The Gillette Company Goes Live With mySAP Customer Relationship Management

Business Wire, March 14, 2001

Business/High Tech Editors

WALLDORF, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 14, 2001

mySAP CRM Shaves Off Low-Value Time That Gillette's Sales Force

Spends On Administrative Tasks, Thereby Increasing

Productivity, Creating a Competitive Advantage

SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) today announced that The Gillette Company has successfully rolled out mySAP(TM) Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) to its German and U.S. sales forces, increasing productivity and improving the usage of sales processes and tools.

As part of a global, phased rollout, Gillette outfitted its sales force in Germany with pentop PCs, rather than laptops, for greater flexibility in the field and chose mySAP CRM to provide remote order entry; calendar and activity management for easier planning of customer visits by sales representatives; and up-to-date information on customers, contacts and products any time, anywhere. The implementation for the U.S. sales force is focused on configurable displays and integrates the request for displays in the field to the back-office operations and systems.

"mySAP CRM has made Gillette a more nimble company, providing us with greater efficiencies and the ability to better serve our customers," said Dieter Timmermann, chief information officer and vice president of Corporate Information Technology and Applications for The Gillette Company. "By targeting productivity objectives in our sales processes and tools and by shaving off low-value time, we are already hearing from our customers that they're noticing a difference in the level of service we're able to provide. Since implementing mySAP CRM for our sales representatives, we have truly accomplished our goal of establishing a single, integrated, global view of our customers while providing a unified `One Gillette' to our vendors and customers across business and geographic lines."

Why mySAP CRM?

First and foremost, The Gillette Company needed an easy-to-use tool that would leverage its existing business processes and IT infrastructure. As an innovative, world-class company in the consumer products industry, Gillette required the latest in e-business technology. Gillette's new e-business solution needed to fit in with the company's Global Business Process Integration (GBPI) program to standardize all business processes across all brands and all geographies for greater efficiency, and increase market power by establishing "one face" to the customer. mySAP CRM was chosen because of its ability to best meet all Gillette's requirements and leverage its previous IT investments.

Who's Using mySAP CRM?

Gillette began its e-business implementation by rolling out mySAP CRM to its mobile sales force in Germany. The German implementation focused specifically on sales order and custom merchandising management functionality, enabling mobile sales representatives to create orders and update marketing queries offline while in the midst of a customer visit.

"mySAP CRM has given us everything we've asked from it and even more," said Stephan Fusti-Molnar, national sales director, field and merchandising, Gillette Gruppe Deutschland. "A more informed sales force, streamlined sales processes and faster information-gathering at the point of sale mean we are able to react much faster to market changes than ever before."

The next phase of the rollout was to the North American Duracell sales representatives in January 2001. The U.S. functionality focused on product configuration using the Java(TM)-based Sales Configuration Engine embedded in mySAP CRM as well as quotations and Backweb integration for up-to-date graphics to support the configuration of displays in the field.

mySAP CRM Is the Sales Front-Office Platform of the Future at The Gillette Company

With the success of the mySAP CRM implementations in Germany and the United States, The Gillette Company is planning to expand its mySAP CRM program to include its European sales representatives in Benelux, Scandinavia and Iberia by the end of 2001. The next regions to be rolled out, starting in 2002, are Austria, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Italy and France.

The success of the initial mySAP CRM project at The Gillette Company has spawned other CRM initiatives within the enterprise. Along with the company's mobile sales force rollout in Europe, there is the expansion of the mobiles sales scope in the United States to incorporate all other company brands (Gillette, Oral-B, Braun). The Gillette Company has recently initiated a project in co-development with SAP for implementing Key Account Planning and Management as a global solution within the mySAP CRM framework that heavily leverages the already built technical infrastructure established by mySAP CRM.

About The Gillette Company

Headquartered in Boston, Mass., The Gillette Company is the world leader in male grooming, a category that includes blades, razors and shaving preparations. Gillette also holds the number one position worldwide in selected female grooming products, such as wet shaving products and hair epilation devices. In addition, the Company is the world leader in alkaline batteries, toothbrushes and oral care appliances.