It’s SAP’s latest sales solution: SAP Sales Cloud V2. What’s included — and how sales teams are set to benefit from new features.
SAP CEO Christian Klein’s strategy is clear: future investments are to focus on the promising cloud business. In August 2022, SAP introduced the SAP Service Cloud V2, a follow-up version of its previous cloud solution. Now, there’s another update in SAP’s solution portfolio: SAP Sales Cloud V2. The version upgrade brings significant changes, including intelligent insights, a modern UX, and a native mobile experience. SAP aims to empower sales teams with a solution that enables them to “close more deals faster in today’s complex sales environment.” While this concept isn’t revolutionary, the new functionalities and improvements are pivotal.
To clarify, the core Lead-to-Order process remains unchanged. The sales funnel still follows a “classic” structure and serves as a collaborative platform for inside sales, field sales, and sales management to increase revenue opportunities and strengthen customer loyalty. However, SAP has set new, exciting standards in user experience and technology with V2.
Modern UX
There’s one thing sales professionals don’t have: a lot of time. Waiting for a CRM system to load? Remembering to hit save? Navigating through tabs? No thanks. SAP Sales Cloud V2 promises an intuitive and user-friendly interface. An initial test drive shows that only a few clicks are needed to achieve results. Complex queries are handled faster, more flexibly, and intelligently with next-generation Elastic Search functions.For example, the global search field on the homepage allows quick access to quotes, clients, tasks, contacts, or opportunities. If all that’s needed is to update a phone number, this can be done quickly and easily via a side panel. Detailed information about a customer, such as open leads, team members, and contacts, is clear and accessible at one glance. The CTI integration allows the user to call the relevant contact with a single click. Additionally, testing reveals that the SAP Sales Cloud V2 system performance is impressively fast, and users benefit from the “mobile-first” approach for iOS and Android with in-app integration with Microsoft Teams.
Guided Selling
This feature combines several processes, including opportunity creation and deal qualification, within an optimized workspace. It helps sales teams identify the best sales opportunities, navigate the sales cycle across different stages, and ultimately close deals. Similar to what many may already know from project management tools, guided selling now includes a Kanban board where sales opportunities are visualized by phase and prioritized. Opportunities can be easily moved through different phases up to completion with a simple drag-and-drop.
Based on a centrally defined “playbook,” the system automatically suggests actions to further qualify opportunities and move them toward completion. Structured for sales success — this appears to be the guiding principle. SAP has certainly optimized the workspace with valuable insights, analytics, and intelligent recommendations.
Pipeline Manager and Forecast Tracker
For sales management, this is a crucial view to guide the sales team effectively and provide quick updates to finance or executives via forecasts. How is the pipeline looking for Q2 or the full year 2023? This area offers a compact overview for identifying at-risk deals quickly. The pipeline manager provides a snapshot of how opportunities are progressing within the pipeline. Opportunities are displayed as color-coded bubbles, making it easy to see the value and qualification level of each one. Assigned sales reps can be contacted directly. What-if analysis enables precise forecasts that can be compared to the live pipeline.
The Forecast Tracker compares submitted forecasts with sales targets and aggregated opportunity amounts for the selected business period. The solution also includes a Sales Assistant, a voice-activated assistant available in the mobile app.
Digital Selling Workspace
SAP has introduced a new workspace designed to help sales professionals get a head start on their day. For instance, it displays the current win rate right at the start. A calendar view provides an overview of upcoming appointments, and a call list helps manage potential calls efficiently. The Opportunity tab presents an activity overview for the day, with suggestions for actions the sales rep can take to advance an opportunity. Tasks due or overdue are shown directly and can be marked complete with a single click.
AI and Relationship Intelligence
The new customer view in SAP Sales Cloud V2 offers an even better overview of all relevant customer information, including relationship score and interaction history. With Relationship Intelligence, sales teams can easily determine who is connected to whom within the organization. Hidden relationships can be uncovered, accelerating business growth through improved customer care.
This AI-driven feature enables building an intelligent network and optimizing the CRM application by providing deeper insights into customer engagement. This network is achieved by connecting to the Office 365 email server, pooling known relationships and measuring their strength (Hugrank).
Scalability
As a cloud-based solution, SAP Sales Cloud V2 is highly scalable, making it suitable for organizations of any size — from small businesses to large enterprises.
Conclusion: Many Benefits, No Replacement
SAP has delivered what many users have long desired, focusing on two key attributes: user-friendly and automated. SAP Sales Cloud V2 is a modern platform with improved performance and greater availability, as it runs in the public cloud of a hyperscaler. SAP itself even claims “zero downtime.” There are numerous extension options due to the microservice technology. Integrated products within the SAP ecosystem, such as standard interfaces to S/4HANA or the embedded Sales Analytics Cloud, enable seamless end-to-end processes. However, Sales Cloud V1 users are already familiar with this advantage. As of March 2023, the functionality of V2 is not yet equivalent to that of V1.
There’s certainly great potential in the new Sales Cloud — but for specific requirements, the previous solution may still be the right choice. SAP will continue to maintain and improve SAP Sales Cloud V1, with no plans for an end-of-support for this version, and all new features from SAP Sales Cloud V2 are available to V1 customers as add-ons.
However, companies with a strategic outlook and an eye for dynamically enhancing the customer journey should take a closer look at SAP Sales Cloud V2.