Choosing a Vendor

My task today is to choose a potential vendor to provide web analytics, for the company of my choice. For this blog, I will choose Kraft Foods Inc. and provide my answers to the “10 questions for choosing a vendor” found in Web Analytics 2.0, by Avinash Kaushik.

Question 1: What is the difference between your tool/solution and free tools from Yahoo! And Google? 

SAP has a variety of tools that can cater to Kraft’s needs. The various tools can help reform the business processes in a short amount of time. The data obtained will allow for more informed decision making with real-time insights, without out a lot of wasted time. Additional benefits may include: a reduction of costs for the process implementation accompanied by rapid deployment of solutions, or an improvement in performance defined by relevant market and business indicators.

Question 2: Are you 100% ASP, or do you offer a software version? Are you planning a software version?  

SAP does offer several different software solutions to fit the needs of each company. Tools such as SAP Information Steward and SAP Data Services can help Kraft accelerate data processing, simplify multi step activities, and improve data quality in business intelligence (BI) reporting.

Question 3: What data capture mechanisms do you use?  

The data capture mechanism used varies depending on the solution you select. Sap can utilize data acquired via ISP, company sever logs, panels, control groups, and more.

Question 4: Can you calculate the total cost of ownership for your tool?  

The total cost of ownership (TCO) is dependent on the solution selected. Over the course of 30 years of experience SAP has consistently delivered solutions that resulted in a quick return on investment (ROI) with a relatively low ROI.

Question 5: What kind of support do you offer? What do you include for free, what costs more? Is it free 24/7?  

SAP offers many avenues for support that include, work shops, innovation camps, 24/7 community network and online support, and phone support. With each product, Sap offers support to its customers for the entire life cycle of each solution.

Question 6: What features in your tool allow me to segment data?  

SAP offers a wide range of software solutions that can process the data and organize it for a streamlined business strategy. Here are a few of the options SAP offers with a brief description of capabilities:

• Multi-channel Marketing – provides a streamline campaign plan accompanied by program execution and development via customer interaction channels
• Continuous Product and Service Innovation – Takes the information acquired and is able to manage your service and product portfolio, resources, compliances, costs, and innovation process
• Consumer Service Management – Uses customer interaction to produce continuous improvement, product innovation, consumer segmentation, and more.

Question 7: What options do I have for exporting data from your system into our company’s system?  

With SAP solutions, you can create your own IT infrastructure or rely on SAP for data storage. Either way, SAP offers support for the lifetime of the solution and will see to it that you are access the information you want.

Question 8: What features do you provide for me to integrate data from other sources into your tool?  

SAP offers a variety of data integration solutions, each one transforming data to cater to specific needs. Here are a few of the solutions SAP offers:

•   Data Service – able to access important information regardless of data domain, data source, our data type.
• Data integrator – accesses and integrates unstructured and structured data from sources across the customer’s company
•  Data Migration – relocates information acquired from legacy or external systems into any of SAP’s products through the use of templates, comprehensive tools, and best practices.

Question 9: Can you name two new features/tools/acquisitions your company is cooking up to stay ahead of the competition for the next three years?  

SAP is constantly looking at ways to remain ahead of the pack. Through it recent partnership with Gartner’s Nexus has been able to mobilize the workforce by allowing secure access to business systems and information on any device.

Question 10: Why did the last two clients you lost cancel their contracts? Who are they using now? May we call one of these former clients?  

This information is unavailable at the time. However, SAP offers options for consumers to speak or chat with a representative Mon. thru Fri. 8 am to 8 pm EST. There is online community forum that allows consumers to compare notes about SAP and interact with experts.

References: http://www.sap.com