“Customer is King!” We all must have heard this saying frequently and that’s what every business is continuously trying to achieve. While there are many CRMs to explore, Salesforce, as well as SAP, are two of the top performers among them. As both the platforms are incredible with robust and native functionalities, even making a choice between them for your business can be a bit challenging. However, due to better performance and functionality, people are leaning more towards Salesforce than SAP. Why is Salesforce chosen the most? What are the advanced features offered by Salesforce that SAP lacks? To get a deep and clear answer to all these questions, let us compare the two but understand their basic differences first.
A Basic Comparison Between Salesforce and SAP
Salesforce
Salesforce is SaaS or Software as a Service, which means any user can access the program over the Internet without having to install the software on the computer. This software licensing and delivery model works on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted by Salesforce. Here are some of the main uses of Salesforce:
Task Management
Forecasting
Pipeline Visualization
Social Engagement
Customizable Reports
Marketing Automation
Email Marketing
Compensation Management
Contract Management
Lead Management
Opportunity Management
Territory Management
Email Client Integration
Partner Relationship Management
Quote & Order Management
Interaction Tracking
Customer Data Management
Workflow Management
SAP
SAP is the most sought-after ERP software, mainly used to process data. SAP stands for Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing. SAP, the market leader in ERP software, is primarily known for developing enterprise solutions for managing business operations and customer relationships. A single SAP system can serve as a core environment or central unit for any business to achieve rapid data transformation into insights or predictive analytics. This can lead to further productivity improvements and profitability. Here are some of the main uses of SAP:
Lead Management
Process Optimization
Data Discovery & Visualization
Document Management
Sales Reports Generation
Pipeline Management
Time Tracking
Email Marketing
Partner Management
Enterprise Solutions
Ad-hoc Reporting
Mobile Capabilities
Three Key Advantages That Make Salesforce Better Than SAP
Business Intelligence:
Intelligence tools are becoming more and more popular these days as they help organizations to make long-term decisions based on KPIs and specific data of their day-to-day business activities.
Salesforce
Salesforce offers its users the best suite of business intelligence benefits with near-real-time analytics that is easy to use and analyze. Thus, increase sales effectiveness and efficiency of the process. Users can also plan or strategize marketing campaigns by analyzing their sales leads.
SAP
SAP Analytics Cloud does not require a separate BI system and can be used directly in the SAP C/4HANA. SAP enables its users to analyze the data in real-time when embedded in the SAP C/4HANA suite but the major drawback is the limitation of its capacity.
In short, both SAP and Salesforce have extensive embedded analytics capabilities but Salesforce is more user-friendly than SAP’s.
AI and Machine Learning:
Machine learning and AI have become more common features in CRM nowadays and have completely changed the customer experience. For a more personalized approach and predictive analytics, companies are adopting intelligent CRM to improve the productivity of their business.
Salesforce
Salesforce offers a remarkable artificial intelligence (AI) technology called Salesforce Einstein that automates various routine tasks and learns from your team’s sales activities and CRM data. Thus, helping in getting better lead conversions, squeezing the sales funnel, and retaining the customers for a longer period of time with ease. From Einstein Prediction Builder to Einstein Language Tools, Salesforce has all the capabilities that give it an edge over SAP.
SAP
SAP ERP technologies with AI are highly effective in optimizing and streamlining the operations of many modern companies. SAP has added smart functionality to its ERP solution S/4HANA Cloud that uses machine-learning algorithms to simplify processes in its core systems. SAP CoPilot, the digital assistant and bot integration center for the organization, provides business users with smartly structured work data to foster personalized experiences and results.
In short, though SAP uses AI and machine learning for various tasks, it still lags behind in offering more advanced AI tools. The Salesforce Einstein is much better than the AI from SAP as it gives sales and marketing departments a more comprehensive and up-to-date view of customers and sales prospects.
Marketing Strategies:
Salesforce
From basic email marketing to advanced cross-channel campaign management, Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers a wide range of features. It streamlines marketing processes and improves efficiency through proactive and convenient interactions with customers.It includes a set of tools such as Data Studio (to reach new audiences and activate data), Social Studio, Mobile Studio, Email Studio, and much more, making it the best in managing all aspects of digital marketing.
SAP
C/4HANA Marketing Cloud sharpens the focus of your marketing team with the ability to build more agility into your marketing planning and analytics capabilities. With SAP Marketing, you can group your customers into relevant segments or pull data about your customers from any channel, which helps in building better communication. You can also run automated campaigns through various channels such as e-mail, mobile and social media. Although SAP provides end-to-end marketing, the user interface is not as good as that provided by Salesforce.
In a nutshell, despite the improvements made to multi-channel campaign management and batch email marketing, Salesforce is still a step ahead of SAP. The marketing strategies and functionalities offered by Salesforce are considered to be more comprehensive than the capabilities within SAP Marketing Cloud.
Final Wordings
Based on the above comparison between Salesforce and SAP, in our opinion, Salesforce has better functionality and features than SAP as it provides a complete CRM package with a modern approach. But success in Salesforce can be achieved only if you implement it properly and that is what comes with Ksolves. Being the best Salesforce development and consulting company, Ksolves is committed to excellence and provides user-friendly interface development and hassle-free upgrade implementation. Visit our Salesforce page to learn more about our user-centric services.
Md. Asad Khan, an expert Technical Project Manager at Ksolves, who is a certified Salesforce architect at Ksolves, brings 7+ years of experience. He specializes in FSL, B2B, Service & Sales Cloud, and Non-profit cloud, excelling in APEX, Aura Component Framework, Lightning Components, Triggers, Visualforce, and creating insightful dashboards and reports.
AUTHOR
Salesforce
Md. Asad Khan, an expert Technical Project Manager at Ksolves, who is a certified Salesforce architect at Ksolves, brings 7+ years of experience. He specializes in FSL, B2B, Service & Sales Cloud, and Non-profit cloud, excelling in APEX, Aura Component Framework, Lightning Components, Triggers, Visualforce, and creating insightful dashboards and reports.
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