there are numerous utilities using – basic behavioural scoring. Analytics is a continuous improvement process to identify ever changing customer behaviour and other collections related trend. Best-practice collections strategies should use emerging trends to segment customers, targeted collection campaigns & quick adjustments to the treatment path.

Continuously improving process requires the ability to monitor the effectiveness of the strategies, performance of customer segment & other relevant KPIs. In addition, advanced data analysis using metrics and trend displays, and collection control dashboards that illustrate KPIs such as status of overdue receivables and corresponding collections actions, will provide the necessary business intelligence to adapt and extend collections activities.

Various trends where Analytics can support Debt Management –

  • Reactive Collection vs Proactive Measures
  • Customer Segmentation: Can’t pay, won’t pay….forgot to pay
  • Customer Behaviour: Payment pattern, preferred mode of payment, initiative customer reacts to
  • Predictive Analysis
  • Identifying right strategy, right action for customer
  • Insight for the next strategy iteration

SAP Analytics Cloud is one simple cloud solution connecting your people, information, and ideas to enable fast and confident decision making. Machine learning technology and embedded artificial intelligence help you to discover deep insights, simplify access to critical information, and empower informed decision making for all.

Developed for real-time BI, planning and predictive analytics that natively integrates to SAP, the solution can predict when proactive action is required, something typically difficult for companies to do. The accelerated value is in enhancing organization’s ability to collect cash and improving its insight into profitability indicators. It also leverages SAC content to seamlessly integrate with SAP data and SAP S/4HANAÂŪ. Advanced predictive analytics becomes the quiet driver behind dynamic operational, tactical and strategic dashboards that have been designed with SAP Fiori for a uniform and modern user experience.

Removing system Barrier

There is a basic understanding in industries like Utility, Telecom on the concepts of collections best practices, but almost all organisation lack the technology to be able to adopt best practices. Traditionally, collections have been the technology domain of the Organisation’s customer information system (CIS). Many companies struggle with weak and restrictive collections functionality in an aging CIS. Others may have a relatively new CIS in place that boasts adequate collections support but is missing key features to support today’s best-practice collections processes.

Collection managers, dependent upon the CIS platform & team to manage collections processes to implement improved collection processes. Debt is not going away. There will always be customers who default on payment. But technology has caught up with the problem, and companies now have the option to implement specialist collection software products that enable best-practice approaches.

Some of the best practices followed across the globe are –

  • Rapid change cycles executed by domain experts: Analyse, Optimize, Implement
  • Strategy changes no more an IT change request
  • Scalable & Flexible when it comes to including new changes/attributes that are based on analytical trends
  • Design transparency, improved performance & integration with 3rd party DCAs
  • Offers tailored treatment based on customer segmentation
  • Allows Champion – Challenger strategy and success valuation

SAP BRIM – Financial Customer Care with Debt Management using BRF+

Business Rule Framework plus (BRFplus) provides a comprehensive application programming interface (API) and user interface (UI) for defining and processing business rules. It allows you to model rules in an intuitive way and to reuse these rules in different applications.

Flexibility in changing Business rules in Collection process enables Revenue Management team to –

  • Make their collections rules progressively more targeted, as they become more and more sophisticated with their analytics and customer segmentation
  • Add more sophisticated customer characteristics (e.g. components of credit risk scores, payment behaviour) as the data becomes more readily available
  • Adapt their rules to changing macro-economic conditions (e.g. recessions, political climates, etc) or changing customer behaviours (e.g. greater mobile use, email use)
  • Respond rapidly to unforeseen events

Leveraging BRF+ features to improve Debt Management

Scenario 1: Business running on SAP with Debt Management using legacy Dunning procedure

Debt Management using SAP’s Legacy Dunning Procedure was limited to few attributes like

  • Days in Arrear
  • Amount of Debt
  • Creditworthiness score

Combinations of these parameters were used to define levels and activities where defined as per Business need.

Debt Management with BRF+ is robust, scalable, and way ahead in its offering compared to its predecessor. It is a framework of Business rules which can use a wide range of attributes to determine the correct path for a customer.

  • Master Data
  • Transactional data
  • Derived values using formula e.g. oldest item, energy/non-energy debt
  • Function Module (data from external system/other modules/calculation of attributes not possible through formula)

Advantage of moving to Debt Management using BRF+

  • No additional licenses required
  • Whole loads of attributes to define strategy
  • Simplifies the process of identifying the right collection path, sequence for a customer based on changing payment behaviors, credit history, Debt parameter, etc.
  • Web based UI enabling Business User to control the strategy changes
  • Supports multiple strategies and at run time identifies the strategy or path to be executed on a customer
  • Supports Champion Challenger concept and reports on Success valuation of the strategies

Scenario 2: Business running on SAP but Collection strategy on 3rd Party Solutions

SAP Debt Management SolutionBecause of limited functionalities offered by the Dunning procedure, many companies moved their Debt Management solution to other 3rd parties offerings. SAP too understood the need of the Businesses and introduced BRF+ for managing Debt. This has been a game changer for various organisations especially in the utilities, telecom sector who had no option but to move to 3rd party offerings.

SAP may lag on jazzy screens compared to the 3rd party solutions but on functionality offerings,  it’s no less. GUI look and feel also now has been taken care through FIORI.

The real value what Business gets using SAP Debt Management using BRF+  are

  • Simulation in system before actual batch run controlling unforeseen scenarios
  • No additional license cost
  • Huge saving on TCO as the solution is in the same SAP system.
    • Transactional
    • Data Storage
    • Annual Maintenance
  • No hassle of managing multiple real time interfaces to keep data up to date in the Debt management system
  • Improved Customer Service and savings on AVHT as Business User will have to refer to only one system for all the customer relevant information

What comes along with BRF+

BRF+ is like a container for the complete business rules and provides out of box integration with various other processes along with Debt Management. Power of BRF+ can be leveraged in

Billing and Revenue Innovation Management

  • Product
  • Discount/Charge Activation
  • Charge Plan Activation
  • Charge Plan Parameter Value Determination

Sales and Distribution

  • Output Determination

Revenue Account Reporting

  • Integration with Source System (SD, Hybris Billing, CRM, etc.)
  • Account Determination (POB Attributes, Contract Asset, Contract Liability, Recognized revenue, Deferred Cost)

Industry Solution – Utilities

Advanced Metering Infrastructure Event Management

Why Choose Acuiti Labs for your Debt Management Transformation?

Acuiti Labs is an SAP Silver partner and a digital firm that delivers business and technology consulting services, transforming businesses with pioneering and latest solutions. We have proven expertise in delivering successful SAP BRIM based transformation, thus offering complete support for your Business objective on Debt management.

When it comes to Debt Management transformation, we have collaborated with several clients across industries like Utilities, Telcom, Postal, Port and supported them in containing their Debt position not only by technology implementation but also by offering Industry best practices.

Our professional SAP experts have Big 4 consulting experience and strong technology capability in the area of SAP BRIM, Analytics, AI, Big Data, Mobile & other Cloud technology. We are best placed to understand your Business objective and co-create the required solution.

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