SAP CRM full form is SAP Customer Relationship Management. It is SAP’s module for handling sales, marketing and customer service. SAP now sells most of this functionality as cloud products under the SAP Customer Experience (SAP CX) name, but many companies still run the older on-premise SAP CRM.
What is SAP CRM?
SAP is business software used by large companies to run finance, manufacturing, purchasing, HR and sales. SAP CRM is the part of that suite that faces the customer. It holds the customer master data, the sales opportunities, the marketing campaigns and the service tickets, and it connects them to the rest of SAP so that an order raised in CRM flows into billing and delivery without being typed again.
The three letters mean exactly what they mean everywhere else. The general CRM full form is Customer Relationship Management; SAP simply puts its own name in front of it.
| Term | Full form | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| SAP CRM | SAP Customer Relationship Management | The classic on-premise CRM module in SAP Business Suite |
| SAP CX | SAP Customer Experience | The newer family of cloud products that replaced most of SAP CRM |
| SAP ERP / ECC | Enterprise Resource Planning / ERP Central Component | The back-office system CRM connects to for orders, billing and stock |
| SAP S/4HANA | — | SAP’s current ERP, which includes some built-in sales and service features |
Main parts of SAP CRM
- CRM Sales. Accounts and contacts, leads, opportunities, quotations, sales orders, territory management and activity tracking.
- CRM Marketing. Segmentation, campaign planning and execution, lead generation, trade promotions and marketing calendars.
- CRM Service. Service contracts, warranties, complaints, in-house repair, service orders and confirmations.
- Interaction Center (IC). The call-centre screen an agent uses, with a script, the customer history and the phone system tied together.
- Web Channel. The self-service and e-commerce side, where a customer places an order or checks a case without calling anyone.
- Partner Channel Management. The same tools extended to dealers and distributors who sell on the company’s behalf.
How SAP CRM fits with the rest of SAP
SAP CRM was never meant to stand alone. Classic SAP CRM runs on the SAP NetWeaver platform and is used through the CRM WebClient UI — the browser screen with the navigation bar down the left side. A component called the CRM middleware keeps data in step between CRM and the ERP system, so that customers, materials and pricing exist in both places.
A typical flow looks like this: a marketing campaign in CRM produces leads, a lead becomes an opportunity, the opportunity becomes a quotation and then a sales order, the order replicates to ERP for delivery and invoicing, and any complaint afterwards comes back into CRM Service. Reporting is usually done in SAP BW rather than inside CRM itself.
SAP CRM and SAP CX
SAP’s newer approach is a set of cloud products rather than one on-premise module. Under the SAP Customer Experience umbrella you will hear names such as SAP Sales Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, SAP Emarsys and SAP Commerce Cloud, along with SAP Customer Data Cloud for consent and identity.
Plenty of companies still run classic SAP CRM 7.0 because it is deeply customised and expensive to replace. SAP publishes maintenance end dates for its older Business Suite applications, and those dates have been revised more than once, so check SAP’s current maintenance schedule rather than relying on a date quoted on a blog.
SAP CRM as a career
Two job families exist around this module. A functional consultant understands the sales, service or marketing process and configures the system to match it. A technical consultant writes ABAP code, works with the BOL and GenIL layers and builds WebClient UI enhancements. Both roles usually ask for experience with a real implementation, and both pay well because the pool of people who know classic SAP CRM is shrinking.
If you are not tied to SAP and simply want a CRM for a small or mid-size business, the lighter tools are far cheaper and quicker to set up. See the best CRM software →
Frequently asked questions
What is the full form of SAP CRM?
SAP CRM full form is SAP Customer Relationship Management. It is SAP’s module for sales, marketing and customer service, and it connects to the SAP ERP system for orders, billing and delivery.
Is SAP CRM still used?
Yes. Many large companies still run the classic on-premise SAP CRM because it is heavily customised. SAP now sells most new customer-facing functionality as cloud products under the SAP Customer Experience name.
What is the difference between SAP CRM and SAP CX?
SAP CRM is the older on-premise module inside SAP Business Suite. SAP CX, or SAP Customer Experience, is the newer family of cloud products such as SAP Sales Cloud, SAP Service Cloud and SAP Commerce Cloud that covers the same ground.
What are the main modules of SAP CRM?
The main areas are CRM Sales, CRM Marketing, CRM Service, the Interaction Center for call centres, Web Channel for self-service and e-commerce, and Partner Channel Management for dealers and distributors.
Is SAP CRM difficult to learn?
The concepts are the same as any CRM, so the business side is not hard. The difficulty is SAP-specific: the WebClient UI, the middleware and, for technical roles, ABAP. Most people learn it on a project rather than from a course alone.
Related pages
- CRM full form — the main meaning and every industry in one table.
- CRM vs ERP — how customer software differs from ERP.
- CRM full form in banking — where many SAP CRM installations sit.
- Types of CRM — operational, analytical and collaborative.