CRM Product Scope and Simple Architecture

Major CRM Scenarios with most common Business Processes

1. Interaction Center     (Telesales, Customer Service & Support, Complaint Management)
2. Field Applications     (Mobile Sales, Mobile Service)
3. Web Channel         (Mobile) (Internet Sales Business-To-Business (B2B), Business-To-Consumer (B2C))
4. Marketing         (Trade Promotion Management, Campaign Management)
5. Sales         (Sales Order Management, Activity Management)
6. Service         (Service Order Management, In-House Repair)

Differences between CRM Releases

1. CRM 4.0 based on Web AS 6.20
2. CRM 5.0 based on Web AS 7.00 (IPC runs on VMC which is a kind of Java VM included in kernel)
3. CRM 5.1, 5.2 based on Web UI focusing on BSP, but with limitation with SAPGUI
4. CRM 2007 Enhancement of BSP based Web UI: CRM WebClient User Interface

CRM Server Architecture

1. A CRM Server consists of a Web Application Server ABAP(mandatory) + Java(optional) with a common database, of the CRM Server Applications and Business Objects and the CRM Middleware.
2. A Web AS ABAP (+ Web AS Java) combines to be the SAP Web Application Server, and it connects to the CRM database directly as the last connecter of CRM DB. (From CRM 5.0)
3. The CRM Server Applications contain the Interaction Center, E-commerce, Marketing Planning, Campaign Management, etc, which fully covers the CRM functionalities.
4. The Business Objects contains the Products, Business Partner, Business Transaction, etc. These Business Objects partially inherit some original R/3 business objects in SD or Marketing, but now they are somehow special for CRM use. Some business objects in CRM are different from those with the same name in ERP.
5. The CRM Middleware contains kinds of CRM Adapters such as XIF (xml/IDoc) adapter, R/3 adapter, Mobile Client adapter, BW adapter, CRM adapter, ASCII adapter, etc.
6. Two Additional Scenarios: PCUI (Web Access to the system) and Groupware (Mailbox related).

(still updating)