Running a business is difficult. But figuring out which tool to implement to automate your workflow shouldn’t be.

If you are a business owner or decision maker who is in search of an ideal CRM for your business, your top choices will probably be salesforce development services or SAP consultant.

And why not? They both offer comprehensive features along with AI capabilities making them market leaders in CRM.

Plus, you get hundreds of functionalities which you can customise as per your business needs. Salesforce Development Services is known to perform better on its own with its enhanced CRM capabilities. However, if you already have an ERP setup SAP basic CRM system can be a cost-effective choice.

But there are other features as well that you must be aware of before making the decision. So, in this blog you will discover the most specific differences between SAP and salesforce. After reading this guide you will be able to decide which tool will be better for your business needs.

First let's understand the basics of both the tools

What is Salesforce Development Services

The market leader in CRM, salesforce currently holds 19.5% of market share. The main benefit of salesforce is that it is a SaaS product. In Fact it is one of the first companies to offer SaaS in the cloud.

That means you don't have to install it on every device to use it. Also, with its advanced CRM features and in-built AI you can make your customer experience much better. Salesforce has a total of four kinds of pricing categories.

Essential

$25

Professional

$75

Enterprise

$150

Unlimited

$300

Plus, it also offers a free trial of 14-30 days depending on the product. You can manage the entire sales pipeline in salesforce from initiation to client acquisition. If you are a small business, this can be a good choice for you. As it combines its customer 360 tool with artificial intelligence which can give you better customer insight and improve relationships.

It offers many functionalities, but you can choose which you want to keep as your business needs. You can also combine the CRM with service cloud and marketing cloud, lead management, omnichannel marketing, team collaboration, Dales forecast, reporting and analytics and more.

It has so many features, which sometimes can make it difficult to operate, so it also offers training to help your team adapt to the salesforce without any hassle.

Advantages:

1. You can customise the tool as per your business needs
2. It offers smooth integration with third party applications
3. It has advanced AI features that enables better reporting and decision making

Disadvantages

1. It is a little pricey compared to other CRM tools out there
2. As it has so many features it is complex to learn

What is SAP?

SAP is a leading name in ERP software. The main advantage of SAP Consultant is that it does not only focus on sales but the entire customer journey.

Plus, it offers seamless integration with their S/4 HANA ERP. So, if you already have an ERP setup SAP CRM can be a better choice regardless of your business size.

SAP also offers a 30-day trial. However, it does not show the pricing on its website. You must contact their team for a quote. It also offers a comprehensive pipeline management from initiation to closing a deal. It offers an ERP System that has a CRM functionality, so you get a comprehensive tool for end-to-end business workflow. The suite provided by SAP includes sales, marketing, customer services and commerce. SAP offers so many functionalities, but you have the option to customise it as per your need.

You can monitor each stage of your customer journey in SAP Consultant by monitoring their activities. This can help your sales and marketing team to customise conversation and content as per your customer's needs leading to better sales. Plus, you can also get performance insights of each buyer and each customer segment. Along with detailed insight. It also automates the entire sales process allowing your sales team to focus on more important things.

Advantage of SAP

1. You can customise your package and pricing as per your business needs
2. It allows integrating with third party apps helping you to boost its capabilities

Disadvantages of SAP

1. They have not mentioned their pricing on their website, so there is lack of pricing transparency
2. The third-party integration can be complex in SAP

Salesforce vs SAP: Key Differences

1. User Interface

If you want an intuitive interface Salesforce Development Services can be your prime choice as it offers a simple interface that emphasizes on CRM components.

SAP on the other side also has a decent interface but not as comprehensive and CRM centric as salesforce.

2. Integration

Integration with third party applications enhances the capabilities of both SAP and salesforce. And both offer various API for the same.
Salesforce API outperforms in readability and speed. Plus, it also offers integrated marketing automation and customer service platforms. Moreover, it has also adopted MuleSoft which is known for integration of software and services. So, with Salesforce Development Services you can integrate third party applications quite easily.

Whereas SAP offers cloud-based services for API integration, including SAP Hybris Cloud for the cloud element. You can also integrate SAP sales cloud with hybrid ecommerce platforms making it an economic integration.

3. Marketing Automation

Salesforce and SAP both offer marketing automation. So, you can automate your marketing campaigns to generate leads using both. Plus, you can group your customers based on their characters and engage them with personalized conversation.

If we talk about integration with other platforms, both integrate with google and outlook. However, salesforce has better integration. As it allows you to reach out to 75000 contacts and use multiple channels like google, meta or X.

4. Contact Management

You can manage contact and customer interaction in SAP as well as salesforce. Plus, you can store contact information, create as well as track multi-channel communication.

However, if SMS is important for your business, then SAP is better. Because with SAP you can create different templates and send SMS blasts to groups.

5. Lead Management

Interacting with leads based on their customer journey level can help you convert them better. And you can easily do this using SAP and salesforce. However, SAP goes a step further. It also ranks leads further and identifies important leads from social media and other campaigns.

SAP also records each activity, assigns roles and keeps team members updated with real time information, so they know what to do next. SAP Consultant also enables a kanban board which gives you an overview of deal stages.

So, your team can identify patterns and act accordingly to close deals faster.

If you need a CRM that reminds your team so that they don't miss any deal salesforce is a better choice. Plus, its AI feature also suggests the next course of action to your team.

6. Workflow automation

Collaboration can be a crucial factor in figuring out which tool to go for. Salesforce and SAP both offer advanced collaboration functionalities. You can tag your colleagues in post, share documents, assign groups and do more such things using both.

However, Salesforce has slack with customer 360. This allows team collaborating as well as customer integration on a single platform. Plus, it easily integrates with other platforms like google, Snowflake, Big query and more. Your team can thus share real time marketing insights in these platforms and updates as well.

Salesforce Consultancy has advanced automation, and workflow features in CRM but are not available in the basic plan. For geotagging you need to integrate a third-party application in salesforce while it is inbuilt in SAP.

7. Sales pipeline management

You can manage your sales pipeline including advertising and referral programmes in SAP. It also offers a consolidated view of the sales pipeline that can help your tract sales, customers, and different customer segments.

However, with salesforce you can use advanced AI based forecasts which can show you historical trends and further sales prediction. But again, this is not available in their basic plan.

8. Reporting and analytics

A CRM system is of no use if it does not offer you detailed reports to make decisions. SAP and Salesforce both have great analytics capabilities. You can generate diverse types of reports with different types of graphs and charts using salesforce. Plus, you can also generate reports customized as per customer’s purchasing journey.

SAP is similar. It also gives user reports collected from emails, calls, and other communication mediums. If you are focusing on emails, then SAP can be better as their email reports are good. However, for analysing calls and deals salesforce can be better. You also get advanced reporting in salesforce but again it is not available in the basic plan.

9. Cost

As stated, Salesforce Consultancy has 4 types of pricing. You get features as per the price you pay. For example, in starter pricing of $25 you only get Contact management, lead management, opportunities management, customizable workflows, third-party integrations and customer support while in Professional plan team collaboration is an added feature. Then in the enterprise plan you get analytics and reporting as an add-on. Whereas in an unlimited plan you get lead scoring, and many other features as per your organisation need.

SAP also has the same pricing strategy. However, there are no pricing plans shown on their website. To get a detailed quote the only way is to contact their sales team. But as per some sources their entry level pricing is $75/user/month.

10. Customer Reviews

Salesforce and SAP both are great in their own way. Let's analyse what customers have to say to get a better view. If you see on G2 a software marketplace salesforce has a rating of 4.4 star. The major advantages of salesforce as per user are ease of use, features, lead management, and customization. Whereas expensive and learning difficulty are major cons.

If we look at SAP on the other side, it has a rating of 4.1. They consider ease of use, features, analytics, and integration as its major pros. And slow loading and limited customization as major cons.

11. Maintenance

If you want to go with SAP, you first need to install the SAP’s licences software and set up into your company devices which requires an IT team with sufficient expertise for server performance and system maintenance. However, SAP now also offers a cloud solution. But the responsibility of data protection stays with you even in the SAP cloud solution. So, if you need to Stay compliant with global data protection standards you need to stay more vigilant.

However, this is not the case with Salesforce. As it is a SaaS based software, you don't need to install it in every device. The connection is set up via the internet. Plus, your IT team doesn't have to work on its maintenance and data is protected in the cloud. However, security can be a concern with cloud, but salesforce security has been rated as very high. Plus, with regular updates and strict protocols, security can be ensured in Salesforce Consultancy.

Other CRM You Can Consider

1. Zoho CRM

With a 4.1 rating, Zoho is also one of the leading names in CRM. One of the major advantages as per users it has is lead management. Plus, you can also create multiple marketing pipelines using Zoho. And if you keep team collaboration as a top priority this is a good choice. As it also offers multi-channel communication. However, it only has 500 integration options. The pricing of Zoho is $14 to $52 monthly per user. It also has a free version available for up to 3 users and offers a free demo for paid version for 15 to 30 days.

2. Monday. Com

A new but promising name in CRM software. With a 4.6 rating, it is known for its user-friendly interface. It comes with features like Project boards, quotes and invoices, account management, lead capture, lead management, marketing automation and more. Plus, it also offers a free trail of 14 days. However, it has only 50 integration options. The pricing starts at $10 to $24 per user.

Ending Notes

Deciding which CRM to choose is no easy choice. So, the best way is to first go with the trial, understand all features and see if they serve your business needs.

Salesforce is an excellent choice if you need integration with third party apps as it offers more than 2500 integration and multiple customizations. Salesforce is also good with AI based features. Plus, Salesforce customers have positive feedback about the support they get from Salesforce Consultancy in training and getting started with CRM. However, if you already have an ERP system setup go for SAP Consultant.