Many companies have begun using specialized software to analyze what people are saying about their products and services on social media, and now SAP says it can help them match up individuals’ social profiles with customer history data from CRM (customer relationship management) systems….

Many companies have begun using specialized software to analyze what people are saying about their products and services on social media, and now SAP says it can help them match up individuals’ social profiles with customer history data from CRM (customer relationship management) systems.

Dubbed Social Contact Intelligence, the application can help sales and marketing staff find better leads for sales as well as gain more knowledge about their actual customers’ likes and dislikes, according to SAP.

Social Contact Intelligence is built on top of and dependent on HANA, SAP’s in-memory database platform. It’s now in “ramp-up,” SAP’s term for an initial release with a small set of customers, and also part of a broader suite called Customer Engagement Intelligence. Currently it’s only offered on-premises, but SAP is considering cloud-based deployments for the future, according to a spokeswoman.

Core CRM software is “such a commodity it’s almost relegated to a system of record,” said Jamie Anderson, vice president of customer solution marketing. Thanks to the rise of social media and resulting changes to the way customers interact with companies and make buying decisions, “we’ve realized the CRM market is evolving faster than CRM products on their own.”

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