Benefits and Challenges of Integrating SAP C4C and HubSpot

In today’s modern digital world, effective customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation have become essential tools in the customer journey process. With the increasing importance of data driven-marketing, more and more businesses are seeking to align sales and marketing processes. However, most of the time, companies use two different software solutions for their marketing and sales activities. And while there are numerous options available in the market, SAP C4C and HubSpot are two of the most popular solutions used by businesses worldwide. While both SAP and HubSpot serve different purposes, integrating the two can bring several benefits to businesses. In this blog post, we will discuss the benefits and challenges of integrating SAP with HubSpot.

Benefits of integrating SAP with HubSpot

Integrating SAP and HubSpot provides businesses with numerous advantages. 

1. Improved Marketing and Sales alignment for a streamlined Buyer Journey 

Integrating SAP C4C and HubSpot helps businesses align their marketing and sales efforts, thus providing better alignment of the buyer journey. By integrating the two systems, businesses can pass customer data from one platform to the other, thus enabling marketing and sales to have a better understanding of the customer needs and preferences, and to work together to ensure that no leads are lost or left behind in the process.  For example, marketing qualified leads (MQLs) can be sent directly and automatically from HubSpot to the sales team in SAP. This ensures that the sales team has access to all the relevant contact information and previous interaction with specific marketing content, enabling leads to personalize their outreach to each customer and qualify the leads further. In turn, this creates a seamless and positive experience for potential customers, and they are more likely to convert into paying customers.

2. Improved view of Marketing ROI

Another benefit of the integration is that companies can get a better view of their marketing campaign return on investment. In the integration, opportunity data from SAP is sent back to HubSpot as a deal, which provides marketing with a complete and comprehensive view of their marketing activities and efforts towards the marketing campaigns. This way, businesses can track the progress of their leads through the marketing and sales funnel, and get a better understanding of what is working vs. what does not.  For example, Marketing can measure the results of the campaign in relation with the marketing objectives - have they generated the expected number of marketing qualified leads -, and understand which campaign and content had the highest conversion rate. This insight is crucial, as it enables marketing teams to optimize their marketing strategy, process and content continuously and make informed decisions based on relevant up to date data to boost lead acquisition and conversion rate.

3. Better segmentation, personalization and customer service

Additionally, the integration provides better segmentation and personalization options for marketers. By syncing company and contact information from SAP to HubSpot, marketing teams have a broader view of all the segmentation options. This enables them to create more personalized campaigns targeted at the right segment and therefore, engage leads more effectively. This level of personalization leads to a positive customer experience and drives more conversions. 

Challenges of integrating SAP with HubSpot

Despite the numerous benefits of integration, there are also some challenges that companies should be aware of, as they can have negative effects on the business operations.

1. High complexity with the risk of messing up your customer database

Integrating SAP with HubSpot can be a complex process, particularly for companies with large and complex IT systems and processes. If the integration is set up incorrectly, you risk messing up their entire customer database. Specifically, your business risks overriding all the customer data in the SAP or CRM system. For example, incorrect integration can lead to the marketing team overwriting all the customer data in SAP C4C, resulting in significant data loss. It will not only be challenging to recover the data, but it could also negatively impact your business operations. In this case, companies must customize their integration to meet their specific needs, which requires significant technical expertise and resources.

2. Different data models

The data model between SAP and HubSpot is different. For example, in SAP C4C, you have “lead” and “contact” objects, while in HubSpot, you only have “contact” objects. Therefore,  it requires a proven middleware solution to map the data from one system to another correctly, and ensure a seamless integration. 

3. Change management within the organization

Integrating the two platforms requires significant and effective change management within your business organization. Your marketing and sales teams need to be well aligned for the integration to be successful both short and long-term. However, this requires a significant shift in organizational culture and processes, as well as careful planning and communication to ensure that everyone is on board, which can be challenging to implement. 

To conclude, while integrating SAP C4C and HubSpot can offer numerous benefits, businesses must be also aware of the challenges involved in the integration. However, with careful planning and implementation, the benefits of integration can outweigh the challenges, providing businesses with a competitive advantage in the digital marketplace and customer journey: a streamlined and efficient process alignment across marketing and sales. 

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