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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· Price: Being a business in the modern era, you cannot afford to go with the outdated option of the “one-size-fits-all” pricing model.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 conﬁgurations 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!

261

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

265

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 3^rd 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 3^rd 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.

278

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/4HANA^®. 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 3^rd 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 3^rd Party Solutions

Because of limited functionalities offered by the Dunning procedure, many companies moved their Debt Management solution to other 3^rd 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 3^rd party offerings.

SAP may lag on jazzy screens compared to the 3^rd 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.

261

30 SepBusiness

Looking for a media conversion platform? 5 reasons you should try out converter4media today

Any media file converted from one form to another is known as media conversion. Pictures, audios, videos, music, images are the common form of media and many a times users prefer changing these formats based on their requirement. Users look for options that not only deliver the files in desired format quickly but at the same time they keep safety of their file as a priority.

Why is safety of your file matter while converting online?

It is very important to understand the fact that safety of your file remains the priority whenever you look for online options to convert your file in any required format. This still depends on the sensitivity of the file. The more sensitive you think your file is, the more alert you should remain. While looking for options to convert your file, you would find both good and bad services available on the internet and it solely depends on you to identify the right one for you. A proper research is the key to get to the right platform for any file conversion requirements.

What are the different formats that can be supported by Converter4media?

This converter allows you to change image, audio and video parameters easily, making the conversion a simple process. Here is the list of different formats that are supported by Converter4media –

5 reasons why you should try file conversion platform Converter4media –

Available for free – While you use converter4media for any file conversion requirement, you get premium quality service at zero cost. C4M provides you with best output with complete security of the files being uploaded by the user’s end. So if you are looking for a reliable source to convert the file that are also not heavy on your pocket, choosing Converter4media is the absolute choice for you.

Highly Secure – Even if you get premium quality service at just no cost, you are not compromising with your safety and security anywhere. While you use Converter4media, and proceeding with media file conversion, each of your uploaded document is in the safe hand along with the converted document. Be it a single time visitor/user or you are regular visitor, the safety of each of the user will always remain the priority.

User-friendly Interface – The look and feel of the website is designed in a way that even a non-technical person can easily use it for any type of file conversion they might be looking for. The user-friendly interface of the website can easily guide the visitor through the process and help them in achieving the desired output in no time.

Conversion in 3 quick steps – Yes, it is as simple as it sounds! All you need is to just follow the three simple steps that includes uploading a file, choosing the desired format in which you want to convert the file and the last step is to just download the file in the required format and you are done. Even if the conversion steps are simple and quick, the quality of your desired document remains intact.

Works on latest technology norms – The platform is built on the latest technology and thus is capable of delivering the result in the most appropriate form. Be sure about the quality of the file format you are downloading when you use Converter4media.

Converter4media is an easy to use online media file conversion platform with utmost safety and it is all you need while looking for an online file converter. From being safe to providing the smart interface, this product by Acuiti Labs is certainly going to make your converting job easiest than ever. Look no further, while you have any conversion requirement like image conversion from .jpeg to .png or a video conversion from .mp4 to .flv, it can do it all for you. This online converter is capable of providing higher quality file conversion options for almost all the file formats available today thus offering you a one stop solution for all kinds of file conversion requirements you might have.

Converter4media is surely worth giving a try and all that you want in an online file converting platform! Wait no more and visit to explore the amazing converter today – https://converter4media.com/

265

27 JulBusinessSAPStartupsTechnology

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) – How is it changing the future of Transportation?

Time is not so far when customer-centric options like self-driving cars, carpooling, people opting for greener options and choosing public transport, etc. will take over, and owning a car will be rare. This is what the future of transportation certainly looks like. The concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) makes it even more clear and certain.

In the past few years, a huge shift from using personally owned cars to choosing public transportation or using mobility as a service has been noticed. The current way of traveling from let us say point A to point B has changed and is transforming and shaping up the whole ecosystem of individual mobility. Not only will be the entire transportation industry will be affected by it, but other sectors including health care, energy, media, insurance etc. will have the impact. These industries should reevaluate and opt for more advanced solutions to create value in this emerging environment.

What is Mobility as a Service (MaaS)?

Mobility as a Service also commonly referred to as MaaS is a customer-centric platform for individuals to use as a mode of transportation. This is an on-demand, real-time platform which basically includes a different combination of transport methods like a car and bike sharing, taxis, and car rentals/leases, and it offers its customers everything that is essential for an effortless traveling experience. Right from the user’s travel plan to payments, all this is included in MaaS.

To choose this service, all you have to do is to take a subscription of the application and you will have the access to available vehicles like car, bike, any public transport pass for the chosen time period depending on your convenience. If we talk about further details, it has smart mobility options including various modes of transportation for the ecological and social benefit are also playing a huge role in reducing harmful emissions, cleaning the air pollution, and proving better road safety.

Benefits of Mobility as a Service?

New age service Maas offers various advantages including –

Effortless and smart route planning — Maas offers real-time route planning for the users. it helps them in planning their journeys which might require using multiple transport methods based on the route they choose, with the help of smart suggestions drawn from their particular preferences.
Personalisation for best user-experience – MaaS is known for being offered as a completely personalized service. This creates a unique bonding between the users and the transport service provider. With the help of big data, it provides two-way communication and frequent customer feedback because of which MaaS systems have become the greatest customer-focused transportation platform of today
Easy payment choices — There are various different methods through which the MaaS users can pay for transportation which includes phones, smartwatches, and bank cards, flexibly before or after their journey, or also on a subscription basis.

What were the typical city transport billing platform challenges?

Multiple Booking Platforms – Leading to difficulty in creating bundles, limited integrated view of the customer, poor adaptability to multiple business models and not easy to grow partner ecosystem
Revenue Leakage – Manual processes, no single view of the customer, no streamlined order to cash process, limited Automation of business processes, higher Days of Outstanding.
Customer Experience – Needs to be enhanced, consistence and contextual
Limited Scalability – Bundles as well as combining various billing stream will lead to a massive increase in transaction volumes as well as business rules complexity
Visibility – Limited visibility (for business) of customer booking various commute options

How MaaS -Mobility as a Service and SAP BRIM together can be a game-changer?

The digital economy has completely changed the way how customers use to buy and engaged in the same service earlier. The subscription-based model has opened several options for the customers thus making the complete process hassle-free.

The Digital Economy has enabled new services … and changed the way customers buy

Iteration is based on customer behavior that includes price per month, per use, volume tiers, minimum commits, freemium, per outcome, etc.

SAP BRIM – Advanced Billing Platform for City Transport

Account Registration
- Register customer account
- Add credit card details

Journey Planning (Purchase)
- Check routes and possible legs of the journey
- Buy rides/journeys in advance

Journey: Tap-In & Tap-Out
- Every journey start and end are recorded by NFC, Proximity Sensor Bluetooth devices using the phone
- Separate events are clubbed together to record the journeys for charging
- Digital Presentment

- Responsive and Integrated Reporting / Customer-Centric Statements and Forms
- The customer receives a statement on mail for monthly usage

PayG Payment –Fair Price Promise
- Flexible Billing/Invoicing and Payment process
- End of the day all PayG charges are collated and payment run deducted the total from Credit card Service Charging

- Flexible Business Logic for Services Charging
- If the ride is already purchased that entitlement is used otherwise the charge is calculated for Pay

How Acuiti Labs can help?

Acuiti Labs is transforming the travel industry via the use of SAP BRIM and excellent customer experience-driven mobile apps.

We have innovated the travel of an individual who is using their own vehicle or using public transport to make it account-based pay rather than individual transactions.

These apps and BRIM platforms are designed to operate in any country or city with minor changes. This will significantly accelerate the adoption of account and relationship-based travel.

Acuiti Labs is an SAP Silver Partner offering an accelerated implementation service for SAP BRIM, Subscription Billing, Entitlement management, and more. Our experience and competency in ‘mobility as a service’ market could provide a complete road map for the businesses that are looking for transformation and adoption of a new way of mobility. Our billing and other SAP Services can help you in changing the way you consume mobility by integrating all forms of transport, including local bicycle services, ride-hailing, car-sharing, and a lot more. Contact us for more details.

261

02 JulBusinessSAPTechnology

Role of SAP Billing / SAP BRIM in Transforming Tolling Business

Transformation of tolling business with SAP Billing / SAP BRIM Solutions – Tolling is generally an amount, or a fee paid to access any road, bridge, or tunnel and the revenue generated by this is utilized for maintenance, construction, and/or other such operations

Toll Business can be simply understood as a way to deal with transportation challenges and provides a positive impact on freight transport in several ways. The toll in many ways has been benefiting society without placing an excruciating financial burden on the entire transport system. The advantages the toll business offer include improved transport efficiency increased revenue for the public budget and reduced external costs of road vehicles.

There is numerous research that has time and again proved that tolls can positively impact transportation in several ways. Below are a few examples –

Improved Transport Efficiency – With the road tolls being introduced, empty headings have been seen to decline. Additionally, tolls are also helping in reducing the vehicle km required for transportation as trucks are improving loading rates because of the pricing pressure.
An affordable choice, without impacting consumers’ prices – In most of the industries the range of transportation cost is between 1% to 5% of the total production cost which is comparatively low, and the accumulated statistics will not show any significant effect.
Significant contributions to transport sector funding comes from the toll revenue – This is true that money that comes from toll revenue is one of the major sources of funding that the transport sector earns.

How Tolling business can help in reducing the worldwide challenge of traffic Congestion?

The increased number of vehicles on road is certainly the cause of massive traffic jams during peak hours in many parts of the world. Managing the traffic congestion problem on a high scale would not only be a sign of relief to the economies of various countries across the globe but, this would also be helpful for sustained productivity and competitiveness.

A report by the UK government suggests that congestion may cost the economy of England £22 B a year in lost time by 2015. The U.S Transportation Institute said in 2011 that the cost of congestion is more than $120 billion, nearly $820 for every commuter in the U.S. World’s record traffic jam in China, Hebei province, was 110 km long during 12 days in August 2010.

There are three main purposes of road pricing and tolling among these tolling is utilized to generate revenues. The other two important reasons include congestion or value pricing which helps in managing demand and environmental pricing to reduce environmental impacts.

E-Tolling System – What is E-tolling and what are its advantages:

E-tolling or Electronic tolling collection (ETC) is a wireless means of automatically collecting the usage fee or toll charges from the vehicles using toll roads, HOV lanes, toll bridges, and toll tunnels, etc. without requiring any action or stopping by the driver. This not only is time-saving but also keeps the entire process of toll collection transparent. Electronic tolling is also cheaper when compared to a staffed toll booth as it does not require manual processing and it helps in reducing transaction costs for both government and private road owners.

Advantages of E-Tolling –

No stopping of vehicles at a toll booth
Time-saving
The reduced traffic congestion problem
Can save gallons of gasoline every year
Efficient, safe, and secure

Evolution of Business Models and Non-toll Revenue. Transformation of tolling business with SAP Billing –

Toll pricing models have been evolved the most in the past few years. With the evolution and several new innovations, it has become more complex with customers demanding loyalty benefits, discounts, and vouchers. Especially the customers who own a large number of vehicles, deal with a lot of such task forces, and have to take similar journeys several times.

Tolling charges vary depending on what time of the day the trip was taken. How many travelers are there in a car, total distance covered, or even customer’s residence? The payment itself could be prepaid (wallet based), postpaid (Bank settlement) or hybrid model. Also, taxes could depend on the type of vehicles to subsidize electrical vehicles.

Besides the pricing and billing complexities in Toll itself, tolling companies have a lot of avenues to grow the non-toll business and get additional revenue. The same vehicle cards which are being used for Toll could be used for paying for fuel, parking, E-vehicle charging, hiring bikes, and car wash services.

Challenges Faced by Tolling Business

Road transport accounts for around 16% of global man-made CO2 emissions. Also, the number of crashes subsequently increases due to congested roads.
Tolling business deals with a lot of administrative tasks and paperwork which becomes quite a headache if not managed with the help of proper dedicated solution
Juggling between too many transponders and navigating the customer service maze

Role of SAP BRIM Solution in Toll Collecting –

Transformation of tolling business with SAP Billing is super easy with Acuiti Labs!

Billing and Revenue Innovation Management (BRIM) solution under the hood comprises of various different solution components that are pre-integrated in a suite. The Customer, Products Master and Order, Contract Management is handled in the Subscription Order Management (SOM) component that allows new customers to register, along with their e-tag information. On the tolling plaza where the vehicle information is actually captured by tolling operational systems which will then pass that on to Convergent Mediation which allows data massaging and validation.

SAP BRIM Platform can orchestrate information to downstream systems or can couple separate events together like vehicle entry and exist events received from two different toll points on the same route. Convergent charging takes care of the complex rating and charging logic and find out whom to charge and how much to charge for the journey. Finally, Convergent Invoicing can handle billing, invoicing, and settlement processes with banks and postings to subledgers.

Tolling Systems – Open versus Closed

In the closed tolling system, the vehicle is tracked both at entry and exit points. While in the open system toll plazas or charging booths are charging points for the applicable road section.

Customer Journey

The customer journey begins right from the moment when he/she either purchases a card or e-tag from the store and registers it along with the vehicle registration details. Customers can then top-up their card/e-tag using banking services like bank mobile app or ATM. Now when the customer makes a toll-applicable journey, based on a closed or open toll system the toll plaza will record the details or his card/e-tag verifying them against the vehicle plate number to detect any fraud.

These details will then be fed through Convergent Mediation where there will be further validations like multiple journeys on the same path in very short amount of time or improbable time difference between entry and exit timestamps recorded. Once the event data is validated it is rated by the Charging system to create billing items (records) of transactions. These transaction records/items are aggregated to be shared with the customer and the bank for any applicable settlements later. To minimize credit exposure it may very well happen that the entry point registers the vehicle entry and reserves or block some amount on customers’ e-tag accounts and at the exit point the charges are calculated and the e-tag balance is either deducted immediately or send to the bank for settlements.

Advantages of Using SAP BRIM –

Simplified Customer interactions
Meeting real-time expectations
Real-time insight for true customer 360-degree view
Increase Transparency and efficiency
Real-time Execution for context-sensitive offerings
Improved Customer engagement
Innovative pricing and Bundles
Consolidated Billing to manage credit and collection efficiently
Handles hybrid payments

While now you already know what role SAP BRIM plays in managing toll business efficiently than ever, it also important to get a holistic view of some other advancements offered by SAP solutions to its customers and how Acuiti Labs could be the most suitable choice for you –

Business Responsiveness – SAP BRIM offers Innovative pricing model, charging and billing models and also opens up a smart revenue stream that are personalized for your B2B offerings and you get a chance to know your customers better and thus can offer customized solutions to them.

Efficient Revenue Management – SAP Solutions could be the best choice when you are looking forward to increasing customer satisfaction and improve financial performance with a converged view of a customer account, receivables, payables, and disputes.

The flexibility of Deployment – Get the flexibility of deploying complete, integrated customer care and next-gen billing system with SAP Billing Solutions or choose to deploy in smaller implantable steps for targeted incremental value. You get the freedom of doing it the way you wish to choose!

How Acuiti Labs can be the right digital partner for the transformation of tolling business with SAP Billing?

Acuiti Labs’ can help in the transformation of the tolling business with SAP Billing solution and efficiently handles the issues that toll businesses are currently facing. We can manage the toll Industry pain points and also support potential future growth avenues. Contact us for the digital transformation of your tolling industry today!

237

26 JunBusinessSAPTechnology

Transformation of Media and Entertainment Industry using SAP BRIM Solution

What is the need of SAP BRIM Solution for the Media and entertainment industry today? This industry has evolved rapidly over the past few years and has become the early adopters of technology. The evolution of the industry has led to a more subscription-based economy with a healthy dose of usage-based charging. Easy and flexible options to watch movies or their favorite shows which is now at their fingertip with the online streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Video, Hotstar, and the list goes on. The need to modernize and adopt a digital transformation-based approach has become imperative for the industry old timers to match with the new technology based streaming platforms.

Releasing movies on the conventional theaters and cinema houses is now being challenged by the new streaming platforms. There is a big shift in the revenue model for movie makers. More and more movie makers and studios are now releasing content directly on the streaming platforms making the traditional model close to obsolete. Along with this the consumer expectations have changed considerably. They are now looking at pure subscription of their desired bundles or pay per use or a combination of the two. They are no longer willing to be tied to the conventional media content delivery, where the choice was driven by the media service providers.

Imperatives of Media and Entertainment World today –

Consumers of media are now the millennials whose expectations are completely different from yester years. The viewing habits and demands are very technology driven. It is very important to understand that the combination of new digital distribution modalities and evolution of customer’s consumption habits. This is continuously challenging the traditional Media and Entertainment business model. It has already been considered the start of a sweeping transformation that will continue to reshape the entire Media and Entertainment ecosystem.

We cannot ignore the unyielding competition as far as the media and entertainment industry is concerned, with even the biggest of industry players battling for the eyeballs of the viewers and subscribers. The media companies that will rapidly identify and react to the evolving requirements and consumption patterns of the end-users will survive in this rate race.

The rapid growth in advanced technologies has been the single biggest factor behind this resurgence. The same advancement in technologies has also created the commonly witnessed enlightening shifts. The audience now have understood their power and have become more demanding. Gone is the time when they use to adjust their daily routine, to the availability or airing of the content. Content providers are wrapping up their broadcasting and publishing as per the requirement and convenience of the customers. With the growing completion amongst the streaming platforms, the companies have become more customer-centric over time.

When at any given point people can exchange notes with each other about any of the newly launch media content by the means of several social media websites like YouTube or Instagram or review sites, the death or survival of any published or broadcast content can be decided in seconds.

One thing is obvious; consumers are more liberal and are keen to exercise greater choices and express personal freedoms as far as media & entertainment are concerned. Along with independence, consumption has also significantly gone up. This has led to a double-edged challenge for the content providers, greater opportunities, and much higher risks. In the era of technology shifts, it is imperative that only those media and entertainment entities that enable themselves rapidly, identify and act on this tectonic shift in the consumer mindset will survive and indeed thrive.

In summary, challenges faced by Media and Entertainment Industry –

Knowing the fact that the media and entertainment industry is witnessing massive transformation at the moment, it is also reacting by working towards improving the customer experience. Nevertheless, here are some major challenges that are being faced by this industry.
1. Higher Customer Expectations – The customers are expecting the various media and entertainment providers to deliver choice, convenience, and value, all these wrapped inside personalized and customized experiences that should be available on-demand and on a cross-platform basis which should also include limited advertising and strong data protection.

2. Adaption of new realities – Growing competition for viewers and advertisers, combined with ongoing declines in subscribers, has become quite a cause for topline media and entertainment business owners to relook at the new realities and adapt them for being all-time better. All that Media and Entertainment industry requires is a new level of operational superiority — the kind of strategic expense reduction that provides short-term results and long-term efficiencies.

3. Constant desire of customers for something new and unique – Speaking about the traditional Media and Entertainment model, creativity, distribution, and monetization were direct. It was common for consumers to be passive and wait for content that was made available at a time prescribed by others. Digitalization has changed the face of the world and that has reduced the need of an intermediary, that is more atomized, yet a bit complex and, above all, lively. As mentioned earlier, Media and Entertainment consumers are more inspired and demanding. Their expectations are rather high on being able to control how the content, products or services should be delivered to them. This behavior and expectations have been fueled by personalized experiences across their daily life, right from mobility and financial services to communications and indeed entertainment.

4. Mitigation of Cyber risks – Huge amount of data is being created every minute as a result of millions of clicks, views, and downloads. This data offers media and entertainment companies a real competitive advantage, however, this same data is a real threat for them as it acts as a magnet for cybercriminals. Companies need to have a better plan in place in order to deal with any cybersecurity issue.

5. Race to deliver the best content – The rapid growth in video creation and distribution platforms and a consistent rise in engagement metrics, subscription fees, advertising revenue or a combination of all of these together have created an intensely competitive landscape for developing and acquiring the best content.

With so much content available across many distribution alternatives, Media and entertainment businesses are forced to think of innovative strategies to deliver more compelling programs for their consumers to watch. AI and machine learning technologies can be leveraged by these companies to dissect viewing patterns from multiple perspectives to build personalized recommendations into consumers’ digital interaction.

Role of SAP in changing the face of Media and Entertainment Industry

The content offered by media and entertainment industry plays a crucial role in customer satisfaction, SAP S/4 HANA and the cloud platform can help in streamlining and personalizing the content as per the taste of the Audience. SAP S/4 HANA has collaborated with SAP Cloud Platform and is facilitating the media houses to digitize and innovate their business models.

Here are a few points that can help in understanding the role of SAP in media and entertainment industries –

Creating New Cloud-Based Multipurpose Applications

The SAP Cloud based platform is helping media companies to build new cloud-based mobile applications rapidly which can in turn help them for the next-generation audience, that are more technology driven and are always hooked online through their mobile devices.

Bundling

Many new media companies are opting for bundling service offered by SAP. Product bundling feature enables them to easily create complex and personalized product offerings of digital goods and services for their customers. With the help of this feature you can also offer flexible pricing and availability rules based on the customer selection

Packaging

In this competitive world of new digital a reality, SAP S/4HANA can help your deal with all packaging requirements efficiently.

Monthly Subscription Billing

SAP Subscription Billing solution can help your business with a simplified, automated approach to billing and ordering processes to help you create and monetize new offers quickly and effectively which can also be chosen on the Subscription basis.

Customer Experience

SAP Billing Services can help your company in delivering better customer experience by providing transparency and flexible billing choices. It can help you in managing huge number of users with ease and also keep a track of user-based charging.

SAP innovative software solutions remain the game changer when it comes to targeting the right audience, dealing with customer problems, establishing better connections with them, and a lot more.

Speaking about the facts, as per SAP’s official website, near about 83% of the media-based companies listed in Forbes Global 2000 are SAP customers, 74 % of radio and TV broadcasting content worldwide is produced by SAP customers and 90 % of the printers and publishers in the Forbes Global 2000 are SAP customers.

SAP’s easy approach to solve to your specific your specific media business requirements –

SAP’s intelligent technologies optimizes the overall experience of your customers. Move a step ahead by increasing the transparency of end-to-end processes and leverage real-world awareness which involves consumers, talent, and also business to business (B2B) partners get more innovative.

SAP innovative solutions can help you in unlocking business values and potential with digital technology. Get an all new approach to content delivery by connecting innovative technologies with integrated business solutions and get more closer to creating an intelligent enterprise

SAP CX to improve Customer Experience –

With a lot of new options coming up in the market so promptly, it is quite a task for businesses to win customer’s trust and keep it intact in the long run. These fascinating options for the customers are capable enough to drag their complete focus away from you. SAP Customer Experience is one of the best solutions to make each step of your customers journey count. Understand their intentions, interact frequently to show that you care, offer them complete support at each step of their journey. This is how SAP helps you in providing the best of customer service.

SAP BRIM Solution to improve customer experience – Example of the Use-case

The role of SAP BRIM solution for the media and entertainment industry can be clearly understood with the help of an example of the use-case where the primary requirement was to improve the customer experience.

Business challenges –

In this use case, the media and entertainment industry wanted a system to deal with:

Product bundling and pricing,
Manage subscriptions
Manage offers efficiently
Single billing for subscription and consumption events

They required a provision that can offer the customers bundled product with a lot of unique options for them and a robust OTC process that includes quotation approval.

What SAP Innovative solutions were used to deal with the above-mentioned challenges –

SAP BRIM Solutions can significantly reduce manual efforts and operational cost by offering support for businesses that deal with subscription models. A few SAP BRIM solutions that are involved in this process includes SAP CX C4C, Commerce, Data Mediation, SAP BRIM and Subscription Billing.

Depending on your business goals, SAP BRIM solutions are implemented which helps the businesses understand the scenario of getting numerous advantages for both customers and business itself.

SAP BRIM Solution Architecture for Media and Entertainment Industry

Benefits

After implementing SAP BRIM solution, the end user was provided with a highly scalable and high-performance SAP CX Integrated solution along with a 360° view of customer records to accelerate collections processes and improve customer service. The business also gets the benefit of provision of performing usage and recurring based billing.

How Acuiti Labs can help –

Acuiti Labs is a UK based SAP Silver Partner and offers innovate solutions like BRIM, Subscription Billing, CPQ, C4C and more. Business growth or improving customer relationships, we can help you with customized solutions for all your requirements. We can help you in accelerating implementation time, reducing risks, reducing manual processes, enhancing sales activities, improved customer interactions and moreover, get you ready for your digital journey with our SAP based solutions.

221

29 AprBusinessSAP

Maximise Business Benefits with SAP Subscription Billing and Revenue Management

The word subscription is not a new term when it comes to ease the business flow and offer your customers an option of recurring payment for any service or product could be taken with right combination of subscriptions, one-time fees, and usage-based charges. Industries like telecom, media, entertainment etc. have been providing their services for longer duration with a flexible choice of subscription and payment options. They have been doing this since decades; Earlier it was Newspapers, Cable Television Networks, and Landline Telephones bills, whereas today these have turned into Consumer goods, Jobs, Travelling, Dating, Netflix, and other such offerings.

However, with the increase in growth of mobile communications and the internet, the face of subscription-based business models has dramatically evolved and is changing the way customers use to look at buying options. Every business is becoming a connected one by moving from products to services. Earlier it was only a handful of industries that offered the choice of recurring payments, today a lot of industries have already moved into this business whereas, several others are planning to opt the option of offering services and products on the basis of subscription.

Subscription Based Billing – Win-win for Customers and Business

It is not only businesses that are being benefited with the use of SAP Subscription Billing model, but customers are also get more options to choose from and buy only what is required. This also help businesses in maintaining continuous cash-flow and building stronger and lifetime relationships with the customers.

As growth persists, such companies have already started realizing that to maintain and support the new and more creative subscription-based offerings, stronger, more efficient, and flexible billing solution is required and using traditional ERP and CRM systems will not be enough. These systems lack the capability of managing the diverse requirements like fulfilling the recurring billing demands for the customers or managing large volumes or real-time competencies linked with the hyper-connected world.

Although the internet can help you with the hits on subscription billing, you need to have a proper understanding about the important features of subscription billing to get benefitted as a business.

A Few Key Features Essential for a Subscription Billing System

Flexibility : The subscription billing model is required to be flexible and should come with the option to be easily deployed in the cloud, on-premise or in a hybrid way depending on the requirement of the customer.

Responsiveness : With rapidly changing billing requirement, Agility is one of the most important key features of any billing solution. businesses need to have a solution that is responsive and powerful with the ability to create any type of pricing rules imaginable in hours or days – not months. Any subscription billing system that do not require a lot of highly trained developers for its installation, implementation or management is considered to be the best.

Real-time and Centralised Pricing Model : An ideal billing system possesses a real-time and centralized pricing model. Along with the simple integration of all the systems that require pricing and customer information (typically in real-time), a billing system should also be capable of providing needed support to all subscription products and services that are offered by a particular company.

Scalability : You can easily manage the scenario in the initial phase of using a subscription billing model for your business as you might have fewer customers at that time. But as you grow, this number will also increase dramatically and will require a system that can support a huge number of subscribers and can process billions of transactions in a single day. Thus, scalability is one of the important features of any subscription billing system.

Usage metering : We need to understand the fact that the simplest subscription models are based mostly based on flat recurring fees. There are a lot of businesses that need to meter customer usage so that they can efficiently manage pricing, discounts and other options like up-sell. Another advantage of usage metering is reporting and revenue recognition.

Financials and reporting :  An effective billing solution provide complete customer financial management and integration with the Backend Accounting Module. Reporting and Business Intelligence must be leveraged at real-time speed to keep a check on the company’s health and growth rate.

When it comes to managing the subscription billing process for your business to maximize its benefits and growth, you need to have a billing system that is fast, agile, flexible, convergent, scalable and powerful at the same time. Choosing a billing system with the above-mentioned important features will not only ensures that your business can reap the most benefits from this investment but also offer your customers exciting new products and services with better customer experience.

Advantage of Choosing SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management (SAP BRIM)

While you choose SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management Solution for your business, you get the advantage of monetizing subscription and usage-based business models with agility and with the advanced capabilities like revenue management and recurring billing. This also increases the transparency of the entire revenue management process with the help of its dedicated scalable, agile, flexible, and highly automated software that helps in billing, invoicing, and revenue management.

Below are the key benefits of using BRIM

1.    Supports high-volume processing and Scales up businesses : Provide support to the Internet of Things and connected devices with high-volume, automated, and transparent processing across usage-event and financial postings.

2.    Easy Migration from selling products to selling services and physical goods bundled with services : Offer your customers outcomes-based on subscriptions and real-time usage-based services, while supporting revenue-sharing models across your extended ecosystem.

3.    Ease and flexibility of operationalizing your business model : Get the freedom of enabling any variant or combination of prepaid and pay-as-you-go business models with rules-based, smart automation of invoicing and accounting processes.

4. Supports Partner Revenue Sharing : Partner Revenue Sharing option by SAP BRIM helps the partners in establishing a successful cloud practice with lower liabilities and risks providing maximum benefits to them.
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How SAP Subscription Billing and Revenue Management Contribute to managing Subscription-based order management?

Below are a few points that will help to understand how SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management can help companies that are looking for an effective solution for managing their subscription billing process.

The automated process ensures accurate delivery and billing process. This is done by capturing and monitoring subscription orders.
Promptly and automatically addresses contract changes, renewals, extensions, and billing cycles to avoid errors.
 Provides Ease of managing master agreements, which includes invoicing hierarchies, specialized catalogs, and shared credit.
Automated payment handling from any channel. Integrated Credit, Collection, and dispute Management.

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29 JanBusinessSAP

SAP CPQ integration with SAP CLM: Why this is a better idea for your business?

SAP CPQ is one of the best sales configuration systems that any business can use to ease the complexity of selling solutions that feature multifaced combinations. Choosing CPQ can streamline and automate the selling process so that you deliver a solution that perfectly matches the requirement of your customers.

SAP CPQ is designed with a purpose that can help users to automate and accelerate the sales cycle. While combining products, there is a possibility that you might have to deal with product combination complexities. Simplify this entire process with the help of robust configuration tools that SAP CPQ provides and give your user the advantage of defining component requirements, analyzing functional specification, combing various solution components, and settling interdependencies.

Why CPQ and CLM could be better together?

Enhanced sales, better customer experience, quick processing of deals and minimised errors, these are a few basics required by a sales team in any big or small business. CPQ is the most trusted and efficient system to deal with sales-related problems and provide quick and accurate quotes to the customers with the help of which error-prone and time-consuming processes of sifting through multiple spreadsheets can be avoided.
Automating the complete sales process, including the contract, is another added advantage when it comes to improving the sales cycle. The pace of business is growing faster than ever and businesses in this situation cannot afford to experience any kind of delay in deal/contract finalization. And here’s when CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management) makes your task easy and provides complete surety to the sales reps so that they do not face any difficulty during the legal steps’ finalization.
There are a lot of companies today that have already realised the importance of Contract Lifecycle Management for the business growth and moreover has understood that it is not just record-keeping system but CLM Software’s combination with CPQ system can be the best choice to get you one step closer to your revenue goals
Here are 5 major reasons that show why SAP CPQ integration with CLM is a good idea for businesses today –

1. Helps in Closing Contracts/Deals faster

The complicated manual process of contract finalization demands the sales team to wrap up the legal formalities which indeed are time-consuming and also carry the risk of losing the deal as the customers can lose patience and step back due to frustration.
While at the same time, the automated process guarantees a smooth and quick deal processing where sales reps have the freedom to:

Easily create contracts with the help of self-service wizards and templates.
Import third-party contracts.
Get the advantage of automated approval escalation.
Negotiate contracts with the help of pre-approved clause library.
Get a collaborative workspace that enables real-time tracking of all redlines plus version control

The reason why a CLM solution streamlines and speeds up the contract process is its parallel cloud presence that gives the flexibility of contract reviewing to multiple approvers at the same time.

2. Enhances Sales Experience

The Sales reps, instead of focusing more and more on the selling process, are required to indulge in the manual process of preparing proposals and contracts for customers. This affects the overall sales of the organization and also demotivates the sales team. Using CLM and CPQ together enhances the sales experience by allowing the reps to speed the entire process from the quote to closing the deal with a signed contract. It gives reps a streamlined and easier way to interact with legal teams and the deal desk. They can focus on selling and driving more revenue.

3. Generate for revenue by never missing renewals

The combination of CPQ and CLM is very helpful for the sales reps as through it they can receive email notifications of contract milestones, renewals, expiration dates, etc. well in advance. You will not need any extra process for the renewals as with this combination all the required information remains at the fingertips and can be easily processed whenever the contract is requiring renewal. This facilitates the sales reps to:

To take action ensuring contracts are renewed correctly
Follow-ups on upsell suggestions are provided by an AI-enabled CPQ

All this process saves a lot of time and manual efforts which in turn generates more revenue for the business.

4. Boost the overall productivity of your business

Reaching your revenue goals and increasing the productivity of your business is a lot easier with the combination of CPQ and CLM. The SAP CPQ integration with SAP CLM not only simplifies the sales process, but it is also helpful in minimizing the total amount of time that a legal team might take to wrap the entire contract process.
Store all your contracts in a single online repository with the help of which you can have complete visibility and version control to keep a track of each step. You won’t require different applications for different processes like contract creation, negotiation, renewal, etc. and all this can be done with the combination of CPQ and CLM.

5. Offer Better Customer Experience

Deliver optimal customer expertise by providing accurate and quick services with this advanced combination of SAP CPQ and CLM. Avoid any misunderstandings that might occur when working without an automated tool and speed up the entire process by opting for this new online platform. Do not let small manual mistakes and confusions ruin your reputation in front of your valuable customers. When you choose SAP CPQ integration with CLM, you not only choose it for offering the perfect and accurate quote to your customer but also give them the flexibility of being updated with the complete contract processing through this advanced and straightforward integrated system offered by SAP.

Apart from CPQ, CLM can be integrated with –

SAP C4C

The combination of C4C with CLM allows businesses to manage contracts and quote negotiations more efficiently! This happens because a new CLM tab is added to C4C just after the integration is done thus giving the users the privilege of switching between both the applications (CLM and C4C) without having to log in again and again. Other settings such as Contract status check and permissions etc. are configured in CLM just the way it is done in CPQ.

Salesforce

CLM’s integration with Salesforce can help businesses in leveraging CRM data in making informed decisions and managing contract negotiations efficiently. While using this combination, your sales team can easily manage all the related activities through a single dedicated platform thus simplifying the entire workflow for them.

Netsuite

while used along CLM, Netsuite can help users in utilising the guided selling capabilities that are provided by the ERP solution. This integration is also most helpful in streamlining the entire contract management process for the businesses.

DocuSign

CLM and DocuSign integration cut downs the unnecessary costs that you might be spending on printing, scanning, and copying paper documents and enables a completely electronic workflow. This automated system collects information, and sign contracts online with electronic devices like your computer or mobile phone and speeds up the process.

Adobe Sign

Speed up the workflow, manage contracts efficiently, offer clear and full reporting compliance by integrating CLM with Adobe Sign. This combination allows businesses to securely automate workflows and sign contracts online electronic devices like computers, laptop or mobile phones. As an administrator, you can integrate and set up Adobe Sign with CLM and add the e-signature capability by signing an agreement.

How Acuiti Labs can be your best choice for integrating CPQ with CLM?

Acuiti Labs is an UK based SAP Silver partner with expertise in SAP’s latest technologies including Configure Price Quote (CPQ), Cloud for Customer (C4C), Contract Life-cycle Management (CLM), SAP Billing (BRIM), SAP Subscription Billing, and more. We have already deployed several SAP solutions successfully with Global Clientele and have also created a system with the help which you can easily go for SAP CPQ integration with SAP CLM.

Contact us to get more details about how Acuiti Labs can be your best partner in getting CPQ integrated with CLM and making your businesses process a lot more seamless and quicker.

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