SAP Strengthens Customer AnalyticsSAP Strengthens Customer Analytics

SAP AG has pushed forward within the growing trend in customer-relationship-management software by launching an expanded analytics platform for its mySAP offering.

"Analytics is part of a natural evolution of the total solution set," says John Grozier, vice president of CRM product marketing for SAP. "People are trying to figure out in this down economy how to become more effective. They want to use all things they've already bought, but use it in the most effective way."

New capabilities in mySAP include real-time analytics to leverage customer insight during each interaction; a marketing optimization to boost response rates; sales, marketing, and service business planning to closely measure performance against strategic targets; and out-of-the-box analytic scenarios.

By enabling integration with multiple sources and applications across the enterprise, organizations can better measure and predict customer actions by transforming raw data into business strategies for optimizing each customer relationship, Grozier says.

"This fits right on top and builds upon the wealth of transactional data we've already helped create," he says. "We have thousands of customers who are already collecting all this transactional data, and it's easy for us to grab the data and provide insight on top as part of our integration play to reduce the cost of ownership."

Companies currently using the analytical solutions with mySAP include Brother, Molex, and STMicroelectronics.

The real-time analytics and market optimization not only provides users with a customer history, but also behavioral predictive analysis, Grozier says. The analysis can help users determine how strong a candidate a particular customer is for cross-selling opportunities, or specific pricing and customization offers.