Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning: Chapter Three Marketing Information Systems and The Sales Order Process

Concepts in Enterprise
Resource Planning
4th Edition
Chapter Three
Marketing Information Systems and the
Sales Order Process
Concepts in Enterprise Resource 1
Planning, 4th Edition
Objectives
After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

• Describe the unintegrated sales processes of the
fictitious Fitter Snacker company
• Explain why unintegrated Sales and Marketing
information systems lead to company-wide
inefficiency, higher costs, lost profits, and customer
dissatisfaction
• Discuss sales and distribution in the SAP ERP
system, and explain how integrated data sharing
increases company-wide efficiency
Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, Third

4th Edition
Edition 2
Objectives (cont’d.)
• Describe how SAP ERP processes a standard

sales order
• Describe the benefits of customer relationship
management software, a useful extension of ERP
software

4th Edition
Edition 3
Introduction
• Fitter Snacker (FS)

– Fictitious company that makes healthy snack bars
– Does not have an integrated information system
• Marketing and Sales (M/S) is the focal point of
many of FS’s activities
• FS’s M/S information systems are not well
integrated with company’s other information
systems
– Company-wide use of transaction data is inefficient
Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 4

Overview of Fitter Snacker
• Manufactures and sells two types of nutritious

snack bars:
– NRG-A: “advanced energy”
– NRG-B: “body building proteins”
• Has organized its sales force into two groups,
known as divisions:
– Wholesale Division
– Direct Sales Division

Overview of Fitter Snacker (cont’d.)
• The two sales divisions differ in terms of quantities

of orders and pricing terms
• Sells snack bars under the Fitter Snacker brand
name
• Packages the bars in store-brand wrappers for
some chain stores

Problems with Fitter Snacker’s Sales
Process
• Many of Fitter Snacker’s sales orders have
problems, such as:
– Incorrect pricing
– Excessive calls to the customer for information
– Delays in processing orders
– Missed delivery dates

Process (cont’d.)
• Reasons for problems:
– FS has separate information systems throughout the
company for three functional areas:
• Sales order system
• Warehouse system
• Accounting system
– High number of transactions that are handled
manually
– Information stored in the three systems is not
available in real time

Process (cont’d.)
Figure 3-1 The sales process

4th Edition
Edition 9
Sales Quotations and Orders
• Giving a customer a price quotation and then
taking the customer’s order at FS
– Sales call: salesperson either telephones the
customer or visits in person
– At the end of sales call, salesperson prepares a
handwritten quotation on a form that generates two
copies
• Original sheet goes to the customer
• Middle copy is first faxed and then mailed to the sales
office
• Salesperson keeps the bottom copy for his or her
records
Sales Quotations and Orders (cont’d.)
• Giving a customer a price quotation and then

taking the customer’s order at FS (cont’d.)
– Quotation form has an 800 number that the
customer can call to place an order
• Problems can occur with this process
• Inefficiencies in the rest of the ordering process
– Determining the delivery date
– Checking customer’s credit status
– Entering customer’s order into the current order
entry system

Order Filling
• Packing lists and shipping labels

– Printed twice a day
– Hand-carried to the warehouse
– At warehouse, hand-sorted into small orders and
large orders
• Warehouse
– Small-order packing area
– Large-order packing area
• FS uses a PC database program to manage
inventory levels in the warehouse
Order Filling (cont’d.)
• FS keeps inventory levels fairly low, and inventory

levels change rapidly during the day
– Picker might go to the shelves to pick an order and
discover that there are not enough of the desired
type of snack bars to fill the order
– To determine what to do in this situation, order
picker might have conversations with warehouse
supervisor, production supervisor, and sales clerks

Accounting and Invoicing
• Invoicing the customer is problematic

• Sales clerks send the Accounting department the
sales order data for customer invoices
• Accounting department loads the data into PC-
based accounting program
• Clerks manually make adjustments for partial
shipments and any other changes
• Sometimes, order corrections are delayed and
don’t catch up to the invoicing process
– Results in late or inaccurate invoices
Payment and Returns
• Problems with procedure for processing payments

– If any errors have occurred in the sales process,
customer will receive an incorrect invoice
– Many customers don’t return a copy of the invoice
with their payment; errors can result

Payment and Returns (cont’d.)
• FS’s returns processing is flawed

– Many customers do not call for the Return material
authorization (RMA) number, or fail to include it with
their returned material
• Makes it more difficult for Accounting department to
credit the appropriate account
– Poor penmanship on the returned material sheet can
create problems for Accounting
• If a customer’s account has not been properly
credited, customer may receive a dunning letter in
error
Sales and Distribution in ERP
• ERP systems can minimize data entry errors and

provide accurate information in real time to all
users
• ERP systems can track all transactions (such as
invoices, packing lists, RMA numbers, and
payments) involved in the sales order

Sales and Distribution in ERP (cont’d.)
• SAP ERP Sales and Distribution module treats the

sales order process as a cycle of events:
– Pre-sales activities
– Sales order processing
– Inventory sourcing
– Delivery
– Billing
– Payment

Pre-Sales Activities
• Customers can get pricing information about the

company’s products:
– Through an inquiry or a price quotation
• Marketing activities such as tracking customer
contacts, including sales calls, visits, and mailings
• Company can maintain data about customers and
generate mailing lists based on specific customer
characteristics

Sales Order Processing
• Sales order processing: series of activities that must
take place to record a sales order
• Sales order can start from a quotation or inquiry
generated in the pre-sales step
• Information that collected from the customer to support
the quotation (contact name, address, phone number)
is immediately included in sales order
• Critical steps in sales order processing:
– Recording the items to be purchased
– Determining the selling price
– Recording the order quantities

Sales Order Processing (cont’d.)
• Users can define various pricing alternatives in the SAP
ERP system
– For example, a company can use product-specific pricing, such as
establishing quantity discounts for a particular item, or it can define
discounts that depend on both the product and a particular customer.
• SAP ERP system checks the Accounts Receivable
tables in the SAP ERP database to confirm the
customer’s available credit
• If customer has sufficient credit available
– Order is completed
• If customer does not have sufficient credit available
– SAP ERP system prompts sales personnel to take one of the
possible appropriate actions
Inventory Sourcing
• Available-to-Promise (ATP) check

– SAP ERP system checks company’s inventory records and
production planning records to see whether:
• Requested material is available
• Requested material can be delivered on the date the
customer desires
– Includes expected shipping time
• System can recommend an increase in planned production if a
shortfall is expected
• System keeps a record of all open orders, so even if product for a
particular order is still in the warehouse, the system will not allow it
to be sold to another customer.

Delivery
• Delivery in SAP ERP system

– Releasing the documents that the warehouse uses
to pick, pack, and ship orders
• Delivery process allows deliveries to be created so
that the warehouse and shipping activities are
carried out efficiently
– for example, combining similar orders for picking, or grouping
orders based on shipping method and destination
• Once the system has created documents for
picking, packing, and shipping, documents are
transferred to Materials Management module
Billing
• SAP ERP system creates an invoice by copying

sales order data into the invoice document
• Accounting can print this document and mail it, fax
it, or transmit it electronically to the customer
• Accounting records are updated at this point
• SAP ERP debits (increases) accounts receivable
and credits sales

Payment
• When the customer sends in a payment, it is

automatically processed by the SAP ERP system
– Debits cash (increases) and credits (reduces)
customer’s account
• If the customer sends a check, a clerk must manually enter the
payment information, at which point the system updates all
information related to the sale
• Timely recording of this transaction has an effect
on the timeliness and accuracy of any subsequent
credit checks for the customer

A Standard Order in SAP ERP
• How Fitter Snacker’s sales order process would

work with an SAP ERP system in place
• How the ERP system would make FS’s sales order
process more accurate and efficient
• ERP allows business processes to cut across
functional area lines

Taking an Order in SAP ERP
• Order entry screen in SAP ERP’s 4.7 Enterprise

system
• A unique number is assigned by the company to
each customer in the database
• For most data entry fields, SAP ERP system
determines whether an entry is valid
• Search screen for customers

Taking an Order in SAP ERP (cont’d.)
Figure 3-2 SAP ERP order entry screen

Figure 3-3 Data entry fields in the order entry screen

Figure 3-5 Search screen for customers

• Customer master data
• Master data: data that remain fairly stable such as customer name and
address
– Maintained in the central database and available to all SAP ERP
modules
• Material master data
– used by the Materials Management , Production Planning modules
and Sales and Distribution module.
• Organizational structures
– SAP ERP system allows the user to define various ways to group
customers and salespeople
– Distribution Channel
– allows the user to define different ways for materials to be sold and distributed
to the customer
• When a sales order is saved, SAP ERP system assigns a
document number to the sales order transaction
– When the sales order is ready to be processed by the
warehouse, a delivery document will be created
– Finally, when the bill (invoice) is prepared for the customer, the
invoice number will be created
• SAP ERP system keeps track of the document numbers for
the sales order
– Employees can track status of an order while it is in process or
research it after shipping
• Document flow in SAP ERP: linked set of
document numbers related to an order
Figure 3-9 The Document Flow tool, which links sales order documents

Discount Pricing in SAP ERP
• When a company installs an ERP system, it can

configure it for a number of pricing strategies
• Various kinds of discounts can be allowed
– based on item number or for all items, based on unit price or total
order value
• As a safeguard, system can enforce limits on the
size of discounts
– To keep salespeople from offering unprofitable or unapproved
discounts.
• Condition technique
– Control mechanism developed by SAP to accommodate
various ways that companies offer price discounts
Discount Pricing in SAP ERP (cont’d.)
Figure 3-10 Pricing conditions for sales order

Integration of Sales and Accounting
• ERP systems integrate Accounting with all

business processes
• When a sales order is recorded, related accounting
data are updated automatically

Integration of Sales and Accounting
(cont’d.)
Figure 3-12 Accounting detail for the West Hills sales order

Customer Relationship Management
• Companies without a good connection between

their workers and their customers run the risk of
losing business
• Customer relationship management (CRM)
software can help companies streamline their
interactions with customers
• On-demand CRM: software and computer
equipment reside with CRM provider

Core CRM Activities
• One-to-one marketing
– Once a customer is categorized, the company can tailor
products, promotions, and pricing accordingly
• cross-selling, up-selling
• Sales force automation (SFA)
– can automatically route certain customers who contact the
company to a particular sales representative
– forecast customer needs, based on the customer’s history and
transactions
• Sales campaign management
– organize a marketing campaign

Core CRM Activities (Con’d.)
• Marketing encyclopedias
– is an application with an online interface to a database of
information that a sales person might want to help a customer
make a purchase decision.
– Information in the database might include brochures, product
details,…
• Call center automation
– When customers call a company to get assistance
with a company’s products, representatives can
query a knowledge
– management database containing information about
the product
SAP’s CRM Software
• Examples of tools that provide CRM functionality within the
SAP ERP system
– Contact management tool
• A contact manager is a software program that enables users to
easily store and find contact information, such as names,
addresses and telephone numbers
• To make sure that information about sales contacts is available
throughout the organization
– Sales activity manager
• A tool for tracking the sales activities and revenue of a sales team
• Supports a strategic and organized approach to sales activity
planning and can help make sure that follow-up activities are
accomplished

Figure 3-14 SAP ERP sales activity manager
SAP’s CRM Software (cont’d.)
• Employing a separate CRM system that communicates
with the ERP system

Figure 3-15 SAP CRM system landscape

• SAP ERP system processes business transactions and
provides much of the raw data for CRM
• SAP’s Business Warehouse: system for reporting and
analysis of transactional data that makes use of data mining
techniques.
– By analyzing sales transactions using data mining, firms can
discover trends and patterns to use in planning marketing
activities.
• Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO):is a component
of SAP’s Supply Chain Management (SCM)
– supports efficient planning of the supply chain
– APO’s role in the CRM process is to provide higher levels of customer
support through its global available-to-promise (ATP) capabilities

• SAP’s approach to CRM is to provide a set of
tools to manage the three basic task areas ,
related to customers: marketing, sales, and
service
• These task areas contribute to the cultivation of
the customer relationship

• Four phases of the cultivation of customer

relationship:
– Prospecting
• a potential new customer (or potential new business
opportunity with an existing customer) is evaluated,
and
• development activities (emails, sales calls, mailings,
etc.) are planned to develop the prospective business.
• Marketing tasks overcome in this phase.

– Acquiring
• salespeople develop business prospects into
customers
• sales tasks (processing inquiries, quotes, and eventually
sales orders) become increasingly important in this phase
– Servicing
• service tasks (including technical support, warranty
work, product returns, fixing quality problems, and
• complaint handling) are critical to maintaining
customer satisfaction.

– Retaining
• making sure that current customers are satisfied by
timely delivery of quality products and services at a
fair price
• In SAP CRM, the customer development cycle
(prospecting, acquiring, servicing, and retaining) is
supported by contact channels
– the methods the company uses to communicate with its
customers (phone, fax, and email, mobile technologies and the
Internet)

• Another set of tools in SAP CRM is Marketing and Campaign
Management.
– Companies invest significant sums of money in marketing campaigns
– See figure 3-16
– Marketing and campaign planning includes task scheduling,
resource allocation, and budgeting.
– These planning tasks are executed in conjunction with
target group creation tasks,
• which use data from the SAP ERP system (SAP BW)
– to categorize the company’s customers, offering them more
individual product and service promotions.

• Campaign Execution Activity Management tool
– to help manage the execution of the marketing
campaign,
• which can include handling sales calls, mailings,
personalized emails, and Web-based promotional
activities directed to the targeted group of customers
– For example, the status of a planned customer phone call will
remain open until the call is completed.
• Campaign Analysis tool
– allows the company to evaluate the success of the
campaign so it can incorporate improvements in the next
marketing campaign.

Figure 3-16 shows how SAP CRM supports

marketing and campaign management. The top
half of this diagram represents planning activities,
while the bottom half represents execution and
evaluation activities
The Benefits of CRM
• Lower costs
– CRM can lead to operational efficiencies, such as better
response times in call center operations
• Higher revenue
– Segmenting customers leads to better selling
opportunities and revenue increases.
• Improved strategy and performance measurement
– Installing and operating an ERP system requires
management and staff to think of the company as a whole
• For example, should salespeople be rewarded for exceeding sales
quotas, and marketing people rewarded for finding new customers

Summary
• Fitter Snacker’s unintegrated information systems

are at the root of an inefficient and costly sales
order process
• An ERP system such as SAP ERP treats a sale as
a sequence of related functions
– Including: taking orders, setting prices, checking
product availability, checking the customer’s credit
line, arranging for delivery, billing the customer, and
collecting payment
– In SAP ERP, all these transactions, or documents,
are electronically linked
Summary (cont’d.)
• Installing an ERP system means making various

configuration decisions
– Configuration decisions reflect management’s view
of how transactions should be recorded and later
used for decision making
• ERP system’s central database contains:
– Tables of master data: relatively permanent data
about customers, suppliers, material, and inventory
– Transaction data tables: store relatively temporary
data such as sales orders and invoices

Summary (cont’d.)
• Customer relationship management (CRM)

systems
– Build on the organizational value that ERP provides
– Specifically increase the flexibility of the company’s
common database regarding customer service
– Various kinds of CRM software are available
– Can be installed in-house or on-demand

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Concepts in Enterprise

After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, Third

• Describe how SAP ERP processes a standard

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, Third

• Fitter Snacker (FS)

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 4

• Manufactures and sells two types of nutritious

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 5

• The two sales divisions differ in terms of quantities

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 6

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 7

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 8

Figure 3-1 The sales process

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, Third

• Giving a customer a price quotation and then

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 11

• Packing lists and shipping labels

• FS keeps inventory levels fairly low, and inventory

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 13

• Invoicing the customer is problematic

• Problems with procedure for processing payments

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 15

• FS’s returns processing is flawed

• ERP systems can minimize data entry errors and

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 17

• SAP ERP Sales and Distribution module treats the

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 18

• Customers can get pricing information about the

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 19

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 20

• Available-to-Promise (ATP) check

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 22

• Delivery in SAP ERP system

• SAP ERP system creates an invoice by copying

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 24

• When the customer sends in a payment, it is

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 25

• How Fitter Snacker’s sales order process would

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 26

• Order entry screen in SAP ERP’s 4.7 Enterprise

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 27

Figure 3-2 SAP ERP order entry screen

Figure 3-3 Data entry fields in the order entry screen

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 29

Figure 3-5 Search screen for customers

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 33

• When a company installs an ERP system, it can

Figure 3-10 Pricing conditions for sales order

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 35

• ERP systems integrate Accounting with all

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 36

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 37

• Companies without a good connection between

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 38

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 39

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 41

Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 4th Edition 43