SAP to introduce new e-Commerce and web-based CRM capabilities to business management solution for SMEs

Increasing its breadth of integrated applications designed specifically to help small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) generate revenue, increase sales and boost efficiency, SAP AG has announced that it will introduce new e-commerce and Web-based capabilities to SAP Business One.

The new capabilities enable companies to set up online stores easily and to deploy customer relationship management (CRM) software quickly and simply via the Internet, extending the reach and accessibility of SAP Business One to a new set of users.

Addressing increasing demand among SMEs to make e-commerce and CRM core parts of their businesses, the new features will further the SAP solution's ability to provide a unified view of business-critical information across sales, financials, manufacturing, reporting and customer-facing activities in a single, easy-to-use software solution. 
 
SAP is incorporating the new e-commerce and CRM capabilities through the recently completed acquisition of Praxis Software Solutions, a privately held software company and long-term SAP Business One partner based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Through the acquisition, SAP will integrate the acquired technology and Praxis employees into its SAP Business One operations.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction continues SAP's strategy of targeted, fill-in acquisitions that add superior functionality to its broad solution portfolio while continuing to grow its business organically.

E-commerce and web-based CRM are among the largest growth areas in business software for SMEs worldwide. As SMEs have expanded their sales channels with e-commerce, the associated data has remained siloed in e-commerce systems. This prevents business owners from gaining a true picture of the state of their business, creates additional costs in manual processing and increases risk of errors. According to recent research by Yankee Group, SMEs rank integration of the company Web site with other business applications such as accounting and inventory among the most pressing technology challenges they face.
  
"Integrated front office and back office are the core pieces that are required to run an SME efficiently," said Sanjeev Aggarwal, senior analyst, Yankee Group. "Integrated e-commerce plays a key role in increasing the productivity and overall efficiency of the workforce for SMEs."
  
Praxis has more than 100 customers using its software, and has been a SAP Business One Partner of the Year and Pinnacle award winner two years in a row.