Prathiba Anandraj highlights Blueprint Technologies' distinctive approach to impactful customer experience transformations    

Impactful customer experience transformations are the cornerstone of modern business success. Recognizing that customer expectations are evolving rapidly in the digital age, organizations are compelled to reinvent their approach to engagement. This entails not only meeting but exceeding customer desires, necessitating seamless, personalized interactions across various touchpoints. Such transformations encompass the strategic integration of technology, data analytics, and human touchpoints to create a holistic journey that resonates with customers. 

By embracing these changes, companies can cultivate loyal customers, drive brand advocacy, and unlock sustainable growth. Whether through digital innovations, streamlined processes, or enhanced communication strategies, Prathiba Anandraj, SAP CX Practice Lead at Blueprint Technologies highlights how impactful customer experience transformations empower organizations to forge lasting connections and thrive in the competitive landscape. 

DQ: Can you provide a brief overview of Blueprint Technologies and its core areas of expertise?

Pratibha Anandraj: Established in 2010, Blueprint Technologies has marked a thriving journey of 13 years, encompassing regions such as India, the Middle East, the US, and Saudi Arabia. With an impressive portfolio of over 120 satisfied clients, our origins trace back to a modest team of three consultants. However, our growth has been exponential, boasting a workforce of more than 260 dedicated employees, with this number continually on the rise. At Blueprint Technologies, our focus lies in pioneering SAP Cloud solutions, notably the S4 HANA public and private cloud, SAP HXM solutions, SAP CX, Concur, BTP, and SAP Analytics Cloud. Our prowess in these areas has garnered us numerous accolades, including the prestigious ACE award. Standing out among our achievements, we've clinched the HR Cloud Partner of the Year for two consecutive years and secured the title of Cloud Partner Impact Partner 2021—a testament to our remarkable contributions across various modules.

DQ: What sets Blueprint Technologies apart from other companies in the same industry?

Pratibha Anandraj: I would organize the points as follows: Our distinct approach revolves around three key aspects. Firstly, our unwavering emphasis on innovation stands out. We pride ourselves on staying abreast of the latest trends, with our dedicated team channeling efforts into crafting an array of bolt-on applications using BTP across SAP modules. Our proactive involvement in prominent SAP events, such as Hackathon, has resulted in us securing victories for our inventive solutions. Notably, these strides empower our consultants to adeptly tackle real-time customer challenges through the integration of emerging technologies, setting us apart as an industry player.

Secondly, we prioritize the deployment of domain experts across our projects. This strategic deployment significantly enhances our understanding of customer requirements, enabling us to offer comprehensive assistance throughout their holistic digital transformation journey. Rather than confining our focus to specific areas or modules, we adopt a holistic approach, ensuring our clients receive value that transcends isolated aspects.

Lastly, our commitment to continuous learning serves as a cornerstone. We lay a strong emphasis on consistently elevating skill sets, fostering an environment where our resources actively engage in diverse learning initiatives. This dedication to learning culminated in our recognition as runners-up for the SAP Pinnacle Award in 2021, specifically in the partner learning excellence category. These attributes collectively set us apart, differentiating us as a premier partner in the market.

DQ: How has Blueprint Technologies evolved and grown since its inception? What is the company's vision and long-term strategic direction?

Pratibha Anandraj: As I previously mentioned, our journey began back in 2010, positioning us as a cloud-native enterprise right from the outset. Our inception involved a meticulous assessment of various cloud products, setting the tone for our subsequent trajectory. From the very start, our primary goal has been to augment customer value concerning their technological investments. This entails the infusion of best practices and our adeptness in project execution. We have been growing at a pace of 20% year on year. We have distinguished clientele for whom we have successfully executed projects. We have a vision to double the revenues by expanding to multiple geographies in the coming years and this we believe we will achieve with our strong customer references and innovation capabilities.

DQ: Could you tell us about your partnership with SAP?

Pratibha Anandraj: For the past eight years, we have proudly held the status of being gold partners with SAP, reflecting the depth of our collaboration with this esteemed organization. Our partnership extends beyond the surface, encompassing various facets, most notably the sale of SAP licenses. A meticulously crafted go-to-market strategy serves as the framework through which we drive demand generation. This strategy has proven its effectiveness through our joint ventures with SAP in numerous events, yielding substantial leads spanning diverse SAP modules. Notably, our collaboration has also borne fruit in the form of SAP Qualified Partner Package solutions, meticulously developed in tandem with SAP and subjected to their rigorous qualification process. These solutions cater to specific areas, expediting deployment processes for our clients and concurrently opening doors to untapped markets. Thus, our symbiotic relationship with SAP continues to bear fruit as we diligently pursue novel projects and leads across an array of SAP modules.

DQ: How have consumer expectations evolved, and what are your customers' key challenges in meeting those expectations?

Pratibha Anandraj: Customer expectations have undergone a profound transformation in the wake of digitalization. Nowadays, consumers anticipate personalized buying experiences that cater to their preferences. When engaging in online shopping, the allure of personalized recommendations holds sway, often prompting additional purchases. Speed is of the essence as well; customers demand swift responses and resolutions to their inquiries. Equally crucial is a clear grasp of individual needs. The ideal scenario involves a company understanding and addressing a customer's requirements with precision, offering fitting product recommendations or query solutions. These fundamental expectations are prevalent among consumers.

However, for companies, meeting these expectations poses a host of challenges. Staying attuned to such evolving demands is one key hurdle. This involves real-time understanding of the customer's situation. Does the company possess access to comprehensive customer data, aggregated across various integrated SAP systems, to provide a holistic view? The ability to offer personalized experiences hinges on this. Furthermore, the company must accommodate diverse communication channels for customer outreach. The contemporary landscape involves multiple touchpoints, from SMS and WhatsApp to social media platforms. Ensuring the system's capacity to adeptly handle queries from these varied sources is paramount.

In the current era of burgeoning AI and machine learning, another challenge emerges—ensuring the system can navigate AI and ML scenarios while furnishing optimal next steps. This functionality guides the actions of the sales and service teams, essentially aligning with the predictive nature of customer interactions.

These challenges encapsulate the terrain that companies navigate as they strive to align with consumer expectations. To surmount these obstacles, the implementation of an intelligent customer experience solution becomes imperative. This solution, adeptly orchestrated, stands as a means to address these challenges effectively, thereby fulfilling the ever-evolving expectations of consumers.

DQ: How does Blueprint Technologies approach the CX transformation needs of customers? 

Pratibha Anandraj: Our approach initiates with a comprehensive understanding of the client's current landscape, serving as the foundation of our strategy. We embark on a journey mapping process, seamlessly intertwining a cohesive customer journey by integrating data across their existing systems. This synchronization is pivotal when implementing a CX solution, ensuring tight integration with their established systems, whether ERP systems like ECC or S4, or analytical systems like SAP Analytics Cloud. A holistic grasp of their current setup enables us to craft an end-to-end workflow, unifying solutions to address challenges and create a seamless experience. We complement this with add-on solutions, aligning with our innovation-driven ethos. Recognizing that each customer possesses unique business requirements, we develop additional solutions to optimize their technological investments.

Among our innovative offerings is "Bob," a conversational AI chatbot. Tailored to the sales team, it enables them to effortlessly manage tasks such as updating accounts, leads, or opportunities through simple conversations. This chatbot, seamlessly integrated into customers' websites, eliminates the need for sales reps to log into CX systems, enhancing efficiency. Additionally, we've developed "BFAST," the Blueprint Field Accelerator for service technicians. Leveraging SAP Service Cloud, FSM, and S4 HANA integration, BFAST streamlines end-to-end service workflows, facilitating collaboration between call center teams, field technicians, and back-end staff. This package, validated by SAP, includes a dealer portal to offer real-time visibility into stock availability, bridging a critical gap in service cycle management.

These solutions underscore our commitment to meeting specific client needs, enhancing their experience through tailor-made innovation.

DQ: Tell us about some of the successful CX transformation projects you have spearheaded, and please name the customers if possible.

Pratibha Anandraj: Let me delve into a couple of our impactful projects, while I may not disclose specific names, I'll gladly shed light on the challenges faced by our clients and the solutions we provided. Firstly, consider our SAP Sales Cloud implementation for a Japanese rubber manufacturing company. Prior to adopting Sales Cloud, they wrestled with an absence of a unified sales operation system and a centralized customer database. This disjointed setup led to mismanaged sales information and hindered visibility into sales performance. Following the implementation, real-time sales insights have become accessible anytime, anywhere, even via mobile devices. The enriched reporting capabilities enable comprehensive tracking of leads won, opportunities lost, and sales achievements. Role-based dashboards empower sales representatives with insights into their performance and critical action points. This enhanced visibility bolsters decision-making and productivity, leading to improved sales processes and pipeline growth. 

Switching gears, let's consider a Service Cloud implementation for a Middle Eastern retail company. Their manual service management process, reliant on paper-based job cards, was riddled with human errors and delays. Challenges included the lack of spare parts visibility for technicians on-site and delays in ticket creation and technician assignment due to manual processes. Mobility for technicians was constrained as they relied on manual records, contributing to post-visit data entry inefficiencies. With our integrated Service Cloud solution, harmonizing FSM and S4, transformative benefits emerged. Call handling times have plummeted as agents access customer information effortlessly, speeding up ticket creation. Auto-assignment based on factors like region and technician availability enhances efficiency. Our FSM app empowers technicians, enabling mobile service call initiation, real-time data capture, report generation, and instant access to parts stock. This transition from siloed CRM to an integrated service system has significantly elevated service quality, resulting in heightened customer satisfaction.

These exemplar projects spotlight our proficiency in successfully implementing Sales and Service Cloud solutions for diverse industries, showcasing our commitment to enhancing customer experiences.