SMA Solar Technology AG

SMA Solar Technology AG

Bright Prospects for Sales and Service with SKYVVA Data Migration

The specialist in photovoltaic inverters, SMA Solar Technology AG, has introduced the Salesforce Cloud for global sales and service. To ensure error-free data exchange and seamless data migration, SMA invested in the SKYVVA integration solution.

When SMA Solar Technology AG talks about the power supply of the future, it inevitably includes digital networking. The specialist in photovoltaic inverters has now equipped its global sales and service team with an intelligent customer management system (CRM) and introduced Salesforce Cloud. For deep integration as well as smooth and error-free data exchange between Salesforce and SAP ERP, SMA relies on the SKYVVA Integration Cloud solution from consulting firm Apsara Consulting.

With energy solutions for solar systems connected to the grid or in remote areas, SMA Solar Technology AG, based in Niestetal near Kassel, is driving the energy transition forward. Its broad range of products and solutions for residential solar rooftop systems, commercial solar power systems, and large solar power plants enables particularly efficient use of solar energy worldwide. Product and service quality have been paramount since the company's founding in 1981.

When an inverter in a system reports a malfunction, specialized installers or EPCs (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) must be supplied with current service reports so that the problem can be resolved quickly. Thanks to an app, they can see on their mobile device which system is involved, whether there are still warranties for the equipment, whether similar malfunctions have occurred before, and which spare parts are needed for the repair. Additionally, SMA service technicians provide installers on-site with important details about the SMA inverters being used. The new Salesforce Cloud makes this possible—SMA has been using it for two years now.

For Hans-Jürgen Borchert, Head of CRM Applications in Corporate IT at SMA, this is a blessing, because "the Salesforce platform brings together sales and service worldwide."

Company Profile:

The SMA Group is a global leader in photovoltaic inverters with annual sales of approximately 900 million euros in 2017, a central component of every solar power system. The product portfolio includes residential rooftop systems, commercial solar power systems, and large solar power plants. Intelligent energy management solutions, digital energy solutions, and comprehensive service offerings including operational management of solar power plants round out SMA's offering.

The Challenge: Salesforce-SAP Integration

For the global energy transition, solar energy is becoming increasingly important. To serve its customers around the globe, SMA long relied on further developing its existing sales and customer management system, SAP CRM. However, the effort for process adjustments increased with growing internationalization, as did the costs for updates: when IT problems occurred locally, experts from Germany had to intervene.

Solution

Standard solutions like Salesforce Cloud have many features out of the box (e.g., customer portals or language variants). This is less expensive than custom developments. Additionally, Salesforce and its partners have specialists who can help with IT problems.

To ensure that data exchange between SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), which SMA uses, and Salesforce Cloud works flawlessly, high integration depth is required. For smooth and error-free data exchange, SMA relies on the SKYVVA Integration Cloud solution from consulting firm Apsara Consulting.

Benefits:

Globally Deployable Solution: A unified system instead of previously multiple satellite solutions; Better customer care, more service and offerings; Unlocking market potential; No additional middleware between SAP and Salesforce Cloud needed; Better data quality thanks to error-robust monitoring: errors during data transfer between SAP and Salesforce can be quickly detected and corrected; Support: Apsara is available to its customers at all times, provides regular patches and updates.

To enable SMA to fully exploit all functions of Salesforce Cloud, two worlds had to be connected: Salesforce Cloud and enterprise software SAP ERP. As with many enterprises, SAP is the leading system at SMA where customer master data and business data converge. Since 2015, the Salesforce world has emerged around this core system, says Hans-Jürgen Borchert. We faced the challenge of achieving high integration depth between both systems while ensuring data integrity and consistency. For example, when accounting in SAP changes or creates new customer master data, those same data must be available in Salesforce Cloud—without errors, of course.

Apsara Consulting is the specialist that connects these two worlds together with its SKYVVA Integration Cloud solution. The Munich-based company has long been active in the SAP world before becoming a Salesforce Global Strategic Independent Software Vendor. It therefore has in-depth knowledge of both software systems.

Three reasons stood out for choosing Apsara:

SMA also uses SAP Process Orchestration and Integration (SAP PO) to ensure smooth data exchange between SAP and third-party systems like Salesforce Cloud. With SKYVVA, we didn't need another middleware solution, says Hans-Jürgen Borchert. Second, the native SKYVVA solution integrates seamlessly into Salesforce's application landscape—it runs entirely on Salesforce.com's Lightning Platform (formerly force.com). Third, SKYVVA's error-robust monitoring convinced us.

Why this is so important becomes clear quickly: SMA moves massive amounts of data daily. Product and equipment data must be updated, customer contacts maintained, offers captured, and invoices generated. And although we have massive data exchange, the technical error rate is low, praises the CRM manager the SKYVVA solution for data migration. He highlights the high degree of automation as a particular advantage: if, for example, a data transfer currently cannot be performed due to a lock, SKYVVA recognizes this and automatically tries again later. Only when it doesn't work after a number of attempts we have set do we need to intervene, explains Hans-Jürgen Borchert. However, this is very rare.

Bright prospects indeed for sales and service.

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