Terminology of SAP solutions - what does what mean?

The individual terms used for SAP solutions, modules and overall architectures can sometimes be confusing. We record the most frequently asked questions and answer them in our FAQ.
  • What is SAP CX?
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    SAP CX is the acronym for SAP Customer Experience. It offers a networked & customer-oriented alignment of all digital business areas such as sales, e-commerce, service & support and marketing.

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  • What is SAP C/4HANA?
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    SAP C/4HANA represents the most integrative form of individual SAP solutions in the cloud. This has the goal of presenting business processes in a customer-oriented and networked manner for all business areas of action. The C stands for Customer. The 4 stands for 4. Generation.
  • What is SAP S/4HANA?
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    SAP S/4HANA is the core ERP product from SAP and, in contrast to older ERP SE & R/3 solutions, only uses the high-performance SAP HANA database. SAP S/4HANA is a basic requirement for a subsequent expansion to the entire SAP C/4HANA solution. The S stands for Simple. The 4 stands for 4th generation.
  • What is the difference between SAP CX and SAP C /4HANA?
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    SAP C/4HANA Suite = product name. Customer Experience = Business Unit and Marketing Name. SAP Customer Experience is the intelligent networking of the individual services of the SAP C/4HANA suite.
  • What is SAP HANA?
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    HANA was formerly an acronym forHigh Performance Analytic Appliance and represents a highly specialized main storage, development and integration platform for suitable SAP business applications. The conception as an in-memory platform is essential in order to process and provide data and analyzes in real time.
  • What does in-memory database mean?
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    With an in-memory database platform, different techniques in the software and hardware area are combined to enable faster database queries.
  • What is the SAP Data Hub?
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    The SAP Data Hub is an integrated module of current SAP business applications, which supports the database management technology SAP HANA and is used to integrate data. On the one hand, high-performance distributed data islands and a wide variety of data sources can be integrated, on the other hand, the hub includes ready-made learning libraries such as TensorFlow and SAP Leonardo Machine Learning.
  • What is the SAP Product Content Hub (PCH)?
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    SAP PCH enables business users to orchestrate and publish high quality product data to more than 1,500 digital market, marketing and social channels. Compared to third-party providers for product data feed management, there is the advantage that information is not changed downstream on the way to the publication target, but continues to be managed centrally. Therefore, the SAP PCH is helpful for the retail business.
  • What is the SAP Cloud Platform?
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    The SAP Cloud Platform corresponds to the Platform as a Service (PaaS) service model and is part of the SAP C/4HANA architecture. The platform enables companies to develop, network and operate cloud-based SAP applications for controlling, purchasing, production, human resources, logistics and sales. It is operated on the hyperscalers AWS and Azure, among others.
  • What is the SAP Customer Data Cloud?
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    The SAP Customer Data Cloud (formerly Gigya) brings together all GDPR-relevant functions and information in one layer fundamental for all business applications, makes them usable and, in particular, transparent for the customer. It is part of SAP CX and consists of three core components:

    1.SAP Customer Consent 2. SAP Customer Identity 3. SAP Customer Profiles

  • What does SAP Customer Consent mean?
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    SAP Customer Consent is one of the 3 core components of the SAP Customer Data Cloud and manages worldwide GDPR-compliant and audit-proof advertising consents and customer preferences over 7 years in a central data storage. This is how a company can safely deal with data protection inquiries from authorities and customers.
  • What does SAP Customer Identity mean?
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    SAP Customer Identity is one of the 3 core components of the SAP Customer Data Cloud. On the one hand, automated identity management secures the respective customer accounts with the most modern security mechanisms and, on the other hand, protects companies from cyber fraud by securely identifying online visitors.
  • What are SAP Customer Profiles?
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    SAP Customer Profiles is one of the 3 core components of the SAP Customer Data Cloud. If site users have given their consent or verified an identity, user profile data that is centrally available for other SAP platform applications is stored, enriched and analyzed here.
  • What advantages does the customer have with the SAP Customer Data Cloud?
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    The SAP Customer Data Cloud gives customers more security, transparency and control over their personal data. Customers can not only view scope, preference data and consents centrally in one place, but also organize them independently.
  • How GDPR compliant is the SAP Customer Data Cloud?
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    According to Gartner, Forrester and KuppingerCole , the SAP Customer Data Cloud is the market's leading GDPR-compliant customer identity management system. SAP recognized that consumer perception of an organization is also critical to success.
  • What is the SAP Sales Cloud?
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    The SAP Sales Cloud is used for customer relationship management. All sales strategies, required data and processes through to the Configure Price Quota (CPQ) are mapped centrally and are available in real time. According to Gartner, the SAP Sales Cloud is the most complete sales suite on the market. It is part of SAP CX.
  • What is the SAP Commerce Cloud?
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    The SAP Commerce Cloud (formerly SAP Hybris) is an omnichannel commerce platform. It is suitable for all marketing models (B2X) and is classified by Gartner as one of the leading digital commerce solutions. It is part of SAP CX.
  • What is the SAP Marketing Cloud?
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    The Marketing Suite, SAP Marketing Cloud (formerly SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud), is used for omnichannel customer communication. It enables individual and dynamic addressing in real time. According to Gartner, it is already the 3rd time leading marketing suite. SAP Marketing Cloud is part of SAP CX.
  • What is the SAP Service Cloud?
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    The SAP Service Cloud (formerly SAP Hybris Service Cloud) is the CRM solution for customer service processes. It can be used, for example, to implement IoT & predictive maintenance, self-service with AI support, multi- & omnichannel service offerings or field service management for field staff. It is part of SAP CX.
  • Can SAP CX business applications also be used individually?
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    Yes, provided the system requirements are met, all SAP CX business applications can also be used individually on-premise or in the cloud and, if necessary, expanded later with other CX solutions to complete the customer experience and to seamlessly network all the advantages of the individual applications .
  • What does the four stand for in SAP /4HANA?
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    The number four means 4. Generation at SAP business applications. With all applications of the 4th generation, users, business customers, end customers (consumers), simplicity, networking and high performance are the absolute focus of all developments and future business strategies.